Callisto Protocol is another hugely controversial game this season that will divide players despite being widely believed to be one of the year’s biggest hits to grace its conclusion. The new team of Striking Distance Studios, under the guidance of an expert author of the brand Dead space Glen Schofield has undoubtedly succeeded in creating a top-notch game in some respects that can easily compete with the best in the business. But its content isn’t always as compelling as it is attractive to look at. And then there’s EA’s sci-fi horror. Where does the freebie end and copy begin? And in the case of a game by the same author, can we talk about theft? You will often ask yourself this question, because Dead Space spies on you at every corner. It can be a great advantage, but also the Achilles heel of the novelty.
We will travel to the future 300 years away. The main character is the pilot Jacob Lee, who due to unfortunate circumstances finds himself in the heavily guarded Black Iron prison. He’s on Jupiter’s moon Callisto, and when our hero is shipwrecked there, he ends up in the prison itself against his will. As it soon turns out, the worst day of his life is about to begin. The premise seems simple, and I had a few story questions during development that went unanswered until release. There was good reason for that. The developers have kept things a secret for our sake, so you might be as confused as the protagonist himself during the prologue. While the opening is really exciting, later on the narrative loses its breath a bit, but we’ll get there and not ruin the mood just yet.
What does Dead Space remind or at least evoke? Computer terminals, door controls, locker appearance, main character interface, health indicator, stomping enemies, own death animation, weapon operation, weapon improvement, object manipulation, game structure…
It is impossible to talk about the game The Callisto Protocol and at the same time not bow to Dead Space again and again. This comparison does not please me very much, but it is inevitable. Glen Schofield would probably invent any sci-fi horror, but this really is as faithful a variation on a familiar theme as possible. Whether that’s a good thing or not is partly up to you. Because a lot will depend on your interpretation and interpretation. If you love Dead Space and just want more of the same, albeit in a different universe, you’ll have plenty. If you were looking forward to a spiritual successor, but at the same time believed in new things and were looking forward to more original ideas, you may be disappointed. That’s an even more pressing problem, isn’t it? remake the first part of Dead Space will be released in late February and there will inevitably be a direct confrontation.
What does Dead Space remind or at least evoke? Computer terminals, door controls, locker appearance, main character interface, health bar, stomping enemies, own death animation, weapon operation, weapon upgrades, object manipulation, game structure… There is very much. You can also see the beginning with the arrival on Callisto as a kind of reference or homage. Similar to the limb-slicing reference in Dead Space when a note written in blood on the wall advises you to shoot the tentacles. Sometimes it feels like a pleasant memory, but other times there’s maybe too much at the expense of something new. The writers are playing it safe and I would appreciate them coming up with more surprises like Dead Space has done in the past. In terms of story and gameplay. But The Callisto Protocol prefers to stick to best practices, and I think this caution is a shame, because they hoped the team was preparing something of their own. The scenario, as well as the gameplay, is rather a derivative of what has already been experienced elsewhere. And when, for example, the authors try to differentiate the surroundings from what, for example, the interiors of the Ishimura ship looked like, they get something like Sevastopol station from Alien: isolation.
But that certainly doesn’t mean there’s nothing new. The combat system, for example, has undergone an innovation. While it looks like Dead Space and other games at first glance, its pace is different. You have to get used to the fact that you will be fighting with melee weapons more often, and the ammunition is perhaps even less than in other similar titles. You can’t get to the final. You won’t have enough ammo or credits to buy them. Otherwise, this journey would no doubt be much easier. The authors strongly insist that we adopt an unusual dodging system, which is performed on the gamepad with the left analog. Timing and accuracy are the key to success. You usually punch the enemy a couple of times, then maybe shoot them once or twice, and finally finish them off again with a cold weapon. You can try this in other ways, but I don’t think many other options will work. You can’t just defeat the enemy head-on, you won’t survive without evasive maneuvers against adversity. You’ll upgrade the weapons, they’re great, but maybe not once in the entire game, despite honest exploration and looking at the trampled remains of enemies, I told myself I was armed to the teeth and had enough ammo.
