Swanson [Spoilers]

[Omni]

I whipped open a COLLADA viewer and grabbed some screenshots of Swanson, as we have all wondered what she looked like. Thought I would put that to rest:

Not bad, actually. Doesn't look so good in the profile shot, but the mesh is pretty plain and low-res.



Now I found it to be a shame she had to die, though it was necessary for the story and theme of the game. It wouldn't fit the mood at all if she had lived. So that I'm not disappointed by. Having Phillip kill her was also a good move, I liked that. But the scene just didn't feel right. I was figuring Clarence might play a trick on me, so I let the infected attack me at first. It ran up to me and tore my skin off. Upon seeing that, with the odd foreshadowing of the room, I hoped that it wouldn't turn out to still be a trick. Then I heard the scream and thought to myself, "Yup, I was afraid of that. Lame."

She had to die. Certainly. Clarence tricking you wasn't a bad idea. It added depth to his character. But in all honesty, I'm not sure killing her was a bad idea for Phillip with the way she acted to him. Clarence can only make things appear or disappear (or look like something else), he can't actually control how these things act. (As he's only in Phillip's mind.) Since you DO get your skin torn off, we can be certain that Amabel WAS attacking you, or that Clarence had even more effect on Phillip's mind.



One could argue that Clarence was masking more than just Amabel, and actually the situation went far differently than what we saw, but if he's that powerful, why would he let himself be killed off? He could have just made Phillip "think" he was injecting the cure when he was actually escaping the complex, or killing other infected, or doing whatever Clarence wanted. So that theory is inadequate.

There's also the theory that Amabel saw how infected you were and decided to attack you, possibly thinking you were one of the other infected. This seems unlikely though. Why would she think that this time she could kill the infected, when she had been hiding from them for so long? Wouldn't she run away? Or when seeing you running, she should have at least realized that you weren't like the other infected. (Which just run and attack you outright.) And most of all, she had a potential cure, so it seems incredibly unlikely that she would kill Phillip even with him infected.

Since those two seem unlikely, another option would be that she just outright attacked you, either simply being completely insane or thinking that she could use you as food. These seem unlikely and uncalled for, but she could have been hiding her insanity. The only problem with this is that if she were not infected and thus still capable of reason, and this follows for the previous theory as well, why would she fall for the falling box trick? Wouldn't she have noticed Phillip raising the box, putting his hand on the lever and then watching her running at him? If nothing else, wouldn't she have jumped out of the way by reflex? (At least enough to prevent death.) Even if she realized it at the last second, as she heard the box begin to fall, that would have been enough time to move somewhat out of the way.



The whole thing doesn't quite fit. You could argue that it was actually an infected and Clarence made it look like Amabel when it was dead, but then why would it have the key, and where's Amabel? It just doesn't follow. This was the issue that stuck out the most for me as far as Black Plague's plot and consistency. It just didn't feel natural, it felt forced. Don't get me wrong, I loved Black Plague, and you guys should keep making horror games; you're extremely good at it and seem to understand what makes a horror game good. However, this issue stuck out in my mind.

Any other theories on Amabel?

[Tommy Gun]

quite a mouthful you just said. I reckon that the theory about being to infected was was good. Your not gunna get many definate answers about this, so i reckon, uve already nailed any posibilities.

[Omni]

Slow moving forum. Oh well.

I suppose it's also possible the developers were going for a sort of frightening loss of control feeling because you don't really know how it happened. If so, though, I'm not sure something which actively feels like it makes no sense was the right way to go. Likely the most accurate answer, however, is just gameplay reasons. It would have been even more annoying if you had to kill an infected that was just standing there as it would have been blatantly obvious what it was. Perhaps they could have made you walk over to the lever that drops the crate and then turn around to see an infected running, and Clarence says "Oh no, we're trapped! Quick, do something!" That would be glorious. You'd get a moment of "Haha, the switch! I'm genius!" followed by "Oh. Oh my. Whoops."

Minor imperfections on an otherwise excellent game, though seemingly a little rushed at the end. Knowing that the devs will have learned quite a bit since these games, I'll be even more interested in their later horror ones. Perhaps in the distant, distant future, when technology has leaped forward even more, perhaps they could do a remake of Penumbra.

[Tommy Gun]

yeah, tis a slow forum, but it is frendly. (i thinnnnnnk.)

look, if you have heard the stuff about requiem, it says that alot of the old characters will be coming back "but will they be trusted."

As for the remake, their currently concentrating on Requiem and Lux Tenebras

[Penumbra]

Old friends? The only possible old friend is probolly Red. He couldn't be trusted in the 1st place.

[Tommy Gun]

he could, but he was like phillip, he had something like clarence in his head.

There might be more friends, like clarence, swanson etc.

by old, they might just mean previous.

[Penumbra]

I hope haward is alive. I mean, you can't just take a nametag on a dead guy and assume he's dead. I did seem like he commited suiside, but you never know, he could be out there somewhere.

[eliasfrost]

But he has no nametag..? I can't remember one though. =/ That's the thing that disturbs me most.

[Penumbra]

yeah, I just assumed that there was a name tag. Philip couldn't of reconised him, he didn't even know he had a father before he went out there.

[Linux.Blue]

weren't there leads though that he was there? like some paper or so talking about Howard being inside the library? it could go both ways, he could be alive and it was either a cruel joke, or someone else ended up in there and Howard left somewhere. or he simply is just dead.
But near the very end, they said one man, Ho-ward, was weak.

The only concrete reason I believe Howard is dead, is because so far, in both games, you don't see anyone actually alive. key word, see. you only hear. Not offending frictional, but do they know or care to have people alive and interact with you?
maybe a still frame cut scene may say otherwise about Howard and others