TItle: Penumbra - Necrologue Developer: Counter-Current Games Music Composed by: Julien Hauspie, ScoreStorm, Drex Wiln, Tiero, and Valentin Parhomenko Release Date: October 31, 2014 IntroductionBack before Amnesia: The Dark Descent was king of the horror scene, Frictional Games was busy experimenting with horror through its groundbreaking Penumbra trilogy, a saga set in the dark beneath ice and snow of northern Greenland and rooted in a descent into mystery and fear not unlike its eventual successor. However, due to a hectic development period, the series, which was meant to be spread over three equally scary installments, instead came out as something more like two and a quarter, with the final part, Penumbra: Requiem, providing an unsatisfying capstone to what should've been a much darker and complete experience. Of course, now Penumbra is old, and fast fading from memory. That doesn't mean it's been completely forgotten though. In fact, it's quite the contrary. The folks at Counter-Current Games were so incensed by the lackluster finish to the story that they went and created Penumbra: Necrologue; an alternative vision of what the trilogy's final installment should have been. Obviously, it's not for everyone, but if nothing else, for those of us who found Requiem to be more of a fart than a final trumpet call, I would say that Necrologue is definitely worth a peek. You can snag it for free on Steam, where it comes bundled with another mod in the same vein: Twilight of the Archaic, which I will be reviewing separately. You'll need to own The Dark Descent if you want to play it though, given it's a community-made mod, rather than an actual full game, but if you're a fan of Frictional Games, and interested enough in their work to be looking for this kind of thing, that shouldn't be an issue. StoryPenumbra: Necrologue pretty much requires that you have played the rest of the trilogy to understand it's plot, given it picks up right where Black Plague (the middle installment which was actually more of the real ending) finished up. Given that's the case, I'll be writing on the assumption that you've played said games, and already know most of what I'm talking about. The plot initially kicks off by stating that the majority of final couple hours of the second game was actually an elaborate mind-fuck perpetrated by your unwelcome cranial cohabitant 'Clarence', who as it turns out is not dead. No sooner do you awaken on the damp, dirty floor of the Shelter, right where you passed out at the end of Black Plague, but he gets back to simultaneously insulting and goading you. Shortly after your rude awakening, you also learn that Amabel Swanson is not dead (or so it seems) and that the message you sent calling for reinforcements at the end of Black Plague was not a hallucination. With this in mind, your driving goal becomes escape, rather than intrusion, though given the labyrinthine nature of the Shelter and the surrounding subterranean environs, this becomes harder than it sounds. What starts initially as a struggle to reach the surface soon goes awry, and Phillip again finds himself bravely running for his life and sanity in the finest tradition of Lovecraftian protagonists. There's lots of fan-service moments echoing events of the trilogy, and the game also even tries to make Requiem a bit more relevant, though how well it succeeds in that is up to you and whether or not you had the stomach to play through that travesty of a puzzle-pack The game mostly sticks to the rusty subterranean environments of the past three games, though later on it spices things up with a few outdoor sections. Regardless of the setting, the visual storytelling is pretty spot-on. Honestly, I'm not sure how to feel about Necrologue's plot. Right off the bat, it's clear the story is something of a work of fanfiction, although a reasonably well-crafted one. How well you're likely to take it depends on how dissatisfied you were with the endings that Requiem and Black Plague provided. Truthfully, the story is more of an 'expansion' on the lore of the trilogy than a stand-alone tale, with a vast majority of content being borrowed from the original series in order to pad things out. There are some subplots delivered via collectible notes, but none of them are very engrossing, and serve little function beyond enhancing the atmosphere Of course, being a mod made by fans for fans, that's to be expected, but I can't help but feel that the great tragedy here is that while they stayed true to the spirit of the narrative, they failed to do anything really original with it. That said, I much prefer the two-choice ending the mod provides by comparison to the despair-laden authorized ones. Both are much more ambiguous, in the spirit of Requiem's conclusion, but with a potential dash of optimism, if you have the will to see it. I suppose that's counter to what a Lovecraft story is supposed to engender, given that cosmic horror is all about existential terror, but frankly, I like the occasional spark of light in my dark stories; otherwise, what's the point of telling them? People play games to escape our depressing reality, not confront it. GameplayThe gameplay of Black Plague is the DNA of Necrologue, and it does almost nothing to differentiate itself. Stealth is crucial to survival, though more time is spent solving puzzles than hiding and running from monsters, which is something the game could've done with more of. Exploration is crucial for locating vital materials such as flashlight batteries and painkillers, as well as key items for resolving various logical conundrums. Of course it shouldn't be said that Necrologue is a direct clone, as it does stand apart in some small ways. There is no glow-stick in this game, only flares and your flashlight. It also plays around with your access to these sources of illumination