Cryostatis

For those who don't know, Cryostatis is a Russian game set inside an Ice Breaker at the north pole in 1981... A trailer is here

A version has appeared on the tubes (thank Atheismo for Try Before You Buy) and I got in a few hours with it last night.

My observations follow:

1) The graphics are okay. They're kind of outdated by current generation standards but I'd like to think PC gamers are mature enough to live with dodgy graphics if the gameplay is decent.

2) It isn't.

3) A big problem with Cryostatis is- there isn't really a set up. You can get the setting and so on, and there's this weird opening sequence that tells an ancient story about some Inuit's who get driven out of their homeland but other than that you're shoved into the ice breaker with no real idea of who you are or what you're meant to be doing.

It's really hard to feel scared by the weird goings on around you because they feel so completely without context. You can work out that you're being attacked by the ghosts of drowned sailors if you pay attention but why on earth are you able to enter the memories of said sailors and poke around? Are you magical or something?

4) This poking around in the memories of dead sailors is another issue. You have to go back in time and prevent their death - either by getting them to a door before they drown or by defending them against enemies. This would be okay but they're frustratingly hard and don't seem to benefit you at all. Or the people. You're told (by on screen text, not by any character) that this is to save the sailors souls... You're given no indication that this has, in fact happened, though and you don't really get a benefit such as a piece of info from the sailor's spirit... all you get is an unblocked door/passage to let you proceed.


5) The heat thing is a bit odd.

You don't get a health bar in this game, you get a heat meter. Okay, you may be thinking, that makes some sense. It's in the north pole, it would be a bit stupid if you didn't have to worry about the cold.

The problem is, it's a little hard to swallow. Your body temperature goes down when you're running around the freezing cold ship and you can warm yourself up by huddling round a heat source, fine. The problems arise when you can get half of your heat/health back from a light bulb.

It makes sense if you're sapping heat from a massive engine or a fire but a light bulb?

Also, the enemies' attacks are a little odd. As they hit you, they get colder. Okay, I suppose. They have to affect your health some way. I just think it would make the game much more effective to really run with this whole cold thing.

At the moment, the enemies leap out of the water, or whatever, and run at you, swinging their fists or an axe or whatever. I can't help feeling it would be much more awesome if they struggled out of the water and crawled towards you - the cold following them. You can't get near them because they're cold incarnate. You have to run.

It would certainly help alleviate the really quite bad melee combat.


6) The voice acting is okay.

Much better than that in Stalker (although that's not saying much) but they've used the old Stalker device or not explaining a damn thing.


7) It's not that fun to play.

It's too linear, the combat is rubbish, the atmosphere gets old, you can't move quickly enough and most of the interesting ideas are implemented really poorly.


So yeah. Not as good as S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl. A for effort, C for execution.

Oh well, let's see what Dark Athena's like...