Cryostasis is one of the most promising Russian games currently in development, and publishers 1c know it. They were allowing hands-on play of the opening level at this year’s KRI (Russian’s GDC) in Moscow last month. Needless to say, I was there and… well, I’m going to preview this in some more depth in a the coming weeks, along with an interview from developers Action Forms. So let’s just take a look at that trailer for now. The Bioshock influence is strong here…
Definitely a first person shooter videogame, but the total lack of dialogue and heavy atmosphere of weirdness to seem to send it scuttling in the right direction.
There’s quite a lot of footage we’ve already seen here, and it’s a shame that Action Forms haven’t shown much of the flashback sequences. The fact that we’ve seen much the same material several times now might be cause for concern: it could be too short? Too repetitive? Action Forms impressed me with the creativity of what they demonstrated at KRI, so perhaps they can keep it up for a full-length game. I guess we’ll find out in October.
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I assure you it looks like Bioshock.
It looks like Bioshock insomuch as a dark, crepy, UE3 engine powered shooter set in claustrophobic hallways with a tommy gun looks like Bioshock. Any further comparisons are unwarranted I feel.
No . No one woman in this game ;) . No vitachambers for Jason Ocampo ;)
http://pc.ign.com/articles/879/879913p1.html
There are no vending machines of ammunition in the game, the ammunition is scarce. The weapons are recharged each time with the worst cold. The enemies bring the cold, and heat makes them more vulnerable. The cold us weakens us. In BioShock not exist travel to the past, to resolve situations of this and understand the story. What’s more? XD
The connection with Bioshock is a strategy of marketing in the trailer, and many previews are made only with the trailer and the first corridor of the game, as the preview of IGN
I seem to recall that bioshock was very colourful, much more steampunk and as scary as a baby teddybear.
This game, on the other hand, looks genuinely creepy. I am tentatively interested.
From the added descriptions, it is reinforced that it’s actually not much like Bioshock at all (even if the trailer tries to make it appear so, it’s obvious it’s not), and actually reminds me of Echo Nights done in FPS with elements from survival horror games like Silent Hill and The Thing (I love this cold thing). Stranded on a ship, time travelling to learn more about the ex passengers’ turned monsters (ghosts in Echo Nights) stories and set them free (you actually save them here) and find out what the hell is going on. I love it, let’s hope for a finished and stable release unlike other Russian titles (STALKER, I’m looking at you… but I still love you).
methinks games today should provide something more than just atmosphere and coolness and hibby-jibbies.
Aside from KOO-factor, it’s just some dude shooting things that move.
Where the blazes is interaction, people? Gimme fook choices!
““what else was like Bioshock?”
The great big, slow-moving shooting, baddy?”
Didn’t Wolfenstein 3D have that? F.E.A.R.? Quake 2? Hexen (well, not shooting)? Deus Ex? Resident Evil? And so on.
I think the “Like Bioshock” impression comes from the aesthetic rather than the content. Since it IS doing the “Abandoned half-wrecked environment from the earlier half of the century” thing.
Which is a fair comparison to make. But extrapolating that to content is a little silly.
Well it looked like you could decide the fate of that guy at the end – little-sister-esque (although you can do that in half the games you buy now…) and it’s a fps so it can’t be too different can it? Unless the level design is drastically different or there are a lot of unshown gameplay elements…
When people dissect an experience into meaningless tiny pieces like “you can shoot” “you can save people” and “you walk in corridors” instead of looking at the sum of its parts and the end result, then a lot of games will appear too similar for their own good. It’s still stupid to do it.
This reminds me more of adventure games like Echo Nights or survival horror like The Thing and Silent Hill instead of Bioshock in any way shape or form.
Bioshock offered little new things anyway and its main saving grace was the atmosphere and especially the style (without saying those were all new, it was clearly inspired by many sources), both of which are mostly absent and/or quite different here.
If “little brothers” and “armored daddies” are all people can come up with to falselsy associate this to Bioshock, well, it’s sad, because saving people or encountering tough as nails enemies was done since the dawn of gaming.
The narrative in Cryostasis is mainly with flashbacks to the past, through enemies killed by you , with corpses – as the scene of the cow – or as seen in a video, maybe images.
You have to travel to the past , to solve their problems in the gameplay with puzles or another actuations , and in these trips will develop the narrative of the game, like in System Shock, Doom 3, or BioShock the recordings are for narrate part of the story happened in the past. In Cryostasis, seems to be a cinematographic flashback , but not only this , is also a flashback playable.
