Retrospective: Pathologic Comments by Lewis Denby

First.

Now I feel encouraged to give it a go, although screenshots put me off at the time. It takes guts to admit you're in love with something looking that bad.
I'd like to see more of such obscure, savage games for PC retrospectives. Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi and Sanitarium please.

Another game that should be 'experienced', if not played.

Bought this game for 6 quid a few years ago purely on Eurogamer's recommendation

I completed the game with the gentlemen/scientist guy.

A very interesting and surreal world; that spiral tower full of children was especially memorable. However this game was almost ruined by poor gameplay elements (movement and combat was imho woeful) and incomprehensible translation. There's little intuitive about this game, and I had to follow a pdf guide apparently written by one of the devs, in surprisingly good english (which makes me wonder why he didnt translate)

The poor translation was especially a killer for me, this world is full of interesting ideas but when the english translation quality was sometimes on par with internet translators and equally unintelligible, I was missing out on so much. My enjoyment of the game therefore hinged only on the visual imagination of this world, which was nice, but not enough to overcome all the other problems. Overall I didnt enjoy this game, and I would only recommend this to those who enjoy games like The Path very much. I would not recommend this to anyone else.

Random tidbit for anyone who does play this: climb to the top of the church (up the ladders) and look across to the other side and you see a big picture of a guy with a something like a pipe or a valve in his eye i think. A typical piece of Lynchian-esque symbolism which probably means something all-encompassing and epic about the game world, or maybe its nothing, but its way over my head at least. And given that the game community is primarily Russian, I will never be able to discuss and find out what things like this mean.

@Obiwanshinobi - Though it's technically a bit of a munter, there's something really enchanting about the world. I didn't have room to talk about the fascinating architecture of parts of the city, otherwise I'd have screengrabbed that as well. There's a warped beauty to its ugliness.

I'm certain this isn't as good as Gears of War

I find you lack of shadows disturbing?

Sounds (mostly) brilliant. We are more likely to be scared by things that very well could be real, and a virulent plague seems to be a perfect set up for some fears that are rather close to home. Resource management becomes a lot more important when you realise you're only ever one too few coins away from starving or catching the disease for example. Feelings of hopelessness and despair are rare things in games. Well. They're rare when they're there for the right reasons. This sounds a true survival horror, it's just a shame it's so broken.

It's a weird game that I find pretty much impossible to play.
My quest log just never updated, but I'm guessing I hit the same bug?

"Nearly three years after its UK release..."

And this is in the retro section?

Oh, it definitely IS a retro game. The art direction compensates for the technical deficiencies, but it's a 3 or 4-year-old game that, in its rich, brooding game world, wandering design and weird, ungraspable mix of novel gameplay and traditional gameplay done fresh, feels like a throwback to very old RPG's - and by old I mean the kind that were done in VGA. Only this will launch on a modern machine and it's a lot better done. And it's Russian, so by weird I mean totally out of this world!
Such features are exactly the reason why EG is my first stop when I turn on my comp. Good job there, thanks guys.

I actually like the graphics as well. Technically complete rubbish, but they just look really cool in the context of the game.

In Pathologic, the world exists despite you - and just because you're not there to see something happen, doesn't mean it won't occur regardless.

This is the sort of thing I love in games. It is why I love Spaaaaaaaaaace Rangers 2.

Pathologic (it's called "More: Utopia" in Russia) is a good game though not very pleasant to play. There's another one from the same developer - Tension ([Turgor] in Russia). Tension is very different from pathologic in terms of gameplay (which mostly involves painting for all interactions with the world and its inhabitants), but spirit is quite close, because the player's most important (and the only) task is survival in harsh alien environment.
Boxed copy of Tension contained a pack of watercolors which is one of the most unusual things bundled with the games I bought.

I've got it on offer on Goozex if anyone want a copy ;-)

Hit it up on Steam and I'll buy it. Can't be bothered with Direct2Drive :/

Didn't realise it was by the team who made Tension.

Wot? Tension is out? Only in Russia then, right?

I don't really understand how people can find this game's graphics to be ugly (they're certainly dreary, but that's primarily an art design choice and not a technical deficiency). Admittedly, there's a generic, repetitive feel to many parts of the city, but the detailed architecture and indoor environments often look genuinely good, and the character models are at least serviceable.

Demiath: the lighting, really. It looks like everything's set to fullbright. Plus, just silly things like, say, the height of doors, or the oddly enormous thickness of interior walls.

As others have said, the art design is generally wonderful - but there's still a certain clunkiness to the aesthetic.

Pathologic is certainly one of the more memorable games of the past few years for me - even though it inspired the sort of existential horror in me that forced me to abandon it after a few days of play and find myself sitting, shivering in the bathroom...

Ice-Pick Studios are one of my most respected developers if not the most. It's lucky I speak Russian, so I've been able to enjoy both Pathologic and Tension so far without any language issues. That said, fear not! I hear there's a fan translation project that's still in the works for Pathologic - with any luck, we might see it surface this year.

Moreover, from what I heard Tension is getting the localisations done and should come to the west in english this year as well - it's definitely one to keep an eye out on.

Edit: Correction, I believe 'Tension' has now meen renamed to 'The Void' in its upcoming western release. Also, there's an english patch available for the russian version, should you get your hands on that, which gives subtitles - though it's not great.

