Pathologic Review

By John Walker Published 30 August, 2006

Broken and beautiful.

Version tested: PC

There's a term currently bandied around in gaming discussion with wilful abandon. "Living city". It's something of a misnomer. If anything, the term is used to describe the most static of towns, where NPCs amble around with no fixed agenda, perhaps occasional unscripted scuffles of no consequence are used as set decoration. These cities aren't living. The reality is, the city only ever lives when you start changing it.

Pathologic offers a dying city. It's Oblivion with cancer. A pustule encrusted town where events carry on regardless of your presence, slowly wasting away despite you. This is a fascinating game. And a very broken one. And as such, I'm in something of a pickle.

Cards on the table: I really don't know what to do. Everyone sensible hates the stupid blue numbers at the bottom of the page, that the awful people skip to before stamping their feet in ill-informed puff-chested fury. This is why. There's no reasonable mark here. If Kieron hadn't already used EG's Joker Card when giving multiple scores to Boiling Point, it would happen now. But he has, so instead it's compromise, and a desperate plea that you bloody well read the following.

In Two Minds

Pathologic looks terrible. It's a Russian game from 2005, looking like it's from 2000 at the best. But I love how it looks. The FPS controls are awkward, the side-step idiotically slow... like, er, stepping sideways is. Traipsing around the medium-sized city is slow and frequently dull. But there's a reason for that dull journey, and I keep walking. The translation is often extremely poor, descending into unintelligible gibberish. But it contains some of the best writing I've ever seen in a game. Following the plot is often impossible. It's the most interesting and deeply clever plot in years. My poor little head.

'Pathologic' Screenshot 1

Either side of the gate stand the Masks. They have a message for you. No, not your character, you.

Premise: You play one of three characters (the third unlocked on successful completion), each of whom arrives in a strange, anaemic town to meet someone, to find that they have been murdered. And that they can't leave. Or won't. Something's very, very wrong here. I played the fellow known as the Bachelor, Dankovskiy. He's a doctor, researching methods to prevent death. On the promise of meeting a man who claims to be immortal, discovering that he is dead is something of a disappointment. But there's more to it, and people are telling you to talk to people. You begin to explore, walking the peculiarly washed-out streets, and then bump into the Masks.

Two figures, one seemingly a mime with a white mask, the other a large-beaked bird creature, looking as though it's made of wood, but for the breathing. And they talk to you. Not your character. You. And your character gets confused, but they ignore him. This town, they inform you, exists only because of you. You are an actor, the rest are characters. You will know who is important, as they will stand out from the crowd. The rest will blend in.

But you already knew that. Large town with NPCs? Of course the generic clone skins are the unimportant cast, those with specific faces being of consequence. That's Oblivion, that's Deus Ex, it's every damn game. Talk to someone of significance and they have a real-world photograph. Talk to a generic and their representative photograph is a rag doll.

The Masks We Wear

'Pathologic' Screenshot 2

This is one of my favourite buildings in the game. Staircases disappearing into Heaven, as one local wistfully describes it.

You have twelve days in the town, you are told. There's no pretence that it's not defined. The people don't know, but they only exist because of you, you're told. But you knew that too. You're the player. And this is no one-off smug reference at the start. Every night, after midnight, your quest log clears, and the Masks at the local theatre puts on a play based on your day, and your internal turmoil.

Each day lasts a few hours of real time, with key events occurring when they occur, whether you're there or not. If you're not, someone important might not survive. The ten most important are the Adherents, and you're told early on by a Mistress - a psychic - that these ten must survive, because there are the ten that would die for you. These are the characters of the main story. There are seventeen more with whom you interact on a more voluntary basis. Side quests. But all integral to the plot. Which is, to give as little away as possible, the real reason why people are dying. Something so serious that even the buildings are dying from it.

Quick anecdote: It's Day 2 and my landlady suggests that perhaps escaping the town might be a better idea than trying to save it. I figure, if I could help her get out, that would be for the best. She gives me a contact the other side of town. On the way I stop in at the shelter, having received a note from the lady who runs it. The town is cut off, and food is scarce, prices exorbitant. She asks me to visit a few people who have offered to donate money to her shelter, and use it to buy supplies. So, on the way to the contact's house, I drop in to collect from others and pop into shops en route. The contact needs me to persuade his twin brother, and that requires proof of the severity of the situation. More work, more shops, drop the food off at the planned shelter building. Which is pulsing green inside, smoke coming from the walls, dead bodies, crying, and stood in the middle is the bird-Mask, named the Executor. Bad. More work. She and I change the shelter plans, and I've got the proof to enlist the brothers. We arrange to meet at the train station at 10pm.

