Gorky 17/Odium

[visions]

Was looking through the GOG christmas sale list and came across this. Apparently a Polish tactical rpg, set in modern Poland.

I think I vaguely remember PorkaMorka praising it once. Has anyone else played it here? If so, what did you think of it?

 

[Konjad]

Gorky 17 <3 Man, this is one of the best turn-based tactical... um... idk if it can be called strategy or RPG or something else, whatever it is it's great. Has great atmosphere, combat encounters are pretty hard and require player to think. Story is pretty good too although I don't remember much so I'm not sure.

This is one of the most underrated games ever. As a true Polish devs they did not have enough potatoes for a hype so it didn't get any popularity abroad.

 

[Eyeball]

I got it off Gog. I did not like it.

While it is true that it looks very interesting and shows great promise, two things held it back for me: Scarcity of supplies and the board game mechanics which seemed misplaced.

You will do a whole lot of turn-based fighting in this game, and it works OK, really - except that every encounter is scripted, pretty difficult and rarely yields any more ammo or medikits which you will be HURTING for. By the fifth fight or something, I had just about exhausted my ammo supplies and had to fight giant mutants with knives. Not fun for me, but I understand that some people love this kind of resource management.

But the board game mechanics are what killed it for me. See, in G17, the battlemaps are divided in squares you can move your guys around in. This is fine for me - but then I realised that rifles can only shoot at 90 degree angles and pistols can shoot in X'es. In a game about mutants and mad science, this simply struck me as being too plain DUMB.

I uninstalled after about an hours worth of gameplay.

I love board-game like games though. I heartily recommend Shadow Watch if you can find it - excellent squad level board game, like X-Com lite, with a great sound track and voice acting as well as functional RPG elements. Here is a video of the game, although it seems to lag so badly that most of the movement and shooting animations are absent: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN1Z0nP6 ... re=related

 

[spectre]

Didn't play it too much, seemed like a p.cool tactical/puzzle game back then (you have to work with quite limited resources: ammo, healing, hence puzzle).
It also has some rpg elements - you raise the weapon skills of your guys, raise some stats.
(Remember there was an expoit: lower one guy's calmness, so that each hit makes him raaage, equip

The 3d aged pretty bad on this one, but the rendered 2d backgrounds look nicely grimdark.

Some stuff to rage about:
monster encounters (iirc) appear out of nowhere as you walk the map, like in a jrpg.
during combat, some weapons have really fricken weird patterns - some guns only shoot directly to the front and the sides (like a rook in chess), some also shoot diagonally (hence: puzzle game feel).

 

[lightbane]

Yeah, played it and loved it (although it's a bit short). Yep, the game is more like a puzzle game than a tactical one, the weapons' range are strange and ammo is pretty scarce (until you learn to use the reusable weapons like the taser and the flamethrower), my only problem with this game is that the ending pretty much confirmed that a sequel was to be done but sadly never happened

 

[zeitgeist]

This is one of the rare turn-based tactical games I haven't tried, because I simply couldn't find an English version anywhere at the time.

But the board game mechanics are what killed it for me. See, in G17, the battlemaps are divided in squares you can move your guys around in. This is fine for me - but then I realised that rifles can only shoot at 90 degree angles and pistols can shoot in X'es.

Could you please elaborate on this? Are you talking about the actual playing field in TBT mode, or the abstracted strategy map or something? If it's the former, it sounds pretty silly.

 

[DraQ]

I got it off Gog. I did not like it.

While it is true that it looks very interesting and shows great promise, two things held it back for me: Scarcity of supplies and the board game mechanics which seemed misplaced.

You will do a whole lot of turn-based fighting in this game, and it works OK, really - except that every encounter is scripted, pretty difficult and rarely yields any more ammo or medikits which you will be HURTING for. By the fifth fight or something, I had just about exhausted my ammo supplies and had to fight giant mutants with knives. Not fun for me, but I understand that some people love this kind of resource management.

