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.
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.