later on, which is kind of fun since it makes a nice change of pace to have to rely on your other senses and memory to get around in the dark. There is also a new monster that makes a recurring appearance, which is faster and tougher than the old Tuurngait zombies, but not noticeably more bright. Like much of its source material, Penumbra: Necrologue is heavy on long stretches of corridor. Something about that length always helps engender dread, mostly of backtracking constantly. For those of us that love the gameplay style of The Dark Descent and the other Penumbra titles, all this is old hat, albeit a beloved and floppy one. My chief complaint I suppose is the puzzles. While clever, many of them are incredibly difficult to solve. My chief example would have to be the chemical-mixing puzzle that turns up about a third of the way in, which relies on the player looking at a map of the periodic table (ironic, since Clarence erased that from Phillip's brain in Black Plague). It's poorly explained, and relies too heavily on the player knowing what compounds are which. Compared to the explosive-mixing experiment that was the finale of Overture, it's downright cryptic. Of course the puzzles should be hard, but they should also be at least marginally intuitive and sad to say, that doesn't appear to be the case here. Sound & DesignOn the subject of sound, Necrologue gets things mostly right, switching back and forth between Mikko Tarmia's menacing soundtrack from the original Penumbra, as well as new tracks made by the mod's authors, and dead silence. For all their missteps in other departments, it sticks close to the themes of Lovecraftian horror that made the original trilogy such gold to play. Monsters are rarely deployed, but always given weight when they are. The developers have actually added a couple that didn't appear in the original games, including one that was only seen during the original tech demo for the HPL engine the game runs on. Sadly, that monster specifically seems to have the WORST sound bug, generating ear-splitting screeches fit to ruin your speakers. I can't tell if its intentional or not, but it's certainly quite horrible, and while it's probably a little late to expect the makers to do anything to fix it, it would be nice if they could. It's also clear the writers weren't native English-speakers, so if bad grammar really hurts your immersion like it does mine, you might want to be wary. Granted, the voice acting is pretty great compared to the trashy performances you often get with independent titles of any kind, but good acting can't cover bad linguistics. It's like those silly Youtube videos where people try to sing the direct translation of a Disney song from a foreign language and it comes out as word-salad. It's just a tragedy the writers didn't put more effort into translating their material for a foreign audience before hiring the voice actors to do their part. Flares make a return as a useful, yet noisy light source that should only be employed in the absence of monsters. The fact that you can never be entirely sure if there's one in the vicinity always made me hesitant to employ them, yet given there's no middle ground in the form of a glowstick, it's a risk you're forced to take this time around. In terms of the mod's graphics...well, it's Penumbra, a game made on an engine well over a decade old. it runs smoothly despite that, though there is another huge bug that the developers don't seem to have fixed yet on that front as well, near the conclusion of the game. It's not game-breaking, but it's certainly perfect for ruining immersion. Level design is more linear than in the Penumbra series, but still manages to keep things moving along at a relatively speedy pace. Overall it took me about five or six hours to finish the entire mod, though that's a rough estimate, given I took frequent breaks. It does reuse portions of Requiem's levels, which actually helps engender a sense of uncertain sanity for those of us who might've actually played it, though whether that's intentional is up in the air. Final VerdictCompared to most Amnesia mods, Necrologue is something special. It has production values, an actual story and a strong atmosphere that doesn't rely on jump-scares. Unfortunately it also still feels very much like an amateur production in some ways, plus the added downside of suffering from something like what I call 'foreign film syndrome', which I use to describe good work that sadly loses something in translation (sometimes literally). I would recommend it for the dedicated Penumbra fan, or for those interested more fun with Amnesia. Otherwise, you might want to steer clear. This is, at its core, a fan production. It was made by the fans, for the fans, and its design shows that to a considerable extent. I still enjoyed it, and I hope you do too, if you choose to look it up. And if you need another reason, well...it's free. And isn't that a reason in itself Minimum System Requirements
