If you like an action adventure shooting that is full of suspense, give Cold Fear a try. Be warned, this is rated mature, and can get quite scary!

The game is set on a Russian whaling ship in the middle of the ocean, being tossed by really heavy waves. You have heavy rain falling all around you, obscuring your vision and even dripping down your monitor screen. The entire ship lurches from side to side, throwing you off your feet. There are swinging wires and cargo, making it hard to know if a quick movement is a threat or an inanimate object. Faces peer through windows and around corners.

You're a coast guard rescue person sent in on your own to figure out what has happened on the whaler. You quickly discover that the ship is overrun with zombies and your task now is to get through doors, shoot zombies, and save the innocents. Something I have an issue with is that you end up blasting away all the innocent Russian shipworkers. They are afraid of the zombies, and you can read Russian fluently - but instead of calling out "friend!" or something, or trying to show you are a nice guy, you end up in a shooting match and kill them all. Some Coast Guard rescue.

The graphics in general are rather nice, with a very gritty, constantly-in-motion feeling to them. You try to peer through darkness, see in flashing red light situation, get a glimpse of something through the storm of rain and wave.

The sound is immersive as well. You hear hints of movement noise amongst the crashing waves and blaring alarms. It really tests all of your senses, to stay on your toes and stay alive.

On one hand the overall map is small - you're on one ship, with three levels and various rooms. On the other hand, this is in fact a rather large ship, and a lot of the puzzles involve you traversing from one end to the other in a series of 'fetch the handle' or 'find the code key' sorts of missions.

Highly recommended for fans of the horror genre, for some zombie-blasting fun!

Rating: 4.5/5

Buy Cold Fear from Amazon.com