I finally got my hands on the game and it's almost decades since a game impressed me that much.
I remember seeing screenshots and videos from "Tension" a while back and i got really excited about it. However, i couldn't find a release date anywhere and as time passed on, i sadly forgot about the game. Then just last week during my holidays in Germany, i picked up a copy of "The Void" at a electronics market for just 5 Euro (to get the idea: That's about what a pack of cigarettes costs there, so basically nothing), since the cover looked nice and i thought it would hardly be a waste for 5 Euros, even if the game would suck in the end.
Back at home i was shocked that this Game was German only when trying to install it. I was actually expecting it to be multilingual, so i could play it in English. Not that i wouldn't understand German, but i would have preferred an English version since German voicework in games usually sucks (must have been about 15 years ago since i actually played a game in German). So, that was quite a letdown for me, and i didn't want to play it at first and ruin my experience with bad voicework. So instead, i browsed the bonus section of the DVD and some of the artworked seemed familiar. After consulting good old google, i found out, that this game was in fact (at least more or less) the same game, "Tension" i got intrigued about a while back.
Now i just had to give it a chance and try it out. My concerns regarding the voicework were quickly laid to rest during the beautiful intro sequence and first few minutes within the game. Never before had i witnessed such an emotional and great
German voicework in a game.
So far, i've not encountered inappropriate pronouncing of wrong words, lame voice actors, bad translation that makes little to no sense etc. and the game managed to suck me in just the same, even though i was so concerned about the German translation at first.
It's also amazing that there's so much bonus (artwork, videos and even the full soundtrack!) on the DVD, too. This one could pass as a special edition, even. I almost feel bad for only paying 5 Euro for it, wouldn't have minded paying 50 in the first place.
Too bad i'll probably never get my hands on the Russian gift edition, which would be just the beautiful package the game deserves
I guess i'm still quite at the beginning (just finished the "mining quest" - even though i'm not even sure if i really finished it, judging from the response i got from one of the brothers) of the game, but i'm already totally in love with it. It's really something unique you created there and i love every bit about it. I like the way you have to figure out things on your own, instead of the game holding you by the hand and dragging you along. Like a miracle, i don't even mind the difficulty that much. OK, i had to start over for the 5th time now
but so far, it wasn't really the game forcing me to do so, but my actions instead. And since it's my fault, i can't really hold it against the game, right?
The way the story is told, the voice acting, the graphics, the music... playing this game really feels like a dream (even though the brothers could just be out of your worst nightmare as well).
The only thing i would criticize is the unforgiving difficulty, thus rendering it almost unplayable for a majority of people. It's a shame they will probably never experience the game. I don't really mind it, it's challenging and would probably loose a lot of its atmosphere if it was more forgiving, but still it's sad to know that many people probably bought the game and will never finish it after failing on their first try.
One thing even i have a problem with, though, is how time is running within the void. It would be great if there was a way to usually pause the time within the void unless you're actually traveling. I know time freezes when you're holding down CTRL to draw your path, but you can't look at the different chambers and their colours within when doing so. And when you hover your mouse over the chambers, time (and life therefore) starts ticking away. I know there's an easy patch but it would probably be doing "too much" to my game and besides i'm not even sure if it'll work with my German copy. I've looked through its files and the ones in the "strings" directory are all in English. So i'm afraid it might mess up my game, making it unplayable, or producing a German/English mishmash instead. Can somebody shed some light on this issue?
Like i wrote, it's been ages since a game sucked me in that much. It really gives you the feeling of being there, in a (more or less) living, breathing world. Only few games have managed to do this so far, namely Snatcher (an earlier work of Hideo Kojima, probably better known as "the guy who made Metal Gear") for it's detail and explanations of how this world works, and the Crusader series (you had a whole lot of material in the box, even "fake" newspapers etc. to get you into the mood). You excelled on where so many developers fail, to really
create a world, which makes sense on its own right, makes you wonder about things, lets you care and lets you think about differences and similarities between the game world and the real world we know. Today, most games lead you by the hand on pre-determind paths and you hardly have time or interest to concern yourself any deeper with them. It's a shame a Call of Duty or Gears of War is being hyped as if it was one of the best things one can experience and a true masterpiece like The Void gets rather harsh critics.
Anyways, truly a great game and i'm eager to find out what will happen next and how things will turn out as the story progresses.
I was just wondering, were there any inspirations and ideas from other games / movies? The brothers somehow reminded me about the cenobites from the Hellraiser movies, for example. Horribly disfigured humans, but not just monsters being and acting evil, but instead quite educated and eloquent beings who have personality to them instead. Or the level structure and architecture, it sometimes reminded me about the game Painkiller. There's a few others that don't come to my mind right now, but was this actually intended or is it only my imagination running wild?
And is there any additional info on the brothers? Like who they were before (they used to be humans once, right?), what they did, how they became like this etc.?
On another note, i was going to buy Pathologic back then. In fact, it was a Sunday and i was going to buy the game on Monday. I noticed there was an English demo, downloaded and played it. But i got really turned away from the game because of the translation there and decided not to buy the game. It's a shame that a demo, which should actually make you buy the game, did the exact opposite for me. The dialogue was like "Do you have a car?" - "I heard it will be raining tomorrow"... it just made no sense to me whatsoever and made it very hard for me to care for or even follow the story. Maybe after The Void, though, i might give the
German version of Pathologic a chance. Does anybody know if it's voicework and translation is more decent than the English one? If so, i might try to track it down, even though it will probably pretty hard to find meanwhile.
Anyways, sorry for the long post, just wanted to point out how much i like the game and maybe one or two of my questions might even be answered
Thanks again for making such a great experience!
