Tag Archive for 'Frictional'

Penumbra: Requiem

By Alex McLarty on August 28, 2008 in News. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

 

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Frictional Games have released Penumbra: Requiem for Windows:

Penumbra: Requiem is an expansion to Penumbra: Black Plague and is to be considered an epilogue to that game and not as a new episode in the Penumbra franchise. The main goal with Penumbra: Requiem has been to focus more on the physics puzzles and see how far the current engine could be taken. This has made Requiem into a game that focuses more on gameplay and puzzles than the previous Penumbra instalments and a game that is more experimental in nature.

Although having a strong emphasis on puzzles the game still features a dense atmosphere, a trade mark of the Penumbra series. In Overture the goal was to induce strong fears from isolation, in Black Plague a main theme was paranoia and Requiem does its best to deliver a nightmarish and feverish atmosphere. Penumbra: Requiem is an attempt to deliver a fresh and rewarding experience and not just some rehash of previous material.

Mac OS X and Linux versions are due shortly. What I love about Frictional’s games is their light subject matter: isolation, paranoia, fever, terror, murder, madness. What about fluffy things? Without razor teeth.

In the meantime, read my review of Penumbra: Overture and then sit in the darkness, brooding, isolated, waiting for my review of The Black Plague.

 

CVG: Myst for the iPhone

By Alex McLarty on August 22, 2008 in News. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Computer and Videogames:

A version of Myst is heading to iPhone, developer Cyan has confirmed.

The news came from a post on the official Myst forums, where an unnamed developer confirmed that a small team of three has already started working on the touchscreen port.

“This is a small project that probably a very few of you know about,” said the post. “We are porting Myst to the iPhone.”

“Ok, before some of you start groaning, this is an outside funded project that is keeping a few developers employed… but it is really more than that. It is an interesting and fun project.”

Mindless puzzles on the bus, on the toilet… sounds like a natural fit to us. We’ll let you know when the first details hit.

Mindless puzzles? That’s not what I remember about Myst. What I do remember is gorgeous 3D environments, challenging, logic based puzzles and an original story.

I wonder if Cyan will take a leaf out of Frictional’s book and add mimic movement for things like levers and wheels, instead of just a click to operate.

It’s wonderful that Myst - a game released 15 years ago - is still making headlines today. Some games never die.

Riven was the sequel to Myst that was insanely difficult. I’d love to see it on the iPhone.  I never finished Riven, but I remember wandering around the photo-realistic environments in awe. Beautiful and haunting.

It’s great that these games are coming back to the Mac, too. Since we moved to Mac OS X and Intel, many of these games are troublesome to run on existing hardware.