DannyboyO1 (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} dannyboyo1) wrote,@ 2007-09-10 05:25:00 |
|
Penumbra: Overture...
I've just played through Penumbra: Overture against my better judgement. The gameplay did exceed my expectations.
The box tells me it's a horror adventure game, with the first person perspective. So immediately, I think of Call of Cthulhu and think it will have fewer weapons. The designers seem very proud of their physics engine. Suggests some interesting puzzle styles will be possible. The thing I fear though, on this box, is where it is the first of a trilogy.
Some of you don't immediately leap to the same conclusion I do. Some of you don't overanalyze your fiction. In a horror tale, the first part is the setup. In which things start normal and get worse. In which NO answers are given, only questions. The aim of the first part is to set you up, and get your attention.
Now realize, in the game industry, sequels normally come out every 2-3 years. You can maintain interest in some genres that way. In horror, you forget things. A little distance makes for a lot less impact. Pacing is everything in horror.
I was skeptical of the physics engine's benefit to the story. Boy oh boy was I ever wrong. You pick up something heavy and you move slower. Objects have weight, and inertia. Woo hoo! To open a drawer, you grab it with the mouse and you slide it open. Doors swing the same way. Levers that most games just have you poke, this one, you grab, and you pull.
Puzzles are based on physical issues. "How the heck do I get over there?" One sliding block puzzle was using a ramp to stack a couple crates I couldn't lift (but could drag) to reach a ladder... well, part of a ladder I'd managed to hook back into place. In a couple places, I had to drag things to obvious locations where they'd snap into place. My favorite would be wrestling barely movable boulders to block off spider-infested tunnels. When slid home, they very nicely indicate this with a bit of dust around the edges.
The graphics are not as stellar as some more robust powerhouses, but the ambiance is extremely effective. Some spots have barely audible whispering... which grows louder throughout.
As with most adventure games, there were points where I did have to look up a little help. To operate a heavy machine, I needed to give it some gas. When I used the tank, it said no, the gas cap was rusted. So I'm trying everything on the machine to unstick the cap... I was certain I'd not missed anything, so I check gamefaqs... turns out, the text was referring the gas can's cap.
The writing in the scraps of text you find is, as one would expect for folks working and/or trapped in wonky surroundings, a little disturbed. It works nicely to tell you that the place is dangerous.
And... it is, too. You're pretty squishy. Spiders and dog-beasts can kill you in about 3-4 hits. Not counting very lethal environmental concerns. But you do recover over time. There's also painkillers to take you back up to tip-top shape in a hurry. Good idea to load them in your toolbar, along with what passes for weapons in this game.
Nothing brings home the nervousness like a total lack of real weapons. Of course, improvised weapons and heavy hurled objects do seem to work decently well. The fact remains that everything in the game has an easier time killing you than you would killing it.
The closest thing to ammunition you find in this game is beef jerky. But throwing around pungent meat products is a nice way to herd prawling critters. In the mid-game, there's large storage containers you can lure them into... and then push a crate up against the door to seal them in. This never occured to me after the first one in the game broke down an extremely flimsy door and the barrel I dragged over to block it.
For good gameplay, while the game doesn't give you total control over save points, they have very creepy arifacts that function as save points, and your character gets glimpses of events that may or may not have happened already. And a sense the device contains a piece of him. A copy. A bad copy. Many of them. I'm amused by his worry around them. The game also autosaves at very appropriate times. Entering a new zone, getting through a particular dangerous part... right before you inadvertantly stumble into the deathtrap... one spot, I'd set up a fairly tricky stepping stone involving a crane, to reach a vent, to go around a deathtrap. The autosave in there made me realize that it was possible to drop down to another vent, which would force me to backtrack and be annoyed. Also, the game autosaves (with a white and orange fullscreen flash) when you snag a vital tool in a location nowhere near a save point. Thus, while you may be killed in such an area, you have no worries about leaving a vital tool behind due to save/restore alzheimers. (That's the gaming condition where you saved the game, explored, found a secret stash of goodies, got killed, and when you reloaded, went after the monster, and forgot about the stash.)
