The Penumbra Collection

Penumbra opts to forgo the common higher difficulty of its survival horror peers and opts for a smoother experience overall. Puzzle solving makes up the biggest portion of the gameplay, with relatively few hostile adversaries roaming. Overture is a solid opening episode, but has a clunky combat system that does detract from the experience a bit as you aren't as vulnerable as you are in Amnesia, though dispatching your attackers is quite clumsy and frustrating. Regardless, Overture is satisfying and does a good job setting up for the far superior (in my opinion) sequel. Black Plague does away with the funky combat, insisting that you evade danger, providing that thrill of fear and urgency that was missing in Overture. The story of Penumbra truly blossoms in this episode, as you meet new personas and begin to piece together the overall puzzle that to this point was pretty vague. The ending proves to be ultimately satisfying and even thought provoking, something that seems to be uncommon in similar games. As a fan of horror of all kinds, I was impressed to find a unique and compelling story in a world bogged down in cliches. If you are looking to become immersed in a heavily story driven puzzler, then I highly recommend Penumbra.

Probably not as excellent as some of the later offerings but I gotta give this five stars...very tense, the atmosphere is fantastic, the story is very interesting and the setting is perfect. Soundtrack enhances the feeling of dread. Puzzles are quite cool and the gameplay mechanics are OK. Currently on a sale for a pound and a half, it should really be illegal not getting it for that price xD only joking. But get it! :)

Frictional games does first person horror stuff with realistic physics puzzles. That's their jam. Still, in this VERY nieche genre, it's not evident, what makes a game great. This is a very personal opinion here, which says: this is better than their best known game: Amnesia. Amnesia is a pretty well refined gothic, survival horror adventure with a great emphasis on storytelling and elegant, gothic mood. Penumbra is a very uneven, modern Lovecrafian survival horror adventure with great emphasis on isolation and cold, oppressing mood. For Wahtever reason, Amnesia Never scared the crap out of me (there was a part in Penumbra:Black Plage where I was so startled, I literally jumped). It was always tense, but the old castle and the gimmicky "sanity meter" always reminded me that I'm playing a prettty cheesy game. Penumbra on the other hand always felt demanding, suffocating, bare-bones and cold. This trilogy takes place in a contemporary, abandoned, polar research and mining facility. Out there, there's only freezing to death, so you can only go deeper and deeper. That alone makes the game way scarier for me. It is interesting to see how the game mechanics change from game to game in these 3 installations. The first one is clunky as hell. Some puzzles and sequences are very unfair, but that uncertainity only makes the game more frightening. The next game is much more refined, it is also clear when or where and how you can defend yourself against certain spooks, but that also makes it a tad bit more "mechanic", more predictable. The main story also ends here. The third game has a much larger emphasis on puzzles. I think, even thogh the first one was the free demo (amazing value there!), this one feels the most demo-ish of the three. It's also the buggiest by far. That's one thing to mention in favor of this series. Up until Requiem, these games are pretty damn stable. Amnesia is still buggy and flimsy as all hell, but these games run quite perfectly.

At first, I'll just be straight honest and say that, gameplay wise, this is NOT my kind of horror game. I prefer survival horror games as RE, SH, FF/PZ or Siren by far, maybe even Alone in the Dark which has aged significantly worse than this collection of games, but for the people who is interested enough in what this collection has to offer I can say it is worth your time and that you can completely ignore the negative reviews that are made by people that are looking for quick jumpscares and have completely different expectations to what a horror fan that has been desensitized from horror may have. This is clearly not a survival horror, it doesn't have the classic map design by closed dungeons or the well-made backtracking (it has more like a hub between different areas), it is more of a first person 'run and hide' game like a lot of those crappy af games that became so popular after Amnesia and Outlast (also Slender if you have an even worse taste) and that showed their best with games like SOMA and Alien Isolation. But these Penumbra games have a decent amount of reading and focus on the plot and setting/ambience which is pretty damn good if you're into that as I am. Penumbra (I'm gonna talk about these games as one for practical purposes) is a very slow and clumsy game with an interesting story that is clearly inspired by horror literature (mainly Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness). The gameplay dynamic is frustrating and I'm not sure if it's completely on purpose or not, but although it is not awful, and you can get used to it with enough patience, it certainly is its weakest point along with the inventory interface which is amazingly bad, as is the player's interaction with it. Don't get me wrong, I liked this game, and even if it's not my personal taste, I can see its value and the effort put in it. The game is remarkable on its technical aspects and the developers clearly wanted to create a game with a lot of interaction with the environment.

These game are way too much fun for Horror Puzzle games. PS: the DLC for Penumbra Black Plague is not good, but you can just skip it. The dlc is 100% puzzle with no story.