'Pathologic' Screenshot 3

Theatre of the mind.

I busy myself until then, visit some areas I'd not yet checked out. It's 9.30pm so I head over to the overgrown train yard. No one's at the entrance, so I walk around the back of the vast building, to where a couple of carriages sit on a track leading out of town. And from out of the mist, three patrolmen and... the Executor. Silently shaking his beaky head at me. My heart sank. "Oh shit," came out my mouth. And I told them I'd not try to leave again.

That's Pathologic.

Estranged Alienation

It's really broken. It's far too broken to justify the £25 price, and certainly too broken for me to recommend you buy it. But oh my goodness, I'd love for you to experience this. This is a really intelligent game, suffering from a terrible engine and a struggling translation. But both earn respect. Give a great artist some thick wax crayons and scrap paper and she'll still make something impressive. Despite being very primitive, the town visually portrays all that is necessary to communicate with you. The textures may be incredibly low quality, but a building can still look wretched, covered in blisters and sores. The ludicrous short draw-distance becomes incredibly effective fog. The ridiculous weather effects... well, they're fairly ridiculous.

A very few lines are spoken aloud by European and American actors, perfectly translated. But the majority are written, and swim in and out of consciousness. It's not excusable to release games poorly localised, and Pathologic falls short of the 7/10 I so desperately want to give it because of this. But when it works, it works so beautifully. And when it doesn't, it's occasionally, accidentally, amazingly poetic. It's just so full of ideas, and ideas on which it delivers.

'Pathologic' Screenshot 4

Yes, it's exceedingly primitive, but despite it there's a powerful visual flair.

The understanding of the theatrical works of Bertolt Brecht is so very clear. This is a game that wants to create critical self-reflection in its player. It's always a game, and you're not allowed to forget that. It wasn't a mysterious bird-figure blocking my exit at the train station. It was the Game, telling me no, this was an edge, a literal and metaphorical invisible wall past which I could not cross. This is a game of metaphor made literal, that hopes you'll listen and explore the metaphor in your own world. It's Brecht's Verfremdungseffekt. (Yes, twice in a week. Random events segregate non-randomly). And it does this not to try and look clever, but because it is clever. Explore the South West of the town and you'll find the Polyhedron - an impossibly contorted geometric building where the town's children live. (The children are another 1000 words' worth of intrigue). Look closely and you'll see this building is literally made out of its own blueprint designs. The walls are graph paper, the designs sketched across its stretching staircases and tilted walls. It's the construction of its own design - it represents the game itself.

Open Ending

There's so much more to talk about. The midnight theatre, the constant sense of doom, the apocalyptic presence, that when you kill someone innocent an invisible child sobs, the music... Ok, I further ramble over my word limit, despite wrapping the review up 500 words ago, because of the music. It's just amazing. Broken, as is everything here, but changing with the mood, and indeed changing the mood. Swirling background ambience develops tribal drumbeats, evolving a crescendo of threatening intensity, before diminishing into gentle strums.

It's a 6 out of 10 game. I've come to a sort of peace with that in writing this. But it's probably the most interesting and brilliant 6 out of 10 game you'll find. £25 is far too much for a poorly translated, dated game. But at the same time, there's a reason this won every Russian Game of the Year award in 2005. It's the result of extremely clever writers not being married with extremely talented game developers. To think what this would have been in the hands of a funded team is too depressing. As it stands, it's a wonderful obscurity to explore, a thousand caveats accepted and understood, but when it appears on the bargain shelves.

6 / 10

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About John Walker

Read more articles from John by visiting the John Walker archive page.

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Comments (59) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • itamae #1 6 years ago

    This sounds absolutely great! If it wasn't a PC game I would pick it up immediately.

  • skillian #2 6 years ago

    This sounds fantastic - I'd never heard of it but I'm dying to try it now.

    Great review too, by the way.

  • mentat #3 6 years ago

    Sounds rather interesting. Kinda silent hill-esque.

    Given that it's 17.99 at the usual suspects I might give it a punt...

  • Blerk #4 6 years ago

    Blimey, that sounds really very interesting. But, as itamae said, being PC only means it's effectively dead to me. Bah.

  • Pike #5 6 years ago

    Sounds really interesting.

  • crisotunity #6 6 years ago

    I was thinking of adding a dual-booting Intel Mac-Mini to my Apple collection in order to sample a bit of obscure/semi-retro Windows gaming (the Mac-Mini is no speed demon when it comes to shiny new games and I don't expect that the new models coming out in a couple of weeks will buck the trend).

