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Pathos - The Simple Journey Into The Unknown
Pathos - The Simple Journey Into The Unknown
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Feb |
| 28 |
The dark game Pathos has only been released quite recently, yet it has already become a hit and evoked lots of speculations on how it can and should be interpreted. You may love it or hate it - but you can hardly remain indifferent.
ATTENTION: The text below contains some spoilers, so you might prefer to play the game first and come back for our review later!
Just a couple of words about the storyline - which is pretty simple, even if quite different from the majority of games we have come across before. A kid is staying late at his computer, and no matter how hard his mum tries to urge him to go to bed, he would not leave gaming, or browsing through the Internet, or whatever else he is doing - although obviously not studying, as it would immediately put the action of the story into some kind of imaginary impossible world.
Then the boy gets into some sort of underworld, or 'inverted world' (judging by the way the posters on the wall look - same as in 'Through the looking glass...' by Lewis Carroll) where everything resembles his room and his world - but in inverted order.
So now the boy obviously wants to get back home to his mummy. And here the most interesting part starts: whereas the player is tricked into thinking that he or she is leading the little chap back to his world, it turns out eventually that he or she is by no means the boy's saviour. Although you rescue him from the room with the crushing walls, help him to cross the bridge, lead him through the darkness and things, as a matter of fact, your mission turns out to be rather evil...
What will the ending of the game be? Play this experimental game created within only 48 hours. Although it might drive you crazy at times with its slow motion and awkward dialogues, it is overall a nice alternative to all those modern games overburden with special effects and 3D graphics.
My first question once I played this game was whether there was a possibility of creating an alternative ending - same as in post-modernists' novels, e.g. 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' by J. Fowles. But I am also aware that the game, notwithstanding its obvious simplicity, has arisen certain speculations concerning its ending and 'philosophy'. People have been asking themselves and each other questions whether the game's ending is the kid's waking up from his nightmare, or his merciless murder by the black red-eyed creature; whether the fact that you obey to what the game tells you to do makes you just a machine for performing someone else's will, and should you be ordered to kill someone by the religion, government, or your boss, you will do it just the same way you chased the innocent kid wanting to get home to his mummy; whether your reaction to the game's ending might actually tell something about your own personality (i.e. if you felt compassionate towards the kid, you are 'a good person,' and vice versa)...
Well, it is certainly interesting to dwell upon all these issues, but I guess we better do it next time. And not in this blog. People nowadays tend to over-complicate simple things. And in our opinion, after all, computer games are there to be enjoyed and played. So we wish you guys to have fun while playing this game and to enjoy its cute and somewhat old-fashioned graphics.
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| Tags: Pathos, game, free online games, flash games, horror game, nightmare, new online games
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