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TItle: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Developer: Eidos Montreal Publisher: Square Enix Director: Jean-François Dugas Writers: Jason Dozois & Steven Gallagher Artists: Martin Dubeau & Michael Lanoie Music Composed by: Michael McCann & Sascha Dikiciyan Release Date: August 23, 2016 IntroductionDeus Ex; it's a name with a freight train's worth of baggage, a franchise that many have struggled but never quite managed to emulate. The first game came out of nowhere, produced by Ion Storm Studios back at the turn of the millennium, and blew the PC gaming community away with its sheer scale and range of player choice. Even now, after over a decade, it remains a landmark title and lingers at or near the top of many top-ten lists. As a result, countless fans were shocked and filled with despair when the sequel flopped, causing the collapse of Ion Storm in the process. For years, it was feared that Invisible War had doomed the series to only two installments, preventing further exploration into what was clearly a rich and nuanced universe of cyberpunk ideas and ideals with a deep history and limitless potential. Then, in 2011, Eidos Montreal breathed new life into the franchise with it release of a prequel, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which took players back 25 years before the events of the original game, thrusting them into an era of conflict where the cybernetic augmentation technology that formed one of the franchise's biggest narrative vertebrae was still in its infancy and at the mercy of unseen forces who sought to control or eradicate it. It was a huge hit, reviving interest in the series and restoring faith to fans who had long ago relinquished hope of ever returning to that world of shadowy organizations and sinister conspiracies. Now, Mankind Divided takes us back again, two years after the events of Human Revolution, and while it has its flaws it does a stellar job of carrying on the core of what makes the series great. At present, it is available for purchase on Steam for $59.99, with two DLC expansions, System Rift and A Criminal Past, the latter of which should be freshly released at the time of this article's publication. StoryMankind Divided picks up two years after the events of Human Revolution, with augmented protagonist Adam Jensen returning to his role as beleaguered hero. For those that haven't played Human Revolution, consider yourself warned since I'll have to spoil a lot of stuff for anything I'm about to say to make sense. If you wish to spare your fragile sensibilities and learn everything on the fly, do not click this link. Now, I'll proceed on the basis that you've spoiled yourself and watched the two recap videos therein, so brace yourself. Many fans will be disappointed to learn that Mankind Divided negates the final choice offered at the end of Human Revolution. In a way, this means that Mankind Divided suffers from an issue that Invisible War also faced, which is what to do after your previous game concluded with a v-ending (i.e. a vending machine of possible outcomes). Deus Ex has always handled such scenarios somewhat better than say, Mass Effect 3, but it hasn't been without its problems, the biggest of which is how to continue the plot without making the whole thing making the player feel disenfranchised and depowered. Invisible War played the dangerous game of trying to weave a narrative where all three potential outcomes happened regardless of the player's choice, which depending on who you ask was an interesting design choice that people simply didn't appreciate or a horrible mistake that led to the subsequent plot being ridiculously obtuse and complicated. I wonder if Adam gets sand in his augs? Bad enough it turns up in your shorts. Imagine it leaking out of your arms...OH GOD, IT'S EVERYWHERE! GAH! I NEED OIL! HELP! ARGH! Mankind Divided takes a different route, and in doing so, falls into the same trap Invisible War tried to avoid. Essentially, the plot of Mankind Divided states that no matter what choice you made at the end of Human Revolution, Panchea explodes, hurling Adam into the ocean and leaving him in a coma that lasts for six months. In that space of time, the world does an about face and turns on augmentation technology. Biotech firms take a dive in stock-price, and Sarif Industries, Adam's former employer, goes bankrupt, with angry looters pillaging and burning the company headquarters. New laws are instituted around the globe in dozens of countries legalizing discrimination against those with augmentations. Naturally, in this new atmosphere of hate and fear, it's only a matter of time before something gives. A string of world-wide terrorist attacks leads to the formation of Task Force 29, the precursor to the original game's UNATCO. Jensen joins as the sole augmented agent, but with a hidden agenda. During his time out of the public eye (which you can read about in this full-length novel), he's been recruited by the Juggernaut Collective, a group of world-class hacktivists who seek to expose the real culprits behind the now pithily named 'Aug Incident'; the Illuminati. Jensen's job is to infiltrate TF29 and find a way to use them to expose his true enemy. One thing you should get used to in this game is being harassed by the police. They're all assholes. If they're not muttering slurs as you pass by, they're demanding to see your papers. It's chilling how much it adds to the air of oppression. The game opens with Jensen taking part on a mission to Dubai, now an abandoned wasteland (who saw that one coming?), where the game's first mission takes place. His job is to assist in the interception of an arms-deal between two known criminals. However, in the midst of the operation, a group of gold-masked augmented mercenaries crash the party and try to kill everyone involved. Before Jensen can find out more, he's recalled to TF29's Prague HQ in Eastern Europe. Arriving in the Czech city by train, Adam meets his contact in the Collective, Alex Vega, who replaces Faridah Malik (don't worry fanboys, she's alive) in of your plucky fly-girl companion. While the Dubai mission does a lot to kick things off with a bang, it's this brief cinematic intro to the post-Incident world that really sets the stage. As they walk through the crowded train station, Alex and Jensen are treated to the sight of faceless, militarized police in riot gear and exo-frames harassing and/or detaining augmented visitors with impunity. The people around them give them ugly looks and everywhere, slurs are on the tongue of everyone who doesn't have a machine attached to them. It's a chilling sight, made all the more powerful when