ōdi∙um

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Description

Story

Mutants have been found in the bombed out Polish city codenamed 'Gorky 17' near Lubin, and a trio of soldiers (Sullivan, Owicz and Trantigne, each of different nationalities) enter the city to find out what happened and find any member of the first squad previously sent there. You control the team and direct them through the world of surprises and mysteries that wait to be resolved.

Gameplay

The game is composed mainly of two playing modes. The (tentatively named) "Adventure mode" is displayed in a top down view point, with the team walking around the city in real time, interacting with objects, picking up weapons, ammunition from item chests and key items (such as keycards) and use them to advance to new areas. At fixed locations, the team will be ambushed by mutants, and the gameplay switches to the (again, tentatively named) "Battle mode", featuring a battle field divided into square grids and an isometric perspective. Each side takes turn moving, attacking, defending and using items; the battle ends when all mutants die, or one of the main characters dies. The battle field would sometimes have items like exploding barrels, or item chests similar to those in "Adventure mode".

Character Advancement

Each time the soldier hits and wounds a mutant, they gain experience; once the character gains enough experience, he levels up and gains stat points which can be used to improve attributes such as hit point, accuracy, etc. Also, each time the character successfully use a weapon, their experience with that particular weapon will be improved, and at the highest level (level 10) the weapon will deal its intended maximum damage (displayed as "max damage" in the weapon info).

Items and Weapons

The soldiers can equip themselves with melee weapons (crowbars, axe), conventional small arms (pistol, shotgun, assault rifle), special weapons (tranquilizer dart gun, stun gun) to heavy and sci-fi weapons. All weapons have limited range and most firearms can only shoot in certain directions (for example, pistols can shoot up, down, left, right, while assault rifles can also shoot diagonally); some fires in bursts or have splash damage meaning they can hit multiple enemies. Mutants also have varying degrees of protection against weapons (armor) and some have immunities for special effects of weapons (such as stun), which the game kindly takes notes once such information is found out.

In both "Adventure mode" and "Battle mode", characters can transfer and equip weapons and body armor if available, or heal themselves or each other. The character are 3D models and the environment are pre-rendered 2D background, which is similar to games like Resident Evil 2 . At certain points in the game, the characters may be joined by surviving soldiers or citizens, and will occasionally encounter boss-like monsters.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Alternate Titles

• "Горький-17. Запретная зона" -- Russian spelling (alternative)
• "Odium" -- Common title
• "Gorky 18" -- Alternate translation of Russian localization with plot changes
• "Gorky-17 Мужская Работа" -- Russian spelling
• "Gorky 17: Das dunkle Vermächtnis" -- German title
• "Gorky 17" -- European title

Part of the Following Groups

• Covermount: Level (Romania)
• Gorky series
• Middleware: SDL
• Setting: Country - Poland
• Setting: Future now Past

User Reviews

It's good!	Windows	xroox (3970)
Odium means "hatred" in Latin and that's a good word for describing the job done on the Mac port.	Macintosh	Tashtego (156)
A nice tactical game, not quite as chess-puzzle like as Incubation, not as open-ended as the best in the genre.	Windows	weregamer (169)

Critic Reviews

Game Revolution	Windows	Dec 01, 1999	A-	91
Gameplay (Benelux)	Windows	Oct 30, 1999	82 out of 100	82
Gamesmania.de	Windows	1999	80 out of 100	80
Absolute Games (AG.ru)	Windows	Nov 15, 1999	80 out of 100	80
Game Vortex	Windows	Jan 31, 2003	80 out of 100	80
Eurogamer.net (UK)	Windows	Mar 02, 2000	8 out of 10	80
PC Player (Germany)	Windows	Dec, 1999	73 out of 100	73
IGN	Windows	Dec 07, 1999	7 out of 10	70
JeuxMac.com	Macintosh	May, 2003	3 out of 5	60
Computer Gaming World (CGW)	Windows	Mar, 2000		40

Forums

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Trivia

References

In the first part of the game you find a Singing Mutant who keeps singing a song, "Pleasure little Treasure", which is the name of a Depeche Mode song from their "Never Let me Down Again" single.

Russian versions

Two localized versions of ōdi∙um have been released in Russia; both feature plot changes: Gorky 17 is mostly faithful to the original, with main characters identities changed to Russians instead of NATO soldiers, while Gorky 18 features major changes to character personalities, dialogs and plot - in fact, the whole script has been created from scratch. General gameflow is unchanged though.

Sound files

Go to the DAT\COMMON directory that's wherever you installed the game. Grab the "Sound.dat" and "Voice.dat" files, and load them in Winamp. You'll be able to listen to all the sounds and dialogue, but they're all squished together and out of order, so you may spoil bits of the story by doing this.

Information also contributed by chirinea and Irx

Related Web Sites

• ōdi∙um (official website)