November 2008. NATO intelligence services report that, for unknown reasons, the Russian military has destroyed Gorky 17, one of the old Soviet "Secret Cities". A year later NATO takes over a former Russian secret base built on Polish soil. Diggers discover a laboratory complex in the completely demolished town. After examining the wreckage, NATO decides to leave the lab as it is. But shortly afterwards the town's previously deserted streets are suddenly teeming with hordes of grotesquely deformed creatures. Word soon gets out to the media, making it impossible for NATO to simply destroy the site. So troops are ordered to hermetically seal the area. Nobody is allowed in or out. Will they discover the terrible secret of "Gorky 17"? And more important - will they live to tell about it?
Be prepared for intrigue, betrayal and even some romance. You will need clever fighting tactics and some brainpower for solving puzzles. Moreover you can search offices, shoot locks and communicate with other characters.
Game also known as odi-um
Age requirements: ESRB Rating: MATURE with Animated Blood, Animated Violence.
Minimum system requirements: Windows XP or Windows Vista, 1 GHz Processor (1.4 GHz recommended), 256MB RAM (512 recommended), 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 7 (compatible with DirectX 9 recommended), Mouse, Keyboard.
Let me begin by saying that I did enjoy this game but trying to explain why I did is going to be a bit tricky. You see everything that works in the game is flawed and likewise the bits that appear broken also work quite well. So let me try and explain what I mean:... full review
- The statistics part of the game is almost non-existant with very little customisation of the very few stats allowed. This should mean you end up with a bland group of characters.
- But it doesn't. The team you have is voiced very well, with enough unique lines, giving them enough personality so that you don't mind too much about this as the RPG unfolds.
- Except it's not really an RPG. Lets be honest when we say that the "role play" part of the game does not exist. You don't have to make any moral choices and there aren't multiple solutions to the the problems. most of the time you just need to get to the next part of the map to get to the next part of the story.
- And it is a good story. OK, so it might fall away a little at the end, but there are enough events and sights to see that keep you wanting to get going to the next fight.
- Although the fighting mechanics seem broken. It takes you by surprise that a weapon can only fire along 45 degree angles (and some even only fire along the 90) and you start off wondering what possessed the programmers to do this?
- Until you realise. You are playing chess with guns and it actually works. The rifle is the queen, the pistol the castle and the knife the pawn. Do you need to adopt a defensive strategy or an attacking one. If you move forward into this area, does that leave me exposed from those monsters?
- Who do seem to come at you a bit too thick and frequently. There are times you wonder "not again, what is it now"?
- Although what it is, is usually some horrific aberration from the depths of someones mind. The variety of the things that you fight is quite impressive and certainly varied enough.
So there we are. A game with many wrongs as rights which on the whole seem to work together quite well.
For starters, the game has a very good atmosphere. Somewhat of a Stalker'ish feel. The game itself plays like a turn based game with battles occuring like the random Final Fantasy random battle style. You walk around the game world and sometimes get caught up in these battles. They aren't random but you never see them coming so moving around a new area is always a bit tense!... full review
As said before, the battles are turn based. You get the first turn to move your men around and use their weapons. The fighting is alot like Chess in a sense. For example, you pistol can only fire in four directions while the assault rifle can also fire diagonally. This kinda feels unrealistic of course, but it adds to the strategic element. Hitting the enemy in the flank or rear also adds more damage, again making the game a bit more tactical.
The graphics are pretty good. The characters are pretty low polygon but the hand drawn enviromnents are great. You may have some problems getting the game to run due to codec problems but I've managed to solve them quite easily. I'm sure GoG-team will issue a better fix for all the other people someday.
Now for the bad; the game is very very hard. Ammo is extremely scarce and you will need to resort to melee weapons in order to conserve it. While this adds some intensity and challenge it also makes it possible to completely screw yourself over early in the game if you use up all your rifle rounds or waste that precious "missile" on a useless enemy.
The "random" fights can be quite annoying as well since you never know you are walking into a mutant death trap and haven't found more quality weapons in order to win that fight. The beginning area for example is quite open, you go into different directions from your starting position. But sometimes you really need to have visited point A first because there you can find weapons you need if you ever want to have a chance against the enemy at point B.
In conclusion : A fun game but the difficulty may scare some people away (and this is coming from someone who loves hard games!). You may need to replay the beginning a few parts to really get the hang of it. Still a recommeded though! And for six bucks, you don't have anything to lose, right? :)
First of all, this is my first review so I apologize if you don't find this helpful, and I'm from Finland so sorry about all the typos. Oh and I also tend to ramble a bit so sorry about that too.... full review
I first heard about this game from a local PC game magazine called "Pelit lehti" and if I remember right, the reviewer gave the game 65/100 points for all too many fights, hard difficulty and poor voice acting. The next time I ever saw the game was in local shop with 20mk (The old currency of Finland, it's about 4 euros) and I didn't exactly remember the review so I bought it along with Baldurs Gate. The game came in a cool looking box with a manual that didn't explain a thing and was poorly translated, and even though the game box said "Odi-um" or something like that, the manual talked about Gorky 17. Those are both the same game as I later discovered, but it was a bit confusing at the time.
The game tells a story about a group of soldiers sent to investigate a fictional Russian town where somekind of disaster took place. Your first priority is to locate the team that was sent before you but that quickly changes as you start to encounter different kinds of mutated monsters. After that your main objective is to survive and eventually get away from the god forsaken town. During your mission you will find survivors and other people that will help or hinder your progress. The plot might be cheesy, but the atmosphere, music and characters are great and I have played the game from beginning to the end about five times over the years.
The gameplay is sort of mix between Resident Evil and Jagged Alliance. The combat is turn based, but you will not have enough bullets to waste them. Whenever a character uses a weapon, he or she becomes better at using it. Meaning they will hit more often and do more damage with it. The characters also have other stats, such as Accuracy and Health that you can increase whenever they level up. Each character gains experience from each succesful hit and extra experience from dealing the final blow to an enemy. Later in the game you will gain weapons like Flame Throwers and Stun Guns ect. that have unlimited ammo but you can't use them every round. This adds almost chess like tactical component to the game. And with enemies that are able to do the same things, there is a certain amount of challenge in the game that you should be prepared to face if you decide to play it.
I have grown up with X-COM, Heroes of Might and Magic and Jagged Alliance ect. and I didn't find the game too difficult, but I belive the game might be too hard if you are mostly used to current generation of games. And if you have mostly played Halo or other (Umm, Marathon clones :P) you still might want to try it if you have patience. The game is not actually that hard if you take a moment and think before every turn where the enemies can attack, who can you attack, where can you take cover ect.
The graphics were awesome at the time, and I think they still look pretty good. The hand drawn backgrounds with 3D objects and characters on it makes it look pretty unique. I would love to compare it to some other game but really, I can't think of any game that looks the same.
The music deserves a special mention, and the OST is actually the reason I bought this game from GOG.com. It's just great, it's even better than the Resident Evil OST. It's a mix between ambient and electronical music with some violin thrown in the mix. And as far as I know, you can't get it anywhere else.
Overall if I would need to sum the game in few words, it's hard and it's rewarding. If you like games like Resident Evil (The first one) for the difficulty, story and atmosphere, and you like Jagged Alliance or Fallout for the combat you will love Gorky 17. If you are one of the new generation gamers who doesn't like thinking or slow paced combat, you will not like Gorky 17. Otherwise give it a try. It's not like you will lose a lot anyway, and you will get one pretty damn fine OST with it.
JMYERS)
Yannos)