Yes, I'm writing to get a piece of coal. But no matter, this game deserves more love. You're a soldier sent to investigate an abandoned research station off the coast of Kamchatka. Wouldn't you know it, you crash and the place is not as abandoned as it looks; in fact it's full of things that want to kill you.

There's three very neat things about this game: 1) the art direction, a wacky combination of Soviet propaganda art plus steampunk; 2) the superpowers you get, which all have to do with time; my favorite is the sniper rifle with bullets you ride; 3) the various endings, all seemingly designed to mess wtih your mind.

It's something like Half-Life 2, in fact-- mostly shooting, a few physics puzzles, some cool toys to play with. I think they could have done a little more with the time mechanics, but it's still a fun ride.

This is something like Dead Space (you 're an engineer and wander all over a ship fetching things and offing bad guys) and something like Mirror's Edge (female PC, lots of climbing, red pipes). But the best part is the water. The ship is flooding, and the ship has some amazing fluid physics, and makes use of water in interesting ways: swimming, flooding an area on purpose, drowning enemies, a wacky water attack.

It's short, and there are some story issues (you don't get the water power till just before the end, and the enemies are repetitive), but it's a fun idea and the price is right.

The Steam Overlords want recommendations. But hey, that's fine, because an excuse to promote this game is welcome.

Don't be fooled by the somewhat retro graphics... this is a near perfect game. It's a mixture of combat and steatlh, both quite satisfying. The stealth elements are really good... you have to sneak past soldiers, though if your timing is good you can fight them or incapacitate them. The situations get harder as you go; they can be quite tense.

Plus there's, well, all kinds of stuff along the way: a chase scene, hovercraft battles and races, air hockey, photography. None of these feel like "mini-games" (except maybe the air hocky, but it's fun)-- they add variety without taking you out of the game.

Plus Jade is cute.

Go buy it so they keep working on the sequel.