Cryostasis is an enjoyable game with a wonderful atmosphere. I personally do not care for horror style games and stayed away from this title after reading a few reviews, but in the end I figured I would try it out as the screens looked very nice. I would not call this game scary, but I would call it a First Person Survival. There are moments where a few humans/creatures come at you, but by-in-large encounters are 1 or 2 at a time. You are never really wanting for ammo in this game, but you do have to switch to different weapons if you waste the ammo as well. In fact in some locations you can pick up the ammo and simply wait a moment or two and it respawns for you to pick up more. I would say this is a game survival puzzle game, but a fun one the whole way through. your real enemy in Cryostasis is the cold itself and the way in which the developers dealt with it was very nice. The storyline will keep you moving forward as you try to figure out what is taking place. In the end Cryostasis is worth playing for the immersion, storyline, and fun walk through a large icebreaker ship that will take you places you never imagined. Have fun, and stay warm! :o)

Though Cryostasis achieves what it sets out to do, which is create a tense atmosphere and tell a story. It is plagued with show stopper glitches and bugs. The game is extremely poorly optimized, a quick scan of reviews, articles and forum posts on other media will reveal that everyone suffers from these issues. Cryostasis could've been a great game, had the developers taken the time to test it. It is a shame, everything else about the game is top-notch.

This game is a definite diamond in the rough, though sadly it will never get the attention it deserves. The closest thing comparable to Cryostasis would be Bioshock with a little bit of Siren Blood Curse through into the mix. If you can get past the graphical hick-ups, Cryostasis is not only playable, but highly addictive, as it is hard not to be drawn in to its environment. Once I found a quick fix for the graphical issues I was having due to me playing on a ATI card, I quickly learned the game had not only beautiful visuals, but one of the creepiest atmospheres I've encountered in a game. The melee combat is decent and holds up, gun-play while shortlived due to ammo shortage, is great and the time travel - body switching is where the game really shines with originality and puzzle solving. The need to stay warm to survive never becomes tedious but adds to the survival-horror element making you feel that much more attuned to your character's situation. The story, while quite hard to keep up with still keeps you interested and guessing. Only real problem is that the ending will leave most people with more questions than answers. Though the game did feel adequate in length and layout. The enemies are not particularly as varied as I would have liked to have had in a survival horror game. But of them, they are indeed disturbing and surreal, though some are quite cheap in terms of gameplay. They get the job done though as they leave you with quite a few "What the!?" moments. Overall, I would say I desperately want a sequel or at least a spiritual successor to be made from this game. Great visuals and atmosphere. Good gameplay and enemy design. Hard to keep up with story. A must play for survival horror fans who posses computers that can handle a game that will try and make your system cry.

Whether or not you'll enjoy Cryostasis will depend on what exactly you're looking for from your first person shooters. If you're looking to play a nameless superhero in a plotless game who can shrug off bullets and shoot with perfect accuracy while sprinting then this is perhaps not the game for you. Cryostasis is essentially more of a survival horror. Your abilities within the game aren't those of a super soldier. You're vulnerable and you actually have to try and aim to hit your target. This is something that makes a great deal of difference to the combat as it requires much more effort to take down enemies than in a game were you barely have to reload. The storyline, which unfolds as you progress is very well told and very... human. Through your character's psychic abilities you get to see the story pan out from multiple perspectives and slowly but surely you manage to change the tragic outcome. The graphics are also worth mentioning. As the environmental effects not only look very pretty, as ice patterns on slowly melt and dribble down walls, but they also depict your chances of survival. In this game warmth is life. It's that simple. You need to keep warm to keep alive. And on board a wrecked ship encased in ice and death there is precious little heat. Water is also, naturally, fairly abundant and very impressively presented in the game. If you've got an Nvidia card then you can see water splash, pour and drip in full 3D, thanks to PhysX. There's even a water cannon so you can collect icicles and take your enemies down in style. Sadly though, the game is not free of technical issues and especially those with ATI graphics cards are likely to be left with a more cut down experience. That said, I played right through the game with only one crash to desktop and no graphical issues. Ultimately, Cryostasis is a highly atmospheric, well written and produced game that shows a lot of other modern FPS up as being too simplistic, backwards and immature. It's not free of technical issues. But missing it at this price would be mad.

