Cold Zero: No Mercy

aka: Cold Zero: Der Agenten-Thriller, Cold Zero: Ostatni Sprawiedliwy, Cold Zero: The Last Stand
Moby ID: 10091

Description official descriptions

Take the role of private detective John McAffrey and step into a world of trouble in Cold Zero. A deal-gone-wrong has the hero indebted to the mob. He is asked to put his skills of stealth and tactics to use for his underworld overseers. His first mission has him sneaking inside a bioresearch facility and stealing a virus known as "Cold Zero." But what exactly is this virus? Is delivering it to the mob the smart thing to do? Players must find out for themselves as they play through this dark adventure.

The missions can be completed using stealth or full out combat. There are 100's of different weapons including melee weapons. You can also pick up objects from dead bodies which you can pawn for cash.

Spellings

  • Cold Zero: Финальный отсчет - Russian spelling
  • コールド ゼロ - Japanese spelling
  • 零度: 最后抵抗 - Simplified Chinese spelling

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Windows version)

73 People (62 developers, 11 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 67% (based on 25 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 17 ratings with 1 reviews)

Too frustrating to even bother.

The Good
JoWooD is a strange publisher. These guys have brought me some of the most underrated games I've played. Gothic II, Chaser, Arx Fatalis, and several others. These games usually don't get the highest ratings, and yet, I've had more fun with these than most Sierra or Electronic Arts games.

So I eagerly picked up Cold Zero, expecting more of the greatness JoWooD has given me.

There are things I like about Cold Zero. The story itself, if you just lay it down and look at it, looks like a pretty fun romp. You play an ex sniper who starts a sort of detective business, gets involved with the mafia, and all that. The RPG elements are nice, with rewards for being stealthy. Lots of guns and other goodies to pick up...

The Bad
Unfortunately, the game sucks. Oh boy, it absolutely sucks. First of all, there is no way to be "sneaky". The enemies will sometimes hear you from across the map even if you're sneaking, but other times they won't hear you run right up next to them and start wailing on someone nearby. They also have been blessed with x-ray vision and super shoot-you-right-through-the-wall weaponry. You, unfortunately, do not have these abilities.

The game could be tolerable in its buggy way if loading times weren't so atrocious. It takes thirty seconds to a full minute to load on my system, and that's simply unacceptable. In fact, I only played to the second level. Were I to play any farther, I simply would slit my wrists and be done with it.

The graphics also suck. The game's gamma default is set way too high, and even on its lowest setting it's still near-blinding at times. Controlling your character is sometimes okay, but usually it's laughably bad. Mostly because he'll pick the most horrendous route to get to wherever you told him to go, and thanks to the bad guys' keen sight and insane-precision shotgun pellets, that always means certain death.

Other problems litter this game. Such as, he doesn't automatically reload. Okay, that alone is a small problem. I don't really mind having to manually reload the gun -- heck, that adds a strategic element if anything. But, if you're sitting there right-clicking the hell out of an enemy and run out of ammo, your dumbfuck character will STILL be trying to shoot the enemy, long after you stopped clicking. It seems every one of those clicks stacks up, and until your character realizes that the last forty times he's pulled the trigger have done jack shit, you're vulnerable to whatever shotgun-sniper there may be anywhere in the damn level.

Bam, you're dead.

Quick load.

Wait thirty seconds.

Nah. I give up.

The Bottom Line
If the bugs could be worked out, and loading times were improved, this game could actually be pretty fun. But as it is right now, it's way too fricken hard, the enemy AI goes from bad to psycho-accurate, it's hard to find cover when anything can hit you anywhere...

It's just not worth it.

JoWooD, you've let me down.

Windows · by kbmb (415) · 2003

Trivia

Title

Ever wondered what "Cold Zero" actually means? It is a marksman term for the first shot from a calibrated rifle. The rifle barrel is cold (and straight), and the rifle has been zero-ed in already. A shot from a zero-ed rifle is called a "zero", and thus, a shot from a cold zero-ed rifle is "cold zero".

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Related Sites +

  • Cold Zero
    Official Website (German + English)

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 10091
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by The Ring Hawk.

Additional contributors: Rebound Boy, Kasey Chang, Roedie, Unicorn Lynx, Genki, Sciere, COBRA-COBRETTI, Klaster_1, Patrick Bregger, Zhuzha.

Game added August 23, 2003. Last modified May 12, 2024.