Native Linux horror games on sale

17/07/2009

You know how Linux really lacks in the gaming department? Well, the people over at Frictional Games and Paradox Interactive have certainly done their part by porting their popular horror game triology, The Penumbra Series, to Linux! That’s right. No Wine, no Cedega. A native port of one of the most well-made horror game series ever made!

But not only that! They’re actually selling all of the games in the series for a total cost of $5! For the cost of a pizza you’re getting three very high quality games, running natively in Linux.

Any screenshots, trailers or anything?

Sure thing! Here are the trailers for all three of the games, along with some screenshots and a review.

Penumbra Overture

Penumbra Black Plague

Penumbra Requiem

Review by Adam Templeton:

Players immerse themselves in Penumbra’s chilling world through a plucky, inquisitive physicist named Phillip. After his dear old mum kicks the bucket, Phil receives a letter from his father, Howard, a man supposedly deceased. The message is full of cryptic directions to somewhere in Greenland, as well as a plea to destroy all evidence leading to it. Instead, Phillip decides to journey to the ends of the earth to determine what exactly mortified his dad.

The biggest draw of Penumbra, aside from its creepy, subterranean locales, is the real-world physics engine players use to solve puzzles. While exploring a vacant mineshaft whose tunnels house a highly advanced research facility, players can mess with the world around them in a simple, logical fashion.

[...]

The story matches the characters, boasting a top-notch narrative and a tendency to wax philosophical (anything that calls human existence banal gets brownie points in my book). The ending to the first episode is anti-climactic at best, and the third episode is devoid of plot advancement all together. Still, the tale told in episode two makes up for everything.

[...]

Penumbra brings back everything good about Survival Horror and Adventure games at a time when the first genre is dying and the second is already a corpse with an occasional, involuntary muscle spasm. The game rewards scheming and advance planning over the more conventional “make ‘em all dead” approach the big studios cling to like gospel.

At the risk of sounding pretentious (which with me is like saying there’s a chance reading the Nation/World section of a newspaper could depress you a tad), Penumbra is a thinking man’s — or lady’s — Survival Horror Game.

Read full review here.

Sweet! Where can I buy the games?

You can either go to the website and navigate your way from there: http://www.penumbragame.com

Or you can go directly to the store: https://store6.esellerate.net/store/checkout/CustomLayout.aspx?s=STR9929807578&pc=&page=OnePageCart.htm

Either way, I hope you’ll support this brave move. The best way to show developers that it’s worth their time to make games for Linux is to buy the games that are already available. At only $5 there’s really no reason whatsoever to not buy them. So hurry up and get yourself some of the best Linux gaming available before this offer expires (July 19).

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Written by Tommy Brunn

Tommy Brunn is the author of blastfromthepast.se. Currently he is living pretty much as close to the north pole as you can get (Luleå, Sweden). He devotes his spare time to learning about programming, developing a FOSS point-and-click adventure game, and is currently studying software engineering at Luleå University of Technology.

Just 1 comment? You can do better than that!

  1. 25/07/2009Win all three Penumbra games! | Blast from the past said:

    [...] chance of winning all three games in the Penumbra series! The series represent the very best in native Linux horror gaming - or dare I say the best horror gaming on any platform? The games are available for Windows Linux [...]

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