Penumbra: Overture - Episode 1
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ESRB:
Blood and Gore,Language - Mild,Violence
Publisher: Lexicon Entertainment Genre(s): Action / Adventure Home Page: http://www.penumbra-overture.com/
And so begins the mystery.
Since the original Half Life brought us the foibles of reluctant hero Gordon Freeman, PC game developers have been crowing about drawing gamers in with "story-driven plot lines", "emotional dialogue" and "three-dimensional characters". Story has almost eclipsed the graphics engine as the most-used term by publishers' and developers' PR liaisons. Good intentions and Literature 101 glossary terms aside, video games still trail other storytelling media in terms of depth and fullness. Half-Life garnered accolades because it provided a whiff of a story in a landscape where previous titles offered one-paragraph back stories. A decade later, PC games are still almost universally bankrupt of story. Sure, there's the occasional gem – like Psychonauts and the Elder Scrolls series - but developers are still shoehorning paper-thin stories into all genres of games. Titles like the Myst series provide volumes of back fiction, but when it comes to weaving a compelling and evolving epic in with rewarding gameplay, video games are still lacking. Recounting a tale in a completely interactive medium is no small task however, and some developers are putting in an honest effort to meld gameplay with story. To this end, Swedish developer Frictional Games brings us a mix of suspense, horror and thrill wrapped up in a first-person PC game. Can Penumbra: Overture deliver the storytelling goods where others have fallen flat? From Technology Demo to Full GamePreviously known for the top-down horror title Fiend and the platformer Energetic, Frictional Games released a technology demo dubbed (surprise!) Penumbra in Summer 2006. As a proof-of-concept for a graphics engine, Overture received accolades on forums, leading Frictional Games to develop a full-blown title using their HPL Engine. The end result is the reviewed game in question, published dually by Got Game Entertainment and Lexicon Entertainment. Released in most European countries on March 30, Penumbra Overture is due in North America on May 7 (for a full list of release dates for all European countries, see the Frictional Games Web site). If you want to eschew the boxed release, you may purchase it via digital download now, regardless of where you live (note that the digital download is English language-only).
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