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Preview - Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason

Written by Marco Fiori

Sunday, 13 July 2008

The curtains were closed and the lights turned off. With vodka in our hands, we were sat in a booth in London’s Ice Bar awaiting a presentation from Anatoly Y. Subbotin for Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason. Alongside IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey, it was the game that 1C / 505 Games were pushing. Heralded as the ‘Russian Bioshock’ we eagerly awaited the gameplay demonstration.

The PC exclusive deals with a 1950’s Russian Ice Breaker that gets stuck in the Arctic Circle, subsequently freezing the crew to death. You take control of Alexander Nesterov who’s tasked with the exploration of the dead vessel in an effort to find out what happened. Obviously, not everything is what it seems and the player’s thrown into a survival horror FPS. The game favours one on one encounters rather than hordes of enemies. It leads to some tense fights and a more engaging experience.

The game plays on your nerves in a variety of ways. The lighting deserves a particular mention with strobe effects, the use of shadows and cinematic filters all creating an unnerving aura. Cryostasis ditches the typical health bar and instead replaces it with a temperature gauge. To stay alive you’ll need to keep yourself warm via fires, sources of electricity and light bulbs. A five second break to warm yourself up allows you to continue your examination of the ship. The result is a worrying sense of urgency that never lets you rest on your laurels. If you stay too long in the cold the edges of the screen will freeze and your weapons will jam. Conversely, find a generator and the game shows off real-time ice melting.

Sound plays a large part in Cryostasis and the developers have programmed the game so that hot and cold rooms sound differently. It’s definitely a game that needs to be played on a 5.1 set up. The attention to detail is continued with the game’s environments. It really feels as though you’re plodding through an empty ship. The harsh industrial setting is emphasised by the use of cold. Long steel corridors contrast with the life-giving fires. It’s all very solemn and is well worth your time.

Unsurprisingly you’re not alone on the ship and there are plenty of twisted individuals walking around with their sole aim being your death. We were only shown a 30 minute segment of the game, yet saw a variety of enemies. For example, there’s your usual rifle carrying goon or a more disturbing hooked armed man whose disfigurement seems to cause electricity bursts. Finally there was a mini-boss with keys for fingers. The AI seems competent but could use some work. Combat animations were fairly unique, yet set enemies seemed to repeat their methods of attack.

The presentation was going well, but it was failing to show off Cryostasis. The game is extremely linear and could do with a unique hook; Mental Echo is supposedly just that. Think of them as Bioshock’s Flashbacks, but more interactive. As you trudge around the ship you’ll come across corpses that’ll need interaction with. Once you’re in their memories, you’re aim is whatever that characters aim was. One such example was a crane operator. You have to rush to his crane to move it out of the way of an incoming iceberg. Another instance sees you under the control of a slaughter house operator. In terms of reality, the feature holds no grounds, but as a gameplay feature it’s an impressive way of exploring the game’s storyline.

The game’s not finished yet, but it’s looking close to it. The code still has to be optimised, but even in the state we saw it as, it seemed to be running smoothly. It’s certainly intriguing, yet more is needed. Enjoy the screenshots and trailer below.

Comments (8)

	1. 11-10-2008 21:28
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