Gorky 17

NATO sends a group of elite soldiers to see what happens in a small city in Poland. There are rumors that the city is going the same way than Gorky 17, a secret Russian city that was destroyed. Another commando has disappeared without a clue. Now is our turn to discover what is happening. Our 3 main guys are very nice characters. The leader, Sullivan, has the leadership and takes the command in worst situations. Ovitz, a polish Green Beret, is the translator and first he doesn’t like Sullivan, but he will change his mind. Trantigne, is the youngest and inexperienced character, but he will learn quick under Sullivan’s command. As soon as you get in the city and start to explore, you’ll get in combat. Combat is like a chess game where every character, every weapon and every enemy has its own range, and you’ll learn how much tactical turns the game in here. There is always a quick and easy way to solve the combats, but, you’ll spend some time to find it. There are LOTS of battles in the game, LOTS of enemies, and SMALL amount of ammunition. This is where the survival component takes place. You have to train your group to close combat situations too unless you want to get out of ammo. Don’t take too damage as food and healing items are also limited. Characters also level up abilities. The exploring component is great, with few easy to solve puzzles, and good hidden items, like a character in Museum’s roof. About graphics, the game aged quite well. Backgrounds look amazing, and the 3D characters and enemies still quite nice. About performance, I play in a 12” Notebook with an Atom, 1 GB RAM and an Intel card. No bugs or issues or crashes. Perfect. Weapon sounds could be better but voices and acting are amazingly well performed and the music is a good OST in general, putting some tension on you. This game is a perfect combo of a survival adventure with very tactical combats and some RPG features, with an interesting main story, good graphics and good music. 10/10

Gorky 17 has 1990s genre mashup written all over it - in a good way. What would you get if the aesthetic and atmosphere of the PS1 era Resident Evil games were merged with the combat of the PS1 era Final Fantasy Tactics games? Well, we can start with the polygonal character models over the rendered environments similar to RE1-3. Then, we have the very creepy B movie horror vibe of RE1-3. Then, it's on to the environmental puzzles we'd normally find in RE1-3. Now, do something very different in the survival horror genre by using the turn-based, grid like, tactical combat found in the Final Fantasy Tactics series. Gorky 17 is practically the offspring of Resident Evil and Final Fantasy Tactics. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Finished it multiple of times. Never have enaugh.

Great atmosphere, sound and artsyle. Personally I love turn based games if their done right. Overall, I found the game to be at just the right difficulty. There's a bit of a learning curve and, it will punish you at times for making poor tactical decisions, but it's a pretty fair system overall. As long as you take your time and learn from your mistakes, you'll be fine.

"Gorky 17" habe ich zum ersten Mal um 2000 herum beim Release gespielt und später noch insgesamt zwei weitere Male - nicht eingeschlossen mein erneuter Durchgang 2024. Die Atmosphäre und die pre-gerenderten Hintergründen mit Low-Poly-Modellen erinnern an das erste "Resident Evil". Die spannenden und herausfordernden Taktikkämpfe mit Rollenspielanteil an z. B. "Incubation". Beides hat es mir so sehr angetan, dass "Gorky 17" für mich zu den Spielen gehört, die in mehr oder weniger regelmäßigen Abständen wieder auf meiner Festplatte landen.