There's decent stealth elements here. And your character is not a fearless person. You crouch in darkness to be stealthy. You hide behind things to keep patrolling monsters from finding you. However, if you look at the monster walking past your position... you're going to freak out a bit and make noise. So you need to look away. It's terribly effective at immersing you in a sense of horror. Because you don't know if you're safe and you're afraid to look.
However, being me, I swiftly discovered that while the weapons are a bit clunky to swing, you can throw barrels, small boulders, and propane tanks with remarkable effectiveness. Injury stuns your little monsterous opponents and when they get back up, you can hit them again. May take 5 applications. Exploding propane or dynamite sticks are slightly more effective. I believe there may be three sticks of tnt for this sort of use. In the entire game.
Granted, there are a bit under 30 spiders. And maybe 10 of the dogs. Less than 15, I'm sure. Actually, you don't face all the spiders in the game. Most are in eggs, and if you wake them, you get hit with several. And, really, any number of foes greater than 1 is really not very survivable.
Still, my pulse was pounding in many segments, and most of it didn't require me to seek assistance (breaking me out of the whole "enjoyment" and "immersion"). Some came close. One segment involved a series of escapes in a spider warren. You crawl past a nest, and block it off with a boulder. Find next nest, run away, light a spilled lamp for a flaming death barrier. Watch spiders run in, laugh... good times. 'course, one did make it across, on fire, and that make me jump... but it died. Then you cross a pit with a couple planks... and I kept dying at the bottom of the long ramp-y tunnel... I eventually found out what was killing me. Indy-jones rolling stone trap! Which wakes the spiders at the bottom, and you run, break down a flimsy barrier, then there's a room, with a support colum, and the path ahead... also blocked by flimsy wall. But this wall is thicker than the last. Turns out, to avoid dying of spiderbites, you need to trigger a cave-in. I did figure this out, but only because nothing else was in the room, and the theme of the area was "cut yourself off to survive going forward." And the little barrier had ensured you'd already have your pick-axe at the ready.
So, the combat was nicely imbalanced, but since it wasn't impossible, and was really quite simple once you figured out the rules of engagement, I found the actual presense of monsters to be far less spooky than their absence. I'm hoping the next game gives more variety, and a little more mix of them with searchable areas. As it was, you had a pretty clear either/or. One section did have you go through a spider zone to get around a barrier, which you could then reposition over the hole to safely check out the area. I like that. Solve the puzzle/combat to get time to slip through. I also had been using the flashlight to deter the spiders in there... which is hairy, but beat fighting something small without throwable weapons. It's good to have options.
Speaking though, of things I'd like to see in the sequals... I come back to my original problem. I was right about the game not actually explaining a damned thing. The whole mining complex you just came through was actually irrelevant. There's some sort of facility in there, established after things got weird. But you don't have clue one about what's down there. Other than a few notes from researchers from there. They're not government. The best bit was the note dated Anno 9000 (anno dominus 1990). Which implies an organization predating the gregorian calendar. But the game ends rather predictably, just past the mighty macguffin door. In a corridor with a shadowy figure at the far end. Your flashlight goes as the lights do, and you get blackjacked.
I did try running down the corridor, switched to the glowstick when the flashlight went out, and was able to determine the shadowy figure... was a one-armed 3d humanoid shape with no features whatsoever.
In the end, I loved the immersion you get with the physics engine. Being able to move things around was a treat. I picked up a corner of a mattress near the end of the game, and it deformed properly. Beautiful, if functionless. But the ambiance is the only truly stellar thing about this game. As I review it mentally, I realize the monsters were dogs with glowing eyes. I remember the silly puzzle of the frozen lake (you just need to move a couple boards around and jump on them to not touch the ice. Yes, that does spread out the force you apply to the ice... but jumping magnifies that. Bad designers, bad!
Many areas are betrayed by a lack of visual polish, although the lighting is quite good... your character does not cast shadow, yet all other objects do.
The worst of course, is that the next 2 in the series aren't out yet. :( Because it was fun for an afternoon, and I didn't spot most of the sillier points 'till after. (Push-button bulkheads only in the one area where you need them? Hmmm.) Either they did the ambiance very very well, or they figured out some impressive tricks with subsonics that get my heartrate up and at the end, gave me goosebumps.
