Penumbra series, underrated and overlooked ?

[Skaruts]

The series is way underrated. This has to do with gaming review sites not getting any money grease. That's how it works imo. This is why indie publishers have a hard time.

I don't know if that's how it works, but I believe they have to cover the "great" AAA games mostly so that they (themselves) get some attention from the public. I wonder, if a gaming website grows up on indie deving solely I think they will have a hard time getting the same attention.

But... on a second thought, I think you may be right. After all, their reporters and reviewers don't do all their work for a loaf of bread and I doubt they can get their salaries out of adds in the websites.

I'm only giving some hunches, I really don't know how it really works.
But I think they could be a little more forgiving with indies when they really deserve it. Is this world so gready by now that people can't waste five minutes of their time on something that may represent $5 less of income? I mean, it would be some kind of charity, and also some kind of interest for their own. Who knows promoting Penumbra like hell wouldn't end up filling their pockets someday?

Cuz yea, I think it's way underrated. If you look at this list, for example:

Arx Fatalis
Thief 3
Penumbra
Doom 3
Half-Life 2
Bioshock

Does it really get blurred by the others? I think not. Penumbra really makes up for it with all the ingredients all other games in this list have. Good gameplay, good grafics, good physics, etc. Actualy, penumbra has much better physics than some of these, and better graphics than Arx, way better lighting/shadows than Half-Life 2, while still being probably the most low-end-PC-friendly of all. Arx is another underrated game, but maybe it's "paying for it's sins", in a way. And on top of that, Penumbra has shown to be scarrier and more coherent than most horror games, and also has introduced quite some new concepts of gaming.

EDIT: Penumbra as a game, not speaking technically, has as much of an interesting content as any of these games, even more interesting than some (Doom 3 and Bio, imho).

And besides, voice acting in penumbra is way more realistic than most games I've seen around lately. Most of them are becoming too "hollywoodish" and theatrical, in my honest opinion (Oblivion, Dark Rain, Bioshock, and many more). Penumbra sounds very realistic and simple or raw, if you will, and much like people would sound in real life. That is a huge must if you're trying to get the player into immersion. That's how Stephen King build his characters too, and oh! Wadda ya know! It works so much better!

So, I hope Amnesia will finally get a good percent of the masses attention. Steam is a good thing after all, and probably will be great from Amnesia onwards. Being a highly populated community and with lots of promotions it will surely help these guys a lot. Even if the media don't give it due respect, I foresee a brighter future for FG.

Skaruts

Btw, aren't there any indie-related-only review websites?