Odium or Gorky 17 was released on the PC back in November of 1999. The game was developed by Metropolis Software and published by Monolith Productions.
In North America the game was released as Odium while the European release saw the name Gorky 17. I still have no clue for the reason of the name change.
Odium is a turn-based tactical RPG featuring only a single player mode. Funny thing about this title is that most of you would have never even heard about it. Back then it was by pure chance that I got to play the game. The cover had this big red mutated face on the front and the shots on the back showed soldiers killing monsters. Soldiers, killing monsters and RPG elements? I was sold at the spot.
To this day Odium still holds a very high rank in my list of games. It being very unknown amongst gamers makes me sad. I just hope my review is able to do justice to the game.
Story
The opening cinematic trailer shows a bombing run by the military on a city code-named Gorky 17. The city is destroyed in a last bit effort to vanquish every one of the creatures that reside there. The trailer leaves you hungry with questions; Where did the creatures come from? Who is responsible for this? How does this relate to the game’s plot? Everything will be explained in due time.
Odium takes place in a small Polish town near Lubin, which has been placed under military quarantine. It’s feared that whatever happened at Gorky 17 is now happening here. A NATO strike team was sent to confirm this but they have now gone missing. Your team is tasked with finding Group One (or what’s left of them) and securing a laboratory within the city.
Your team consists of three members; Cole Sullivan (the leader), Jarek Ovitz and Thiery Trantigne. None knows what happened at Gorky 17 but Sullivan tells his team to be ready for anything.
Graphics
Back in the 90′s I rarely had played any game on the PC that housed so many cinematic intros. Odium had a cinematic intro for each of the 10 bosses you face in the game; and each of them made the bosses look so bad-ass even though some were really easy to kill.
The Laboratory: Attention to detail in the final stage is evident.
Another reason I love Odium so much is the atmosphere. The game is a mixture of many genres which also includes horror elements. The terrain and map textures are just incredible and work together to create this eerie subtle look that you see in horror movies. I’m talking about the moment of silence just before something grabs you through the walls.
The lighting in the game is pretty good too. One would consider a game with horror elements to feature darkness but that’s not the case here. The whole game goes through, what seems to me as midnight when the moon is shining on you. Then there are your mellow lights and lamps flickering here and there.
There are no continuous patterns in map design, each section brings a new layer which gives players a new experience every time. Something which developers of a recently released sequel can learn from. The ground textures are amazing and I’m dead sure that a lot of time was spent on creating every single section of the game; since each level has so much content.
Grandma: The first boss of the game.
The bosses and other creatures look magnificent. Each one has been given attention to detail; which I sadly cannot say about the playable characters. Sullivan’s jacket looks more like as if some one dropped a chocolate bomb on him.
The special effects are amazing as well. When combined with the excellent audio (which I’ll be covering next), the player’s experience just jumps to an entirely new level. The fire effects from your flame thrower and missiles are pretty and the blood seems real enough. Attack animations of the AI are very smooth and fluid.
Check out the cinematic intro of the first boss of the game, Grandma below. Tell me you wouldn’t piss your pants after watching that and knowing she’s the next boss.
However, the game had it’s share of texture glitches and other problems. Most PC’s would have textures that would overlap everything on the screen including the characters. This would happen if you ran the game using anything other than the given software render option.
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