Well, this is totally different from the structure of other games. The gameplay also seems different, more like Condenmed and other elements as the cold. Some reviewers of these previews died of cold, the cold is a constant throughout the game.
About the gameplay
“t the beginning, the Hero, who hasn’t obtained the whole arsenal, will be forced to fight the monsters, practically, with his bare hands. To increase the efficiency of his attack, Alexander Nesterov takes an old water valve, torn off a rusty high-pressure pipe. The valve is heavy. It complicates the fighting and slows the movements of the attacking hand, but increases the damage greatly!
The controls during the fight are performed with the help of keyboard and mouse buttons. Left mouse button – punch, right button – block. Foreward, Backward, Left Strafe and Right Strafe buttons define the type of the hit and the trajectory.
For instance, press Right Strafe and left mouse button and you perform a right hand hook from the right. Press Right Strafe, Back and left mouse button and you hit an appercut with your right hand. A block is performed with a right mouse button.
It is possible and necessary to use series of hits and think out the most efficient combos. For example: Right Strafe, left mouse button and, while hitting press Left Strafe, left mouse button. The Hero will perform a hook with his right hand from the right and while turning his body back hits with the other side of his right hand. To succeed in a close combat one should remember to maneuver, jump and duck.”
Look at the gameplay footage that Jonelo kindly links from youtube, it is much more reminiscant of Penumbra: Black Plague what with the permafrost, it’s dark almost everywhere, really decayed environment (properly aged, not just recently trashed), the dreaded hounds and trying to stay warm whilst braving the elements, except Cryostatis goes much deeper.
Frankly looking at the gameplay footage there is barely even a passing resemblance to Bioshock, other than aggressive enemies and there’s a gun that looks similar. Big whoop.
It looks like another dark survival/horror game, but with some extra saucy gameplay features. Seriously, look at that gameplay trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWQnuHPQt8k
The cow bit alone is worth it! Cheers Jonelo for all your links.
When people dissect an experience into meaningless tiny pieces like “you can shoot” “you can save people” and “you walk in corridors” instead of looking at the sum of its parts and the end result, then a lot of games will appear too similar for their own good. It’s still stupid to do it.
So is simplifying and badly paraphrasing other peoples’ arguments. Someone asked what we connotate with Bioshock in this game, we give a straight answer, and then we get flak for breaking it down. What? If we don’t break it down, how are we supposed to explain it? “It gives me a certain feeling!” certainly won’t do as an answer, will it? I would say the same era, same claustrophobic corridors, enemies that look the same, guns that look the same (PPSh as this one may be), even music that sounds the same, are all valid reasons for connecting this game and Bioshock, in addition to the overall feel the trailer gives me.
If “little brothers” and “armored daddies” are all people can come up with to falselsy associate this to Bioshock, well, it’s sad, because saving people or encountering tough as nails enemies was done since the dawn of gaming.
Does this game have to be Bioshock to remind me of it? If I associated dark, creepy corridors with happy faces and a cheery clown, you’re still in no right to tell me I associate wrong. Association is completely subjective.
Okay, so now the enemies, environments and weapons all look the same and the music sounds the same… That’s a bit more than saying “it reminds of Bioshock” and actually more like saying the game “is” Bioshock which you’ve already denied. Contradicting much? I think so.
My subjective opinion is that you’re also very wrong and none of that looks “the same”, especially given the heavy stylised look of Bioshock which is absent from here, and how that game took place in an underwater city with shops, homes, laboratories, lobbies and basically, well, a damn city.
How all that looks similar to a game taking place on a ship (ON the water is much different to UNDERwater) just because of the similar era is beyond me. Also, from the few different attack methods we have seen, only one of them uses the same gun as Bioshock, but as you understand yourself, it’s a trivial detail anyway. All WW2 games aren’t the same after all, even if half the guns are always the same. Medal of Honor was nothing like Call of Duty 2 which was not much like Company of Heroes or the older Hidden & Dangerous or even Wolfenstein games or Red Orchestra or…
Back to this game, I’ve yet to see a single neon sign or pip boy style character, or art deco decorations which characterised Bioshock since it was some of the first strong images you saw and they persisted throughout the game. Not that if it has some of those elements tucked in it will mean much, since it’s not the defining look and style anyway from what we have seen (as it was for Bioshock), while given the era it makes sense to have traces of such.
Yes, this game is claustophobic, like Bioshock, but so is most every horror adventure. Woo.