Also be sure to learn how to use deadly traps and traps in the environment, which will allow you to get rid of enemies faster. The Gravity Gauntlet is also used for this, which, unlike its counterpart in Dead Space, is used almost exclusively for combat. A typical example is grabbing an opponent and throwing him into a turbine or pinning him to bayonets. I think it’s a shame that even today such a game is very dependent on scripts. By that I mean straight into the fight. Many situations happen the same every time, enemies appear according to a plan. When a “corpse” should rise up and attack you, it’s the same every time, even if you restart the game. The moment enemies can mutate can bring more dynamics to fights, and it just depends on your speed and skill if that happens. If you like a challenge, you really like it, you may find it motivating to fight for your life in Callisto Protocol. Otherwise, I should give you a little warning. It didn’t occur to me until about halfway, maybe two-thirds through the game, that the novelty was somehow exceptionally challenging, even though I’d already noticed the feedback from early reviews. Next I had to give the truth to the early players. I know everyone has a different difficulty bar, so I won’t immediately say that the game is one of the hardest, but it can be really frustrating.
The authors themselves define the title as a survival horror, and although it undoubtedly contains survival elements and is set in a dark environment full of monsters, in my opinion it is mainly action science fiction in a horror setting. But she’s not creepy.
It’s not necessarily about the stiffness itself. It doesn’t even matter how much health you have. Rather, it can sometimes feel unfair or clumsy. When you somehow don’t know there’s a particularly annoying recurring mini-boss waiting for you around the next corner, you stumble into the fight unprepared once or twice. You have a complete first aid kit, but there is no time to apply it. Conversely, you don’t have enough cartridges with which you could handle the problem relatively well. The enemy will easily send you to the next world with one hit, and you fight with clunky controls that lack quick rotation or the ability to quickly switch between weapons. Their selection is really unnecessarily tedious and slow on the gamepad in a situation where fractions of a second are decisive. You can probably guess from this that with the duration of the game it is also different. It depends on your skill. Some can do it in under 10 hours, others can take twice as long if they get stuck in a fight or situation due to an unfortunate equipment mix-up.
Despite the struggle, we finally come to one of the most pressing questions. Is it really horror? I do not believe. The authors themselves define the title as a survival horror, and although it undoubtedly contains survival elements and is set in a dark environment full of monsters, in my opinion it is mainly action science fiction in a horror setting. But she’s not creepy. I don’t know if you take this as a criticism or just a statement of fact, but I just wasn’t scared of the game. And that scares me. This is generally a problem with recent horror films. One could argue that conservative gamers were already saying when the first Dead Space was released that it wasn’t a true horror game. But I think it was. I was really scared with him and he still scares me to this day. Protocol Callisto revels in graphic violence, often showing you grotesque scenes, and occasionally throwing something at you, but even then I wasn’t scared. It’s more suspenseful and intense than scary.
And at the same time, on paper, it should do great because, if nothing else, the title looks great. I specify that I have played the PlayStation 5 version and I am also reviewing it. I gambled on the optional performance mode, and despite some little things and slight fluctuations, I apparently didn’t experience the problems that gamers report on other systems, i.e. mostly PC. On the contrary, I loved it. Except for little things like fire, the game looks great and the technical processing in general made me very happy. You can admire the finer details in the faces, like the glistening sweat on the hero’s forehead under the mask. The enemies are nasty, well designed and very realistic. Thanks to the advanced graphics, even your acting or voice acting will stand out. And speaking of the technical solution, I really liked the implementation of haptic feedback on the DualSense controller. After a while, it made sense again to hear the walkie-talkie’s voice through the gamepad’s speaker. And the music and sound effects definitely deserve praise.
In conclusion, it’s worth mentioning that the game is basically very linear, and even if you do hit a detour every once in a while, most of the time you go straight ahead and there’s no danger of wandering off. After all, you can do without a map and navigation. What saddens me the most is that the game lacks real puzzles and logic puzzles – another attribute of a true survival horror that The Callisto Protocol lacks. In this sense, Dead Space has once again been more generous. And sometimes some little things like an inappropriately placed checkpoint or the fact that you cannot listen to the audio diaries that you find while walking annoy you. It just goes into inventory. At the same time, the story needs more space and originality, because you really spend a lot of time wandering and fighting without events developing in any way. The result is still a quite successful game, but in my opinion it aimed much higher and also had more potential. But if you don’t mind that it’s not completely original or creepy, you might get exactly what you’re after.