it's cut short by a series of explosions that blasts the station into rubble. Prague is overrun with augmented homeless people disenfranchised by the new laws passed after the Incident. They live in constant fear of being swept up by the police and deported. Not once does the game skimp on the chilling nature and the reality of its narrative regarding fear and hate. The gameplay picks up the following day with Jensen awakening in his top-floor apartment and follows him as he tries to uncover the facts behind the bombing while continuing his work as a mole. The plot only gets more complex from there, but then it's Deus Ex, so that's to be expected and enjoyed. It always manages to keep enough character development in play so that it doesn't turn into a total mess of political maneuvering like Ghost in the Shell (an opinion that will doubtlessly offend countless weeaboos and cyberpunk fans alike) which is good, because without some meaningful and interesting personalities to play off, Jensen can feel like a block of wood, especially with his dry, gruff delivery of his lines. I'm not saying he's bad; obviously, a large chunk of his personality is meant to be filled in by the decisions the player makes through him, but still, it'd be nice to see those decisions have a cumulative effect on him. Regardless, Adam's journey through the jungle of conspiracies and shadows is a unique and quite interesting one, especially given how it takes us down a road that Deus Ex has never explored. In Human Revolution, you felt more like a free agent, investigating things as it suited you on the budget of David Sarif, who also makes a return appearance, albeit with a reduced role. In Mankind Divided, things feel more serious, and the harsh demeanor of your boss at TF29, David Miller, lends things an atmosphere of professionalism and urgency that I've never really gotten from the other titles in the series. It's also quite a shift in narrative since usually, half the plot consists of a descent through layers of conspiracy as the player character discovers just how many puppet-strings are being pulled all around them. Mankind Divided eschews that, with Jensen already well-aware of the threat posed by the Illuminati and committed to fighting them at every turn. It does feel very much like a middle installment...which is unfortunate, because it feels like an unfinished one. Later on you get to visit the Utulek Complex, a.k.a. Golem City; a massive failed housing project that has been converted into a ghetto for the augmented. Here, the oppressed live in squalor while being harassed by the militarized police who arrest people because they feel like it and shoot anyone who resists. The game's story is padded with dozens of hours of side-missions, probably more than were shipped in Human Revolution, but this doesn't save the main plot from feeling shockingly short. I wouldn't compare it to coitus interruptus, but frankly, you meet the chief villain about halfway through the game, yet he's never truly developed, and always portrayed as a puppet of greater forces. You're left feeling robbed of a satisfying showdown. The game does build to a climax, but it's weak compared to some we've confronted in the past installments. The ending feels more like your confrontation with Barrett in Human Revolution than a climactic struggle like the conclusion of the first game. Furthermore, there's a mission that was apparently trimmed out to be sold as DLC that had no place being so removed. I could go on and on, but ultimately, to make things short, the biggest flaw with Mankind Divided is that it feels unfinished, an accusation I lay at the feet of Square Enix, whose involvement in the franchise I have recently come to detest. Yes, it was probably their money that helped raise the series from the dead, but it is also they who have seen fit to inflict players with micro-transactions in the form of consumable packs, an annoying phone-app tie-in and the removal of content for the purposes of locking it behind DLC. The Missing Link expansion for Human Revolution was a nifty little tie-in, but System Rift and A Criminal Past both sound and feel like they should've been part of the main game from the beginning, especially from a narrative perspective. It's a frustrating, money-grubbing strategy that I can't help but liken to Capcom's brand of dickish behavior regarding locking up crucial parts of their releases behind pay-walls, and as a fan it pisses me off to no end. Furthermore, evidence suggests that the reason the game concludes with so many hanging threads is because it was butchered to make way for the creation of a planned trilogy that would start with Mankind Divided. While I'm happy to have more Deus Ex, as a consumer, I demand a finished, satisfying product, not half a story. It would also seem this 'strategy' has come back to bite them in the ass, since due to poor initial sales, Mankind Divided has condemned the franchise to potentially permanent hiatus, which simply triples my frustration. Regardless, what story there is to Mankind Divided is well-built and superbly crafted, while sadly cut short in so many ways. Prague serves as the central hub, much like Detroit and Hengsha in Human Revolution, with almost all the content taking place there. This might be a contributing factor as to why the game felt shorter, since classically, Deus Ex games have gone around the globe in telling their stories, yet we never seem to leave Europe. While it does add an element of focus to the narrative, with events in the game showing their effects heavily on characters and places, it still feels somewhat like we've been robbed of a bigger story. By and large, Breach is a disappointing obstacle course that tries and fails to feel relevant. It might lend some extra life to the game for some, but not to everyone. Honestly, I