Pathologic is the result of the Ice-Pick Ridge studio and it was well received in Russia, winning 5 major Russian awards. The game was not so well received in the English-speaking countries, being considered a very complex and hard game to play because of its poor translation and eccentricity. From my point of view the translation isn't necessary poor, but difficult to understand by today's gamers which are used to read extremely short and user-friendly dialogues in order to get directly into the game. I admit that there are some quite tricky phrases in the game but these are the result of the scenario of the game which was created in a philosophical manner being inspired by different Victorian and Romantic writers. The scenario is full of symbolism and its complexity makes it to be the most valuable component of the entire game. Along the game you will encounter several times two important figures, The Executor and The Tragedian. These two figures along with other characters were created in a more metaphoric and stylish manner, depicted from real life of the eighteenth century. The Executor is a humanoid big bird, or a human dressed like a bird, who will give you several hints.

This character is similar to the doctors who were living in the Black Plague era, and their masks were protecting them from being infected with bubonic plague from the patients. The Tragedian with its white and psychopath mask, is actually the unknown genius, the one that could not be understood by its society. He is the death messenger in the Victorian era.

Story 

So let's see how the story is like. I have to admit that only after an hour of playing you will make yourself a blurry image of the story. The game begins in a theater where three characters are playing without the audience. The only audience is you, but by miracle they cannot see you. You can either choose to stay and listen to the actors or enter the first room. In this room you can choose from three different characters to play.

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The Bachelor and the Horuspicus can be accessed from the beginning while The Devotress can be accessed only after you end the game with the first two characters. Either you choose to play with the Bachelor or with the Horuspicus, in the end you will realize that every action done by the Bachelor or by the Horuspicus will affect each other. After you end the game with this two characters you can play also with The Devotress who again will take part at the same story and will affect it. The whole action takes place in a small town (small even for an rpg game) somewhere in the middle of the Steppe. It's a weird town which was created around the Abattoir, a monstrous building.

From the first contact with this town you will be impressed by its isolation and its social structure. In a few words this town seems to be a living creature. Like all its inhabitants, the town suffers and is prepared to die along with its citizens. The atmosphere reproduces a tense feeling of madness and agony. The town seems infected and the citizens already controlled by madness. This odd society seems to be very old and managed to survive in this way for several decades. But somehow they were hit by an enigmatic disease and the citizens began to perish. Even their main ruler who was considered immortal died unexpected. His name was Simon Kain and he really was a force of nature. If you choose to begin the game with the Bachelor, you will be the doctor who must discover how and for what reason did Simon die. You will be awaited by all the major citizens from this town although you haven't announced your arrival. The people in this town tend to have telepathic and even occult powers, some powers being the result of a huge horror generated by an unseen enemy (the disease). Haruspicus is a known surgeon who came into the town to search his father's heritage. He will be considered as the murderer of Simon Kain, but the truth is different. The last character the Devotress, is an eccentric girl, possessing mystic powers who might become the salvation of the town. Unfortunately she is devoured by fear caused by horror memories from her recent past. Each of this characters must survive because they play a vital role in the salvation of this town.

Gameplay 

The premise of the story is excellent, but let's see how the gameplay looks like. It's a combination of first person combat game with some rpg elements. This kind of gameplay was used also in Call of Cthullhu: Dark Corners. Unfortunately this kind of gameplay is not so successful in this game. Maybe because there is no graduate advance in the game. From the beginning in the most classical manner, you can access any part of the town, and after two hours you can choose which quest to do from the big list you already have. You need to travel long distances from one side of the town to the other in order to accomplish the quests. Depending on the order of the quests, some of them might have different results. That's why you can have several different endings. For example on the 12th day you can choose either to leave the town and die, destroy the town, destroy the Polyhedron (the great building in the middle of the town which was considered to be base of it), or let the Impostor destroy the sickness. Besides the fact that every action made by your character decides how the NPC's will react in front of you, you must pay attention on how your actions will influence your advance into the game. Because your character will get tired and hungry you will have to battle for the food in the next few days of the game. So don't forget that you can exchange goods with the citizens of the town. Like in Gothic, you can lay you character to sleep for a maximum of 6 hours for full regeneration. But for food you still need to search the town. You can also buy it, but sometimes the food can become really expensive, so the best solution is to exchange you found objects for food. I already forgot to tell about the fighting system. That's because it's not a significant part in the game but it still exists. If you will use melee weapons, the enemy is quite hard to kill. The system is not so well done as in Dark Messiah where you can easily discover the limitations of your body and the length of your attack. Here you can easily lose all your health when fighting a burglar or a beggar, who will attack you with a little knife. You have also an inventory, but is just a pale concept of what a real inventory is like.

Such a great story should have a similar graphical environment behind it. But this is not to be found in Pathologic. The graphic is old coming from other era. The colors do combine in a good manner to recreate a moody atmosphere, but this is not enough this days. If its gameplay was much more innovative, maybe this game could become a masterpiece like Anachronox, in which the graphic was not the main component. Unfortunaterly Pathologic is based only on its original story. It's like a good interactive book, where you can change destinies and influence the worlds in it.

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Gameplay: 72

A great story and atmosphere which are destroyed by an old system of play and by some repetitive elements such as: the faces of the citizens which have only three or for prototypes, the architecture of the city which besides the main buildings, looks the same, the need of traveling several times from one side to the other of the town to end a quest. Sometimes the dialogues are very hard to understand.

Graphics: 68

This could be the only element that could have saved this game from becoming a promiscuous one. Unfortunately the graphic is very old, without using any of the new technics. Only the color palette creates the needed atmosphere for such a good story.

Multiplayer: N/A

Sound: 78

The soundtrack is amazing being a combination of some electro-atmospheric tracks. Its eccentric sound suites the game. The environmental sounds are low quality as the graphics. During the dialogues, the NPC's won't say anything to you, so you will talk with some dumb people. The atmosphere is dreadful enough, so it was much better the NPC's to have voices.

Hardware: 78

The game runs perfect on low-end systems because of its weak graphics. But taking in consideration that this engine looks like a 2000 graphical engine, the game should have had much lower demands.