Cryostatsis is one of the best survival horror games of this year.
As the player fights his way through the ship, he learns what happened through visions of the past. The captain took a perilous course through the ice, ignoring the warnings of his first officer. After colliding with an iceberg and suffering significant damage, the first officer radioed HQ, which in turn ordered the ship to return to port for decommissioning. While the crew struggled to repair the damage over the course of several weeks, the captain is disgraced, forsaken by all the crew. During this time, the ice around them thickens, essentially freezing the ship in place and isolating the crew. In an attempt to regain the respect of his crew, and lead them out of their predicament, the captain attempts to free the ship from the ice. His attempt is interrupted by the first officer, however, whose orders result in the ship's engine room catching fire and the nuclear reactor core destabilizing. Consequently, the crew begins to suffer radiation poisoning and die. These events roughly correlate to an old Russian tale, which is relayed through notes discovered throughout the game. Like the rise against Danko, the ship's crew members that rose against the captain began to transform into horrible creatures.
Throughout the game, the main character comes across fallen crew members and has a chance to correct their mistakes. At the end of the game, the player encounters Chronos, the god of time, who gives him the opportunity to correct the entire tragedy.
There are multiple paths to correcting the tragedy by changing the actions of one of three major characters. By possessing the soul of the first officer when he brings the telegraph regarding impending decommissioning to the captain and questions the captain's competence, the player may choose instead to descend into the ship, helping the crew with repairs and discarding the telegraph. This results in the captain not losing his morale, and the crew never losing faith in the captain. By possessing the chief engineer when he berates the despondent captain upon hearing the news, the player may choose instead to cheer up the captain by offering him a scale model of his ship. Finally, when the captain is trying to free the ship and is incapacitated by a window shattering in his face, the player may choose to have the chief security officer go to his side and help him up, rather than assisting the first officer. This results in the ship breaking free under the captain's actions, since the first officer no longer aborts the escape attempt, and the engine fire and nuclear reactor setbacks never occur. Any of these three changes result in the captain breaking free from the ice and being in good standing with his crew.
After the final flashback, the player is returned to the beginning of the game where he finds the icebreaker and falls through the ice. However, this time the crew appears on the ice outside the icebreaker, and the captain pulls the main character out of the freezing water.
Missions:Escape the ship alive.
Features: The game story develops with help of a unique system called Mental Echo - the ability to penetrate another character's memory and change the actions taken by that character in the past. This can involve saving people's lives by taking over their bodies in their memories and changing the course of history. [1]
The game, being set in an arctic setting, employs body heat as a health meter - the player must use heat sources (such as lights or stoves) to replenish health.
AI: The AI is pre-programmed at all times so there is really no "AI" the game is quite hard.
Graphics:. Uses DX10. Everything is very very detailed. Crysis Level.
Audio: Creepy Ambient
The Good: good survival horrow, good story.
The Bad: a few bugs and translation errors.
The Ugly: N/A
Replayability: Low
The Bottom Line: A great Russian made FPS