    This kind of game looks ideal!

  • Therapist #7 6 years ago

    Strange, I picked this up on saturday for some bank holiday fun. It really is an alternative game. For the most part I was scratching my head at what people were saying, understanding half of it if I was lucky but at the same time compelled to find out what was going on. The writing style is like nothing i've seen before in a computer game, but if you have read any books by Russian/eastern european writers then you will see the similarity.

    It is a refreshing game for me. Recently I have become really bored with the standard western storytelling, and as it the stories in the games that drives me to play them this is a bad thing! The other game I can like it too is Gothic. the styles are different obviously, but they are the same in that you are (player and playee) both strangers in the game and have no idea what is going on. This means that you get a feeling that you are learning the game world at the same time as your character.
    Edited by 1 at 28/12/06 @ 16:03

  • Kronos #8 6 years ago

    There is a demo available btw.

  • zErOb_cOOl #9 6 years ago

    Looks interesting. Good to see design and visual flair has won a small victory over pure graphical brilliance. I'd be quite happy playing a 2D RPG, if it was really good, absorbing, and had a cool grapical style.

  • Flabio #10 6 years ago

    Almost picked this up at the weekend as the box sort of stood out in GAME. Put it down again because I wanted to read some reviews first.

    I shall be getting it I suspect.

  • AcidSnake #11 6 years ago

    Looks very interesting indeed...
    Any word of a remake/sequel?

  • TwistidChimp #12 6 years ago

    Sounds intriguing, although I have absolutley no idea what Brechtian alienation devices are.

    /wikis

  • UncleLou #13 6 years ago

    Great review, you pretty much force me to buy this at some point whilst making it clear that I will have no right to complain about it afterwards. :)

  • TakeTheVeil #14 6 years ago

    this review has pretty much been mirrored across the net. Dated Graphics that hinder an otherwise fantastic game.. might give it a pop

  • marc_si #15 6 years ago

    I have to get this game ... never thought I'd say that about a game which scored 6/10 ...

  • Therapist #16 6 years ago

    The graphics aren't bad. I am not a graphics whore so maybe I guess it doesn't bother me as much, but his game has a different graphical style that really suits the mood of the city. The depth of the descriptions and dialogue more than make up for any compromises made on the polygon count. There is a soul to the place that is lacking in 99% of games out there.

  • reflux #17 6 years ago

    I want to make love to this game, but force it to wear a bag over its head.

  • Hugundo #18 6 years ago

    "It's Oblivion with cancer"

    AND its russian!

    Im sold.

  • AceMaCool #19 6 years ago

    Is it worth holding out for user made patches as with other wonderful but broken games like Vampire: Bloodlines?

  • jellyhead #20 6 years ago

    Looks intriguing, glad you covered this one EG. I'll be keeping an eye out for it when i get paid.
    Therapist: Try Planescape:Torment if you like games where you unveil the story and the reason for the characters existance. It's an rpg but it has osme of the best storytelling and dialog around. I often say it's like playing a good book.

  • smelly #21 6 years ago

    think what this would have been in the hands of a funded team is too depressing.

    A well funded team wouldnt be allowed to make a game like this!

    If a game is going to cost a lot to make, the people funding it want a gauranteed seller - i.e. a fps or a racing game.

    Shame really.

  • ilmaestro #22 6 years ago

    Crikey, that sounds too interesting to leave on the shelf. I've cunningly not upgraded my PC for a little while so I stop wanting new games, but presumably this wouldn't take a monsterous rig to get it moving?

  • Therapist #23 6 years ago

    jellyhead: planescape torment is a classic. I played it when it came out and got about 100 hours into it thinking I was near the end. Then a mate of mine told me I was about half way through... I was at uni and had exams and stuff so left it and had not idea what I was up to when I went back to it. I tried replaying it recently and got up to the bit where you meet Pharod, but then titan quest came out.

  • Thamuhacha #24 6 years ago

    Ok, can someone clarify "broken"??

    is it just the localisation (easy to patch / fan patch)

    Or is it some serious gameplay bugs as well? (Which would be odd if it has been around for 18 months)

  • smelly #25 6 years ago

    Or indeed if a demo exists?

    This SOUNDS great, but i'd rather try before i buy.

  • Blood_and_Thunder #26 6 years ago

    I have tried the demo, and there were no bugs I picked up on. Crashed once on the menu, but apart from that was alright. It seems to be the dialogue that is broken, it is very badly translated. Other little things as well, like when a rat attacked me there was no sound effect when I stabbed it and killed it. The demo runs fine, it just seems like it needs more work to the game to make it complete.

