Ok everyone. I have contacts. No. Not instead of my glasses. I’d much rather have an arthritis suffering sadist attempt laser surgery on me whilst they were blindfolded, drunk and untrained in the matter, than poke myself in the eye each morning. I mean the kind where you keep in touch with other people. The brilliant people at http://www.greatpcgames.co.uk has agreed for us to source some of their reviews, so that you can read them from the one site. Very kind of them, I think. As a sort of ‘premier’ for the blatant abuse of power this gives us, I present to you, Penumbra!

I myself played this game, but it scared the hibbie-jibbies out of me, so I called it quits right after level one. Here’s what the head-writer at Great PC Games had to say about it.

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This is awesome. Really, none of my usual sarcasm, none of the loaded statements that suggest one thing and lead to another. Just an all out, honest and very satisfied sigh of relief that I managed to finish the game without any permanent psychological damage (I hope)

The controls are easy enough, the physics engine is so much fun and the atmosphere is sooooooo well constructed that I felt cold at the start and found myself looking round my monitor looking through windows and doorways trying to get a better view. I am sorry to say that it did not work! But until we get that kind of interactive gaming this will more than suffice.

The graphics are more than good enough, and the puzzles, although sometimes a little frustrating, are actually pretty obvious once you figure them out. You are provided with everything you need and although there seem to be a few red herrings, they are worth it.

The best thing about Penumbra is the way they let your imagination do most of the work. It is far too easy to have hoards of baddies homing in on you, but they avoid it here. If it weren’t for the constant imminent danger it could be quite a nice day out (if you like abandoned and decrepit mines in the frozen wastes of Greenland)

Play this. Even if you don’t normally like adventures, just play it because it was far better than any film I have ever seen, I just wish that there were more than 3 in the series.

10/10