Cryostasis

i got this game due to the comments of it being this years bioshock.. but when i got it, i was bored after 5mins of playing, the game takes for ever to start and you find your self in and out of day dreaming and chasing dogs through snow. the graphics arnt as good was what people say and ive got everything on at Very High and DX10 and phsyx or what ever its called. the graphics are decent but have seen better. the rest of the game play is boring, you do prity much the same all the way through it and the locations all look the same "rusty and wet". but there is a major problem with this game even though it says recommended a Amd Athlond X2 or core 2 duo this game has not been made proparly to function with more than 50% of your CPU which meens you will get extremely low frame rates even with the most expensive computer. the game is playeable at resolutions of 1280x 800 with everything on very high and AA at around 30fps. but any higher than that you will have to lower some settings.
over all this game was extremely disapointing and deserves around 2 to 3 stars.

Don't know what techincal difficulties the others had, it was running without problems on my machine, with fast loading times and smooth frame rates.
It's a very dark game, with stories on many levels. It made me jump in my armchair many times.

Despite what some other negative reviews have said if you check with the specifications for the game your computer should have no problem playing it.
I stuck the disk in, installed it and then was able to play it instantly without a single problem. So I don't know what's happened with other people.

The game itself is fantastic. The environments and atsmosphere are dead-on and really make you feel like you;re on the haunted 'North-Wind' Nuclear Icebreaker. If you are after the average and common fast paced FPS shooter this is not it but if you want something a bit different with a well revised arsenal of weapons and puzzles along the way this is the game for you.
The whole concept of the game is fresh and innovative and really feels great to play. From what I've played so far of the game gameplay is excellent and very tense due to the horror theme but works so well on the abandonded ship you're wandering around on. The story so far is very interesting and told in a unique and well done way. Graphics are superb, creating realistic and amazing looking environments (however, character details are not as great but this is no major drawback) and sound is absolutley fantastic.

I have not played far through the game yet but so far I am very impressed and would reccomend it. I would check the specification though as some people ahve had problems and it does require a lot.

I haven't completed this game at the time of writing this review but I know enough about my feelings towards it to write one. I tracked it with Gamespot for almost a year before it's release and was pleased when I could finally get on with playing it. You play as Alexander Nesterov, a meteorologist who has been sent to the remotest stretches of the arctic to board the Russian ice breaker ship called 'The North Wind'. This ship suffered a bad accident and it's your job to find out what on earth happened! What he finds is pretty much hell on ice!

The game boasts a few great new ideas that give it good diversity. The protagonist has a special ability called 'mental echo' which allows him to experience the last few minutes of people's lives. You zoom into the corpse's frozen brain and have to carry out little side missions which if completed, change the person's past and also help you progress. If you fail, you simply try again. Another really impressive thing is the way the ice is modelled. Never have I seen so well detailed environments like this. If it's freezing cold in a room, everything is crystallised in ice. Then, if you introduce a strong heat source to this room (an engine, generator etc), the ice thaws out displaying wet, dripping walls and floors. The conventional health system is scrapped in this game too. Instead, you keep yourself alive by staying warm. I've never played a game where a little light-bulb has been so important to me! This is a great new idea and a welcome change to the usual boring system of just picking up medical boxes.

It begins at a slow pace and your abilities are very limited. The first few foes you face have to be dealt with using only your fists. As you become more accustomed to the cold and find better weapons to use, your potency increases but it can be very frustrating being so weak and fragile at the start. Only a couple of punches from an enemy is often enough to fall you. This isn't really a bad point of the game as it just adds to the challenge by throwing you in at the deep end. Speaking of the enemies, they are members of the ship's crew that have been hideously transformed by the cold. The sounds they make and their movements are truly frightening.

The bugs and problems a lot people speak of were not experienced by me, It runs like a dream on my PC and that is a rare thing to happen these days considering the nature of PC gaming.

As I said, I have yet to reach the end of this innovative gem from little known developer 505 Games but if this is the sort of stuff they are capable of producing, I look forward to seeing more from them. Necrovision is one such game that I intend to check out next! Cryostasis really is a superb game that ranks right up there with my all time favourites.

For PC owners with a decent gaming rig, this is a must buy.
Starting on a desolate and cold icebreaker, you are alone - or will soon wish you were!
Dead bodies lie around you and you have the ability to enter their minds and see their last few moments. When you do you have the chance to change the circumstances of their demise and thus alter history - and open up a new passage of the game to play.
Genuinly scary. Well designed. Graphically superior - The game is a figurehead for Nvidia's PhysX technology, so the different layers of ice, snow and water react differently as they melt, as they would in real life - or in this case.....death!
A stunning achievement. I look forward to many more games from 1C and 505. Bright new lights on the PC block.
Check out their entirely more mindless, but just as fun sister product to Cryostasis, called Necrovision.