  • smelly #27 6 years ago

    That's weird on the official website, it says the english version was completed in november last year!!

    [link url=http://w ww.pathologic-game.com/eng_index.htm
    ]http://ww w.pathologic-game.com/eng_index...[/link]


    Also to note on their website forums, this little snippet from the developer:

    Which character are you playing with? If you have chosen the Bachelor - then try playing for the Haruspicus, since we had a lot more time to fine tune the translation of his scenario, while the Bachelor's wasn't checked as througly. Well, if you have trouble understanding the Haruspicus scenario - well, I guess we've overdone with the text difficulty. %) I believe I will be working on a user patch, correcting most of the dialogues in near future, so please stay tuned.


    If he's the one translating it, we're beyond hope!
    Edited by 1 at 30/08/06 @ 12:33

  • amorpheus #28 6 years ago

    if you're interested you can get the demo here:

    http://ww w.fileshack.com/file.x/8615/Pat...

  • Kostabi #29 6 years ago

    Quite possibly the most persausive review ever written. Just reading this has made me want to discover the towns secrets for myself, it just sounds so good.

  • smelly #30 6 years ago

    @yellowtruck :

    FFS! READ THE BLOODY WORDS!

  • smelly #31 6 years ago

    Have you ever considered learning to read?

  • EmiliasHorse #32 6 years ago

    Thank you EG I had never heard of this and probably would never be likely to.
    But reading your review has sparked a real interest.

  • smelly #33 6 years ago

    @yellowtruck : Ah, erm.. yes .. i see now.. erm.. whoops.. oh dear!

    Erm, sorry!

    I must be having a "bad forum day". Although I still say that "Call of Juarez" is a crap name for a western game!

  • #34 6 years ago

    "if you're interested you can get the demo here:

    http://ww w.fileshack.com/file.x/8615/Pat...

    Anyone else having problems with getting the demo from here? The download doesn't seem to work (ie, stops after a while, and no, I do not use any dl-managers).

  • TripSkyway #35 6 years ago

    Nice review, I'd like to give it a crack.

  • sibom #36 6 years ago

    Great review Mr Walker, I sympathise for your poor brain. i'm intrigued too but due to a near terminal WoW addiction i doubt i'll play anything to any serious level until, oh, 2013 or so. I would be intrigued to discover what your erstwhile PCG comrade Mr Gillen would make of both the game and a review of it...

  • Xerx3s #37 6 years ago

    t3h real next gen. ;)

  • absolutezero #38 6 years ago

    Sounds like the devs have been reading far far too much "Lanark".

  • Martin #39 6 years ago

    Sounds quite interesting indeed!

    Now, if only I didn't have to sleep every damn night I'd be able to play this... :(

  • BremXJones #40 6 years ago

    AceMaCool:
    " Is it worth holding out for user made patches as with other wonderful but broken games like Vampire: Bloodlines?"

    No, not really. It's flaws aren't really just in bugs, but in certain actual game mechanics and so on. A serious patch on the language would, of course, help.

    Sibom:
    " I would be intrigued to discover what your erstwhile PCG comrade Mr Gillen would make of both the game and a review of it..."

    I'd agree with Walker on almost all points, but probably knock it down a mark to a 5 as I'd be harder on some of the basic mechanism bits of it. There's a good few minutes walk most of the time between NPCs you want to speak to, with nothing happening on the way.. nothing except its odd atmosphere.

    I think if you're the sort of person who's intrigued in this stuff, and can pick it up cheap, you won't regret your purchase. I also think you wouldn't recommend it to someone else to actually buy... but will probably lend mate's of a similar mind your copy.

    KG

  • UncleLou #41 6 years ago

    I just tried the demo. It's the first Windows application since I got Windows XP all these years ago that managed to make my PC reboot. Seriously, I haven't seen that since Windows 98.

    I think I'll pass.

  • newt #42 6 years ago

    This game has all the "indie aesthetics" Costikyan ever dreamt of. Pathologic doesn't deserve a high score but it certainly deserves to be experienced. Screw modern engines. Aronofsky didn't have Lucasfilm equipment either.

  • krenzler #43 6 years ago

    I just get a black screen. :-(

  • Freek #44 6 years ago

    The demo is pretty horrible even if you get it to work. The controls are awfull and the text might aswell be in greek. No chance of having a conversation with anybody since it doesn't make sense, you juts keep clicking on simple "gamey" phrases like "what do you want me to do" becuase everything else is gibberish.
    The concept may be interesting, the story mysteriouse but I'm not prepared to wade though all the bullshit to get to it.

