Monkeys

Dicks

But no monkey dicks. 2/10

Penumbra Black Plague is an excellent, if slightly rough horror game.

The tone of this game is a unique mix of horror and black comedy, the latter due in large part to your parasitic companion Clarence, who truly brings a lot of life into the game. The entire cast is excellent, and complements the setting greatly.

The setting is interesting, varied, and fun to explore. While I took issue with Penumbra Overture for being very repetitive, in this game it felt like I was constantly discovering something new.

Although not nearly as polished as Amnesia or SOMA, I would still highly recommend playing through Black Plague.

The DLC, Requiem, is a decent if not terribly interesting puzzle game. If nothing else, it's a fun bonus to the main game's story.

This sequel improves on the formula that would one day revolutionize the horror genre, for better or for worse.

The plot is interesting and it keeps you engaged throughout this very short horror game.

The ending is way too esoteric though, holy shit.

A huge improvement over Overture, Black Plague provides a lot of answers to the open-ended nonsense Overture called its story. It somehow learns to take itself a bit less seriously while also being definitely scarier, with Clarence serving as some expert comic relief who still manages to pull the horror reins fantastically here and there. Also a significant improvement in puzzles, even there still were a few that made no sense and sucked. They understood how garbage the combat was in the first game, and their response to that was to remove it altogether, which came together to great success, with the Tuurngait Infected feeling absolutely horrifying to get chased down by, and from that making the couple actual “combat” sections feel pretty fantastic to engage with.

The whole old lost mine aesthetic unfortunately gets traded out for more run-of-the-mill abandoned laboratories, but it still works great in my opinion. Black Plague definitely feels like a true predecessor of what was to come in a couple years with the first Amnesia, with the focus on hiding from your enemies instead of engaging them in combat.

The story still poses some huge open-ended insinuations that feel way too huge to wrap your head around, but at least it was way less lackadaisical than Overture’s story progression.

(Continued from my review of Overture)
Black Plague’s story picks up immediately from where Overture’s left off, but surprisingly, that’s just about the only thing that carries over. There aren’t any more wolves to bash, and in fact, there are no enemies to fight at all, combat has been replaced with a total focus on stealth and frantic escape from enemies. The puzzles are more involved than ever, and if you had gotten used to Overture’s blatant problem spaces, it’s easy to get stuck on the new puzzles that are elegantly built into the environment. The story is better, the locations are better, this game is an upgrade to Overture in almost every possible way. The notable exception is how this is the first time Frictional Games would experiment with a character who constantly chats with the protagonist, but it wasn’t particularly effective. Done well, you get memorable characters like System Shock’s SHODAN, but Black Plague’s narrator character sounds like a poor interpretation of Mark Hamill’s Joker, and disrupts the lonely atmosphere rather than adding to it. However, other than that one little problem, this game really is fantastic. Again, it’s not as polished as Amnesia, but all the same good ideas are here, and a few of the bad ideas are notably absent. So, the question is if I think Black Plague is good enough to be worth playing Overture for, and to that I would definitely say yes, at least for the people interested in this style of horror already. It’s a great ending to the story that Overture set up, and I was pleased with how all the details came together in the end. However, didn’t I say this was intended to be a trilogy? Well, let’s get into that in the review of the final entry of the series, the expansion pack called Requiem.

Part 2 of a 3 part series and much better than Overture. The QoL gameplay updates and overall atmosphere of Black Plague is much better than Overture. More tension, more fear, and better plot. Being yanked around by Clarence was more enthralling than being guided by Red. You can't fight back in this game like you could in Overture which introduces the classic patrolling and chasing monsters. Which means you lose progress for about 30 seconds which blows but it's easy to return to the adventuring.

The two Penumbra games are more interesting curios than they are good games. What you'll find within Overture and Black Plague is a peek into the early days of one of the most important horror game developers of the last two decades, but beyond that it's not very compelling.

Don't get me wrong, on the whole I liked my time with the Penumbra games. They're still genuinely quite creepy and contain and are remarkably well constructed for indie games from 2007. That said though, they are completely eclipsed by Amnesia which came only two years after Black Plague. These really feel like glorified tech demos, proof of concept for the gameplay, story and tone of the Dark Descent, but given how brilliant the first Amnesia is, that's not as much an insult as it at first sounds.

Penumbra Overture in particular is quite creepy. Some of the puzzles are pretty great and the environments are surprisingly varied for a four hour horror game set in a weird mine. The story is surprisingly compelling too, with a brilliantly paced mystery unfolding as you make your way through this freezing hell, accompanied on the radio by a decently written madman who's been trapped a lot longer than you. It all builds to a suitably horrifying conclusion, followed by a cliffhanger that might have been better left unresolved. All that said, Overture still isn't a great game, far from it. The combat is absolutely awful, some sequences demand such immediate reaction time and foreknowledge that I have no idea how you'd complete them without savescumming and it is quite slight in the end.

