Review
Cryostasis, a first-person shooter from Ukranian developer Action Forms, wants to set a new standard for players enduring harsh weather in games. Set in the Arctic Circle, the frigid ice-breaker ship environments in Cryostasis are especially dangerous due to their sub-zero temperatures.
Cryostasis attempts a slightly more realistic take on this theme, as snowy weather effects will chill your character's internal temperature, resulting in death after prolonged exposure. The enemies you encounter are also mutated to use ice attacks that lower your body temperature. Luckily, immovable environmental fixtures such as light bulbs and fireplaces will warm your character and keep him from death.
The freezing effects also show up visually, as your character's hands and weapons will become covered with frost if you stay outside in the cold. At a press event earlier this month, we explored a frozen ship. There wasn't a lot of room to explore the environments, but the scarce lighting made for an effectively creepy atmosphere.
Another feature in Cryostasis is what the developers call a "mental echo," a sort of playable flashback where you can solve puzzles by traveling back in time through the dead bodies you encounter. Your character, Alexander, is a psychic, allowing you to experience the last few minutes before the deceased met their end. You can also control the outcome within a brief window of time to make changes that affect your current situation. For example, after encountering a body on the deck of a frozen ship, Alexander can jump into the past and swing around a crane in the moments before the ship becomes stuck in ice.
There is a good level of polish in the graphics and lighting, but we didn't get to see much of how Cryostasis' storyline will play out, since the level we saw was more to give an idea of how the environmental stress and mental echo components work. If Cryostasis looks interesting to you, keep your eyes out for its 2008 release date.
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en de demo werkt niet op xp