The Callisto Protocol

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The Callisto Protocol – Review

I loved the Dead Space games, and when I heard the co-creator was the director of a new game I was instantly excited. I watched a single trailer for the game, said to myself “I need this” and then patiently waited for the release. With it finally here, I got home from work and instantly booted it up, lets go! Will this game scare me and give me the action I want?

Developed by Striking Distance Studios – Callisto Protocol is a survival horror game set in a sci-fi universe. You take on the role of Jacob Lee, a victim of fate thrown into Black Iron Prison, located on Jupiter’s moon, Callisto. When inmates and guards begin to transform into monstrous creatures, throwing the prison into absolute chaos. To survive you must battle your way through Black Iron Prison to escape while uncovering the dark and disturbing secrets hiding below the surface.

Using a unique blend of shooting and close-quarters combat to take down the rapidly evolving creatures. Getting into your first fight leads you with a tutorial and how your melee mechanics work. Pressing your stick in the direction you want to dodge or pulling back to block then following with a strike at the right time to fight back. This was a unique and fun way to fight that I enjoyed, however not very intuitive in situations when taking on multiple enemies at once, leading to me dying a lot. But later on, finding a gun helps a little in these moments, still quite the challenge at times though.

Leading into gun combat, this is mostly your usual aim-and-shoot like most games, and much like Dead Space aiming for limbs to dismember your enemies is a great option. However, there is a pretty funny mechanic for combos on enemies, after a few successful hits with your melee weapon you’ll get a blue icon to appear. Aiming and shooting your gun at this exact moment lead to a nice ender for your combo by shooting the enemy giving you some breathing room and the satisfying feeling of obliterating your foes. Careful though if you bump your right stick or whatever peripheral you use to control your camera can lead to your aim going off and missing your target. Unfortunately, I did this a few times, usually leading to me losing some health or even death when the enemy gets a chance to retaliate.

Some mechanics felt a little off, and sluggish to pull off, even though it seems it was intended. When it came to using your arsenal of guns, it became a bit tedious to switch between some, as you only have one trigger system for a few types of gun types. This leads to a struggle during some fights when you run out of ammo in one and have to switch out as it takes time to pull a pistol barrel off the trigger and replace it with a shotgun barrel. With the enemy being right up in your face sometimes, this became a bit of a problem leading to annoying deaths.

Using your GRP can help out with a lot of combat situations, assuming you are carrying some batteries, as using this a lot will cause it to run out real quick. GRP is a glove you acquire and is a lot like telekinesis, using a force like pull and push allowing you to use your environment as a weapon or reach unreachable items. This can also come in handy for giving you space to recompose yourself or switch out and reload your weapons by throwing your enemies back.

Now we understand how combat is both effective and sometimes not so effective, I want to talk about difficult options. These include minimum, medium, and maximum, with each coming a degree in enemy difficulty, the damage they deal, and take to kill. But more importantly, with each one starting from the easiest to the hardest come fewer and less and resources. Naturally maximum needing you to be mindful of how you approach situations.

I played on medium, with not too many issues with ammo and other resources the combat itself was still quite challenging at times, mostly because of what was mentioned earlier when trying to take on multiple enemies at once isn’t easy. With difficulty in mind, I did hear from a few other people that they found minimum still to be a decent challenge, which in my opinion shouldn’t be the case. The easiest difficulty in games is tended to have a more relaxed experience and just absorbed the story being told.

Taking a decent amount from Dead Space with its minimal hud and similar inventory system was a great idea, some would say it’s copying way too much and then begin to compare every aspect of the game. The minimal hud works so well for these atmospheric horror games, with the health and energy bars showing on the back of your neck and ammo displayed on your gun.

I myself took it in as a new experience with inspiration from Dead Space but still felt fresh enough to be a new game with its own unique story. Which had its ups and downs with some generic plot twists, but other than that it had a decent dark story, that went pretty deep especially if you listen to the recordings you find.

A gore fest is a good way to describe how Callisto is, so much blood and dismemberment to be had, and definitely not for the faint of heart. Surprisingly Callisto Protocol uses unreal engine 4 and still looks phenomenal, watching videos online does not do it justice. Getting your hands on it and experiencing it firsthand will always be your better option.

From its character models to the futuristic sci-fi scenery I was pleasantly surprised throughout, even though I played on performance mode for that extra smooth gameplay I didn’t experience too many dips in frames and it still looked amazing. However, for the people who love that crisp image and don’t mind a lower framerate which appears to sit at a solid 30fps. There is a quality mode, giving you that extra fidelity, especially if you have a nice 4k monitor or TV with HDR.

Talking about how the game looks, we would like to match it with how it sounds, and for the most part, it was great. With its spooky atmosphere, intense music when in combat, and the creatures making horrifying grunts and screeches letting you know they are on the prowl. Sometimes the monsters, would be a little too loud though, and feel like they are right next to you when they are clearly a decent distance away. The voice acting though was amazing with a couple of celebrities in the cast Josh Duhamel (Jacob Lee) from the Transformers 2007 and Karen Fukahara (Dani Nakamura) from The Boys, both doing an immaculate job. It’s always great to have familiar faces and voices join the video game industry.

My final verdict would be a good recommendation for fans of horror and action to jump into Callisto Protocol, it might not be overly long but it’s got a decent and dark story that goes a little deeper than what’s on the surface. For those that like a challenge it definitely gives you one, but might be a little too challenging for some, even on the easiest difficulty. All this while looking phenomenal and gory with so much blood and dismemberment to be had. However, the combat isn’t all that intuitive at times it can be pretty fun as your dodge attacks and beat the crap out of those monstrous creatures.

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The Good

  • Decent and dark story
  • Great visuals with a good amount of gore
  • Great voice acting cast

The Bad

  • Combat not entirely intuitive
  • Game can be a little too challenging for some even on the easiest difficulty
  • Some monster noises felt a little too loud and close
7.5
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10

Written by: MrVibeAU

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