black plague.. machine room bug

[Yuhaney]

I can't really answer you're question about the gas mask, so need to wait Thomas or Jens...

But about the game:
You can finish the game, I think, since the patch fixes the only bug that everyone have with non-patched game that will crash the game at one point.
But if you can live with the gas mask 'bug', I guess you shouldn't face no more bigger problems with the game, since you patched it.

Oh, and one more question:
What version of the game did you bought? The downloadable version (Direct2Drive etc., other sites) or boxed version?

There are different patches for both of those...