Call of Cthulhu: Prisoner of Ice

Call of Cthulhu: Prisoner of Ice, developed by Infogrames and published by Atari, is a mid-1990s adventure game that blends elements of Lovecraftian horror with wartime espionage and a dash of pulp action. The game casts players as Lieutenant Ryan, an American agent working with the British Navy, who finds himself drawn into a dangerous conspiracy while stationed aboard a submarine in the Antarctic. A shipment of mysterious crates, stolen from the Nazis, forms the central mystery, and as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the cargo houses horrors beyond human comprehension. This opening establishes a strong sense of intrigue and immediately sets the stage for a blend of supernatural terror and spy-thriller suspense. The narrative reaches beyond its icy beginning, sending the player across multiple continents and into environments that range from military facilities to ancient ruins. In doing so, it connects its plot with threads established in Infogrames’ earlier Lovecraft-inspired title, Shadow of the Comet, bringing back familiar characters like John Parker while introducing new antagonists and mythological twists. This sense of continuity deepens the world and situates Pr…

This game is broken as a point & click game. I played this game only because I played the last one, 'Shadow of the Comet'. This game seems to not have the time for test play before its release. Difficulty to recognize any objects during the play is the least among so many problems this game has. Many puzzles lack the required contexts so that the players have no idea what to do with which items. And one of those puzzles does not provide any hint to solve with including the least contexts (maybe there was a hint somewhere during the play, but in the very scene to solve the puzzle, there was no way to confirm the hint if it was). So technically, there is no way to clear this game without relying on a walkthrough.

I finally got around to finishing *Call of Cthulhu: Prisoner of Ice*, a game I only played briefly as a kid and never managed to complete. After all these years, I decided to buy it and experience it from start to finish, and I'm really glad I did. This is a classic Lovecraft-inspired point-and-click adventure with a fantastic atmosphere. The story is excellent, the graphics are gorgeous in that unmistakable mid-90s style, the dialogue is engaging, and the puzzles strike a nice balance between challenging and logical. If I had one criticism, it's that I found the first half more compelling than the second. The later locations are much smaller, which means there are fewer objects and interactions to experiment with, making the exploration feel a bit more limited. The timed sequences also rely more on trial and error than on actual puzzle-solving, so they can be a little frustrating. That said, the second half is also where the plot really takes off. The story becomes increasingly intricate, with some clever time paradoxes that fit the Lovecraftian narrative surprisingly well. I also loved that the game offers two different endings, giving you a reason to see how events can …

A pretty short game, CAN be finished in a single sitting. It's a point n click adventure game that badly wishes to be an action movie. If you are looking for an ambitious attempt that came VERY close to being good, give this a shot.

- Terrible gameplay (Wave mouse around to see if anything is interactable), you cannot progress until you click on those two pixels! Yay! - No instruction on how to actually play (Did you know right-click is a thing and the inventory is invisible at the top of the screen? I sure didn't!) - Incomprehensible expected player actions. Literally impossible to play without a walkthrough. Basically I see no reason to play this. It's kinda funny because the voiceacting is mediocre, and the 3D/2D pixelart is somewhat neat, but the plot makes huge leaps, and frankly the cons outweigh the pros majorly.

As Steam doesn't allow for a "mixed" rating, take this review as such. For a long time, my perception of this game was severely skewed by the [b]ATROCIOUS[/b] Italian version - look it up, its dub is something that must be heard to be believed. I also didn't know of its connection to [b]Shadow of the Comet[/b] because I came to know and appreciate that game at a later date, but also because [b]Prisoner of Ice[/b] deliberately does not reveal such a connection until its second half. That said, it's not as good as its predecessor and, even when judged on its own, it's not a great game. The production values are higher but also less consistent: really beautiful backgrounds - back when it was released, I recall reading that many were painted with acrylics and then digitized - clash with 3D-rendered characters that look awkward and have aged badly. As there are occasional cutscenes made with finely animated 2D close-ups, the contrast is even more jarring. The same goes for some 3D-rendered cutscenes. Worst of all are the "Prisoners": those monsters aren't scary at all, even more so in close-ups. It's not just them—the biggest loss is in terms of atmosphere, as there is not much compar…