Pathologic is not a fun game; rather, it's the gaming equivalent of living on the streets in Venezuela. It is also one of the most important games in the world. The shining star of a genre of a games that can only be defined as "Russian", Pathologic is a place where the end of the world is not explosions and excitement. Rather, it is a boring trudge in isolation as you give up every inch of moral fibre out of convenience. At the end of it, you don't even consider it ironic to be pondering high-level philosophy whilst literally scamming kids for medicine. If you can endure it, Pathologic absolutely gives you an unparalleled insight into how societal collapse shape people. For the absolutely best experience, start playing the game as your typical doe-eyed RPG character and try to maintain that level of morality for as long as possible.
Kholat hooked me on the premise that one would be in the middle of nowhere, navigating the wild, having a hard time knowing where one is; all whilst telling a compelling story. I couldn't be more wrong. If you don't care about graphics, just play Miasmata instead. The game looks absolutely great. Between a minimal UI, exhaustion effects, contextual fog and just overall crispness in the scenery there is nothing to complain about. The sound design is good. Sean Bean's narration is a joy. The atmosphere sounds are passable. The crescendos the game pulls feel a bit hammy, but that's about the worst of it. Design wise though, the game is just not good. First off, key elements are not explained. This includes the map never centering on new locations (despite them being marked), explaining which way is north on the rather odd compass, tents only allowing you to save if you saved somewhere else, optional journals being mandatory one-time save points and the light phobic 'monster' getting enraged when you shine light on him. Secondly, half the map is empty corridors and a significant amount of them are one way. The threatening 'monster' that appears has extremely basic AI, and death will only follow from it cheekily spawning on top of you rather than it outsmarting you. Thirdly, a lot of the story is pointless. A lot of journal entries amount to nothing more than 'scientists built a bad thing' or 'the hikers were happy'. A lot of scenic moments amount to nothing more than 'here's a spooky thing, now it falls apart, now run away'. Easily 60% of this content could have been scrapped and the story would have not have become any worse because of it.
This game strikes a really solid atmosphere that almost had me at tears at points. Much like 'Heart of Darkness' or 'Abe's Odessey' it is a lethal, gory platformer. Unlike those games though, The Way is also embraces a very serious stillness. Nothing is meant to be evil or out to get you, things simply exist. Many compare the game to 'Another World', but I would rather compare it to a slightly more mature version of the movie 'Up'. Where the game falters though is with its implementation. It was sheer luck that I did not lock the game twice; as dying in the middle of certain actions will re-spawn objects in weird ways. The gamepad support also ranges from 'acceptable' to 'downright infuriating'. Save yourself a headache and use a mouse for certain sections; you'll know which. Puzzles are a mixed bag. There's variety and challenge, but a few of them clearly wear out their welcome.
One of the best games ever; however the difficulty notably ramps up if you play it in small sittings over a prolonged period of time. Like an expensive puzzle box, this game manages to be both elegant and have logically sound solutions. During this game I went through tens of pages of notes, and fifty screenshots of important objects. I would go as far as to say this is the most satisfying puzzle game I've played in the last five years. This game does however induce some anxiety from the lack of gating. Every puzzle can be attempted without the required parts; and for some puzzles the parts are even unavailable for the majority of the game. Couple that with sometimes precise hotspots and an almost-always expanding world; and you'll quickly start to catalog every nook and cranny to make sure you do not enter a puzzle without fulfilling all the necessary criteria.
