Penumbra: Black Plague, the second game in the highly innovative Penumbra series, has apparently just (well, ok, just-ish) made itself available for purchase, which, admittedly, seems such a very sweet gesture. Really. Black Plague, you see, might be a properly frightening horror game with a properly dark theme, but it’s so brilliantly put together you’ll just want to buy it a beer and admit it was love at first sight. Oh, and you don’t need to have played the original Penumbra Overture to enjoy it either.

Instead, all you have to do is prepare yourselves for the horrors of a dark, supposedly vacant, horror-infested and definitely ominous underground complex. There, you’ll have to keep sane, combat psychological horrors, discover a brilliant plot, be stealthy, be brave, be smart and solve some pretty impressive physics based puzzles, in what is one of the best and more refreshing adventure games of the last few years. As for the graphics, well, they are spooky, highly atmospheric, beautiful and almost high-tech. The all-important physics engine, on the other hand, is nigh-on impressive and as high-tech as they get, easily rivaling the likes of Half Life 2 and probably the forthcoming Alone in the Dark 5. The sound is appropriately chilling too.

Unfortunately though, all is not perfect. Black Plague is far too short, and even though I don’t really think that quality has anything to do with length, you should know you’ll probably beat the game in less than 3 hours. Might run into a few problems with the controls too, but this really is nitpicking. Penumbra: Black Plague really is too good a game to miss for such trivial little issues.

Posted on March 6th, 2008 by konstantinos