Prisoner of Ice uses an interesting story with plesantly surprising
SVGA graphics to introduce a graphic adventure game. Prisoner of Ice
starts off with a cool intro and nice animation coupled with a fitting
soundtrack that nearly sent chills down my back. The story pits you
having just rescued Bjorn Hamsun from a Nazi camp in the Antarctic,
along with two Top Secret boxes. Hamsun is delierious and can not
communicate with you. Meanwhile, your submarine is hit by a German
boat and there is a fire in the hold, which melts the ice on one of
the boxes releasing this hideous creature to devour you. The end
result: The plot is good, and the intracies should show through, but
once you get past the flashy graphics, Prisoner of Ice is a game that
is somewhere between the old Sierra-style games, and the StarTrek
series of a few years ago.
Prisoner of Ice ranks well here, especially for an old DOS system with
4-8 MB of RAM and/or a 486 processor. Prisoner only requires a double
speed CD ROM drive, but in SVGA mode a 4x would be nice. It will run
in a window on the OS/2 desktop, but expect some frame loss in the
animations. Some confusion was caused by an apparent missprint in the
manual saying that no EMS was required. Our tests showed that you
actually need about 7MB free EMS for SVGA mode.
Prisoner is a flashback to the days when hint books were the new rage.
There is essentially no skill involved other than patience. Really
it is mearly a case of saving, guessing, and repeating that until you
get it right (with a little necessary observation and creativety on
the side.) This is definitely a once or twice through game which will
be lost and forgotten as soon as completed. A few years back, when
gamers were less demanding that there games have lots of depth, this
title would have ranked higher. However, in today's demanding market,
this title lacks the luster that would put it on top.
-Tintagel
Graphics : 18/25
The Graphics have lots of attention to detail, although are not a
genre leader.
Gameplay : 18/25
The gameplay is what should be expected in this genre, un-exciting.
Nothing new, nothing flashy, but relatively tried and true.
Longetivity : 15/25
Plagued by the "same-old, same-old" syndrome, this game offered no new
challenges or features which are expected.
Compatibility : 18/25
Prisoner of Ice scores well for medium-low system requirements, but
loses for dead wrong configuration instructions.
Graphics : 18/25