I bought this game without knowing anything about it, beyond the description here on Gamersgate. A very atmospheric game. Slightly scary, but not very disturbing, aside from couple of things. Pros: - Atmospheric and interesting premises, with somewhat unusual stories to tell. - Looks really pretty if you've got the hardware. - Longer than I expected. Took me several evenings to finish. - Tough enemies, but healing locations can be found regularly, and you can quick save, so it's forgiving enough to not stop progress because of difficulty. Cons: - Hardware requirements are quite high. (I was barely able to enjoy the game with my machine that can otherwise run games like Fallout 3 and Borderlands nicely on medium details. I recommend googling around for the ini file tweaks to get slightly better framerates for lower-end systems) - Somewhat predictable events. (Only a few times was I completely surprised.) - Also somewhat repetitive locations, but then again mostly what you'd expect from an icebreaker. (Hallways, cabins, engine rooms, deck...) - A few minor bugs, like enemies/objects pushing the player inside pipes and other background objects, effectively providing a safe spot to attack enemies from. This happened to me three times during the game. I was always able to get out of those places though. Overall a positive experience, highly recommended if you like first-person shooters that focus plenty on story and surroundings. Score: 4/5

I enjoyed playing this game. It should be known that I had realistic expectations for this game, because if you don't you will likely be disappointed. Cryostasis is a slow paced, methodical shooter with low intensity combat. It is there fore not going to appeal to those looking for an adrenalin rush or those who favor fast paced combat vs. numerous enemies. In many ways it's more about puzzle solving and fighting the environment than combat. In keeping with the below freezing environment the game plods along as the not so shabby storyline unfolds, and you'll rarely face more than two enemies at a time. But the game play is rewarding and you come to appreciate what a convincing world the developers have created. Even working the bolt on your rifle seems to take effort as you fight the cold, and your PPSh sub machine gun seems reluctant to fire and does so only grudgingly. Effects like these are likely to annoy some players, but if you let yourself be drawn in Cryostasis will provide you with a decidedly unique and memorable game experience.

Cryostasis is a first person shooter set aboard a frozen russian icebreaker, although first person puzzle may be more accurate. You will do your share of shooting as you explore the ship, using the well modeled weapons with you can aim with iron sights (No targeting reticle in this title!), but the emphasis is on finding the right path through the hostile environments, moving slowly and carefully, conserving energy, and solving the puzzles thrown at you via flashbacks where you briefly roleplay members of the crew before they died to prevent whatever killed them from happening. The puzzles range from simply ducking to dodge a blow, to safely navigating through an underwater corridor to seal a bulkhead, to disarming a crazed crewman with a rifle. The variety of tasks keeps things interesting, although the difficulty is very inconsistent, with some tasks being almost trivial while others will require multiple attempts to complete, or even to figure out what you are supposed to be doing. The Graphics in Cryostasis are appropriate and in some instances (lighting, shadows, ice and water effects) very impressive, while in other cases they look like a game from 5 years ago. In general the graphics feel slightly underwhelming compared to the processing power required to generate them. Occasional graphical glitching only exacerbates this effect. In addition, while there is a patch to utilize the Physx software package, I frequently encountered game crashing bugs which required me to turn physx off to pass them. The plot is minimal, and what there is tends to be incomprehensible - but not in a bad way. While none of the strange events are ever explained at all as the game escalates to a manic crescendo of insanity, the resolution works and I didn't feel let down or betrayed - only slightly confused. Combat is minimal, which is fortunate. Perhaps to enhance the "horror" feel of the game, most of the weapons feel underpowered and have staggering reload times. In a game with more combat this would be frustrating but in cryostasis the sparse encounters with enemies translate into workable, if unmemorable combat. The Physx patch introduces a new weapon which I would almost call game-breaking, as it trivializes combat against most if not all enemies - but it looks cool. The game benefits from short levels with good pacing, a memorable setting, and the interesting puzzle mechanic. While I can't say it's a "good" game, I certainly am glad that I had the experience of playing through it and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to the right gamer at the right price. 7/10

From Omega, "...Actually, "scary" is inaccurate. I think "What the hell was that?! Did that wall just move??? I wanna go home! WAHHH!" would do my feelings more justice. Despite being able to predict nearly every point where something would attempt to leap out and surprise me, again and again I found myself falling deep into the immersive storytelling of Cryostasis. In addition to the flashbacks and the ability to replay parts of the former crew's lives, a tale about a courageous leader named Danko is told along the way through a set of scattered postcards. The postcards come with their own narration, too, which is handy. Danko, like the captain of the North Wind, attempts to guide his followers to better lands. However, Danko makes some bad decisions that result in disaster, spurring his flock to mutate into hideous monsters and turn against him. The parallel storyline was a welcome treat since it served to solidify my interest in the game's main plot and it helped to keep me involved and wanting more..."