Prisoner of Ice

aka: Call of Cthulhu: Prisoner of Ice, Gevangen in het ijs, Prisoner of Ice: Jashin Kōrin
Moby ID: 376
DOS Specs
Buy on Windows
$5.99 new on Steam
Included in

Description official descriptions

Another game in Infogrames' line of H. P. Lovecraft inspired games started by Alone In the Dark, Prisoner of Ice puts you in the role of Lt. Ryan, an American agent stationed aboard the submarine H.M.S. Victoria on a rescue mission to the Antarctic. The Victoria picks up two mysterious crates during the course of the rescue. Before you know it the Captain is eaten alive by the cargo, a horrific monster with whom you are trapped aboard the submarine. And that's just the start of your problems.

Prisoner of Ice features a very simplified version of the classic adventure game interface, where you can left click with the cursor to operate an object or right click to look at it. The program won't let you do anything with these objects, other than the few appropriate actions needed to advance the game.

Spellings

  • Зов Ктулху: Узник льда - Russian spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Videos

See any errors or missing info for this game?

You can submit a correction, contribute trivia, add to a game group, add a related site or alternate title.

Credits (DOS version)

49 People (39 developers, 10 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 74% (based on 31 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 62 ratings with 4 reviews)

Decent story, but doesn't quite cut it as an adventure game.

The Good
As the sequel to Shadow of the Comet, Prisoner of Ice doesn't quite live up to it's predecessor. However, it does have several decent features. Unfortunately, they are not enough to save the game itself.

The story itself was fairly well done, although the sense of threat doesn't seem as immediete as it did in Alone in the Dark or Shadows of the Comet. Nonetheless, the overall plot is decently written and gets the job done.

One of the best parts of the game was definately the music. It was very suitable and atmospheric, and very appropriate in setting the mood.

The hand draw graphics are pretty good, especially those in the cut scenes. The cut scenes are some of the best hand-draw images I've seen and it's unfortunate they're overwhelmed by the 3D modeled animation. The vocalization in the cut scenes also seems to be a step above that found in the rest of the game.

Although I didn't enjoy the gameplay itself, one part I found commendable was the auto-save feature which allowed you to restart from an auto-saved file if you accidentally got killed without saving.

The Bad
Unfortunately, the gameplay itself was frustrating and had few if any redeeming values.

The interactivity was minimum, as you are unable to do anything except the pre-determine actions needed to advance the game. This severely limited the gameplay experience as any unsuccessful command would give you a standard error message. For example, in the very beginning of the game you're looking for weapons to use against the monster. Luckily, there's a fire axe handily lying around. But when you actually try to use it against the creature, you just get a standard error message. At the very least the game could have you attack the monster and fail, or be told that Ryan realizes it's not a good idea to fight the creature mano-a-mano. Even the death scenes lack variety, and consist mostly of the same animation of a Prisoner slashing you.

The 3D rendering used to create the characters gave them a semblance of life-like movement, but it also robbed them of any detail. All of the characters look exactly the same except for their hair and the cloths they're wearing. It's also fairly obvious they were all created from the same base model. Even the supposedly horrific Prisoners of Ice seem fairly bland, although they are depicted quite nicely in the hand-drawn cut-scenes.

The characters were also not as well done. Although there are many characters you met throughout the game, most of them are simply glossed over and never get enough time to develop into anything interesting. Even the main character Lt. Ryan remains a blank slate, and an attempt to give his character some background in the last part of the game is ineffective and seems tacked on.

The Bottom Line
Prisoner of Ice, although a good concept with a decent plot and atmosphere, simply fails as an adventure game. The interactivity is minimum, and the characterization is poor. A few good qualities such as the story, hand drawn backgrounds and cut-scenes and moody music simply aren't enough to save the game.

DOS · by Alan Chan (3610) · 1999

Nazis, Norweigans with speech-problems and general weirdness.

The Good
This is a good game. Not great, but good. The best part of it is that it is rather unique. The story is, although at times a bit confusing and rather silly, often good and the atmosphere is very unique and unnerving.The puzzles are ok, but rather easy. I ran into serious trouble only once, when I had to build a gun from to blast a rock into pieces. I don't mind the game being rather easy, though, because I was more into the atmosphere than the gameplay itself. The graphics were good for its time and although it looks a bit plastic nowadays it is still nice to look at (apart from the prisoner-monsters). The part I enjoyed the most, however, was the delirious Norwegian who actually spoke incorrect Swedish, and not Norwegian at all. Instead of saying "Jag har aldrig älskat någon", (I've never loved anyone), the scriptwriter has mixed up å and ä, and thus the Norwegian blurts out "Jag har aldrig älskat nägon" with a rather peculiar accent. Extremely comical if you're Swedish or Norwegian. I never get tired of the poor Norwegian with the bizarre accent.

