Penumbra Collection Review (PC)

I have to make a shocking confession that might aid some to precipitate toward the edge of oblivion. I’ve never played a true “Survival Horror” game since the days of old: Resident Evil 1 through 3. Now don’t get me wrong, I love being horrified to the point of madness from time to time, but I don’t particularly favor the commonly overdone scare tactics of most “scary” games. You run around constricted environments and occasionally battle the recurring monsters that seem to jump out of the weirdest places.

The Penumbra Collection, published by Paradox Interactive and created by the two-man wonder team dubbed Frictional Games, brings together two amazing games: Penumbra: Overture and Penumbra: Black Plague, and one mediocre, if not completely pointless, third game: Penumbra: Requiem. Both Overture and Black plague offer a good number of scares and provide two complex plot-lines—albeit some plot developments are completely ridiculous and certainly uncalled for. On the other hand, Requiem (the last game of the series) is a rare anomaly, radically budding from the caliber of work illustrated by the last two games.

You play an unknown character named Phillip that one day randomly receives a letter from his father, who’s been “dead” for 30 years. As Phil, you are commanded to destroy some documents accompanied by a map of a Greenland locale. Obviously, Phil opts to disobey his father’s abrupt command and curiously wanders over to Greenland in search for the random map location, needless to say that events transpire in a downward spiral of confusion and terror as Phil gets separated from his party due to a blizzard and takes shelter in a seemingly abandoned mine.