You play as Glenn Anderson a new staff member at a secret base located in North Africa (NAB). NAB was started to study creatures known as 591b's. These creatures/591b's had never been documented before. Unfortunately for Glenn Anderson the creature's/591b's escape and are on the lose in NAB. Glenn Anderson needs to get out as soon as he has the chance before he becomes a victim of the 591b.
I wasn't expecting too much.
The good stuff is, the visual aspect of this mod did impress me, a lot.
Despite so, I noticed some bad performance drops, but they weren't too major to be absolutely unplayable.
The use of fake volumetric lighting as well as what appears to be colour grading/correction was impressive to say the least.
But everything else? Dull, boring...Deja vu.
I say Deja Vu because the many puzzles in this mod are near-direct copies from Penumbra itself.
Hell, the whole play between both is similar if identical; you get to a "possibly infected" person, that person does get infected.
You get help from your only person to help you, that person betrays you (Take is Clarence but he's an individual being instead of some entity in your mind).
This really killed the story and lore for me, I WAS expecting an original story, maybe some similarities with Penumbra but not a direct copy with added sugar and salt on it.
Now it is mentioned that there are 4 monsters, I think I saw them all.
The 591b creature itself, the hybrid (519b/human), a juvenile 591b and I think a mature (not adult) 519b.
What's the difference? Virtually none. They appear to use just one or two textures, their animations are very undone.
The worst part is that they ALWAYS appear when you DO EXPECT THEM MOST. A closed door with some blood trails and the final note of a now-dead survivor? You got it.
I have never encountered a scary monster encounter in this mod, it was all just cliche'd, obviously put. That was the big disappointment, not how bland the monsters are.
It's not that the look of the monsters is all too bad, they ARE original for once.
If this is too much for you, the real two worst parts; puzzles and inventory management.
As many others have said, be it reviewers or players, there is not a single hint as to what you should do, use on and the like. That last one about the pipe is simply brainless, nobody would figure that out.
If you do, without any help, please tell me...But I doubt I will trust you.
And what's this about inventory management?
The game's darkness is extremely dark, I had to turn up gamma (I didn't have to do this in any other mod or the game Amnesia itself) so I could see better, the location is somewhat extremely shy of light in comparison to the Greenland Shelter from Penumbra.
Finding objects and the like was a real pain, mostly because you'd have to constantly use the flashlight as it was hard to see, and when you did, the items glow white, so it would be easy to miss them even if they were right in your face.
I would also like to mention that the design of the doors is just...Weird.
Why are they so huge? Was this just a bad design, or it was intentional?
I can see the creatures are big, somewhat tall, but not enough to be needing special tall and wide doors.
Now...Just a tiny nitpick, because I don't like to do this...Yes, there were many grammar errors, but the worst must be how the author decided to type "u" instead of "you". As one comment stated, this is unprofessional. But the use of phone (now internet) language is what takes the cake, drawing a portal to a dimension of skepticism and subjective disappointment.
But as I have said, I do not like to put language (spelling & grammar, unless ABSOLUTELY terrible) and voice acting in consideration because I always expect the lowest standard no matter what, so don't consider this in the vote...But DO consider about improving it.
No, better yet, be challenged to make it perfect.
I wanted to give this mod a chance...And I still do.
I believe, considering the version is 0.2, the mod is simply not finished.
I have good hopes that this mod will be better, so long as the author respects the reviews given, be they harsh-but-true or not.
Although a tremendously great mod with so many ups, I do feel there were a few downs as well. Since there are too many things to say that are good such as custom textures, Penumbra feel, etc. - I won't describe them all.