Sounds pretty fun, actua...

But the board game mechanics are what killed it for me. See, in G17, the battlemaps are divided in squares you can move your guys around in. This is fine for me - but then I realised that rifles can only shoot at 90 degree angles and pistols can shoot in X'es.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Best fucking TB strategy game I ever played.

Go get it!

 

[Heechee]

It's rather unique game, somewhat similar to Incubation in terms of tight resource management, boardgameish combat, and light RPG elements. It's not great, but definitely good and worth playing, especially these days.

 

[Black]

I liked it. I can't say that it's good. I don't even really care. Maybe it was the atmosphere that made me like it.
It's the same thing as with Dink Smallwood. DS was shit but hell, I liked it.

 

[DraQ]

I've heard about this game back when it came out and everything sounds interesting, except arbitrary firing direction limitations. This kind of stuff was already odd in Netstorm, even though it worked okay-ish given the combined unfamiliarity and abstraction of this game, but I don't know if I could physically bear such a thing in a tactical game featuring more or less modern weapons.

 

[ZbojLamignat]

Imo it's a typical "shit-yet considered good by some connoisseurs-yet actually really shit" game.

Being a member of a genre that used to be cool, but died out on PC helps, but apart from combat the gameplay is basically a grimdark version of FF VII, only with much less stuff.

Oh, and the writing and voice acting in PL version was fucking repugnant

 

[Eyeball]

I mean that the battle maps are divided into invisible squares which you walk around using movement points. This works well and is fine. However, if you have a rifle, you can only shoot at enemies standing directly north, south, east or west of you, and if you have a pistol you can only shoot at enemies diagonally to you.

Think chess rook vs bishop. Even if the monster is standing right next to you.

Still, I think I would really like this game if somebody modded it to make ammunition more plentiful and removed the silly shooting rules, I'd really like this game. There's definitely some promise here, it's just kinda brought down by those two things.

See for yourself, buy it from Gog for 3 dollars, you cheap bastards: http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/gorky_17

 

[laclongquan]

THis is a great pioneer game in term of tactical squadbased JA2-clone. I am surprised Codex didnt know/didnt like it:

Pro:
- Squad based. Very much limited number of hirelings so you have to take care with your troopers.

- Scarcity of resources. The game setting is a small section of a town: some outside maps, some mansion map. Kinda like Resident Evil. You have to watch your ammo and your melee skills. Rambo with gun blazing get dry fast. It's like early F1 and F2 when you dont get many bullets and guns.

- Choices and Consequences. SInce it's pioneer game it's limited in scope. Not very many, but one involved choose to gather one hireling or let her die etc..

- Experiment with realistic guns: rifles can shoot far but awkawrd so they can only shoot straight and across. pistols is fast so it can shoot all around you (that's what it mean by X: across, behind, diagonal).

- Realistic setting heavily influenced by Resident Evil factor.

Con:

- Scripted battles: you dont have to get every battles but each is scripted. The early day of tactical turnbased squadbased game. And each map got limited number of battles.

- Since it's a experiment with realistic setting of guns, some players will feel awkward and scream blue murder over this aspect.

- It's in the early days of RPG era so RPG elements is pretty light. NO perks or personal characteristics.
Also heavily influenced by Resident Evil.

Final Verdict: Very good for what it is, which is a pioneer for JA2 and Fallout Tactics.

 

[zeitgeist]

However, if you have a rifle, you can only shoot at enemies standing directly north, south, east or west of you, and if you have a pistol you can only shoot at enemies diagonally to you.

Does this mean you can't shoot at anything that's not in a straight-straight or straight-diagonal line in relation to your character at all?

 

[visions]

Ok, seems interesting enough, think I'll try it. The boardgame-like shooting rules do not sound that bad to me, tbh. Just seem to indicate that the game should be approached more like a puzzle game with a rather arbritrary set of rules, as some of you have suggested.