could've lived without it. The game's Breach mode doesn't do anything to help fill this gap either. While it was touted as a way to take Deus Ex multiplayer (something the franchise has always struggled with), it never managed to capture my interest, instead of feeling like a long string of story-contextualized time-trials, something I personally loathe. What makes it worse is that the section of the story that's supposed to give it context is locked up in the System Rift DLC, meaning it all makes very little sense and seems separated from the main plot, leading me to question its relevance. Deus Ex has always been very rooted in its story, which is why its multiplayer never really took off. For me, Breach feels like a wasted opportunity, where money was misspent to try and breathe longevity into the game beyond its story, which wouldn't have been necessary had the story actually been shipped as a complete experience. GameplayThankfully, one place where things are still wonderful and fun is the gameplay. It could be said that the game is a cover-based shooter, but that would be doing it a disservice. Since Human Revolution, the developers have added a vast number of new and exciting ways to approach your problems, should you even decide to do so, rather than sneaking around them, which is always a viable alternative. Freedom of choice is the name of the game and it's the heart and soul of the Deus Ex series. Much of the basic framework of Mankind Divided carries over from its predecessor, with using stealth and environmental exploration to find ways to sneak around foes, or else using cover to protect yourself while you do battle with them. Everything you do earns you experience which adds up to Praxis Kits, which in turn are spent to upgrade your augmentations. I was actually a little impressed with how they managed to contextually justify the inclusion of Adam's new powers, as well as the need to reset them to zero to prevent him being an overpowered bad-ass right from the start. Regardless you can take any number of approaches to situations where talking isn't an option. Don't want to fight? Just sneak past them. Want to raise a ruckus? Go right ahead! Want to be sneaky? Distract and isolate the baddies, then pick them off one by one. It's remarkably intuitive and gets even more fun as more options become available. This nifty little inventory wheel is quite helpful, and a nice addition that I quickly learned to appreciate even without a controller. There's also one for your augmentations that's equally efficient. You can also use this as a quick means to bind things to hotkeys. Speaking of options, there's little that wasn't taken from the previous game that Mankind Divided doesn't expand upon. All your weapons can now be customized on the fly, with a press of a button allowing you to leap into a first-person weapon-feature menu similar to Crysis, where you can change fire-modes and add or remove attachments like silencers and scopes. As for ammunition, all weapons now feature options for armor-piercing rounds (for heavy and mechanical targets) and EMP rounds (for disabling robots, drones and cameras). It adds a lot of depth to a combat system that felt a tad shallow last time around. I was very pleased, though I didn't take the improvements without a grain of salt. My biggest gripe was that despite developer promises to the contrary, it still feels like players who choose the stealth option are awarded more XP, potentially limiting players who prefer to enter a room guns-blazing. Regardless, it's a nice set of touches that helps spice things up when you want to meet new people and kill them. The augmentation tree returns of course, with players spending Praxis points as previously mentioned to use the cool new abilities. Most of these powers require energy from a meter, the mechanics of which have been vastly improved since Human Revolution. Augmentations now have an energy cost to activate as well as an amount they drain when in use, but once they're turned off, they'll automatically recharge to the point where they were first activated, minus the cost it took to turn them on. It's a little complicated at first, but what it ultimately means is that using augmentations no longer feels as constrained as it did in Human Revolution. The Remote Hacking augmentation allows you to control certain electronics from a distance. It's a hoot when you can turn on a TV on the far side of the room to distract bad guys. Of course, some of the new powers require unique ammo in addition to energy to function, such as the Nanoblade, which allows Jensen to fire his arm blades like a javelin an nail enemies to walls. An extra upgrade allows you to make the blades explode upon command, which leaves it just short of Dead Space 2's Javelin Gun as the best spike-launcher ever, if only because you can't electrocute the target in addition to blowing them up. There's also the Icarus Dash for those who prefer exploration and maneuverability. If your augmented legs can't do the job, you can use the Icarus Landing System that saves Adam from long falls to launch yourself to new heights in a flash of lightning that would make Barry Allen envious. Or if needs must, you can use it to charge into enemies, who go flying like they've been hit by a freight train. Probably the most controversial change will be the hacking mini-game, which makes a return from Human Revolution with expanded features. This is another area where I have difficulties, mostly because while Electronic Multi-Tools have made a return from the original Deus Ex, offering an alternative who don't want to hack things, you don't get any experience for using them, whereas you do get it for hacking things. It feels like a thinly-veiled incentive to make people play the mini-game they put so much work into developing, which is annoying