I've just played through Penumbra: Overture against my better judgement. The gameplay did exceed my expectations.
The box tells me it's a horror adventure game, with the first person perspective. So immediately, I think of Call of Cthulhu and think it will have fewer weapons. The designers seem very proud of their physics engine. Suggests some interesting puzzle styles will be possible. The thing I fear though, on this box, is where it is the first of a trilogy.
Some of you don't immediately leap to the same conclusion I do. Some of you don't overanalyze your fiction. In a horror tale, the first part is the setup. In which things start normal and get worse. In which NO answers are given, only questions. The aim of the first part is to set you up, and get your attention.
Now realize, in the game industry, sequels normally come out every 2-3 years. You can maintain interest in some genres that way. In horror, you forget things. A little distance makes for a lot less impact. Pacing is everything in horror.
I was skeptical of the physics engine's benefit to the story. Boy oh boy was I ever wrong. You pick up something heavy and you move slower. Objects have weight, and inertia. Woo hoo! To open a drawer, you grab it with the mouse and you slide it open. Doors swing the same way. Levers that most games just have you poke, this one, you grab, and you pull.
Puzzles are based on physical issues. "How the heck do I get over there?" One sliding block puzzle was using a ramp to stack a couple crates I couldn't lift (but could drag) to reach a ladder... well, part of a ladder I'd managed to hook back into place. In a couple places, I had to drag things to obvious locations where they'd snap into place. My favorite would be wrestling barely movable boulders to block off spider-infested tunnels. When slid home, they very nicely indicate this with a bit of dust around the edges.
The graphics are not as stellar as some more robust powerhouses, but the ambiance is extremely effective. Some spots have barely audible whispering... which grows louder throughout.
As with most adventure games, there were points where I did have to look up a little help. To operate a heavy machine, I needed to give it some gas. When I used the tank, it said no, the gas cap was rusted. So I'm trying everything on the machine to unstick the cap... I was certain I'd not missed anything, so I check gamefaqs... turns out, the text was referring the gas can's cap.
The writing in the scraps of text you find is, as one would expect for folks working and/or trapped in wonky surroundings, a little disturbed. It works nicely to tell you that the place is dangerous.
And... it is, too. You're pretty squishy. Spiders and dog-beasts can kill you in about 3-4 hits. Not counting very lethal environmental concerns. But you do recover over time. There's also painkillers to take you back up to tip-top shape in a hurry. Good idea to load them in your toolbar, along with what passes for weapons in this game.
Nothing brings home the nervousness like a total lack of real weapons. Of course, improvised weapons and heavy hurled objects do seem to work decently well. The fact remains that everything in the game has an easier time killing you than you would killing it.
The closest thing to ammunition you find in this game is beef jerky. But throwing around pungent meat products is a nice way to herd prawling critters. In the mid-game, there's large storage containers you can lure them into... and then push a crate up against the door to seal them in. This never occured to me after the first one in the game broke down an extremely flimsy door and the barrel I dragged over to block it.
For good gameplay, while the game doesn't give you total control over save points, they have very creepy arifacts that function as save points, and your character gets glimpses of events that may or may not have happened already. And a sense the device contains a piece of him. A copy. A bad copy. Many of them. I'm amused by his worry around them. The game also autosaves at very appropriate times. Entering a new zone, getting through a particular dangerous part... right before you inadvertantly stumble into the deathtrap... one spot, I'd set up a fairly tricky stepping stone involving a crane, to reach a vent, to go around a deathtrap. The autosave in there made me realize that it was possible to drop down to another vent, which would force me to backtrack and be annoyed. Also, the game autosaves (with a white and orange fullscreen flash) when you snag a vital tool in a location nowhere near a save point. Thus, while you may be killed in such an area, you have no worries about leaving a vital tool behind due to save/restore alzheimers. (That's the gaming condition where you saved the game, explored, found a secret stash of goodies, got killed, and when you reloaded, went after the monster, and forgot about the stash.)
