Cold Winter Review

I might've remembered seeing this game pop up from time to time when discussing lesser known PS2 games. It will inevitably get talked about when discussing games on the system that aren't your usual mainstream heavy hitters that released on the system or didn't get a port, remaster or a remake of any kind. It's one of those games where if you are really into the PS2 and the 6th gen by extension, there will be some talk of it.

With that out of the way, Cold Winter is a title that is very much on the generic side but by no means do I equate that as "bad" like many others on the internet do. While Cold Winter is very much a serviceable game in everything it does, nothing about really pops out or it doing anything that other games and by extension media hasn't already done or explored. It doesn't have overly extravagent production values or presentation either. While the game fuffils a basic power fantasy, it's easy why a franchise never formed from this title.

What Cold Winter basically is that what if you were a console only player but couldn't play games like No One Lives Forever and Soldier of Fortune? What if you got a character like James Bond without being James Bond? What if you got Lian Xing from Syphon Filter in there?

That's Cold Winter in a nutshell, when playing it in the moment, it's like watching those random action movies that would play on TV or come across when the algorithm of a streaming service recommends something to you.

There's elements of No One Lives Forever with gadgets like lock picks and decoding tools. There's also looting and health being heavily reliant on how much body armor you have rather than just your HP bar. Something exclusive to this is crafting various items to open doors for various chests and rooms but these are all nothing more than just secrets for you to get and you'll always have enough ammo to get by. Looting guards will always get your damaged body armor back. You can also get your HP back by pressing left with no limits on it's use. However there is a slow animation where your moment is reduced when this animation is active so it isn't spammable.

There's optional stealth but you are already a one man army since looting guards and exploring levels will get your armor back. The crafting items offer no different paths to get through a level and is just for secrets.

You have the high amounts of gore like in Solider of Fortune and because of this combat can be very stimulating and fun to just see what body parts will fly off when shooting enemies. It does make the firearms you feel that much more powerful.

Burst firing will also be nessescary to active hit targets and the enemy count is high enough that throwing grenades is encouraged to thin out the herd.

There's also objective markers and the game mostly telling you where to go so there is much problem solving or outside the box thinking. Game also checkpoints often and much progress isn't lost upon death. I did beat this on PCSX2 but I can say this is beatable on base hardware with hardly any hair pulling moments. It's one of the easiest games you can play on PS2.

One big issue with the game is that the controls and movement can feel very sluggish. When moving, it can feel like you are on ice where moving right after you let go of the left stick your character will still have some momentum left after letting go. That and the occasional platforming can feel awkward due to the small jump arc and the momentum issue I spoke of earlier. These moments controls are going to be your biggest enemy when playing.

The story is kind of there. The cutscenes are decently detailed with the character models and there is some decent camera work with the cutscenes. Voice acting is fine. The jarring part is how long cutscenes can go on for, some of them being completely disconnected with the player did in the game beforehand. Still, nothing overly awful here.

Overall, that's Cold Winter, it does everything serviceably and competently. It's not terrible but it's fun in the moment due to the over the top and gory combat. The fact that there is no instant fail stealth sections with terrible AI or any overly frustrating game design does help make the game the decent action movie romp that it is.