the solution to all puzzles within this game are to smash physics objects into other physics objects, bunnyhop through corridors full of non-threatening nudists, or read a couple pages from your book.
it's very cool.
Anyway I've been doing a marathon of all Frictional's library of games, because the Penumbra games as well as Amnesia are all extremely memorable games from my childhood. While Overture definitely had more intrigue and mystery going for it, this game fucking kills it for me in terms of atmosphere and aesthetics. Where it loses me by comparison is the personalities of important characters. Red in Overture plays a convincing lunatic to the end, while Clarence and to a lesser extent Dr. Amabel make Black Plague feel more like a budget sci-fi movie with quirky dialogue. While Clarence is conceptually fantastic and contributes to some of the best scenes in the game (turning the corridors into a nonsensical maze while communicating your location to enemies), he also constantly interrupts your moody adventure with his personality synthesized from the films our protagonist has seen over the years. He represents a despair inducing threat to your life almost as often as he represents an obnoxious meta-conversationalist and quip machine, this can feel disruptive of the aforementioned great atmosphere. Dr. Amabel is simply an unfortunate victim of her one-liners, in attempting to make a nerdy but sane sounding female character they sorta ended up with somebody who sets the tone of all her interactions with her own brand of eye rolling quips, practically every time you answer a video call from her. What's supposed to represent your protagonist's only hopeful encounter in the entire story feels more like paying your taxes. Speaking of the protagonist, I love his characterization as an obnoxious adventure game prick being devolved into more of a braindead weirdo as a result of the horrors he's experienced, and his progressing infection. Clarence deleting the periodic table from your head will always be a classic.
Oh yeah, I also don't really find any of these games spooky in particular, though as far as spooky games go, they were insanely high concept for their time. Nowadays they feel more like campy adventure games with a neat story and stealth mechanics you can just choose to ignore.
it's very cool.
Anyway I've been doing a marathon of all Frictional's library of games, because the Penumbra games as well as Amnesia are all extremely memorable games from my childhood. While Overture definitely had more intrigue and mystery going for it, this game fucking kills it for me in terms of atmosphere and aesthetics. Where it loses me by comparison is the personalities of important characters. Red in Overture plays a convincing lunatic to the end, while Clarence and to a lesser extent Dr. Amabel make Black Plague feel more like a budget sci-fi movie with quirky dialogue. While Clarence is conceptually fantastic and contributes to some of the best scenes in the game (turning the corridors into a nonsensical maze while communicating your location to enemies), he also constantly interrupts your moody adventure with his personality synthesized from the films our protagonist has seen over the years. He represents a despair inducing threat to your life almost as often as he represents an obnoxious meta-conversationalist and quip machine, this can feel disruptive of the aforementioned great atmosphere. Dr. Amabel is simply an unfortunate victim of her one-liners, in attempting to make a nerdy but sane sounding female character they sorta ended up with somebody who sets the tone of all her interactions with her own brand of eye rolling quips, practically every time you answer a video call from her. What's supposed to represent your protagonist's only hopeful encounter in the entire story feels more like paying your taxes. Speaking of the protagonist, I love his characterization as an obnoxious adventure game prick being devolved into more of a braindead weirdo as a result of the horrors he's experienced, and his progressing infection. Clarence deleting the periodic table from your head will always be a classic.
Oh yeah, I also don't really find any of these games spooky in particular, though as far as spooky games go, they were insanely high concept for their time. Nowadays they feel more like campy adventure games with a neat story and stealth mechanics you can just choose to ignore.