Pathologic - First Play

I love oddball games, as I affectionately call them, and so when the chance came to review the little-known Russian game, Pathologic, I immediately jumped at it with the type of fervour usually associated with drug addicts (which is a strangely appropriate image given the games content.) Innovation and experimentation in gameplay is something that really seems to be in the limelight right now and its something I love. We have the Wii and the DS as platforms and games like Prey and Portal all pushing the gaming envelope in their own ways, making it a really good time to be a gamer. Yet despite this and despite my love for all things indie and unusual, I have to admit that Pathologic is by far one of the most bizarre and interesting games I have ever played. Or involving – I think involving is perhaps the best descriptor of this non-standard FPS.
I better start at the beginning and explain a little about the game, before I lose you completely. First off, as far as Pathologic is concerned, FPS actually stands for First Person Simulator and not First Person Shooter. This is perhaps the most important thing to bear in mind because it tells you so much about the design philosophy behind this Russian equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting. The game is definitely not a shooter, or at least not yet in my playthrough, and the game mostly involves running around a bizarre Russian town and talking to some of the most interesting NPCs ever. Who you talk to and what they say is dependant on which of the three characters you have chosen to play (The Bachelor, Haruspex or the Devotress) but the overall aim is always the same; to understand what is going on in this strange town of semi-immortals, where workers are locked in the factories and never allowed to leave and, most importantly, uncovering the truth about the series of murders taking place and the strange disease eating away at the populace.
So, that’s the ‘what’ of the game. The ‘how’ as I’ve said involves running around talking to people in the town as you try to complete missions. Here is where the twist comes in that the game has a pre-determined length of 12 game days, which equals roughly 4 hours at an estimate. Any mission taken on a day must be finished that same day and, if not completed by midnight, it is stricken from the journal and consequences will result. This adds an incredible amount of tension to the game and on the first day I was on the edge of my seat as I tried to reach the last locations in time. Critical NPCs can live or die because of your actions or inactions and it becomes very important to weigh your actions and motives carefully. Each character is provided a list of ‘adherents’, people who must survive each day of the game in order for you to stand a chance of winning – everyone else is fair game. I’ve yet to see if the game will end is one of these people dies or if you will simply be left to wander the city aimlessly. Neither would surprise me in this trend-bucking masterpiece.
So far I’m just setting out on the second day of the game as The Bachelor character – a doctor invited to the town by a colleague to examine one of the town leaders’ claim to immortality except that, when you arrive, the man is dead. Not just dead, but beaten and bloody in specially constructed room that is magically and physically impossible to enter by anyone except for him. I’ve not yet explored the other characters motives and histories massively but if The Bachelor is anything to go by then I look forward to playing the game afresh with one of them after I’ve completed the game with The Bachelor.
The games graphics are admittedly outdated a little and the translation is a little sloppy, but both of these add to the games odd charm. We’re so used to playing with crisp graphics that the staid, static expressions of the models in Pathologic make the game seem fittingly alien to a player. The translation too makes the characters seem to express themselves in appropriately odd ways so that, so far anyway, there is a constant sense of slight confusion and bafflement. Its like walking down the street, turning the corner and finding yourself in a hedge maze, in the way that although you understand completely the premise of such things they just don’t seem to go together.
Admittedly gameplay is a little off as well, game time being spent walking the streets endlessly as you journey from house to house to talk to people. Combat is so far infrequent and has been difficult when it has appeared, mostly due to the strange bulkiness that the engine seems to have. Still, at this point in gameplay everything still feels fresh to me and the compelling way in which the characters and environments express themselves to the player is a major drawing point that keeps bringing me back to Pathologic for short bursts of its unusual Russian brilliance. Lets just hope that the game doesn’t let up and that when you next hear from me, I’ll still think highly of this genre-breaking sim.