    The visuals are fine, I agree it doesn't need to be super hot but the game does need to be playable and understandable, it just isn't.
    Edited by 1 at 31/08/06 @ 01:12

  • Tomo #45 6 years ago

    Sounds amazing... Excellent review by the way. One of the best I've read in a long time.

    Now I want this! But, I gave up on Boiling Point very quickly as the basic mechanics just annoyed me. Is it just the text that is screwed then? What specs does it require?

  • psorcerer #46 6 years ago

    I've played through the russian release in January.
    The game was rock solid (couple of crashes were cured completely by installing an updated audio driver for my sound card) no serious bugs found.
    It seems to me that the english version went gold without all the patches. However it can be possible to repair it by applying the russan patches.

    The game itself is a masterpiece, clearly the most interesting one ever made by russian developers. And it got all the awards for "Best Innovative Design", "Best Story", "Game of The Year" etc. in Russia.
    The game uses a very fancy russian language in the dialogues and the amounts of text are really enormous, so it's not a wonder it got poorly translated (as you can see the publisher for the western world is the russian "Buka", which means that nobody wanted to publish it anyway).
    I will try check out the english release in couple of days and see if anything could be done to improve the "instabilities" as for the translation: I have rather poor english skills to do it, but I can help anybody to get through the fancy russian.

  • botherer #47 6 years ago

    psorcerer - The game of Chinese whispers being played through the comments thread, as increasing numbers of people don't read the review but for some godforsaken reason do read the comments, has completely misrepresented what I've said.

    There are no stability issues that I encountered. The game is broken in a more ethereal sense, often unintelligible and so massively out of date. But read the review, as I explain it in enormous detail.

  • Agent_Llama #48 6 years ago

    This game sounds awesome, really appeals to me, kind of in the same psychological way as Silent Hill 2 did. Will definitely pick it up to play on the bro-in-law's PC over Xmas - cos this will *never* come out on a Mac. Boo.

  • psorcerer #49 6 years ago

    botherer - glad to hear that it's stable.
    And I don't see why it's outdated, if we take take a recent Suikoden V for PS2 is also outdated but yet a really good game. I think we just not used to see outdated visuals on PC. :)
    Anyway, I'll get it and compare the texts then.

  • rudedudejude #50 6 years ago

    I'll be trying this.

    It's only going to get better with official patches and community mods.

    Sounds good, kinda like Fahreneheit and that was an awesome game, best I've played in months.

  • Scimarad #51 6 years ago

    Sounds really interesting...

  • PhakeDC #52 6 years ago

    Sounds interesting, but Yakuzi, Okami and Valkyrie Profile 2 all outstrip this by miles, so I'll pass thank you.

  • underscore #53 6 years ago

    I'm really enjoying the game; whilst I think there are issues with some of the mechanics and the English translation, it's a long time since I played something with such a powerful atmosphere or sense of place.

    Very impressed.

    (reminds me a bit of an Amiga game called Mercenary from back in the day, any takers?)

  • Sulphur #54 6 years ago

    This is why I love Eurogamer. Those little blue numbers at the end of your reviews never really matter, do they? When you can write with so much conviction, so much passion, that a review for a game that garnered a 6/10 makes me feel like diving into it /right now/, it's not a review any more. John, you've just summarised why I've been playing these god damn things for nearly a decade - they can be fun, intellectually engaging, and have a point, too.

    For the sake of all involved, I'm not going to dredge up the whole 'games are art' thing again.

    But the fact is, even though the game's language is broken to the point of literal obfuscation, I still want to play it. If your review's captured even half of the atmosphere of the game, I'm willing to go to masochistic extremes to 'get' it.

    So, basically, my point: brilliant review.

  • mkreku #55 6 years ago

    Crap, I have to get this game. It sounds awesomely crappy!

  • darkstar_fan #56 6 years ago

    Sounds good!
    I'll try to get some more info about the game

  • noglet #57 6 years ago

    This review is a perfect illustration of why we read Eurogamer. Thank you.

  • cruzer666 #58 5 years ago

    help..got the game as the review had me gripped..but i cant seem to get past the beginning..room with 3 people in it. is doin mA HEAD IN..got it to experience it..and cant do anything with it...help someone......

  • testpattern #59 4 years ago

    cruzer: you just need to keep walking around the balcony - there's a door on the far side of the room