For all its flaws though, Overture is definitely the better game of the two. If Overture is the first act in the story, then Black Plague feels like the third act from a different game entirely. Rather than a creepy, isolated mine filled with mysterious, mutated animals, we're thrust into repetitive research facility filled with goofy alien zombies. The exposition is turned up to eleven here, and one of the greatest strengths of the prior game - Phillip's ongoing and characterful interjections - are is basically absent here, as the protagonist's observations have been drained of colour. The conclusion just feels like a prototype of Amnesia's twist and while I didn't hate it, it's a sour note to finish the duology on. Thankfully combat is now absent, but the puzzles are definitely less interesting.

Overall, I do still think these games are worth a look. If you're a die hard Frictional fan, then you've probably already played them, but if not, they're always extremely cheap in a sale and you can play through both in an evening.

Aunque no lo considero la mitad de excelente que Overture en su cuidado equilibrio de tensiones, Black Plague es meritorio por ser uno de los primeros juegos en introducir toques de posmodernidad al género que aún estaba por nacer. Con Clarence haciendo las veces de narrador engañoso, el carácter trágico y solitario de Overture se ve sustituido por una suerte de burla constante hacia las convenciones que Frictional está evocando constantemente en su homenaje a la Cosa y tantas historias de terror ártico. Como ya dije, creo que es un equilibrio más difícil de apuntalar por cuanto se derriba a sí mismo, pero sería difícil negar su impacto en la escena posterior.

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Although I don't consider it half as excellent as Overture in its careful balance of tensions, Black Plague deserves credit for being one of the first games to introduce touches of post-modernity to the genre that would be born soon after it. With Clarecen acting as a trickster narrator, the tragic and lonely character of Overture is replaced by a constant mockery of the tropes that Frictional is evoking by homaging The Thing and so many arctic horror stories. As I said, I think it's a harder balance to maintain and it ends knocking itself down, but it would be hard to deny its impact on the later scene.

"A Disappointing End To A Promising Series"

(SPOILER WARNING!!!!!)

Released in 2008, Penumbra: Black Plague , (the second title in the now cancelled " Penumbra trilogy") ended up being a giant disappointment to me. All three major positive aspects from the original game suffered setbacks (atmosphere, puzzles, and story), with only minor improvements in textures and lighting being obvious from the get-go.

The atmosphere was great at the beginning, as you wake up in a bloodstained, "abandoned" underground facility that the player discovers deep within the mine from the first title, Penumbra: Overture . However, not even an hour into the game and you run into its biggest flaw: Clarence. This abomination of a "character" is literally stuck in your head until the rest of the game, and makes horrible jokes during some of the scariest or most emotional moments! A deformed, horrifically deranged monster who is about to tear you apart? Clarence screams in your ear, "KILL THIS MONKEY HE'S RIGHT HERE!" Finally finding your dad, the main reason Philip started his journey, only to discover that he has committed suicide because of his dreadful actions as head of the facility? Clarence chortles, "HAHA THE OLD BLOKE OFFED HIMSELF!" It breaks all level of emotion and seriousness within this title, and single-handedly ruins the game. He is one of the most terribly written characters I have ever come across in my time playing video games, and makes me wonder just what in the hell the writers over at Frictional thought he would accomplish for the experience. While this negative is definitely a major one in this title, it contains many other glaring issues with the puzzle sections of the game as well as the story itself.

The puzzles are, for the most part, the same that were in Penumbra: Overture , if not more common. Yet there are no more interactions with the pickaxe and hammer because combat was removed entirely from this game. This sounds good at first, but removes a large part of interactivity with the environment as well as overall immersion. This disappointed me heavily, as I expected an improvement upon the original system rather than the complete removal of it. One particular alchemy puzzle was nice, though it is much more refined in Amnesia: The Dark Descent , and definitely isn't enough to pull this game from its poor existence.

Finally, the story was completely rushed and torn to shreds. Apparently some issues with Frictional's previous publisher, Lexicon Entertainment, prevented a third game being developed, so it became apparent that the game had to tie up a lot of loose ends with the plot despite only having one year separated from the previous game. The characters are lackluster, even downright atrocious (**** you Clarence). The ending is also very cryptic and doesn't conclude in a clear manner at all, and even after reading a plot synopsis, it still left a bad taste in my mouth. The game also is much shorter, as the other title (disregarding idle time) took me around 6 hours, whereas this title barely took me barely 4 hours to finish. An expansion, Penumbra: Requiem was released later in 2008, but was more of a puzzle game that added little to the game's plot than a full-on sequel. Therefore, the Penumbra series was killed off, leaving fan mods to deal with continuing an abandoned story.

