Pathologic

"Weird. Really weird. And I found it gripping. Sort of enjoyable - for a vicious plague, that is."

(Score modification - the translation is horrible, but the rest brings the score to much higher than I would usually give for that sort of major flaw)

Introduction
Pathologic is a Russian game which was released in 2006. It is the most unusual and down-right weird game that I have ever played. It ignores standard genres and consequently game-play is a thoroughly incomparable experience. I can't remember how I found this game but it's turned out to be as seriously unique as promised. To give you some background it's a Russian game with a fanatical following and it won all sorts of home-grown awards. It's billed as a puzzle game where you play one of three characters trying to stop/contain a plague in a small, weird town. It's main problem is the language; the translation is shaky and this isn't helped by the original text being deliberately obscure in places. However, if you can get over that, you're in for a fascinating experience.

Just one disclaimer - I've only played one of the characters, the easiest. However, I don't know if I'll make good on my plan to complete another one yet, so thought I'd write the review now.

Gameplay
The gameplay is as a first-person adventure game. It's a cross between a first-person murder mystery and real-time simulation. You wander around a large scale town and stick entirely to the area, but can go inside all the buildings and watch the time tick from day to night and back again. You get a huge map in Pathologic (which goes weird when you zoom out on later days) and you can call at/break into any house (or shop) that you choose; although you have to do all the walking. And the walking in turn means I don't play it for very long at a stretch as I get motion sickness.

You play one of three characters (I've played Batchelor, the easiest - which is short for "Batchelor of Medicine" and in turn says volumes about the language/atmosphere in this game) and they all have different roles in the unfolding story. In fact you can't play the girl (Devotress) until you've played at least one of the other two (the other is Ripper - a surgeon). The game has a fixed length because it's sort of real time (speeded up that is, an hour of game time is about five minutes real-time) and, as the game reminds you at the start of each of its days, there are twelve days to survive. There's a bit of combat, but it's mostly a quest and story thing. With constant marching around the town (and examining trash cans).

The game claims to adapt to the choices you make and to have multiple different endings. Having got through as one character, I believe this to be true. I think it gives you more freedom than any other adventure/mystery game I've ever seen and it means that faq designing is very difficult (although the makers do have one on their website).

The controls are keyboard and mouse. The mouse is the viewpoint and it can be clicked in fights and to select objects. The keyboard controls other things including movement, quest notes (a symbol comes up on the screen when this is added to), letter-reading (new letters bring up a symbol on your screen, but no other prompts to read the important communications), inventory, sneak and a few others (I never found a use for jump, but that may say more about me). They're fine to use, but I found I had my finger down on W (move forward) an awful lot. Also, it's well worth returning to the manual after the first day or two to check that you're not missing anything.

Whilst the controls are (relatively) straight-forward, Pathologic is not an easy game. That said, I'm a bit of a completist freak and so didn't like missing anything. Plus I'm not a first-person shooter player and I suspect that if you are it gets a bit easier - particularly the combats. The quests are not too bad to begin with; speak to X, buy Y, but soon (a few days down the line) you're looking to take out some person or other with combat using unfamiliar weapons and wondering whether you should have talked to someone else first/be doing something else. Also the game gets harder in other ways. For example, locations mentioned by characters in the first couple of days get automatically marked on your map; by day six, however, you need to look around a more vaguely marked area and by the end you'd better know where the Knots (etc) are and be prepared to go hunting for a lot of things. Also, I'd strongly suggest starting as the Batchelor unless you like challenge in your games as he has the easiest start (the Ripper's start involves being beaten to a pulp and made an outlaw before you get anywhere near the controls).

Is Pathologic fun? Well, that's not quite the word I would associate with it. It's a game about a vicious plague after all. In fact, I'm aware that some players have regarded it more as a stress-enhancing ritual that they passed through because they wanted to see it out to the end. For example, the death count climbs disturbingly. Plus other characters will blame you for the infection of important characters (and you will wonder whether it was your fault). All that said, I enjoyed it, would recommend it and have started playing a second character (the Ripper, as I want to do all three).

Story
The setting (checks box) is, er.. last century, probably mid last century (some things are quite modern but What No Cars?). The town has a strange social structure with roughly twenty important characters (called Adherents). Many of these characters - but not all - are organised into families with specific histories/traits. You are responsible for keeping about a third of them alive (and you probably want to help the other two thirds as well). You'll get told which third at some point during the first day and they'll appear as the second tab on your stats charts (and then you'll need to keep track of them as no-one will prompt you to keep them alive more than any other characters).

The town is divided into three main parts but has a number of other weird areas and buildings as well. Including some architectural impossibilities. It won't be very long before you'll be itching to get inside some of those buildings just to see what on earth their purpose is. The town also has a theatre with a masks' play that you can see every night which is, sort-of, telling your story. You need to bumble in after midnight to catch the latest installment.

Events unfold on a daily basis as conditions worsen in the town. It's difficult to write much without giving spoilers, but I think I can say that things substantially change every few days in terms of what's going on. Your quests vary from day to day, but are connected with the people and conditions in town. All the town characters have their own agendas (and, unlike in some games, this really is true) and many will consequently mislead you (although they tend to be quite subtle about it). And an awful lot won't make sense to any one playable character (having started playing the Ripper, I can now answer some of the things bugging me as the Batchelor). Also it's amazing what you'll stop caring about, even though it seemed really important at the time, because it's been overtaken by a larger crisis.

Overall the story is pretty decent, although I still have a number of unanswered questions that I hope will be solved through playing the other characters. Also, the ending is superbly strange (the one I saw anyway - there are multiple endings).

Graphics/Sound
The graphics are nicely done (the town is not supposed to look picturesque), the soundtrack is rather good if same-y (same-y suits this game). The sound effects work well and, after a while, you figure when the noise means that you need to dodge or run. Its big problem however, is the language. The translation is, err, brave, but somewhat rubbish. This isn't helped by the fact that the original Russian is also supposed to be artsy and obscure in places. However, if you can handle this the resulting game is well worth it.

Play Time/Replayability
An hour game-time is about five minutes real-time and you wander around for roughly sixteen hours on this ratio and require about eight hours of sleep (although you can take a maximum of six at any one time) which is pretty instant. In theory, therefore, you can do the whole game (twelve days) in one very long day on your PC. However this allows no time for reloads which, if you're as bad a shot as I am with a gun, you'll need. Ditto for dodging plague carriers. I found it was a couple of weeks in total, mostly playing evenings.

I think it's replayable and want to do all three characters. However I know that other players have had mixed feelings and felt that once-through was quite traumatic enough, thanks.

Final Recommendation
Given how cheap it is, I would recommend buying this new. Although, because it is such an odd game, perhaps it would be worth renting first just to make sure you don't want to run off into the sunset screaming instead. Or perhaps as well.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/29/08

Game Release: Pathologic (EU, 08/18/06)