Prisoner of Ice was released 25 years ago. Looking at the pictures also confirms this. If you play this for nostalgia (like myself who actually completed the game back in the late '90s) that's fine but if you are a newcomer do take note of the release date.

These games generally do not age well. The voice acting back then may have been top notch but today it is barely acceptable. Also, due to the pixelated graphics picking up small objects will be a pain (I smiled when seeing another reviewer referring to the needle). There were a couple of instances when I had to interact with objects I thought were part of the background. To do a walkthrough you'll definitely need a guide - if I remember correctly hitting space or tab highlights the objects you can interact with (even with a guide this will be a must a couple of times).

The game draws inspiration from Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos with particular emphasis on his novella titled At the Mountains of Madness. I understand it is also a sort of follow-up to Shadow of the Comet but you are not required to play that game to get the full picture here.

But what is the full picture? A bit of a mess. As an intelligent officer we start aboard a submarine where we pretty early on face the monsters hiding in the crates that were stolen from the Nazis. Here we'll realise that the game employs some timed sequences which means it'll be game over before you realise what needs to be done. I was happy to see I could reload my game as PoI actually uses an autosave system (I don't recall this being a standard feature for point-and-click games back then).

The game takes a couple of hours to complete and we can choose from two different endings. I do not know on what basis I could recommend this to modern gamers so I'll just say play it if you remember it from your childhood.

PS: I'd love to see a remastered version akin to those good-old Lucasarts games.

I first experienced this masterpiece when I was 7 years old, way back in 1995. I remember being amazed by the game's OST (soundtrack) and characters.

I still love this game to this day.

The storyline and character development are very deep. This purchase is worth more than steam is charging for it.

An interesting plot based on H.P. Lovecraft overcome the fact that is quite short and easier than expected. Not as good overall as Shadow of the Comet but at least there are some technical improvements.

What a mess! After playing Shadow of the Comet (I loved it! Read my review! http://steamcommunity.com/id/pointnclickster/recommended/389470), I was looking forward to playing this. After ten minutes, my hopes were diminished, and after an hour, my hopes were dashed and by the end, I was a very very confused gamer.
Prisoner of Ice went backwards in terms of so many things. Trying to blend 3dish/claymation looking characters in 2-D settings just doesn't work. The setting is right before WWII, and as far as Lovecraft goes, thats a little too modern for my taste. The story is an absolute mess, trying to loosely branch off of The Mountains of Madness, and serve as a kind of continuation of Shadow of the Comet.....within 3-4 hours (Steam says 6 hours, but I had long periods of being AFK). Thats right. Short. It's so short, there is no time to care about really any of the characters, and those we do know from Shadow of the Comet, it feels like they threw them in so we could kinda care about somebody! Maybe if they had made this game longer, they could have developed the story a lot better, but they didn't and we are now stuck with this. I honestly couldn't even really explain to you the plot. I had to go to Wikipedia just to find out what in the world I just played. For those who know my reviews and what I play, that should definitely tell you something. Pixel hunting is back!...and man is it annoying. Shadow of the Comet threw pixel hunting out the window, and the graphics were all pixelated. Now in this mixed mess of a game, good luck finding the key you need in a timed puzzle. Oh yes, this game is full of timed puzzles. However, if you do die (you will), the game does autosave so you have a chance to quickly figure out what in the world to do.
Now, does this game do anything right? Actually it does. The cut scenes are actually pretty great. The music also sets the tone pretty well. Aaaaaand........thats it.
Shadow of the Comet is the superior game. Period. The only reason I can see anyone enjoying this game is if one is playing with nostalgia glasses. Otherwise, this game can be missed.

Note: The review feels more like a rant than a review, but I had such high hopes.

Bottomline at the top: I can only recommend this game if your a point-and-click historian and you can get it on sale for less than two dollars like I did.

Pros
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-An interesting look at what PC gaming was like circa 1995.
-It is an H.P. Lovecraft horror game.
-Combination of 2D and 3D graphics is unique for the time.
-Mostly stable (minus some music glitching). Utilizes built in Dos-Box emulator.
-Has a basic autosave feature (might be a modern add on from steam I'm not sure).

Cons
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-Some of the worst pixel hunting I have ever seen in a point and click. Ironically, you at one point need to find a needle that is literally three pixels long. Things that you think are just part of the background are actually things you need to interact with.
-There is a puzzle at the end that provides literally no context on how to solve it. You would absolutely need a walkthrough of some kind, which back in the 90's would have been more difficult (shout out to Universal Hint System!).
-Game runs fast on modern systems and trying to set animation speed lower ends up being too low.
-Sound is glitchy in some parts. Also randomly will flash an opening credit of the developer for some reason.
-Voice acting is no good at all. Definitely took place before the current era of professional gaming voice actors.
-This story does not elaborate on certain parts and is disjointed. Overall hard to follow and feels rushed.
-The cutscenes have not aged well.
-Monster is lame.
-Overall short play time. I got it for $1.50 on sale so its more expensive than the 50 cents an hour value i look for in any game but not by much. I'd probably be upset if I bought it at the $6 it is regularly.
-No info on how to use ingame display settings (has some kind of delay for cutscenes I think but the game wasn't long enough to fiddle around with.