Overall, I hate having to Not Recommend this game, because it does tie up the plot of the series. But it just has too many glaring issues to ignore, and ultimately drops the ball on what could've been a fantastic series. Frictional Games would go on to make Amnesia: The Dark Descent , one of the greatest horror games of all time, but I am still disappointed at the lack of finality for their first series. An apparent fan-made "sequel" is now available through a mod for Amnesia: The Dark Descent , titled Penumbra: Necrologue , but I still would have liked to see where Frictional could have officially taken Philip for the last leg of his journey.

Final Verdict: 3/10 (Poor)

The gameplay in this is a solid improvement on Overture, however it was a completely underwhelming ending to all of the mysteries built up previously. The one thing this game had going for it (the great atmosphere) is completely destroyed by a ridiculously annoying, constantly talking invisible "companion" who serves absolutely no purpose in the story by the end. His dialogue tries to be witty, and I think he was intended to be comedic-relief but is never funny (which wouldn't really change much anyway) and is usually just constantly insulting and prodding you. It is impossible to enjoy the positive aspects of this game with Clarence talking non-stop. The puzzles are still mostly a slog, but enemy design is better than the first game in many ways. The graphics and controls are noticeable improvement as well, and it's starting to feel a lot closer to Amnesia, but all in all it was still just an absolute waste of great ideas in of itself. I'm really happy that Frictional took things in the right direction after this game and developed their formula with all positives and negatives of Penumbra in mind.

The almost conclusive episode of Penumbra—until Requiem's controversial release—, Black Plague, fulfills the implications of Overture as an introductory chapter by developing the narrative threads to their Lovecraftian ends. Frictional Games realize a horrific environment of infections and insanity within an ancient, clandestine organization's secret research base to contemplate through the mind's manipulation a mirror of humankind's own selfishness as it relates to the alien findings within this base. One scene, specifically, speaks to this end with the game's only "combat" sequence—devastating, to say the least—and the introduction of Clarence, albeit annoying at times, intentionally so, evokes greater depth to the game's themes. The puzzles in Black Plague are as good as Overture, the horror and the monsters as well, but the narrative intrudes in aspects which, by providing more information, lose the implications and unknown aspects of Overture. On the whole, Black Plague remains a great game and a good, somewhat rushed conclusion. Unfortunate to some, Requiem remains as the true ending.

I'd say this second entry in the series is, overall, a fair bit better than Penumbra: Overture. There were a lot of irritating gameplay decisions in Overture (terrible combat, horrible UI when using tools, improperly contextualised 'hints') which are straight up removed in Black Plague. But it does at times feel like the devs didn't really make any attempt to replace these removals with anything. Long story short, Black Plague is much more of a walking sim than Overture or other games in the genre like Amnesia. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, I definitely prefer it this way than to how Overture felt the need to pepper the map with dozens of copy of the same two irritating enemies, but it does hurt the immersion a bit in Black Plague when it isn't very good at hiding just how infrequently you are in danger.

Aesthetically I'd also say Black Plague is an improvement on Requiem. The overall theme is more interesting (to me at least) and much much more varied; gone are the endless carbon copy mineshafts of Requiem, and the different parts of the facility in Black Plague actually feel like distinct and different places. I also found that the part of the Penumbra story told in Black Plague was somewhat more engaging than in Requiem. Requiem seemed to be focused on desperately coming up with reasons that the player character got himself into this mess to begin with (and frankly not coming up with many good reasons at all...), whereas Black Plague is about him trying to get out of it and is inherently more relatable. There are also more characters and generally more moving parts to the story, and one of the plot twists caught me completely off-guard in a good way. I was unsure about Clarence at first (the character you spend the most time interacting with), but I grew to appreciate his presence over time; he can be pretty annoying, but he gives this game a certain life and character that was less present in Requiem.

Black Plague, however, loses some points for me for its ending. It sucks. The last challenges / trials / whatever you want to call them are absolute nonsense, and completely tonally dissonant with the rest of the game. And this extends to the ending of (this part) of the story as well. Everything just becomes a bit farfetched and silly right at the close, and it definitely lost me a bit. But right up until the tonal shift (which is very near the end) I found this to be a pretty good time. It's another 'Amnesia with less stuff in it' game, but with almost all of the actively bad stuff from Overture stripped out, and as a consequence I feel I can recommend this one somewhat more.