Cryostasis

[Snooglebum]

That's its full price apparently. I just bought it for 10 euros on Steam then saw that it's €2.48 (!!!) on gamersgate, on a 75% off sale.

http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-CRYO/cryostasis-sleep-of-reason

It's $3.23 over in the states. Purchasing with superspeed.

[Thompson]

Just completed Chapter 12: Escape (

The bit with the helicopter

) and i'm unsure about this thing.

One one hand I am thoroughly terrified and will be glad when it's all over and I can go back to my baby games, but on the other hand i'm really enjoying the innovative storytelling and gameplay features like the mental echos or

those photos that you find with the lady telling a story

.

So yeah, i'll probably finish this game in under 10 hours (Steam has the time wrong because I left it idling for 5 and a half hours) but it'll certainly feel more like 10 years.

While it feels like a real slog to get to the finishing line at this point I want to do so to see what other gameplay elements they can bring in, for instance that

double

mental echo in which you

take control of both the gun guy and the light guy

was mindwarpingly awesome.

*Sigh* Cryostasis, why must you scare me so?

[Thompson]

Just finished the game in roughly 5 hours, that game was incredible, there are so many things I want to say so i'll just put them all out there with no greater structure or thought.

The running story throughout the game from both the

captain

and that

woman

was amazing, I loved it so much.

The flashbacks and mental echos were some of the most intriguing moments of all my gaming.

The section in which

you're on that boat with the lamp

was awesome and scary.

The bit where you go into a

cinema and then the film is real

blew my mind completely.

The heat/cold health mechanic was so cleverly implemented and toyed with throughout the game.

The

Chronos fight

at the end of the game was really beautiful as were all the effects that were used in the final 2 chapters.

(Like those crazy moments when the game slowed down and the captain was talking and the sky was full of stuff, that was one of the few times i've ever literally said 'woah...' while playing a game.)

I could on for a very long time here but overall Cryostasis is one of the best games i've ever played, despite the pure terror I experienced a few times I enjoyed the crap out of it. Buy it now, buy it, buy it!

Edited July 13, 2010 by Thompson

[toblix]

Could this be another Metro 2033, a game I didn't even consider because of my preconceptions of Russian games, but which turns out to be super awesome?

[Thompson]

Could this be another Metro 2033, a game I didn't even consider because of my preconceptions of Russian games, but which turns out to be super awesome?

Drop your preconceptions, open your mind man...

[ThunderPeel2001]

Drop your preconceptions, open your mind man...

Have you been watching that Double Rainbow video again?

[Thompson]

Have you been watching that Double Rainbow video again?

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!, now stop making me posting in this forum, I already feel like a douche for posting like 5 times in 7 posts.

[ThunderPeel2001]

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!, now stop making me posting in this forum, I already feel like a douche for posting like 5 times in 7 posts.

Lol! You just sounded, you know, a teeny bit "new agey" in your post. I was just being silly, no need to feel like a douche in any way.

[Gabbo]

Could this be another Metro 2033, a game I didn't even consider because of my preconceptions of Russian games, but which turns out to be super awesome?

Yes, yes it could be.

[Thompson]

Lol! You just sounded, you know, a teeny bit "new agey" in your post. I was just being silly, no need to feel like a douche in any way.

Misunderstanding, I was being deliberately 'hippie' in hopes of getting you to do exactly what you do. Clearly, it went downhill from there.

[miffy495]

Just finished the game in roughly 5 hours, that game was incredible, there are so many things I want to say so i'll just put them all out there with no greater structure or thought.

The running story throughout the game from both the

captain

and that

woman

was amazing, I loved it so much.

The flashbacks and mental echos were some of the most intriguing moments of all my gaming.

The section in which

you're on that boat with the lamp

was awesome and scary.

The bit where you go into a

cinema and then the film is real

blew my mind completely.

The heat/cold health mechanic was so cleverly implemented and toyed with throughout the game.

The

Chronos fight

at the end of the game was really beautiful as were all the effects that were used in the final 2 chapters.

(Like those crazy moments when the game slowed down and the captain was talking and the sky was full of stuff, that was one of the few times i've ever literally said 'woah...' while playing a game.)

I could on for a very long time here but overall Cryostasis is one of the best games i've ever played, despite the pure terror I experienced a few times I enjoyed the crap out of it. Buy it now, buy it, buy it!

Would've responded earlier, but I've been out of the house for a couple of days. I'm really glad that you liked it as much as you did, man. I was worried given how insistent you were that horror games weren't for you that you'd be put off it and I'd have recommended a game to you that you'd never play. Indeed,

the movie theater thing

was one of the coolest moments I've ever played in a game.

Especially given my job, seeing that in order to set that up you actually needed to pick up a 2000 film reel and thread it into the projector (the threading was accurate, by the way) made me really happy. Then when the baddies started shooting at me from within the film, it blew my mind. Finally, when the tank guy actually walked off of the canvas and into the theater while shooting at me, I decided that this game deserved to be one of my favorites.