because it makes me feel like my choices are being punished, which should never, ever be the case in a Deus Ex game. Remember the P.E.P.S. riot gun from Human Revolution? Now you have one in your arm. And it's friggin' awesome. It can be tuned for wide-burst blasts or precision shots. Allowing you to take on crowds or individual targets. If anything, I feel the developers should've removed all experience bonuses and instead simply kept them as incentives for exploring the area and accomplishing objectives. That way, nobody would lose out. However, this is not the case. Worse yet, it often feels like the developers went out of their way to get you to hack things by other means. In the previous installments, seven to eight times out of ten, you could find the code to a door or the password to a computer somewhere in the environment provided you looked hard enough. This does not appear to the be case anymore, since more often than not, I found myself resorting to multi-tools since the codes I sought were absolutely nowhere to be found, not even when I took to Google for assistance. Again, you also get a reduced reward for actually finding and using the code as opposed to hacking something. Alas, there's nothing to be done now except get on with it. The new version of the hacking system took me a while to get used to because you can't see the whole data-grid at once and need to use the WASD keys to shift the camera, something that was obviously a hold-over from the design who had to think of console players. There are new collectible little software consumables in addition to the old that do things like remove the fog from the grid so you can see all the nodes, or else increase the speed of your node-capturing routine temporarily. I can't say it's not fun in its own way; I just protest at it being shoveled onto our plates without our asking for it, something on which Jensen has a lot to say. Sound & DesignThere's little left to say in regards to the sound and graphics for Mankind Divided except that they are jaw-droppingly gorgeous at maximum settings, though I don't recommend using Ultra unless you can also run Crysis, because WOW does it generate a lot of heat. All the screenshots so far should be indicative of what to expect at high or max settings. For my part, I played on medium with some of the niftier features disabled to spare my machine the suffering. Given that Mankind Divided runs on its own graphics engine, one which took almost the entire development life of the game to complete, I can almost forgive some of the bugs...almost. With that in mind, I feel compelled to mention that the interface has some pretty serious and repeatable glitches. Now I hope these will be resolved in the near future, but it's frustrating trying to open the 'Objectives' menu for a quick check, then pop over into the pause menu, then go back only to find the damn thing keeps re-opening 'Objectives' every time you try to close it. There's also some odd movement issues I ran into, such as my sprint feeling and looking like I was doing something from the Ministry of Silly Walks, with only one of Adam's hands flying up on the left where both should've been pumping as I ran, while the screen rocked forwards and backwards. Needless to say, I was irritated by these and other such bugs, and I only hope they get stomped out in future updates. No, this image has not been edited in any manner. Yes, this is exactly how good the game can look at 'Ultra' settings. Just be sure you have the graphics card to support it...or a fire extinguisher. As usual, the level design is stellar, which is good because as a Deus Ex fan I know we will settle for nothing less. The world as a whole feels cohesive and lived-in. I was still finding hidden locations twelve hours into the game, and I'd barely scratched the surface of the main hub in Prague. Granted, the character models seem to suffer some of the same problems with limited animation loops that they did in Human Revolution, but mocap data takes up a lot of space, and it's not too noticeable if you aren't looking for it. One particular design choice I was very pleased with was the reduction of how much yellow there was in the visual design. I get that the whole piss-filter thing was to help enhance the 'Golden Age of Augmentation' theme that Human Revolution was gunning for, but after hours and hours of endless yellow, it really began to grate on my nerves. Mankind Divided adopts a more black-and-white schema for everything, with some yellow left over, but not so much that it makes you want to climb the walls. Advertising gets really strange in a cyber-punk world. This is just one of the stranger 'billboards' you'll run across while exploring Prague. There's also one for anti-depressants that shows a guy leaping off a building. There's little else to say beyond the fact that the environment artists really outdid themselves here. The moment I stepped into Prague's Red Light District, I immediately felt like I'd walked into a vision of Blade Runner, minus the VHS tapes and 80's technology. The world feels so REAL it almost hurts. I just wish I could experience it at maximum settings. I can only dream of how it would feel in a proper VR setup. The art and modeling teams deserve a huge round of applause for their work. Final VerdictI've had a lot to say regarding Mankind Divided, mostly because the Deus Ex franchise is such a huge and wonderful one. It's worthy of respect in so many ways, and it deserves to have its legacy treated with care. For the most part, Eidos Montreal has done just that, albeit at the behest of Square Enix, who fell just short of destroying this game EA-style, jeopardizing the future of the series with their toxic attempts to erect pay-walls where none should exist. Mankind Divided is worth your money, and I strongly, STRONGLY recommend it, if only so that by increasing its sales, we can get it out of hiatus and maybe get a Director's Cut like Human Revolution where the DLC is actually integrated into the main game. If you like stealth, a strong story about human nature and are just generally a cyberpunk fan, look no further. This is your game. Minimum System Requirements
