Pathologic is a game I knew very vaguely of, but never got around to playing. It was a fairly niche title here in the West, but made waves in its native Russian homeland. Given a chance to try out the HD remake, I’ve since started the game, but have yet to complete a first playthrough at the time of this writing. Still, from the very moment the game starts when you witness a discussion between the game’s three playable protagonists, I could tell that Pathologic was going to be one of the weirdest games I had ever played.
And that’s a good thing, done right. I’ll admit, I had to start Pathologic over, the first fifteen or twenty minutes anyway, three or four times because I felt like I wasn’t getting something. This game offers very little in the way of clarity to start and I stumbled out of the gates on several occasions. This lack of information and intentional opaqueness is part of what makes Pathologic so intriguing, that is, if you can get past some of its apparent shortcomings.
First off, and for me the most easiest to overlook or “forgive” (although that seems too harsh a term) are the graphics. This is a ten-plus year old game made by a small team in Russia, and I think it was their first game, too. So, there isn’t going to be a great deal that can be done to modernize it. That goes a long way to explaining the complete remake of the game that’s due out in roughly a year on the Unity engine. It’s clear that, for cult classic games like this and System Shock, there is still a big interest in them, but I think most consumers can only handle a game’s age (be it dated graphics or gameplay mechanics) so far before it not being worthwhile. At least the HD version features new voice overs and additional dialog that was previously cut out from the Western 2005 version.
Anyway, yes, graphically Pathologic HD surely looks far better than what I have seen of the original, but a great-looking game it is not. You’ll have to appreciate the art and lighting for what it’s worth more than the graphics engine. That’s not too hard to do, but the gameplay provides more opportunities for stumbling and frustration and herein you may find your patience pushed hard. At its core, the game is a first person survival, but it’s on a strict time-basis, too. Resource and inventory management isn’t as clear as most modern games would be and you’ll have to “do your part” to survive and make the most of your experience here. But in my time with the game so far, these efforts and your patience at times when its being tried, do seem to pay off well.
Before getting ahead of myself anymore, what is Pathologic all about anyway? Well, imagine a small rural town in Russia next to a mountain. An elder, or leader of town has died, and it’s a bit of mystery. Moreover, something called the sand plague is beginning to consume the town. You must choose between one of three distinct characters, investigators really, with vastly different backgrounds and approaches. One of these, a young changeling girl, is not available until you finish the game with one of the other characters). Anyway, you literally take the role of a stranger in a very strangeland in that the townspeople are unsure what to think of you as you go about your investigation and vain attempt to do something about the sand plague.
You’re encouraged to maintain a reputation and to not backstab people so that you are granted easier access to some of the resources you need to manage to survive. These resources include your own level of infection, fatigue, hunger, thirst, and overall health. These are viewable as meters, and the system managing these is appreciably intricate. Maintaining a balance of these is one of the key challenges to the game; another would be dealing with a pretty shoddy combat system, but fortunately combat encounters aren’t common in my experience yet.
So your adventure takes place over twelve days, with each day featuring a main task and several side quests offered by NPCs. For the few days I have played, expect upwards of three hours or so to complete a day, taking into account conversations and reloading and so forth. Interestingly, some quests are dropped at midnight on each night, never to be seen again (unless you reload), so it’s interesting that the game stresses you for time management in addition to survival in the dark, brooding, and weird atmosphere that it utilizes from the very start.
General clunkiness and opaqueness aside, and bearing in mind the presentation isn’t anything to be excited about, Pathologic HD even at this early stage for me is offering a unique gaming experience. It’s not without its struggles and frustrations, but if you can just ‘turn the corner’ on these and get pulled into the many positives that the story offers, I think you’ll be as pleasantly surprised as I have been.
To the summary…
