| dark | Date: Friday, 19-March-2010, 12:16 PM | Message # 1 |
--warrior--
Group: untoten legion
Messages: 100
Status: Offline
| Penumbra - Black Plague 
The Penumbra series comes to a close with more creeps and physics-based puzzles...Natural puzzles solved by manipulating your environment ....Tense and creepy atmosphere......Great music and sound effects. 
Black Plague is the physics-dependent design. The Lovecraft-influenced story about a young man investigating an underground base in Greenland--apparently contaminated with some sort of infection--is decidedly weird, but not nearly as original as the puzzle design. Everything in the game is based on real-world logic, but not the Bizarro World nonsense that dominates traditional adventure games. All of the problems here are tied to accurate physics and environments that are packed with objects that can be directly manipulated
Puzzles are similarly realistic. Rather than collecting bits of random junk as in a typical adventure, you deal with situations as they come, utilizing only objects at hand to solve problems. This switch can actually be awful tricky to deal with if you're an adventure-game veteran. It's hard to believe that all of the tools needed to get past a barrier like a locked door are laid out in front of you so clearly.
Black Plague damn scary. With everything so rooted in reality, it's easy to lose your sense of place and feel like you're really stuck deep underground. The visuals are a few years behind the times, although in some ways, this actually enhances the grimy look of your subterranean prison. Also, most of the textures are reasonable, given that they're not pushed to depict anything more sophisticated than rusty walls and bloodstained floors. Because you spend all of your time fumbling around in the dark, anyhow, audio is more important than the visuals. 
Black Plague is fun while it lasts and definitely recommended for anyone who enjoyed the first game. Full of Horror..suspense ... 
  
 
Dark 
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