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Operating System: Windows 7 SP1 or Above Processor Capacity: 3.7 GHz RAM: 8 GB Hard Drive Space: 55 GB --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- TItle: Penumbra - Overture Developer: Frictional Games Publisher: Paradox Interactive Writers: Thomas Grip, Jens Nilsson, Tom Jubert Music Composed by: Mikko Tarmia Engine: HPLovecraft Engine Release Date: May 8, 2007 Frictional Games have been touted as the masters of the modern survival-horror genre ever since their release of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a game that reminded gamers everywhere what true horror was really about. Before the release of their seminal masterpiece however, they were better known as the creators of the Penumbra trilogy, a series of games that laid the groundwork for their terrifying magnum opus. Penumbra: Overture was the first installment in that trilogy, and despite its age, should be given due consideration from any true survival-horror fan, for though it is not without flaws, it is just as deserving of recognition as its younger, more well-known cousin. For those less well versed in gaming nomenclature, survival-horror is largely what it sounds like: a game that focuses on the survival of the player character as they struggle to endure in a hostile and terrifying environment. It's most classic iteration is that of the haunted house, where scripted surprises and roaming terrors seek to keep the player on their toes and tense with anticipation. Puzzles are often included as barriers to progression, while stealth is emphasized and combat is either discouraged or nonexistent. Overture takes all of this into account in its efforts to spook the player while providing an engrossing experience, working hard to build an atmosphere so thick with dread you couldn't cut it with a bloody cleaver. Penumbra's story bears heavy signs of influence from the works of H.P. Lovecraft, best known for his popularization of the genre of 'cosmic horror' and being a card-carrying racist. Fear of the unknown is a powerful theme throughout his works, as is the concept of 'forbidden knowledge'. His famous Cthulhu mythos, which was opened to the public domain for expansion by other writers on his death, is full of cases of scholars and men of science who stray too far off the edge of the map and discover things so horrible that they are driven to insanity as a means of coping. Being in the light doesn't always mean you're safe. It may just mean that something else can see you and is running towards you out of the dark, teeth snapping and jaws drooling. These themes run strong in Overture, as the story opens with Phillip, a 30-year-old physics teacher, receiving a letter from his father (who he has been told died before he was born) shortly after his mother's funeral. The missive instructs him to destroy the contents of a safety deposit box in Mayfair which he has just inherited, and to ask no further questions. Phillip, of course, disobeys and reads the papers contained within, which lead him to an unmarked mine in the frozen wastes of Greenland. Determined to learn his father's fate, he sets out alone to investigate, before summarily getting lost in a blizzard and climbing down an access shaft to escape the elements. From there, everything goes downhill. Overture, like many games before and after it, conveys its plot through written notes that must be collected by the player during the course of exploration. Each one contains fresh information pertaining to the nature of the mine, its history, and its victims, of which there are many. Some contain clues to aid in the solving of the various puzzles that serve to obstruct Phillip as he tries to find either his father or some answers. All of this is complimented by the frequent ramblings of an unseen character named Red who has control of a shortwave radio which he uses to contact Phillip now and then, Penumbra's tale is told in the best tradition of Lovecraftian storytelling, wherein much is implied, but never fully stated. Imagination is always more enticing and terrifying than fact. Thus does the mystery of the mine keep you moving forward while the dread it instills makes you want to turn back, keeping you edging forward and jumping at every flicker of the lights. While there is much to be said for the handling of the story, the mechanics also shines through too. Overture's subterranean setting is often dark, but the game quickly gives you the tools to manage this, including a flashlight, a glow-stick and flares, all of which have their own pros and cons regarding usage. For example, the flashlight's piercing beam is useful, but can attract the attention of monsters if you're not careful. Also, it runs on batteries, which must be scavenged for in the environment. Meanwhile, the glow-stick suffers no such limitations on lifespan and rarely attracts attention, but only provides enough light to see a couple feet ahead of you. This clever triangle of light management comes into play quite often as you sneak around or otherwise try to avoid the mine's unsavory inhabitants. Chief among these are starving wolves, which would be simple enough were it not for the fact that close examination quickly reveals that these are not your ordinary ancestors of man's best friend. If you attract their attention it's best to hide from them, which can be done by crouching behind objects or in dark corners. The game also discourages looking at your enemies while hiding, as it will