(This short piece was written in response to this and this, two articles from Rock, Paper, Shotgun dealing with Pathologic.)

Do games have to be fun to be good? This is a question which following Quinns take on Pathologic over on Rock, Paper, Shotgun has been running around in my head like a hamster does on a wheel. Or is that a mouse…anyway one of the points that Quinns raised in his examination of Pathologic was that while it may not always be a fun game to play, it was a good game.

Of course this statement caused some debate among the RPS fanatics, another issue that was raised in response to this detailed examination of Pathologic was whether current reviewing methods are really all that good.

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Pathologic and Tension are two games from Russian developers Ice-Pick Lodge.

Pathologic was released a few years ago and Tension is still in development. Why do I want to talk about these games? Well because they seem pretty damn weird, interesting and, well throw in numerous other words like that.

I would like to direct you to a couple of articles on Rock, Paper, Shotgun that are all about Pathologic. The first one can be read here and the second one can be read here. There third part of that series of articles is here.

I will just say those two articles convinced me to buy this game, I may hate it, but I am determined to play it. It sounds very intriguing.

In regards to Tension there is little I want you to do apart from watch this (not work safe) video to see what it is all about.

Why do Russian studios make the best games eh?