This loose sequel to Shadow of the Comet does a few things better than its infamous predecessor but overall looks shallow in comparison. You can say that developers listened to all the critique of SotC and tried really hard not to make the same mistakes. First of all, there finally is a proper point and click interface, which works very well and is pretty much identical as in Beneath the Steel Sky (or most modern adventure games). Second, the gameplay is much more forgiving. This time you won't make it to the final stages of the game just to realize that you can't win because missed some item in previous locations. Scripts just won't let you progress without doing key things first. There are also no cheap deaths, and while it's still possible to die occasionally, game always kindly performs an autosave before such section. Finally, it's quite hard to get stuck here. Puzzles are very basic and unoriginal, and there are always very few locations available to explore at a time with not many items and interactive hot spots, which combined with all of the above makes this game rather easy, especially for an adventure game from that era. So, it's almost like a polar opposite of SotC in that regard. The only moments that may give player a hard time are occasional pixel hunting and timed events when things need to be done quickly. Those can be quite annoying. But other than that, Prisoner of Ice lacks pretty much everything that made SotC good. Graphics might be more advanced but lack charm, and IMHO aged worse than pixel art from SotC. Story looks promising on paper but doesn't work well in game. It's just not engaging enough, kinda messy, with Cthulhu mythos and ties to the previous title that feel out of place. Music is dull and forgettable compared to phenomenal SotC soundtrack. Overall, Prisoner of Ice just lacks atmosphere and good storytelling to be something more than an average adventure game, of which main selling point is a superficial connection with Lovecraft's works. And it's very short, about 4 hours, which isn't necessarily a bad thing in this case.