give Phillip a panic attack, causing his heavy breathing to alert foes to his presence. Who's a good doggie? You are, yes you are yo- AGGGHHHH!!! GET AWAY! GET AWAY!!! BAD TOUCH! BAD TOUCH!! BAD TOUCH!!! A good survival-horror game balances panic and dread, with a greater emphasis towards the latter. Panic is fleeting, whereas dread spiced with bouts of panic make for a more savory horror experience. Overture cultivates this in many ways, using every avenue to construct an atmosphere ripe for the soiling of pants, but none is more powerful than the soundscape. I have previously said that good sound design is one of the cornerstones of a great horror game, and this is where Frictional Games stands truly without rival. Their skillful use of silence and noise, as well as a menacing, unsettling soundtrack, combine to provide an almost-perfect paranoia-inducing auditory blend. Overture was the first game to make me need to take breaks to release the tension that the sound design had generated. I'm certainly not saying it's on par with Amnesia, whose sound design should be considered a physical threat to someone's mental stability, but the level of competence demonstrated is simply awe-inspiring, not to mention unsettling. One might suspect the development team must've made a deal with one of Lovecraft's elder gods to be this good. Apparently, the company does all its own sound design in the studio, meaning almost nothing is reused or recycled, and making every creak of wood and crunch of snow all the more meaningful and fresh. A good example of this application of sound can be found in the opening hour of the game. Shortly after trapping himself in the mine, Phillip decides the only way out is through. Descending into the frigid tunnels below, he leaves behind the entrance area, where despite being alone, there is the steady background noise of the howling blizzard to be heard through the hatch he used to enter. As soon as he goes further though, silence falls, with not even background music to provide comfort. The transition is jarring and unsettling, reminding the player they've just moved deeper into isolation and away from the outside world. It is the calm before a storm, and just when it's settled in that you're alone, something growls in the darkness; your first enemy. Sound is a powerful element for immersion of course, but its not all that Overture has in that department. Like the games that would follow, this first episode of the Penumbra trilogy includes the ability to pick up and manipulate virtually every object you come across, from rocks and barrels to sticks of dynamite. This is often used to impressive effect for puzzle-solving, as players are forced to turn wheels by moving the mouse in circles, or carrying items in front of them instead of in an unseen bag of holding, as in most other adventure titles. This renders mundane tasks more visceral and real, providing a level of agency to the player that few other first-person games of the time did. The system even plays into the stealth mechanics, allowing you to heft various objects, such as rocks, barrels, or even your supply of flares, into the dark as a means of distracting enemies hunting you. As you descend deeper, the environment changes, going from rustic and crumbling to ever-more established and modern, providing a sense of a journey through history as well as mystery. Of course, Overture is not without faults of course, being the first installment in the series. Most are minor quirks, such as the amusing physics glitches that are the hallmark of this early version the H.P. Lovecraft Engine, or the If one flaw stands out above all the others though, it is the fact that eventually you are given the means to defend yourself. Yes, the pickax you eventually pick up is clumsy and unwieldy, which helps discourage combat, and yes, the enemies you face often have numbers or endurance on their side, but the fact remains that once you have an instrument with which to fight back, the threat to the player is diminished, and so too is the terror. On a more picky note, the graphics of the game are rather dated, though if you're like me, then they only add to the atmosphere. The slightly blurred and sometimes low-quality nature of textures helps lend a sensation of surrealism, as if everything is taking place in a nightmare. Many developers feel ultra-realism is a major means of enhancing immersion. Personally I feel sound design takes precedent, but then it's all about the attitude you approach the game with. Really, I feel its unfair to make such criticisms in any case. When you consider that Overture was crafted at a time when Frictional Games consisted of four people who were using an engine they had built themselves and who had never released another game, it's hard not to feel impressed that they managed to produce such a high quality product despite the obstacles. The game ends with a cliffhanger, which is unsurprising given the series was meant to be released episodically. The whole thing adds up to maybe six or seven hours of gameplay, which again, can be contributed to the fact that it was made as part of a planned series. It doesn't overstay its welcome, and leaves you hungry for more, as any good game should. If you're a fan of the survival-horror genre then it's well worth your time and money. Overture and it's sequels are available on Steam as part of the Penumbra Collector's Pack for a mere $9.99. Check it out, but don't complain to me about any soiled undergarments afterwards. Minimum System Requirements
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Operating System: Windows XP/Vista (Requires Compatibility Mode for 7/8/9/10+) Processor Capacity: 1 GHz RAM: 512 MB Hard Drive Space: 800 MB --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
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