Pathologic

[Szlia]

Here is one of these annoying topic with only a link and a dumb question.

The link.

Anyone played that?

The link in one sentence: a clunky yet super ambitious russian game in a Silent-hillesque ambiance.

[Szlia]

So it is obscure heh?

[Vorph]

I didn't pay much attention to it when it was released in English last year, but it does sound cool. The major complaints seem to be a lack of direction, dated graphics, and some really bad Russian translations. The idea of a whole town being modeled, with interiors, sounds promising though. Guess I'll queue it up to download while I'm at Zodiac today.

[Vorph]

Very interesting concept. I wouldn't call it a great game though. Even if you ignore the dated graphics, there are some pretty serious issues with it.

There's apparently three different stories to go through, two of which you can pick from right away and a third that's opened up after completing one of the others. The game takes place over 12 days, and time ticks along regardless of what you do. That's a good thing and a bad thing; on one hand it's more realistic, but on the other hand you can easily miss out of plot points that can only be done in a certain time frame. People can die if you don't prevent it, and that means getting to the right place at the right time. You also need to eat, drink, sleep, and deal with any infection you pick up from the plague that seems to be spreading in the town.

Which basically means you'll either be repeating days over in order to complete everything in a timely manner, or you'll be consulting a walkthrough a lot. Time doesn't pass that quickly though and you aren't exactly rushed to complete everything (at least early on, I'm not that far into it still). Directions aren't always precise though and since the entire town is yours to explore you can sometimes find yourself wandering around for a long time. Main plot locations are placed on a map though. There was another quest I got early on with just some vague directions about a house near some ruins... for things like that you need to save before going on a search, then load the game once you know exactly where it is in order to not waste time.

Other major annoyances:
Running speed is way too slow. Some fast travel options really would have been nice because the town is rather maze-like in parts and repeatedly visiting places gets old quickly.

And the biggest thing of all -- the translation. I suspect that even in the original Russian the dialog wasn't terribly coherent, as many of the characters speak in riddles, but something was definitely lost in translation too. You have to be careful in what you say to people as one of the stats in the game is your reputation, and sometimes it's not at all clear what will offend. Trying to understand the plot, what's going on in the town, who the various main characters are and whether they are with you or against you, etc. is quite frustrating.