I wrote a 10 page essay on making a Penumbra Series review for it's 10th anniversary,
but I somehow lost it, SOMEHOW!.. like a dimwit.
Sense I don't feel like trying to rewrite all what I said in my lost review by memory -
I've decided to make a discussion video,
or more like an argument video on what I think Penumbra did right that Amnesia didn't do right.
Now this is based purely on opinion so please be open-minded about what I have to say in this video. ;)
The Penumbra Series was Frictional Games' first published survival horror title -
and it's much like Amnesia - The Dark Descent.
You can pick up and throw objects around, drag your mouse to open doors, etc.
You play as any ordinary man, much like The Dark Descent.
It's 2001, you're "Philip LaFresque", a thirty-year-old physicist teacher.
Good one Frictional Games. xD
After attending your mom's funeral, you receive a later from your father who was declared dead before you were even born.
The letter contains a key that opens a bank in Mayfair that contains documents.
What you find is information leading to coordinates in Northern Greenland.
Your father wants you to burn the documents and be done with it.
Now as it's not really a common thing to get letters from your dead loved ones..
..and not knowing much about his father in the first place and probably having a lot of curiosity about his father in his upbringing -
*Catches breath* xD
Philip couldn't resist to investigate further into them.
Eventually, he found himself in uninhabitable Northern Greenland outside a small hatch that leads underground.
That's where the game takes off.
Moving on..
First off, the interaction with your environment altogether is better than in Amnesia (in my opinion).
You have items like the pickaxe, to break down weak structures.
And you don't just have one light source to hold like in Amnesia.
In Penumbra-
you have the glow stick,
similar to the lantern.
It's very dim and lights up around you.
Then, you have the flashlight -
which lights up a far distance in front of you.
Then you have the flare -
which you can only light once until it goes out.
You can even throw it in case you want to see what's far in front of you.
I feel like having all these light sources with different value and purpose gives much more depth to the game,
whereas in Amnesia you just have the lantern and tinderbox. :\
The immersion really kicked in for me when I played Penumbra in 2011 and realized all the available light sources compared to the minimal light sources in Amnesia.
And if you're wondering if Penumbra had something similar to the "tinderbox" in Amnesia.
In Penumbra, you have the "lighter".
You can use this lighter to light lamps around you.
Also, I think the inventory management system in the Penumbra series is actually a lot better -
in that which you can place items in number slots so you can press a number to pull up an item-
without even opening your inventory which once again, increases immersion.
Another thing I love about Penumbra is the player's ability to examine almost EVERYTHING.
Just about every item you examine something, the game comes up with a long sentence describing it -
which somehow makes me feel more immersed!
Being able to examine an item in Amnesia is a lot more rare and when you do examine something -
it usually has to do something directly with the story.
And if the examination doesn't have anything to do with the story, it'll just play a noise.
Which I guess is better than nothing. :\
And perhaps Frictional Games' goal was to only examine things that have to do with your current quest, (To avoid confusion)
but in Penumbra I never found myself getting too lost because of all the things that I could examine.¯\_(ツ)_/¯
When I examined something that had to do with my current quest in Penumbra -
it was quite clear that it was part of a quest.
Then again, this was MY experience with the Penumbra series -
and the ability to examine so many objects may have confused you,
but it didn't for me.
Let's talk about Penumbra Overture's enemies.
Now I know a lot hate how you can fight the enemies in Overture and that the combat isn't the best, which is very true,
but the way the monster act in Overture is so much better than in Amnesia!
You can collect beef jerky throughout the game and lure dogs out of your path and they will eat the food for a few seconds which gives you some time to sneak away.
You can even lure a dog in a caged area with deadly steam pipes, wait for it to walk in for the beef you threw in the caged area, close the gate behind it and turn on the pipes to kill it
Brilliant gameplay.
And although you may be able to outsmart the dogs here and there,
be careful,
if the canine feels it is too much in danger -
it will howl and call it's other friends to come tear you to shreds.
If that doesn't sound bad enough,
I've witnessed a dog propel itself from sandbags to reach me standing on a crate where I thought I was safe.
If you're at an unreachable height -
the dogs will pace back and forth like it's frustrated.
Whether this was intentional by the developers is unknown.
Better than spinning in circles... -.-
It seems like Amnesia's enemy AI is greatly dumbed down; in fact, the monsters are absolutely retarded.
They run in circles and into walls even when I set path-nodes for them.
That isn't very intimidating.
Another about the monsters in the Penumbra series is the variety.
There's very different and unique monsters in the series that act in very different ways.
Yes, you have a large variety of monsters in the Amnesia collection but they all act very similar.
In Penumbra, you have the dogs, which usually come in packs.
You have the infected, that act similar to Amnesia's monsters.
You have the spiders which are almost always found in eggs until they explode and out comes the spiders crawling towards you.
You have the worm which chases you on several occasions and can kill you in one hit.
Even though Amnesia has a large variety of monsters they all feel the same.
Speaking of variety, I like how each level and even chapter feels so much different in the Penumbra Series.
Penumbra Overture is an abandoned mine,
while Penumbra: Black Plague almost feels completely different.
It feels more sci-fi in that which it takes place in an research underground facility.
In each game, one level you're wandering in an abandoned mine, the next you're on top of a frozen lake.
The complete change of atmosphere shifts quite a lot in the Penumbra series.
I don't think Amnesia is an overall worse game, it's actually much much better and way more polished than Penumbra in so many ways.
but there are those few things Amnesia either took completely away, or dumbed down that I really liked about the Penumbra series and that's a shame.
I'm sure there are those that have different opinions about what I stated in this video and that's totally fine,
this is what I feel Penumbra did better.
Now I'm sure I missed some facts that I could have collected from the back of my mind that I'll remember only after uploading this video so I'll hate myself for forgetting those,
but I hope you were insightful and tolerant of what I had to say in this video.
However, one rule of thumb I have started to form for this channel in my mind is that "If unsure, create a part two video for it", and that's the case for all my videos.
I am Frictional Daily, thanks for watching.
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