System Requirements:
Windows 2000/XP/Vista 32 Bit
256MB Memory
1.0 Ghz
Radeon 8500/GeForce 3 (GeForce 4MX Not Supported) Penumbra Requiem is an expansion pack to the popular terror-filled, challenging, and puzzle solving Penumbra Black Plague. You can visit the developer’s website at http://www.penumbrarequiem.com/site/ . You can also find a review for Black Plague at http://www.ccgr.org/reviews-mainmenu-31 ... ter/5011-p . Requiem, as mentioned, is an expansion pack, and the final chapter in the Penumbra series. In the beginning of the game, the developers start you where you left off in Black Plague. Phillip is the main character, and joins us from the previous game. In the previous game, Phillip is in an underground laboratory because he finds clues showing him that his father has been there, and he wants to continue his search for his father. The game starts out showing you that Phillip sends out a message to the outside world, which was the last thing he did in Black Plague. Once he sends his message, he is knocked out by an unknown character in the game. Phillip wakes up in some sort of tomb/cell, and you have to find your way out of the tomb as well as the different rooms you end up in. You are given different clues throughout the game, and throughout the different levels, which helps your character find his way through them. The game play for Requiem is similar to Black Plague, as it is an expansion pack for the game. Requiem is a 3D game, and you are playing it in first person. The images and graphics are pretty detailed, and well done. Although, if you look at the system requirements, it’s an older game, and doesn’t require a high-powered computer to play it. As in the previous game, some of the objects are hard to make out, and can be difficult to understand what they are until you use them, or put them into your inventory. But, like I said, it’s an older game, and was a good game for it’s time. The game is mouse driven by using objects that you find and pick up throughout. The controls are easy to use, and can be changed in the settings to the way you want your look and feel to be. But there is very little keyboard controls for the game, except for general walking, running, and jumping. A lot of your clues are given to you by your character talking to you as you use your mouse to click on objects that you see, and gather for your inventory. The objects and items you pick up are important to the rest of the game for solving your puzzles, and moving on to different levels. If you like games with a lot of challenges, terror, gore, and puzzle solving, I recommend you play the Penumbra series. In my personal opinion, it is a very challenging series. I don’t play a lot of games, but the games that I do play, I enjoy. I had a hard time trying to solve a lot of the puzzles for this game, and Black Plague. I used a FAQ from http://www.gamefaqs.com to help me get through the puzzles, and challenges. There is a lot more puzzle solving, and challenges where you really need to think on your feet in this expansion pack. An example of a challenge that I found to be difficult to solve was on the third level/room. You are in a shaft/duct area and you have to find your way out. You have to get to an area that is too high for you to be able to jump to. So in order to do this, you have to find several switches, and control panels, and play around with those, until certain doors open. Once this happens, you have to be able to move some boxes around to create a staircase in order to climb your way out. I thought that was a lot of work (or thinking), being a beginner, to figure out on my own. But, there are a lot of people who enjoy games in this genre. So, if you enjoy games with a lot of challenges, and puzzle solving, I’d say give it a shot. The game demo is free to the public on their website. http://www.penumbrarequiem.com/site/ The game is marketed as a terror-filled, scary, puzzling, and challenging game. Throughout the game, you see a lot of violent images, such as dead bodies, and blood splatter from employees that have been killed. I played Black Plague, and I felt this expansion pack brought out the story a little more, and helped you understand the rest of the story. I did find this game a little more thrilling, and scary than Black Plague, even though there are no actual monsters that you have to fight off, or at least any that you see, during the game play. The music throughout your experience is pretty good, but not in all areas of the game. Most of the rooms that you explore through have scary sounds, and you hear screaming, and you can hear the monsters in the background.  You never actually see the enemies that you are supposed to be running from. Just keep trying to move through the levels as quick as you can, and solve the puzzles, and you’ll enjoy it. When you play the game, there are 9 or 10 different levels that you go through, and have to solve your way through. Here\'s how the game saves your progress: once you solve your way through a room or level, it saves your progress, loads the next level, and you can move on. You cannot save your session while in the middle of a level; you must complete your objective, and the game will save it for you. Some people prefer you to be able to save your game when ever you want, but that’s not how the game is played. When playing the game through, once you finish, or complete your way through a level, it feels good to be able to see the progress you made. As mentioned before, the game is mouse driven, and a lot of the game play that you do is voice driven. You have to use the mouse to click on different objects, and find out what they are, and add them to your inventory if you feel it’s going to help you. Let\'s say you pick up a book or notebook; you press a key on the keyboard to “use” the object, and the character’s voice will read you the text in it. Another example would be if you walked into a room and you saw a dead body on the ground, Phillip will talk about the surroundings, and explain to you what he sees in the room. Sometimes what you see when you walk into a room, won’t be the most obvious things, and your character will explain things to you the game wants you to know. Such as, if you walk into a room and it’s a freezing cold room, there is no way you would know this, unless it looks cold or something along those lines. But, when your character walks in, he makes a comment like “man, its cold in here. I wonder if there is anything I could do to make it warmer…” That’s when you look around at your surroundings to see if there is anything you can do to help. In that particular level, there was a thermostat that you had to adjust with an object that you were supposed to pick up in an earlier room. That’s just another one of those details that I talked about earlier that I needed to use gamefaqs for. But, the voice guided game play is a fun way to play a game. In this expansion pack I felt the game play, graphics, and images were more detailed than its original game. There was a lot more detail when it came to the gore, blood, dead bodies, and other graphic images. The sounds and music of the game were similar to the previous game. They fit very well with the type of game it is, and can make you jump at times. There are no sexual references in the game, so that’s not something you have to worry about. There is drug use, but it\'s for medical use; in several levels Phillip does find bottles of morphine, but he uses them to help injured people in the game. So, it’s not something that you need to be concerned about, or think badly of. Feel free to try out the demo available on the developer’s website: http://www.penumbrarequiem.com/site/ . If you like terror-filled, puzzling games that really make you think, try out this series. Again, this is only an expansion pack to Black Plague, but if you play Black Plague, this game helps you understand how the last game left off, and more about the story.

 Final Score:  78%