I can only imagine how frustrating it would have been to spend probably 50 dollars on this game back in the 90's and have to deal with the pixel hunting and nonsensical puzzles. This is the first game I've reviewed that I do not recommend. I do appreciate the difficulty and talent that has to go into making any game, especially back in '95. If you can get it on sale (or free somehow) then go for it but otherwise spend your money on a different point-and-click.

Well not as good as Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet, but this game has his own charm. Unfortunatly this game is pretty short and is not as hard as Shadow of the Comet was. Ca. 3-4 hours on the first playtrough.

Recommended? Easily!

The game is loosely based on the Cthulhu mythos in the world of H.P. Lovecraft, though readers familiar with that universe will know that even in most Cthulhu stories the octopus god doesn't show up much. But, still, this game has some twists and turns the way you might expect from a Lovecraft story.

Journey back to 20 years ago in computer-game development, the days when MSDOS still ruled and many people were trying out Windows 95 for the first time. Sure, the graphics are dated -- but at the same time they're kinda cool! Isn't that why all of these retro-style games are in vogue now?

Like many games from the time, I can't say much about the music or the voices other than I found it helpful just to turn them off. Luckily, this was one of the games at the time that allowed you to have subtitles along with spoken word.

However, also like many games of the time -- this game actually has a well-written plot and is accompanied with some detailed storytelling. In other words, this game is from a time when graphics and sound weren't that good and so developers had to actually design a COMPLETE game in order to it to be considered good.

Of course, one of the drawbacks is the point-and-click interface. And, yes, this game reminded me of why I found these types of games so frustrating as sometimes you engage in the battle for pixel spotting. The puzzles aren't that difficult, especially considering that you can interact with (i.e. take into your inventory) very few objects.

Well worth the price I paid for it, and a great use of time and an afternoon of distraction. Don't miss out!

Being a Lovecraftian through and through, and a 50 year old lover of all game genres, it pains me to not recommend this classic.

Prisoner of Ice is an PAC adventure game developed and released by Infogrames Multimedia for IBM PC compatibles and Macintosh in 1995 in America and Europe. It is based on H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, particularly At the Mountains of Madness, and is a follow-up to Infogrames' earlier Shadow of the Comet. I made a mistake and started with this one and now I'm a bit afraid.

Still, the reason why I dont recommend this game is that riddled with the worse problems of a PAC ADV, more specifically, pixel sized interactable objects and the worse for me, HUGE metalogic jumps which deters from enjoyable gameplay. Considering what they are find them at the end below if you need.

Coming from a person who has seen everything from zx spectrum to VR, having played and beaten PAC ADVs such as Secret of Monkey Island 1 and 2, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade among others, trust me, the game will make you mad, it is just poorly done, a shame, because there seems to be proper research and voice acting and a genuine attempt to make good, looking 30 years behind. But the game is so riddled with nonsense that you could well use it to make people never pick up a PAC ADV again. And it would be understandable.

I will eventually go back to it, when i finish my backlog of 95 lovecraftian games. This game nowadays is not worth 5 bucks, good thing i bought it for 1. The dosbox functions well with the game though no worries there

My advice is if you want a proper PAC ADV get this one instead:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/914020/Gibbous___A_Cthulhu_Adventure/


You are in a sub, your captain just died, no one tells you why and how he died, but you just go fw with it... you use a incantation you just recorded from a delirius person because metagaming in a creature you just seen and have no knowledge about but just banish it. No insanity, no repercussians. You are in a military base full of guards,find a body of a tortured man... no one cares, leave him there, dont report, dont raise alarm. lets just take a tin of rotten food to pass the doctor in the infirmary who NEVER DENIED YOU ENTRY TO SEE A PATIENT BECAUSE YOU NEVER ASKED!! just a few examples of the insane logic or lack thereof

Really good, short and mostly simple adventure based on Lovecraft works. It does well overall on every aspect, with a story that gets really exciting when it starts to deal with time travel and connects with Shadow of the Comet, a previous game based on Call of Cthulhu. Its puzzles are mostly easy, so it may be a good start for players who want to get into some classic adventure games.

I've played a lot of point and click adventure games. I'm familiar with the Lovecraft style. This is a poor presentation of both.

Far too often I find myself demanding of the game to give me some sense of direction. And I've played all the Lucasarts classics, Monkey Island 2 was especially bad for that, but it was nowhere near the level of leaps in logic and outright questionable solutions that this game presented. I feel no shame in admitting I was using a walkthrough for most of it because I had no idea what I was meant to do, especially at early-on points like the wire puzzle. It also relies way too greatly on being able to notice items that, due to the limitations of graphics at the time, should've been made bigger to compensate.

As for the story, it in no way reflects the abject terror and concept of complete irrelevance that humanity holds that the Cthulhu mythos typically presents. If I'm going around using Eldritch magic to combat my enemies, it should have a dramatic, noticeable effect on me every single time. Each time I encounter the Prisoner, I should be having my sanity wracked. I shouldn't simply be going "oh how horrible! Oh well, moving on".

Don't waste your money on this unless for some reason you have some nostalgic inclination towards it. And if the only reason you are is for nostalgia, you're better off just watching a playthrough.