Ludography
82/100
Players10 ratings
75/100
Critics3 reviews
Cold Winter cover

2005 · Swordfish Studios · Adventure · First-person shooter

Cold Winter

PlayStation exclusive

In "Cold Winter", you play the role of Andrew Sterling, a former member of MI6, the British secret intelligence service. Andrew is caught preparing to assassinate someone in China, and is thrown into prison. There he faces torture and imminent execution. But a former friend from his MI6 days arranges to rescue him and offers him a job, having planned in advance to manipulate him so that he is unable to refuse. The first task seems fairly ordinary: to track down a weapons dealer who has been supplying terrorists.

Released
11 May 2005
Platforms
PlayStation 2
Genres
AdventureFirst-person shooterShooter
Developers
Swordfish Studios
Publishers
—
Modes
MultiplayerSingle-player
Perspective
First person
Themes
ActionStealth
Engine
RenderWare
Country
United Kingdom
Age ratings
PEGI 18ESRB M

About

Cold Winter is a 2005 first-person shooter video game developed by Swordfish Studios and published by Vivendi Universal Games for the PlayStation 2. Its story was written by Warren Ellis.

Keywords

  • modern warfare
  • helicopter
  • spy
  • secret agent
  • bloody
  • drugs
  • espionage
  • capture the flag
  • crime
  • playstation network
  • boss fight
  • explosion

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The game uses the Karma physics engine, allowing for interactivity with items in the game world and for ragdoll effects. Cover can also be improvised by using objects in the environment; for example, the player can flip a table to provide cover or grab a table and block a door. Additionally the game features dismemberment system similar to the one used in Soldier of Fortune. Over 30 weapons are available and player can craft gadgets and explosives from items scattered around the levels.

The game offers a multiplayer component that supports up to four players offline and eight players online; in the offline mode, human players may be substituted for CPU-controlled. There are a dozen maps and six modes, including deathmatch and king of the hill.

Story

Andrew Sterling is a former British SAS soldier working for MI6, who has been captured in the People's Republic of China and jailed in Chang political prison; MI6 destroyed all files on Sterling to prevent an international incident. He is rescued the night before his execution by an old female acquaintance named Kim and a former fellow SAS soldier Daniel Parish. To repay his debt to Parish for saving his life, Andrew agrees to work for his private security agency. Sterling then travels to Egypt to eliminate the leaders of an arms dealing cartel, who possess a missile guidance system called Octopus. He completes his mission, but at the cost of Kim's life.

The antagonist is John Grey (voiced by Tom Baker), who as a young man was enlisted in the RAF to defend Britain at the height of World War II. Horrified by nuclear weapons John Grey formed a secret society, "Greywings" inspired by the heroes of the H. G. Wells novel The Shape of Things to Come.

Reception

The game received "average" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.

It was one of the five games nominated by GameSpot for the title of Best Story of 2005, with a comment: "A poignant, well-told story penned by Warren Ellis helps make Cold Winter a more engaging experience than your average first-person shooter." The website considered the game to be sonically and graphically average, but an enjoyable straightforward shooter with a decent online mode. Whilst not the best game of its type it was "definitely worth playing".

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
PlayStation 211 May 2005North America · Europe 3 June 2005

Games like this

Collections2 collections

Platform libraries

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.