Penumbra: Overture

Penumbra: Overture
Penumbra is loaded with creepy psychological horror that really gets under your skin.

The world of video games might not have produced as many indie horror classics, but the next best thing might just be Penumbra: Overture -- Episode One. This deeply creepy first-person action adventure from Frictional Games may be so low budget that it first crept out of the grave in 2006 as a free online demo, but it delivers in the shivers department. Although there isn't much here for action-first splatterfest fans, and a few technical glitches make some aspects of the design more frustrating than frightening, a constant sense of peril and isolation mean that you shouldn't play this one unless you're happy to sleep with the lights on for a while.


As with all effective horror, atmosphere is paramount here. Penumbra gets off to a Lovecraftian start with the lead character, Phillip, getting a letter out of the blue from his long-missing father. The old man was apparently declared dead some 30 years before, but that didn't prevent him from licking a stamp and directing his son to a safety deposit box filled with indecipherable notebooks and a map of northern Greenland. All of this is more than a tad surreal. None of the backstory is explained, there is no character development, and you're not even clued in on why Phillip decides to head off to Greenland and wander around by himself in a blizzard. While this style of storytelling won't please fans of rigorous plots, the vagueness gives the game a gauzy, dreamy vibe. All of the action takes place in a mausoleum-like abandoned mine, too, which heightens both the weirdness and the sense of being detached from the real world.

Other aspects of Penumbra are similarly low key. Visuals are sparse but effective. Yet even though the visuals are a bit rough, the grainy textures, smeared brown-and-gray backdrops, and heavy shadows clouding details everywhere seem calculated to enhance the sensation that you're in a nightmare. If the graphics were sharper and more realistic, the creep factor wouldn't be nearly as strong. The game's audio is stellar. This game may have been made on the cheap, but the developers didn't cut corners when it came to dialogue and voice acting. The actor voicing Phillip does a great job of capturing the fear of being stranded alone in the dark, and your insane tour guide, Red, is one of the craziest, most memorable characters you'll ever meet in a game. Sound effects in the game are extremely creepy. The only noises you hear much of the time are the creaking floorboards, the echo of stone under your feet, the lionlike growl of the zombie doggies, and the chittering of spiders around the next corner. Music adds chills, with pianos and drumbeats underlining discoveries and the approach of monsters.

Minimum Requirements:
- Windows: 2K/XP
- CPU: 1Ghz
- Memory: 256MB
- Free space on harddrive: 400MB
- Video: ATI Radeon 8500/NVIDIA GeForce 3(GeForce4MX not supported)

Installation:
- Unrar
- Burn or Mount
- Install game (Serial is in root folder)
- Play


Download:
http://rapidshare.com/files/66154701/PO-Ep.1.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/66160627/PO-Ep.1.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/66145201/PO-Ep.1.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/66136298/PO-Ep.1.part4.rar