The Bad
This is a game based on the eerie works of H.P Lovecraft. I am not very familiar with his work, and it is apparent when you play the game that you really ought to know a little about Lovecraft and his work in order to fully understand and enjoy this game. I like horror and mysticism when it is done right, as in Gabriel Knight, for example, but in this game the monsters are just silly and look like plastic toys making ridiculous hissing sounds, and the story is rather weird than mystical, at times it is just downright confusing and quite ill presented. The ending is a catastrophe. An anti-climax if I've ever seen one, without revealing too much. Also, the dialogue... it really isn't that good at all.

The Bottom Line
A H.P Lovecraft game mainly for Lovecraft-fans. I like the game, but I reckon I'd love it if I was into Lovecraft. So if you are interested in his books, read them and then play this game. It ought to be good.

DOS · by Joakim Kihlman (231) · 2004

Decent mid-90s adventure game, but not without faults...

The Good
For its time, "Prisoner of Ice" offered a slightly darker adventure game experience compared to other available titles. The premise is pretty simple: You are Ryan, a British intelligence officer who, during a mission to the South Pole, gets entangled in a Nazi plot to set the nefarious "Prisoners of Ice," the Great Old Ones, free. Although the story uses many elements from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, including the Necromonicon, the game mostly finds its inspiration from the Chaosium roleplaying games. Anyone looking for an authentic Lovecraft gaming experience will probably be disappointed.

The game is structured as any other 90s adventure game, absolutely no surprise there. The puzzles are fairly average, and even novice adventure gamers shouldn't have too hard a time. The times I got seriously stuck was mostly because you had to retrieve an item which was only a pixel wide and which are impossible to spot without examining every inch of the screen with the cursor.

One of the game's strengths is the music, a fairly decent orchestral score which was above average for its time and fit well in with the game's sort of dark, menacing setting. The art is overall pretty decent as well. Especially the images in the cutscenes are good, they are lavish and do a good job in capturing the Lovecraftian mood. Definitely one of the highlights.

The Bad
While the voice-acting is tolerable, it is by no means great. Some of the characters have unbelievably annoying voices, such as Driscoll... the voice actor sounds incredibly uninspired and bored, I wonder what his problem was.

A major fault is the fact that many of the puzzles are pretty generic and uninspired. Luckily "pixel hunting" puzzles (as described above) are few, but you get the feeling that they are deliberately planted in segments where the developers had run out of ideas. Throughout the game there are also a few combination puzzles, the kind where you have to arrange things in the right order. Again, these seem to be placed in a manner so you feel as if the developers were running out of ideas (or maybe time). Either way, it sort of takes away the motivation to complete the game.

Overall, I also felt that the game's story seemed a bit too ambitious. It tried to tell too much, but had way too little room to develop. Many of the characters brought in, such as a woman named Diane who accompanies you for a while, serve little function. What's the point of characters unless they add to the story? The fact that the story also tries to build upon the previous Infogrames Cthulhu Mythos based adventure game, "Shadow of the Comet" from 1993, only serves to make matters worse. All this adds up to a confusing story that once you finish the game feels incomplete and unresolved.

The Bottom Line
A decent, though fairly standard, mid-90s adventure game that has interesting Lovecraftian elements, but which ultimately short story-wise.

Windows · by Apogee IV (2275) · 2007

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Question about "Prisoner of Ice" game play Kevin O'Keeffe Feb 25, 2009
Is there really Windows edition of a game? Virgil (8563) Jul 20, 2007

Trivia

When Ryan arrives at the Buenos Aires library, he meets a blind man named Jorge who is the curator. Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) was director of the Buenos Aires public library for some years (although not close to the year 1937, when the game takes place) and began to lose his eyesight in his last years until finally he was completely blind. According to H.P. Lovecraft's writings, the Buenos Aires Library is one of the few places holding a copy of the Necronomicon.

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Games

Prisoner 2
Released 1982 on Apple II, 1982 on Atari 8-bit, 1983 on DOS
Inhabited Island: Prisoner of Power
Released 2007 on Windows
Fire & Ice
Released 1992 on Amiga, 1992 on Atari ST, 1993 on DOS...
Solasta: Palace of Ice
Released 2023 on Windows, Macintosh, Xbox Series...
Ice Climber
Released 1985 on NES, Game Boy Advance, 2007 on Wii...
The Ice Temple
Released 2012 on Browser, 2019 on Android
Ice & Fire
Released 1995 on Windows, Windows 3.x, 1996 on Macintosh
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Released 2009 on Nintendo DS
Ice Pingu
Released 2005 on Windows

Related Sites +

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 376
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Alan Chan.

Windows added by B.L. Stryker. Linux added by Sciere. PlayStation, SEGA Saturn added by Kabushi. Macintosh added by Scaryfun.

Additional contributors: MAT, n-n, Jeanne, Sciere, Zhuzha, SpaxPass321.

Game added November 4, 1999. Last modified February 3, 2024.