One thing that stood out to me-Some of the systems (such as the stoves and fishtanks) were running perfectly.
also, its impossible to tell the time of the game, as if a ship ran into a iceburg, its doubtful new weapons would be a priority.
those were all WWII weapons, so its likely it was an American ship that ran aground. Also another thing i found interesting is that there were no pistols.
The game happens at the end of the years 70 . . That part of history being visited over the mental hechoe happens in 1968.
The enemies
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2008/157/932840_20080606_screen021.jpg
Soviet “Big Dady”
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2008/157/932840_20080606_screen023.jpg
The weapons. A water valve, a chain and a padlock and weapons like in Codenmed and firearms of the Soviet Union . The boat is a Soviet atomic icebreaker
“only one of them uses the same gun as Bioshock”
It doesn’t, as Kommissar Nicko pointed out, it’s a PPSH rather than a Thompson.
That dude has a room inside his face!
I’m just glad I didn’t mention the dirty knife.
Okay, so now the enemies, environments and weapons all look the same and the music sounds the same… That’s a bit more than saying “it reminds of Bioshock” and actually more like saying the game “is” Bioshock which you’ve already denied. Contradicting much? I think so.
Examples of why it reminds me of Bioshock:
It has elements that makes me think of Bioshock – slow moving giant enemies (slow moving giant enemies remind me of Bioshock because Big Daddies were the most intense enemies of that kind I have encountered in a video game), loads and loads of water everywhere, creepy atmosphere, the same era, protagonist with magical abilities, similar music (only Russian this time, notably).
Reasons why I do not think it is a Bioshock-clone:
It has elements that does NOT resemble Bioshock in any way – like you said: It’s not as stylized (though you can hardly claim it tries to reach realistic graphics compared to, say, Crysis), it’s not loaded with art-deco, the boat-setting versus the underwater city setting, and everything else that is different fro Bioshock.
If you subjective opinion is that my subjective opinion is wrong, you’ve misunderstood the entire point of subjectiveness – we’re both right, just not to each others’ minds.
Woah.
Yeah, I’ll shut up now. Sorry. The Internet has that effect on me sometimes.
The big boss remember me the big men of FEAR .
http://canalgame.com/data/docs/20060810101641/fear_01.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2004/screen_e3/920744_20040510_screen001.jpg
Or the Ubersoldiers of RTCW or NOLF 2 .
Some weapons? In the video appears only a weapon Soviet that resembles a Thomson. The other weapon is not in BioShock, or its equivalent in the West. There is no gun lock in BioShock. I do not remember.
The environments? . Cryostasis is a boat frozen , BioShock is an underwater city, but is like a luxury hotel of the 30 .
We’re just waiting to music, and the game is mean sea frozen , with water at certain times. Any game then with water, and with music similar to that of BioShock- the music of Russian music will be 60 , and perhaps a bit of music of the Western –.
Anyway, for some journalists who have a lot of work as in IGN , and cannot spend the first room and the first enemy, the trailer is an aid to make a previeview of the game. Said it Goebbels, messages short and simple analogies, people do not want complex concepts.
I didn’t really clock him as a Big Daddy myself. Just looked like a big thing with a lot of gun flashes. I guess those guys hauling large tanks on their backs is somewhat evocative as well.
The Call of Cthulhu comparison is more in line with my impression; Gritty murky monochrome visuals, old dark boat, flickering lights, underwater, lurching people coming to get you, the absence of a HUD, the particular way the gun movement lags behind your turning, the can’t-quite-reload-fast-enough-for-comfort.
No one’s probably played that lately though.
http://translate.google.es/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.igromania.ru%2FArticles%2F11969%2FAnabioz_Son_razuma.htm&sl=ru&tl=en&hl=es&ie=UTF-8
Is a russian translation with a online traslator , but is very interesting
My head kind of hurts after reading that, but from what I could deduct it does seem rather interesting – moreso than the trailer. I will definitely be following this game in development.
The Russians really like to make games that make you lonely and afraid, don’t they? I’m interested, but only if there aren’t many bugs and the translation is good. STALKER and Pathologic drove me up the wall.
I sincerely hope this game won’t resemble Bioshock in anything but the most superficial way. We don’t need another tension-free pretentious-beyond-all-measure pseudo-intellectual mess. To my eyes this looks fresh and very little like Bioshock, hopefully the execution goes well.
Oh and I hope they leave it untranslated with subtitles.