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The Lowdown
Pros: A decent story driven shooting game.
Cons: A fast way to recover life makes players practically invincible.
 Purchase
at Play-Asia
 Purchase
at Lik-Sang
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Left alone in a Chinese prison, the once crafty spy Andrew Sterling
resides. Abandoned by the MI6, a sect of British Intelligence, Sterling
is left to rot. Until an old friend comes by to rescue him. At this
point you're in control of the one man army and out to stop a set of
terrorists from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The fairly cliché story
matches the predictable gameplay.Cold Winter is a first person
shooter set in the after Halo era. Which means you'll move around with
the left analog stick and use the right analog stick to aim. You even
have a "thwack" move to hit guys with the back end of your gun or break
crates. Combat is similar to other FPS where you run and gun. Sterling
can hold up to two weapons at one time. If you pick up another gun
you'll have to drop a weapon. The variety of guns is pretty high, with
twenty to play with. No real unique guns here, just a standard set of
pistols, shotguns, automatic AK's and the obligatory rocket launcher.
Something fun to play with is the flamethrower, even though you don't
see it often.
The way you recover health differs from other titles since there
aren't health packs to pick up and Sterling doesn't have a plasma shield
surrounding him. Sterling carries around an unlimited medical pack that
can restore his life to full. Since this can be used at anytime Sterling
becomes practically invincible. The only time where you're in real
danger is if you're caught in a crossfire. If you're shot while using
the pack no life will be recovered. However, if you put up a table to
shield yourself or run into a corner you'll have enough time to heal
when playing the single player mode.
Another unique element added in Cold Winter is an item creation
system. By finding scraps of metal in shelves and pilfering the wire
cutters from the pockets of a deceased guard Sterling can make a
lock pick. Plenty of other recipes can be discovered so Sterling can
make useful things like Molotov Cocktails. While the system is generally
a good idea, it's not used for the primary objectives. Some side
missions may require you to pick locks it's not a big portion in the
game. In fact plenty of players are probably too lazy to seek out all of
the components to make items. It's a great idea, just not put to use.
Most of the time first person shooter games stand on their
multiplayer modes. Cold Winter has all of the standard modes like
Deathmatch, Domination Capture the Flag and Last Man Standing. Nothing
really unique. In some ways playing Cold Winter multiplayer is like
playing any other FPS just in a new setting, with slightly different
arms. One good thing about the multiplayer is there are on and offline
modes. Eight players online and four offline guarantees that you'll be
able to play with friends if you want to. For a console FPS there are a
fair amount of options you can set for multiplayer matches. You can
alter the weapons in each level to make only pistols appear or pick a
pack of arms designed for terrorists.
Compared to a slew of other recently released FPS games Cold Winter
doesn't take the cake visually. It's fair in regards to many titles and
really feels like the graphics are year old. There are jagged textures
here and there, plus the character models are hardly convincing. Voice
acting in the game is pretty good. It keeps a predictable story from
being too boring.
Cold Winter is sort of like the "C" student of FPS games. It's good
in almost all areas, but doesn't excel in any. If you can't get enough
shooting action, its worth a pick up.
Cold Winter hasn't been released in Japan, so we have the English
friendly US version.
US Bound?
It's already out in the US.
Overall
Timing was against this game from the start. Paired against shooters
like Half Life 2 and Halo, Cold Winter can stand it's ground for
entertainment. At the same time it doesn't exceed, in any level, over other heavy hitting
FPS titles.
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