As a general rule, games are divided into genres; for example, Adventures, Action/Adventures, RPGs, Strategy Games etc. Sometimes a game is developed based on one genre, but incorporates elements from a different genre; for example, Adventures with RPG elements (Quest for Glory series), RPGs with Action elements (Diablo series). Then there are the few games that incorporate elements from more than two genres, without any being the prevailing one. It’s those games that you can never know if you will like before you play it, regardless of which genres you prefer. Pathologic is one of those games.

Think of Pathologic as a concoction of RPG, adventure, action and stealth, all blended in and boiled together in a dark and creepy cauldron. If you try to compare the game to any other game you will certainly fail. In Pathologic you will try to live through an epidemic. You will experience the epidemic as it spreads from home to home in such realism that will make your skin crawl. No, Pathologic cannot be compared to any other game. What’s its genre? Nightmare simulator maybe!?

The game gives you a choice of three different characters who follow three different scenarios. Each character’s scenario is divided into 12 days. For each day you will be given a certain, main quest as well as some side-quests. Time goes by mercilessly though, and if the main quest is not completed by the end of the day the game is over. On the other hand, the uncompleted side-quests will just disappear, with whatever consequences that would mean.

All that sound very “RPGish”, and they are, but the characters themselves do not follow any RPG rules. While they have health, immunity, infection, hunger and exhaustion levels, as well as a reputation level, they do not have individual attributes, nor do they get stronger or gain any experience. In order to become stronger or be able to resist the epidemic they will need food and sleep, as well as items, like weapons, medicine, clothes etc.

NPCs (Non-Player Characters) are everywhere and it’s up to you to determine which ones are useful to you and which are not. Children - who may be of more help to you than you may think - roam the streets during the day while muggers are around every dark corner and attack during the night. Unfortunately, bare-hand or non-firearm fighting is really hard to master in Pathologic, so you may find yourself lying on your deathbed more often than you would care for.

Pathologic’s strongest point is its incredible atmosphere that evokes a feeling of reality. The more days go by, the deeper the city sinks into the epidemic. Sections of the city get blocked off, the houses and their insides become like a nightmare, with blood, dead bodies and clouds of sickness everywhere. Moans of pain and babies crying can be heard coming from the houses. Rats run around the streets. Infected people wearing hoods walk around the blocked off areas like the living dead, and when they try to cross the boundaries towards the clean areas they get beaten to death by the guards. And even though the graphics, while pretty good, are not state of the art, they capture the horror perfectly, while dark and moody music accompanies your every step.

The biggest drawback of the game is the dialogues and the incredibly bad English translation, grammar- and spelling-wise. Maybe the dialogues sound good in its native language, which is Russian, but the English version is plain horrible – at least in the preview version that I played. There are some dialogue lines that are so inane, they sound like they were written by a 9-year-old, especially the angry, aggressive dialogue lines. On the upside, the game sucks you into its world so intensely, you barely pay attention to this problem after Day 2. That doesn’t mean though that the dialogues and translations should not go under some serious revision.

Having played a good part of one of the scenarios, I can say that Pathologic qualifies as one of the darkest and most morbid games I have ever played. Don’t expect to be scared, that’s not what this game’s goal is – although it does have its scary moments. Its goal is to give you the most unsettling feeling you have ever gotten playing a game, and it does succeed perfectly. If you are a lover of the macabre, put Pathologic right to the top of your waiting list.