I will elaborate what I liked about Stalker. For example, the bandits were saying in the natural voices "Come here, you son-of-a-bitch !" or "Ahh, I caught a bullet". It brought so realistic an impression that I thought I was in the streets of Russia. That was some atmosphere, and I was enjoying it !

But I am not enjoying the atmosphere in Cryostasis. The voices are unimpressive; I experience no immersion. Cryostsis seems to be the game of the same kind as was Penumbra, however Penumbra was a highly atmospheric game. Not so Cryostasis. Is this because it has the same textures all over the place, of bad quality as well ? Or is it because of the enemies regularly jumping at you, so that it because boring ? Anyway, I have already done half of the game, because I rather like the game than not.

i agree, the voice overs in stalker made up a good deal of the atmosphere alone, while the russian ones in cryostasis are unimpressive. you should try the english, or spanish ones. they are much better.

i also know what you mean with lack of immersion. i experienced the same. it wasn't until the very end, when the story turned everything around for me and made me realize how well done the game was. i aleady stated on another forum that many people will most likely enjoy the game most on the 2nd play through when they know the complete story.

Well, I finished the game, and wanted to share my opinion. As I have already shared my impression after playing half of the game, I would write it here as well.

You said that the game would make sense by the end and the plot would show its grandioseness, so that I was waiting for it... but nothing happened. I saw no impressive climax. There was an explanation why the ship went into collision (it had to do with the captain), but I would hardly call it "story turning around". And the settings and textures were bland. In short, I was more disappointed by the game than I was impressed.

From the positive sides, though, I would mention that in the past 1/4 of the game, the psychological atmosphere became more intense; that's the reflection of the lives of the Russians themselves. This feature of psychological intensity was unique among its western-made counterparts, and I welcomed this given my background. There was a couple of the genuinely new findings (interaction with the characters on the screen and fighting alongside the boss rather than against -- which I suspect will be picked up by the other developers). Oh, and I was having this annoying bug, when the enemy approaches closer than a certain distance, I fire the weapon, but instead the shot, my weapon switches to another, and I get the constant switching of weapons. With this bug I was able to get through half of the game, but when the game shoved a couple of hard enemies against me, I called it a quit, and activated the godmode.

never heard of this bug, but this must have sucked. the ending is rather calm and it's not a big bang or anything hollywood like what i meant when i said it made me realize the game's ingenuity. it's merely the fact that all plotlines are combined and you're able to see how perfectly all fits together, so from a designing point of view is was done in an excellent way.

also, i very much liked the fact that the ending was merely used to present a deeper meaning. also, the fact that it turns out that everybody is still dead and that you merely had an impact on everyone's afterlife gave the whole feeling i had while playing the game a twist, because when i played it, i expected something completely different. so the ending is not loud, it's not shiny, it's not some over the top action scene like in most games, but it's calm and very psychological and fits the whole game very well. i can see how not everyone will have changed feelings towards the game after having experienced the ending, but i sure had.

there are some great explanations of the plot on this and other forums. may be checking them out will grant you a deeper look into the philosophical side of the game. it can be easily overlookeddue to the game's nature as an FPS, but it's sure worth it, because if the ending can't make you see the bigger picture of things (and i had a prob with that too at the beginning), then those certainly can.

agree. the deep story is important. i liked the ending. especially the credit's song ;)
however the voice acting in original verson is not as good as stalker. the enemies are good enough but could be more and better.overally the game could be alot better but as it is, it's good enough for me and i'm happy with it:grin:

I forgot to mention. I had a look at the videoclips of gameplay of the English language version. The English voicing was even less inspiring than the Russian voicing.