The downs, however, were that the puzzles in the mod were very difficult at times for no good reason and that the monsters didn't feel like an actual monster but, more of a runaway train coming towards you in a tunnel;
The puzzle problem is due to the part where this mod does not hold your hand at all which can be a good thing, but isn't always a good thing. There were pretty much no clues at all on how to actually progress besides look around and figure it out for yourself which, again, isn't always bad. It is however when looking around doesn't always pop up with anything because it'll be trial and error. For starters, there was no clue - to my knowledge - of the fact I was supposed to know to throw a rock, and only the rock, to break a pipe with gas in order to open a door; This is an example of just looking around is not helpful. I was also very confused on the part with the green laser that blew you up and you had to get the oil because I couldn't find the bar that you used to break open the cabinet at first. It didn't glow and I couldn't use my hammer which made me think I was supposed to find a key instead. Why couldn't I used the hammer, it's glass!
The secondary thing to my disliking were the monsters - the few times there were monsters was when they spawned right next to a door in front of you and you just have to run away; hiding wouldn't be an option because they've already seen you. This happens with Travis, the man writing the papers, AND the one in the library section. There were no feelings of suspense with hiding or having the enemies just patrol but, still be able to get past without them detecting you like in the original Amnesia and Penumbra series. The monsters felt like a one track mind with even less A.I. movement than Penumbra.
Furthermore on downs:
There were some bugs such as opening the library with the key card and then leaving the level only to have it be shut when I came back inside. I got stuck in that library - I don't even know how it happened since it was open, I went inside, and next time I look it's shut so I was very confused. There were also so many crashes which are expected with a mod of this proportion so it's understandable yet still not forgiven. I had to press load game every time because pressing continue would just crash the mod.
Another small problem is that I felt like there was very little character development - I only got four lines out of the voice in my head and I didn't even remember Travis' name when he asked to give him another chance at the endings.
One thing I'm not counting, however, is frame rate issues, This is because it has the very likely possibility to be my own poop computer even though it runs a game like Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs perfectly fine.
So overall, this was a fantastically made mod with a lot of work done into it. I do feel bad giving it a seven but, I didn't feel any natural suspense besides the beginning, the endings felt extremely abrupt, There were constant crashes (sometimes even when just trying to enter a new level) the game had major problems with not lending a hand with puzzles, there was very little character development, I felt Deja Vu in a LOT of locations (meaning it looked similar and boring [eg. copy and paste room layouts]), The monsters were cool looking, though had a boring A.I. which was sometimes broken and exploited against (eg. using the computer in the library to stand on top of and the enemy couldn't see me) and I felt the lighting before being given the flashlight should be increased just a tad bit more.
Besides all these downs, the custom textures, custom music, new enemy models, and the whole Penumbra feel really makes this mod a good one to play as long as your willing to get frustrated at times.
Thank you BGProductions for taking the time to make such a cool mod and for letting me partake in the voice acting of it.
Great atmosphere (similar to Penumbra games), but the plot is too simple and the puzzles are not complicated :)
This was interesting. A good mod for someone who demands more Penumbra-like games. To me it was like "Penumbra in Africa". The horror was built up pretty well, there were many moments near the beginning when I expected the monster to pop out at some point. Either way, a fun run. i will hold on to this mod to eventually replay it at some point. My main problem is that there was too much repetition of various boxes in hallways which kind of made almost every room look like a storage.
Excellent mod with everything I loved in Penumbra.
You nailed penumbra atmosphere pretty well, but monster encounters were sometimes cheap, gameplay felt like walking and key quest simulator for the most part (they looked like other objects sometimes, not even giving a clue how to use them). It had some well designed neat areas, some length with many short levels, but you filled the rooms with the same few objects many times. I appreciate the work you've done here but i got quite bored by the end, none of the good puzzles or story was there people got accustomed with penumbra, so i'll give it a 7/10 for decent designs and some nice ideas.
A great mod ;)
Great sound good history nice puzzles I have no bug or something, no scary abuse (this is basic for my good rating) and really good voice.
I didnt like your game.Neither the environment(too many useless items and doors) nor the creatures did it for me.Also i noticed you inserted some puzzles that have already been used in penumbra games.
Awesome mod!
Custom monsters and the music are great, even if they are easy to evade. But I can evade the suitor on the original game, so... Eheheh.
The mapping is very good. The light it can not be better than that, because the engine and the textures. The story is addictive.
Long gameplay as I like.