A Step forward in storytelling, two steps back in execution-
Cryostasis :The Sleep of Reason is a European First Person Adventure game which has you taking the role of a Meteorologist who is sent to visit a nuclear icebreaker known as the North Wind.
The game has elements of survival horror to it, from the scary monster designs to the eerie background noise that immerses you in the dark, cold and heartless world of Cryostasis.
The North wind has broken down for unknown reasons and its up to you to explore the ruined ship and discover what has transpired using one of Cryostasis's key elements "Mental Echoes".
Mental Echoes allow you to relive the final moments of a persons life and change them so as to alter the environment or solve a puzzle.
The Mental Echo ability is used frequently throughout the game to unravel the unique and chilling story of the North Wind.
The graphics of the game are crisp and one of the games graphical standpoints is the way it manipulates heat, with ice melting near heat sources and water freezing progressively in the presence of the cold.
The drawback to this emphasis on the heat-sensitive technology is that the game suffers from technical issues such as game breaking bugs and constant frame rate issues
Every Survival Game should have an Iconic enemy and for Cryostasis that enemy is the "Ice Zombies" that infest the North Wind, these zombies hulk around sometimes picking up weapons or tools to brutally beat you down, these "Ice Zombies" actually have some variety to them ranging from Axe Murders to a type of "Ice Zombie" that looks very similar to the Big Daddy from Bioshock.
The game also uses a unique health system in the form of internal and external heat, this system requires you to find heat sources to regenerate health and works very effectively.
Another Survival Horror-esque element in Cryostasis is terrible gun controls and Lethally long reload times for said guns, with the guns being a pain to aim and reload times for these weapons so long that i could literally exit the game and reload a new save in the time it takes.
So all in all Cryostasis has all its strengths in its story elements which are second to none and truly set a new bar for storytelling, this is coupled with some unique gameplay systems to great effect but dragged down from greatness by technical issues and its obscurity due to it being a eurpean game.
