Penumbra

By: Albert Lai

On: June 17th, 2006

Penumbra
is a dark adventure horror game about a intrepid son who heads to Norway to
investigate a place that his estranged father alluded to in notes about a book written in a strange language that was in safety deposit
box to which the hero recieved the key following his mother’s death. Or something like that. All of these horror/adventure
games tend to blend together after a while. If it’s not a badly lit office it’s
a spooky town with a secret to hide.

Sporting 3D graphics, Penumbra sports a physics engine that is used in certain
mini-puzzles (Physics! Cool!). Action sequences cause the character (who isn’t
armed with weapons in the conventional sense) to slow into bullet time while
you try to figure out how the hell you kill monsters without any type of bat/shotgun/ninja
saber. In-game clues allow the player to figure out where to go next with the
minimum of becoming hopelessly stuck.

But wait! There is no such thing as a game without flaws. For one, the system requirements
for Penumbra are a bit intensive, and, more importantly (since I doubt that
many of you readers won’t be able to support Penumbra), constant loading screens
detract from the experience. If you’re willing to put these problems aside,
though, Penumbra is sure to be a good game to immerse yourself in.