 

[laclongquan]

IIRC, if they are straight or diagonal from your char, it's pure HIT%. But if it's slightly off, there's a penalty toHit. I dont recall very well.

 

[Black]

From all the things posted, I'm actually mostly surprised that the shooting gets so much hate. Yeah, it doesn't make sense that pistols in 4 ways blahblah but it forces the player to pay attention to what weapon he's using and positioning.

 

[ZbojLamignat]

Um... Gorky 17 being a game with realistic setting, released in the early days of rpg era and a pioneer for JA 2 and FT?



That seriously has to be one of the most awkward opinions I ever read about anything.

 

[Eyeball]

However, if you have a rifle, you can only shoot at enemies standing directly north, south, east or west of you, and if you have a pistol you can only shoot at enemies diagonally to you.

Does this mean you can't shoot at anything that's not in a straight-straight or straight-diagonal line in relation to your character at all?

Precisely. You carry a rifle, enemy stand right next to you but diagonally, you can't shoot it, period.

 

[Eyeball]

IIRC, if they are straight or diagonal from your char, it's pure HIT%. But if it's slightly off, there's a penalty toHit. I dont recall very well.

Not as far as I recall. In my game, anything NOT standing Rook or Bishop to you = can't even fire at it.

Comparing Gorky to JA2 is like comparing a Trabant to a Ferrari.

 

[DraQ]

From all the things posted, I'm actually mostly surprised that the shooting gets so much hate. Yeah, it doesn't make sense that pistols in 4 ways blahblah but it forces the player to pop psychedelics till shit starts making sense.

Repaired.

 

[laclongquan]

Didnt I say it's a pioneer game?

 

[MessiahMan]

I didn't think much of it, either. Combat felt like a jrpg in that there was just a whole bunch of hit-swapping going on. Weapons all felt awkward, and you're mostly getting in bad guy's faces, and hitting them with your best melee weapon while they hit back, ad nauseum, because everything you do feels so wimpy, and everyone has plenty of hit points to spare. Battles were at set points, but they just kind of appeared without any indication, and tactical options were minimal. It really left a bad taste in my mouth.

 

[Reject_666_6]

I mean that the battle maps are divided into invisible squares which you walk around using movement points. This works well and is fine. However, if you have a rifle, you can only shoot at enemies standing directly north, south, east or west of you, and if you have a pistol you can only shoot at enemies diagonally to you.

Think chess rook vs bishop. Even if the monster is standing right next to you.

Still, I think I would really like this game if somebody modded it to make ammunition more plentiful and removed the silly shooting rules, I'd really like this game. There's definitely some promise here, it's just kinda brought down by those two things.

See for yourself, buy it from Gog for 3 dollars, you cheap bastards: http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/gorky_17

You're wrong about the firing spread and about its importance. First of all, a rifle lets you fire both east, west, north, south and diagonally, and this covers all 9 squares around your character, so yes you can use your rifle in melee range. Shotguns can fire only NSEW with an additional square in each diagonal direction, so again it's usable in melee. Pistols is where you can only fire NSEW, and it's the same for various rocket launchers, etc. Now this is where I completely forgot, but I think grenades can be thrown in an entire area surrounding your character.

Secondly, firearms are not more effective than melee weapons in terms of damage and it costs nothing to switch to one if you need full melee coverage, so this is a moot point anyway.

Also don't forget that this is one of the fun aspects of its combat, knowing how to use your weapon attack patterns well and knowing all your enemies' attack patterns to defend well..

Bottom line, game has great atmosphere, interesting story, good graphics, good music, good (ironman) combat, a polish character and some grotesque shit, mang. Do play it.

EDIT: Also, I don't know about you, but the game is easy enough with its scarce ammo/medical stuff and with its restricted firing spreads. Removing those would really turn the game into FF.

 

[denizsi]

Neither an RPG or a pioneer to anything by any stretch of imagination. It's plainly a board game with some story and dialogue thrown in.