The lack of cut-scenes is a real downer because the game feels a bit bare-bone. Can anyone imagine playing a horror game—Resident Evil 2, Silent Hill, F.E.A.R., etc. without the cut-scenes? Penumbra does manage to tell a story—but without any cut-scenes or videos so to speak, one feels as if something crucial is missing. Plus for people looking to unwind or just to be scared senseless, the interruptions and time taken to read various notes becomes a drag because ignoring the collected notes will confuse the player due to crucial information they provide on what to do next.

Penumbra’s controls are effective. Your character can sprint indefinitely away from hazards; he can crouch, walk, and jump fairly high. You can assign inventory items to any number on the keyboard. The only mediocre aspect is the extremely average and sometimes frustrating combat. Aiming is hellish and even with the crosshair enabled, it takes a long time to consecutively land hits. It could be taken either way because, perhaps it was the developer’s intentions to downgrade the combat somewhat so as to enhance the feeling of despair and futility and encourage the avoidance of enemies; however, one could also argue that there’s no excuse to have a faulty melee system since the only weapons that Phil can use are melee weapons (the game has no guns and the most powerful melee weapon is acquired early on: pickaxe.) Even the fighting is skewed to unfairly strengthen your enemies.

For example it took me at least five full swings of the pickaxe at point-blank-range, on a dog’s head, in order to kill it. Time and time again, swing after swing, the dog stood up as if it was awoken from napping. It’s ludicrous that five swings with a quasi-sharp, almost blunt, object to the cranium of a seemingly normal canine (that happens to be rabid and afflicted by huge infectious sores) does not kill said canine. The dogs have super-human strength—wielding the uncanny ability to break down barricades composed of thick wooden doors and two weighted barrels with rocks on top for added pressure, which can easily turn an enjoyable experience into that of frustration.