These are very early impressions, but may be the only impressions I'll have as I expect to abandon this one soon.

PENUMBRA:Overture, right off the bat, has too many of the things I hate in games. Fighting and dying. Timed elements. No way to save a game when I want to. Very awkward controls.

It does have one great feature; you can pick up an item and carry it in your "hand". If I had had to kick that rock from one place to the next, I would have given up then and there. This illusive technology would have made URU much more bearable. I wonder if the Cyan guys will call up the developers at Frictional Games (publisher of PENUMBRA:Overture) and try to get them to spill the beans on how they accomplished this?

I agree with this. Took me about 30 minutes to figure out the controls.

But maybe I'm just stupid :-/

I think that, despite the developers calling Penumbra an "adventure" game, it is not. The gameplay and controls are certainly not adventure-like. Hacking at and trying to kill wolves with a pickaxe is not what most people would call an adventure game. I would have classified it as at least an action/adventure title. The developer should have as well, it would have eliminated the confusion that is arising.

Rusty

Randwill -- what percentage of the gameplay so far involves fighting and timed challenges? We were told in advance that it would only be about 10 percent of gameplay.

Becky, I'm not far enough to tell yet. The timed element I have experienced is a flashlight that rapidly runs out of power. Though I haven't really needed to use it, I have had it on a few times early in the mine sequence. By which I mean, I had it on the first time I went into the mines but had to quit playing. Since I couldn't save my game, I had to play the mine sequence again, but found I was able to do so without even using the flashlight.

Randwill, is your impression of the game changing as you are getting further into it?

I'm out. The lack of a way for me to save a game at my convenience and the terrible controls are deal killers for me.

I only have short periods in which I play nowadays and I am not interested in replaying sections to get to a pre-determined save point. The developers should look into ways of allowing players to save their game like every other PC adventure game I've ever played. (Except Uru, for which, I believe, a work-around was found.)

And the controls, keyboard + mouse (what? no foot pedal?), are no fun either. The game advises you to turn down the lights when playing and that would be great, but then, how the heck can I see the keyboard?

Those, coupled with the fighting, dying, health meter and rapidly fading flashlight problem take this out of the range of the kind of games I enjoy. It is apparently aimed at adventure gamers who crave more action or action gamers who crave more cerebral challenges and I am not in either of those categories.

Thanks for the info. I don't like games that don't let you save at will either.

Hi, interesting topic.
I did not mind much about the save system nor the use of the keyboard.
There was other ways to get light (glowing stick) if of course a player finds it.
The technical way of using things like opening a door or moving a crate is special.
All the activities to be done in the game is interesting, EXCEPT the fighting and dying part over and over.
Must have tried 50 times to kill a big dog.
Did not.
But I won: I deleted the game

Chief

I downloaded the game a couple of months ago.
The Demo...It was disappointing...But I'm sure the Developers will get it right..It is a Spooky Game...But alot more work has to be done...

I do Give credit where it is due..I think its a Neat Game...But the Game needs some Tweaking...& OverHaul...

Good Luck Writers On The Next Game..
My Opinion

I think I'll be passing on this one! Glad I saw this post before I bought it

Chief
I hope your still playing the game I found a cheat <span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">(one hit kills anything)Go in penumbra overture--episode 1 open settings.cfg with notepad--set SimpleWeaponsSwing to "true" Now you can have a stabbing motion with the hammer or pick ax.</span></span> I killed 5 spiders and lived to tell about it.
Richard

Hi kjos -- I put the cheat info in a spoiler tag so people who haven't played the game yet wouldn't accidentally stumble across it.

Thanks -- it looks like it will be helpful!

Thanks Becky sorry about that.
Richard

No problem.

Thank you for your impressions of the game randwill, it seems it might have some interesting aspects - but after wondering about the game - I don't think I will be buying it!!