Cryostasis Comments by Jim Rossignol

Oooh never been first before ..... yay?

I saw a review for this. Apparently, there a bit where you can mental echo a piece of hanging meat, and as the Cow release yourself and escape to freedom! Then the meat is no longer there in the present. A silly little thing, but the kind of thing I love in games.

"Cryostasis is a brave, fascinating, often very beautiful game, but I find it impossible to recommend it - and not least because it runs like an exploded dog on most PCs."

Insane system requirements is why my PC is mostly used to heat the room. For my gaming pleasure I stick with 360 and PS3 both of which could run this game without breaking a sweat.

So will it come to consoles? No. It's a Russian developer.

Bloody shame about the system requirements, I heard this required some of the newest cards to run properly.

Just invest in a nice 4870 X2 and 8 GB of ram and you should be fine. I may give it a go. Give the old beast a work out since finishing Crysis. At least if its not fun for the player, it will give the machine tech something to enjoy! :-)

Shame, sounds like an interesting concept that's not quite there. At least it's trying to be a bit different from most FPSs.

It does sound very interesting. Maybe I can find a demo somewhere.

rhubarbandcustard: How should a console even be able to run this without making the characters stick figures?

Looking forward to the user review by Mr Freeze:

'This game kicks ICE, the graphics are pretty COOL, but the ending left me COLD

bit buggy though, it kept FREEZING'

This game has cult status written all over it.
I finished it a few weeks ago, and found it to be an amazing experience. The story was great too.

By the way, that "cryptic story" is written by Maxim Gorky.

This looks right up my street but sadly I have a shit PC nowadays :/

LayLeeLoo: "Just invest in a nice 4870 X2 and 8 GB of ram and you should be fine."

Bargain.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148852

It's under 20£ on amazon, I'm buying it.

SchmachMatt: Please see Gears Of War 2 (360) or Killzone 2 (PS3).

A PC would struggle to run either of those without dropping frames. Windows comes with too many overheads on the system resources. Sure, you could re-install the OS and de-frag the hard drive AGAIN, but it really is simpler and cheaper to game on the consoles.

Game, 20 quid. For the rest of the system to run it, there's Mastercard.

There is a techdemo that shows some water effects and does a framerate analysis for you. My quad core 260 gtx managed 50, 16, 75 i.e mostly 50 frames lows dropped to 16 and highs were 75.

This was running at 1920 * 1080 so I have no idea what a dog of a system would need to be not to run this game just fine.

A PC would not struggle to run those console greyfests. You're talking rubbish. And you really don't have to buy a £350 graphics card either, don't listen to the 'enthusiasts'.

SchmachMatt: Please see Gears Of War 2 (360) or Killzone 2 (PS3).

A PC would struggle to run either of those without dropping frames.

Thank you for providing such insight, it's just as well I'd not taken a swig of my drink before reading it as my keyboard may well have been ruined.

This just confirms my theory that games starting or ending with "Cry" take a lot of computing power.

Pc's couldn't even run GTA4 without major frame rate issues.

http://www.giantbomb.com/news/gta-iv-pc-...

They wouldn't have a hope in hell of running Killzone 2.

@rhubarbandcustard

for the price of a ps3 i could build you a pc that'll last till the ps4's out easy, i built a pc for £500 a year and a half ago and no game of this console generation will struggle on it, since it easily out performs the consoles the games need to be ported to.

Pc's couldn't even run GTA4 without major frame rate issues.
Bad port runs badly, what a shocker!

And yet Burnout Paradise runs stupidly well on not great PC kit due to Criterion doing a good job.

@rhubarbandcustard

again the aforementioned pc would run GTA 4 like you wouldn't believe (HD Gaming anyone? not if you don't have a pc)

The Sombrerokid:

It's not that I am not a PC gamer. I am and have been for going on 20 years. But, I genuinely believe that the 360 and PS3 have changed gaming in that the PC is effectively been made obsolete as a gaming platform if visual performance is your barometer by what you gauge as must have titles.

Sure, some people will stick with PC for keyboard and mouse control, but for visuals its HD consoles all the way.

@rhubarbandcustard:

There are some advantages consoles have over pc's when it comes to gaming, but hardware power isn't one of them. If you believe that I guess you're somewhat blinded by m$ and sony-propaganda. Yes, the 360 and ps3 where a bargain when they came out. No, time didn't stop ever since: PC hardware got faster, better and cheaper. And as long as you're not running vista you get great framerates at ridiculous resolutions.

@thesombrerokid

Ok so your offer was to rubarbandcustard but I would dearly like you to build me a pc that will last until the PS4 comes out ( and by "last" it has to run all pc games to a reasonable standard that come out) for the price of a PS3.
So you have £250 to play with - can't wait to see it....
oh actually I won't because you are talking arse...

ehh there aren't any HD consoles yet, they run shitovision barely getting erect enough to manage 720p on a handful of brutally optimised games and hugely compromising in texture quality and effect volume when compared to the PC build

Well I was totally engrossed in the review for the first part because the game sounded so wonderful and unique and different and then I got to page 2 and then saw the score at the bottom.

What a shame... the concept sounds terrific but the structure and combat don't sound too great. That said, isn't the sluggishness because you're on the verge of death anyway? I mean it would be pretty silly if you could just dash around normally in combat, right?

I've got the tech demo and it looks and runs superbly on my PC too with PhysX enabled (45 fps avg. @ 1680x1050 with everything maxed out) so I was really looking forward to this. I think I'll wait for it to drop below £20, at that price it could be worth checking out.

Sombrerokid:

Wow, just wow.

I think I see now. For you its just classic PC snobbery. Honestly get over yourself. That kinda died out around 2005.

then why oh, why did it get an above average score then? isn't that, by definition a recommendation?