>and you see a big picture of a guy with a something like a pipe or a valve in his eye i think. A typical piece of Lynchian-esque symbolism which probably means something all-encompassing and epic about the game world,

Or viral marketing for the Half-Life series. :)

I never got past day 1 in this game. I just could not figure out what I did miss to do so I always got a "Game Over" after Day 1.
Not exactly a great experience.

I am sad to say I never finished it. I was about 6 days in when for some reason I stopped playing, can't recall what made me stop although I do remember a feeling of not being very happy when I played. Games usually make me excited or frustrated or sometimes bored, Pathologic made me sad. I think I just stopped playing because I didn't want to feel this way anymore.

Was actually thinking about this game the other day, remembering the Eurogamer review. Never read about it anywhere else. Still interested in playing this, sounds very interesting.

Don't know if any of you guys have read this but theres a great three part review of this game over on Rock, Paper, Shotgun which is one of the best articles on a game i've ever read:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/04/...

If you lot haven't played it already you ought to check out Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. By the sound of it that is not as bad as this as it's a bit more conventional, but I liked the atmosphere and it has one brilliant set piece that really gets the blood pumping.

I really wanted to like this game, but its mechanically pretty-much broken. I found it borderline unplayable, with the terrible translation being the final straw.

I'm very surprised its still being pushed as some kind of artistic lost-gem. The rise of the indie-games scene over the last few years has made its experimentalism less novel, and the reality is most players will find it more trouble than its worth to actually play.

I'm a firm believer that games can be artistic and emotionally/intellectually resonant, but I really think that hyping the broken, mangled mess that is the "English language" version of this game will just put people off.

Seriously, go play stuff like "Today I die". Its a lot less frustrating, just as fascinating, and free.

@GreyBeard - It's a bit futile comparing the two. But I agree that Today I Die is wonderful, and I could (and actually might) write a whole piece on how mainstream games can learn from it.

Does anyone know if this game is running under Vista 64-bit?

colour me intrigued!

It's unplayable.
I know that most of the NPCs in this game don't have any character since they are just "puppets". You might expect that in a simulation. You still might expect that they act like humans, though.
The AI for the thieves was so predictable and simple that I could have written it much better by myself. If the thief spots you he will chase you on the other end on the map and back ad infitum. No kidding, you can't hide, you can't get rid of him. If you enter a building he might even wait until you come out! He will run towards you and attack you until you are dead. Or he, of course.
On the other hand, this predictability had an advantage: if the thief spotted a civilian or a guard he won't stop attacking and following them either. So you can kill him then very comfortably.

Sadly, this predictability takes something away from the thick atmosphere. Also, I remember a scene at the train station were a lot of men stood in lines and if you came near them they would shoot at you. You could easily deactivate the AI of them, through a bug.

The dialogues are not only incomprehensible, but also overlong and often pointless. As is the endless walking around. Yeah, it might be horrifying when you have to go through a contaminated zone, though I remember that instead of boring it was hair tearingly frustrating then. Hard to hit rats, poison gas that "attacks" you constantly from behind.....ugh.

In my opinion every article about this broken game makes it sound 100 times better than it actually is. Yeah, it has some nice ideas, but it took me, the player, to think them to the end in my head.
I played through it and was disappointed to see that there was no payoff. All this time I hoped that something incredible would happen that excused all the countless non-fun hours I sunk into it, something that the first Eurogamer review seemed to promise me. But the ending was lame, so lame and disappointing that I had to invent a better one in my head!

Game designers should take notice of this game, especially because of the vagueness of the experience, the unclear rules of the game that leave you in the dark what is intentional and what not.
But gamers don't need to notice this title.
Maybe the book it's based on might be worth a read? I doubt it was released outside of Russia, though.

It's so good to see this game getting the recognition it deserves. I first heard about it on Rock Paper Shotgun's Butchering Pathologic serial ever since, and it has become one of my favourite games. Wonderfully, I played it at the same time as I was ill with a fevery flu, and it was one of the most amazing gaming experiences I've ever had.

Hey everyone, one of the devs here. :-)
Just wanted to say thank you to Lewis Denby for the wonderful article (would you like to review The Void sometime soon? ;-) ), and...
About the translation - when we were doing Pathologic we didn't have much control over the translation, and it suffered a lot, because of this. Originally there was a guy who understood it completely and sone a large part of the texts for Haruspex - they turned out good. But then he quit, because he had other important things going on, and the translation was given to two agencies... Resulting in difference in terms and the Devotress scenario turning incomprehensible. So this time, in The Void (Tension / Turgor) we're doing the translation in house (i'm doing it, to be exact. Also, I did the mentioned Pathologic walkthrough translation...), with the great help from a native speaker (hydra9, thanks!) and a professional editor (Mark Barrett). There is a subtitle patch available for the Russian version - ask me on our forums at http://forum.ice-pick.com/ - actually we've got a lot of updates on the game there. But I'd recommend you wait for The Void - we've re-done a lot of stuff to be even better and added some. You can call it an enchanced director's edition, if you please. :)

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/02/... - also, this will make an interesting further reading. :)

Now this post is already starting to look like a TV add, so i'm off for now. ;)

Hi thelxr, thanks from France and a king-size eulogy to the Great Work being done at Ice Pick Lodge! I had no idea Tension had become "The Void", is there any shot at a European release date yet?

Yep. End of May in Germany, later in other countries. :-)