There's decent stealth elements here. And your character is not a fearless person. You crouch in darkness to be stealthy. You hide behind things to keep patrolling monsters from finding you. However, if you look at the monster walking past your position... you're going to freak out a bit and make noise. So you need to look away. It's terribly effective at immersing you in a sense of horror. Because you don't know if you're safe and you're afraid to look.
However, being me, I swiftly discovered that while the weapons are a bit clunky to swing, you can throw barrels, small boulders, and propane tanks with remarkable effectiveness. Injury stuns your little monsterous opponents and when they get back up, you can hit them again. May take 5 applications. Exploding propane or dynamite sticks are slightly more effective. I believe there may be three sticks of tnt for this sort of use. In the entire game.
Granted, there are a bit under 30 spiders. And maybe 10 of the dogs. Less than 15, I'm sure. Actually, you don't face all the spiders in the game. Most are in eggs, and if you wake them, you get hit with several. And, really, any number of foes greater than 1 is really not very survivable.
Still, my pulse was pounding in many segments, and most of it didn't require me to seek assistance (breaking me out of the whole "enjoyment" and "immersion"). Some came close. One segment involved a series of escapes in a spider warren. You crawl past a nest, and block it off with a boulder. Find next nest, run away, light a spilled lamp for a flaming death barrier. Watch spiders run in, laugh... good times. 'course, one did make it across, on fire, and that make me jump... but it died. Then you cross a pit with a couple planks... and I kept dying at the bottom of the long ramp-y tunnel... I eventually found out what was killing me. Indy-jones rolling stone trap! Which wakes the spiders at the bottom, and you run, break down a flimsy barrier, then there's a room, with a support colum, and the path ahead... also blocked by flimsy wall. But this wall is thicker than the last. Turns out, to avoid dying of spiderbites, you need to trigger a cave-in. I did figure this out, but only because nothing else was in the room, and the theme of the area was "cut yourself off to survive going forward." And the little barrier had ensured you'd already have your pick-axe at the ready.
So, the combat was nicely imbalanced, but since it wasn't impossible, and was really quite simple once you figured out the rules of engagement, I found the actual presense of monsters to be far less spooky than their absence. I'm hoping the next game gives more variety, and a little more mix of them with searchable areas. As it was, you had a pretty clear either/or. One section did have you go through a spider zone to get around a barrier, which you could then reposition over the hole to safely check out the area. I like that. Solve the puzzle/combat to get time to slip through. I also had been using the flashlight to deter the spiders in there... which is hairy, but beat fighting something small without throwable weapons. It's good to have options.
Speaking though, of things I'd like to see in the sequals... I come back to my original problem. I was right about the game not actually explaining a damned thing. The whole mining complex you just came through was actually irrelevant. There's some sort of facility in there, established after things got weird. But you don't have clue one about what's down there. Other than a few notes from researchers from there. They're not government. The best bit was the note dated Anno 9000 (anno dominus 1990). Which implies an organization predating the gregorian calendar. But the game ends rather predictably, just past the mighty macguffin door. In a corridor with a shadowy figure at the far end. Your flashlight goes as the lights do, and you get blackjacked.
I did try running down the corridor, switched to the glowstick when the flashlight went out, and was able to determine the shadowy figure... was a one-armed 3d humanoid shape with no features whatsoever.
In the end, I loved the immersion you get with the physics engine. Being able to move things around was a treat. I picked up a corner of a mattress near the end of the game, and it deformed properly. Beautiful, if functionless. But the ambiance is the only truly stellar thing about this game. As I review it mentally, I realize the monsters were dogs with glowing eyes. I remember the silly puzzle of the frozen lake (you just need to move a couple boards around and jump on them to not touch the ice. Yes, that does spread out the force you apply to the ice... but jumping magnifies that. Bad designers, bad!
Many areas are betrayed by a lack of visual polish, although the lighting is quite good... your character does not cast shadow, yet all other objects do.
The worst of course, is that the next 2 in the series aren't out yet. :( Because it was fun for an afternoon, and I didn't spot most of the sillier points 'till after. (Push-button bulkheads only in the one area where you need them? Hmmm.) Either they did the ambiance very very well, or they figured out some impressive tricks with subsonics that get my heartrate up and at the end, gave me goosebumps.