So this is better than Fear 2 and I really liked Fear 2 so should like this...

For the challenge of making a gaming PC that is better than the PS3 for games for £250 is possible... Just but that would involve some second hard parts and overclocking but it could be done.

Out of interest do people not consider the value added of a PC, as in it does so much more, most of you are sat at one now reading this (yes a say most before I get the smart remarks)

Most people are happy to spend £150-£200 on a PC for general use if not more so if you start with that as a baseline then add the price of the PS3 to add gaming ability to said PC, now that gives a £400 budget.

I am not going to say its for everybody and there is advantages to consoles as always in the ease of use/plug&play stakes, buy owning a reasonable gaming PC and then seeing the difference in corss platform games makes it all worth while (to me anyway)

@creepylizard - Very good point. It does seem rather bizarre to claim you cannot recommend the game you've reviewed but give it an above average score anyway. :?

This game sounds wonderful, I would buy it if a PS3 port was ever released.

Darren:

The melee combat is like in Condemned or Escape From Butcher's Bay, but with a much better fist-fight system. The shooting feels like in BioShock (a bit clunky...). The game is very slow paced, so the slow combat doesn't harm it in any way.

What level variety can you expect when the game is set in the exact replica of a Soviet icebreaker?

no the budget stays at £250.

I have a old pc that does the basics so no need to add in another £150

I accept fully that in the intervening years between console releases the PC catches up and overtakes the console ( at what point depends on how much you want to spend) but I know that a PS3 will still run games released for it right up until the end and the same cannot be said for this £250 quid pc I'm going to get built for me.

This game makes you and your PC "Cry"... get it? hehe, CRYostasis... oh man, I am having lunch.

This game is just £18 at Play.com, I've just ordered it now. Seems worth it at that price. :)

If anyone is thinking of buying a new graphics card for this game then go for an NVIDIA one as the PhysX effects in the tech demo are very impressive and they won't run on ATI/AMD cards as they don't support it. If you have a PhysX card then you'll be OK though.

Pc's couldn't even run GTA4 without major frame rate issues.
Bad port runs badly, what a shocker!

Uhm.. correct me if I am wrong but aren't all games developed on PCs to begin with?

Yes, but GTA IV probably has a lot of code tailored specifically for the 360. Hence the problems with the PS3 version also.

Nah, GTA IV was developed first on the consoles (I think the 360 initially) where it is heavily dependent on their CPUs. The PC version isn't very well optimised but is also biased toward the CPU and, as such, only runs well on quad-core PCs with high-end graphics cards at high to max. settings.

It runs great on my PC for example, 55 fps @ 1680x1050 with everything but the View Distance (45) at max, but then I do have a Core i7/GTX 280/6 GB PC.

"If anyone is thinking of buying a new graphics card for this game then go for an NVIDIA one as the PhysX effects in the tech demo are very impressive and they won't run on ATI/AMD cards as they don't support it. If you have a PhysX card then you'll be OK though."

The techdemo is somewhat over the top though, the game doesn't slap those effects on anywhere near as thick and its performs is also a shitload better than that techdemo was. A decent core2 and a 8800gt runs this game fine.

A shame I was quite looking forward to this ...probably get it when the price drops though.

How cheap do you want it... it's only £18 at Play.com.

I run the techdemo on my PC and and it run fine. I think the problem with it not running on half the PCs is that it dosn't run half aswell on an ATI card as it relies on the Physx engine which creates the water effects. (the same reason it wouldnt run on any of the consoles)

Rhubarb you are a fool. The problem with GTA4 was that it was completly unoptimized and rushed out for christmas. But the game runs superbly on settings that make the console versions look rubbish if you have a little clout.

I bought a PC recently for £600 that put the consoles to shame. This is including a monitor capable of HD aswell as Windows Vista.
E8500 Dual Core
9800GT
4 gigs Ram.

Rhubarb you always go round moaning about PC snobbery but its not its just people responding to your silly out dated views. As you are the one who is constantly trying to bait these same arguments everytime a PC is mentioned.
Another thing is that you can save a hell of alot of money on games and HD films if you are that way inclined.

Console this, console that. Just be quiet, noone is interested.

@ Rodchenko

They are developed on PCs but they are made for the specific architecture of that consoles CPU. Its the same reason console emulation dosnt really work

Jim Rossignol - Eurogamer reviewer
"but I find it impossible to recommend it - and not least because it runs like an exploded dog on most PCs."

RhubarbandCustard - Eurogamer Forum Superstar
"Insane system requirements is why my PC is mostly used to heat the room. For my gaming pleasure I stick with 360 and PS3 both of which could run this game without breaking a sweat. So will it come to consoles? No. It's a Russian developer."

Roz123 - Apparantly thick as shit
"Rhubarb you always go round moaning about PC snobbery but its not its just people responding to your silly out dated views.. "


Hey, if the reviewer points out that a game is unplayable due to system specs I am going to muse upon why I have chosen to move from PC gaming to console gaming.

If you have a problem with that I suggest you bend over and fuck yourself with a long thorny stick. Asshole.

Or add me to your ignore list. Whatever.

Hey, if the reviewer points out that a game is unplayable due to system specs I am going to muse upon why I have chosen to move from PC gaming to console gaming.

Just makes you look a bit silly if you follow it up with nonsense like you then did.

Not to mention that musing about console gaming in a review thread about a Russian game that wouldn't be on consoles in the first place because of tighter than Fort Knox, expensive license agreements is particularly strange.

Consoles just aren't an option if you occasionally want to break from the "AAA"-standard fare. Heh, these idiotic generalisations work great, don't they.