Scary, immersive, atmospheric, and intelligent survival horror. I can't imagine asking for more.
Months passed. I was at the mall, quickly browsing the Gamestop there (I know, odd for a PC Gamer), and they had marked down Cryostasis from its original price to $30.
I'll cut to the chase, it was an impulse buy. 45 minutes later, I'm home, the install is complete, and I've entered the tense, claustrophobic corridors of the nuclear icebreaker the game takes place on.
Let me just say, I'm not a huge horror fan. I've never watched a REAL horror movie, like The Grudge, or anything like that. Because I'd crap myself. My point, is that while I was really fricking scared while playing this game, that doesn't mean YOU will be, just a warning for all those looking to scare themselves silly with this game.
But that's actually a little off-topic: the game starts fairly well in an interesting sequence that acts almost like a tutorial, introducing the neat mechanic wherein you can live through someone elses final moments, altering the past so that they live and so that you can progress through the ship. You don't meet a single enemy until maybe 15 minutes in, and after that you won't see another one for quite a while.
And that brings me to the pacing. This game has odd pacing compared to most of today's hyper-media. COD4 has you gunning down insurgents like you were on Crack. Cryostasis is a little more realistic in regards to your skills as a fighter. As in, you can't shoot or punch for SH1T. But I like that; it is an absolute thrill (not to mention a scare) knowing that you aren't some god of the battlefield. You're an average guy, thrust into an unnatural position. That really struck me as being great.
A quick note on the graphics: they're pretty good, but really poorly optimized. Don't listen to the recommended requirements, to max the game out you need some pretty hefty specs (I have an HD 4890, ATI's fastest single-gpu card, and it ran mostly smooth but even then there were some stutters). I especially liked how the ice melted when rooms heated up.
You survive in this game not by picking up med-kits and bandaging yourself up (fighting doesn't happen often enough to even warrant that) but by simply staying warm. A heated pipe here, or a stove-top there. A heat-gauge, constantly draining, acts as your health bar, and stays, for the most part, consistently low, just another factor in the overall atmosphere.
The use of sound, too, is great, as there is almost an entire lack of music. Only the blizzard raging outside the crashed ship will sing to you, and it's a harsh, cold song...
The story itself is interesting, a tale of greed and jealousy, hate and envy. Human weakness. It's not so much what's being said (although that's fantastic too) but how it's being told. You see the story through black and white flashbacks, like how you alter the memories of deceased sailors, only there's a lot more talking and less doing. The characters are pretty decent, and there are some amazingly well done scenes (where the prisoners escape, I thought, was great, you'll know it when you see it). The rest of the story is told through the experiences of the deceased sailors; in one puzzle, you have to make it past a bunch of hungry, demonic dogs by sticking to the walls and staying back as far as possible. While not exactly the biggest challenge, it was as atmospheric as it got. I got a real sense of being on the ship, having seen the ship transform from simply hitting an iceburg to being overtaken by zombie-like demons and invaded by the cold.
A lot of people criticized the game for it's repetitiveness when it came to the corridors. And yes, there are hundreds of alike metal, russian corridors in this game. But the one thing that stopped me from hating these corridors is that, generally, you're supposed to find an electricity switch, turn on the lights/generator, and turn it from an icy wasteland into a warm haven. Taking the dark, and replacing it with light. I thought it was really great how the devs used the cold, not just simple darkness, to portray evil, and how you defeated it.
On a final note, this game isn't for everyone. If you think Halo is the greatest game of all time, I doubt this is for you. On the other hand, if you like sophisticated, more intelligent games and can put up with the poor optimization, this is more your type of game. And, you've got to be able to stand missing 3 out of 5 shots with the guns in the game.
I, personally, think that (while this isn't quite Half Life 2 by a LONG SHOT) this is a great game, in fact I'd go so far as to call it one of the best games I've played all year so far. I can't quite recommend going out and buying it RIGHT NOW, but if you're interested, you'll likely get hooked.