I was so stunned when it happened I actually lost half my health before I realized what was going on and died. Had to play that bit twice, but didn't mind at all. What a moment.

And yeah, 'blix, you should buy this game. You really should.

[Xeneth]

...Shuffling this up a couple places in the backlog of death now...

[Raff]

I'm quite far into this now I think (

just did Helicopter bit

). Really nice game.

If you like this I recommend Condemned if you've not played that (no PC version sadly), it's great. Its sequel is a bit less subtle apparently but I've not played it.

[Noyb]

There is a PC version of Condemned. Plays really well.

Picked up Cryostasis in the Steam sale. Between the old 'cast discussion and these posts, need to move it up in my gaming queue.

[Raff]

Finished. Great stuff. The minute to minute gameplay is so standard and the setting so monotonous, there's even that

OTT boss thing at the end

, but the story is told so brilliantly (and is such a, in the end, refreshingly unvideo gamey story), with so many clever ideas. The only criticisms I can think of are too petty to mention. It's just a beautiful production.

Can't even find anything about the developers and their site seems to have been hacked.

EDIT: Always had Condemned in my mind as weirdly having no PC version but you're right, there seems to have been one. Why isn't it on Steam?

[Thompson]

Can't even find anything about the developers and their site seems to have been hacked.

I noticed that too, so I visited their website on my iPhone to avoid possible viruses and yep, it looks like a virus type of set up. Odd.

Don't go to any of the following websites.

As far as I can tell action-forms.com redirects to paulamcnallytuscanweddings.com/import/go.php?sid=1 which in turn takes me to 11.spoow.in/x/404.php Now, if I go to paulamcnallytuscanweddings.com it appears to be a legitimate, albeit poorly constructed, website.

As far as I can tell, this would appear to be a now defunct drive-by virus ploy. Enough investigation.

[Xeneth]

The developer's site really got hacked? That's really shitty and disheartening. I guess that's just the wild internet frontier or whatever for ya.

Decided to load this up, boy you guys were right- It's a bit of an optimization nightmare/graphics hog. Unfortunately it crashes to desktop whenever I click on "Options" in the main menu, so I guess I'll just have to live with a little bit of chugginess when certain events trigger. I'm probably lucky my rig is handling it well enough that it's playable from the sound of things.

Only about 30 minutes in, but so far it's really, really good. God, I love scary games.

Edited July 16, 2010 by Xeneth

[Thompson]

The developer's site really got hacked? That's really shitty and disheartening. I guess that's just the wild internet frontier or whatever for ya.

Decided to load this up, boy you guys were right- It's a bit of an optimization nightmare/graphics hog. Unfortunately it crashes to desktop whenever I click on "Options" in the main menu, so I guess I'll just have to live with a little bit of chugginess when certain events trigger. I'm probably lucky my rig is handling it well enough that it's playable from the sound of things.

Only about 30 minutes in, but so far it's really, really good. God, I love scary games.

Go to Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\cryostasis.

Then open config.cfg.

Edit values to your heart's content.

[Xeneth]

See? THAT'S why a "console kid" should post random things in a forum dominated by PC Gamers!

"Find whatever file the options menu would have edited if it worked for you" isn't something that would have occurred to me right off the bat. Kind of them to encode that file in a way that we could parse without some crazy interpreter/unpacker, but I'm sure that's PC development tradition and editing it by hand just isn't something I've done very often. Thanks!

[Thompson]

See? THAT'S why a "console kid" should post random things in a forum dominated by PC Gamers!

"Find whatever file the options menu would have edited if it worked for you" isn't something that would have occurred to me right off the bat. Kind of them to encode that file in a way that we could parse without some crazy interpreter/unpacker, but I'm sure that's PC development tradition and editing it by hand just isn't something I've done very often. Thanks!

As long as i've been playing games that's been the way it goes so I don't think it rare to be able to do that. I live to help.

[Snooglebum]

So I played most of the way through, and Cryostasis seems like a series of shootin' dudes moments interspersed with pressing red buttons. Sometimes, a dude is froze and you must unfreeze said dude with mind magic.

[Korax]

Ugh, this game was so much cooler before everyone started to like it. I was playing it before it was popular.

Seriously, though, it's awesome that more people are playing. Cryostasis was one of my favorite game experiences of last year, and definitely didn't deserve to be as overlooked as it was.

[Raff]

So I played most of the way through, and Cryostasis seems like a series of shootin' dudes moments interspersed with pressing red buttons. Sometimes, a dude is froze and you must unfreeze said dude with mind magic.

Keep going.

[Snooglebum]

Keep going.

I played for something like 7 or 8 hours. Does it ever significantly change?

[Raff]

No not really.

Thinking about it, if you're playing after reading this thread, WAITING FOR THE AWESOME to happen, you're inevitably going to be dissappointed.