I played The Callisto Protocol with a lot of quality-of-life patches applied to the game. While I had an okay time with the game, it’s not often I play a game that make me feel a lot of potential had been squandered.
The visual presentation seems to be where most of the time and effort has gone into the game. The graphical fidelity and animation are some of the best that I have seen for the 9th generation of games. The detail of the facial features and animation is excellent, and I believe The Callisto Protocol has set a new bar of technical quality that other games should aspire for.
I did like the game went for a melee brawler combat system rather than opting for the over-the-shoulder shooter that has been done so many times now. I know some people had issues with the combat system, but I found it worked fine for the most part, most likely due to the patches that were released for the game. I liked that you had to use the left stick to dodge enemy attack and wait for an opening to bonk them on the head with the stand baton.
Sadly, the gameplay loop doesn’t evolve beyond hitting zombies with your baton and occasionally shooting them with your sidearm. Most zombies you’ll come across are human like, so combat encounters will work the same regardless of what you are fighting.
The art design feels uninspired. You’ll navigate through medical wings, prison cells, hydroponics centres, and mining towns. However, with everything being so dark and the walls being covered in metal and pipework, the levels rarely feel distinct from one another.
Levels are linear in their design. Being linear isn’t really the problem. The issue I had that, while the levels themselves can be very detailed, there was very little reason to explore the immediate environment that you were in. There’s rarely any loot that is hidden away in a nook somewhere. You do occasionally come across optional route that will lead you to a loot chest but it’s never clear if the path you’re on is the main path or the optional one.
The story is nothing to write home about. You’ll probably guess where the story is going after the first hour of playing. You’ll collect audio logs to get more backstory on what’s going on but even they are not worth listening to. It’s not like the original Dead Space or System Shock 2 where you’re piecing together the story of the events that happened have occurred before. The audio logs could be completely omitted from the game and the very little would have been lost from the removal.
My review probably gives the impression that I had a terrible time with the game but that’s not the case; the game is fine, but it should have been a solid first entry to a new series in the action-horror genre. It is a difficult game for me to recommend to others to play, at least as a full price game. The takes around 10 hours to complete, so if you see it bundled as part of PlayStation Plus or Xbox Game Pass, or you see it going cheap on a sale, I think it’s worth giving it a go.
The visual presentation seems to be where most of the time and effort has gone into the game. The graphical fidelity and animation are some of the best that I have seen for the 9th generation of games. The detail of the facial features and animation is excellent, and I believe The Callisto Protocol has set a new bar of technical quality that other games should aspire for.
I did like the game went for a melee brawler combat system rather than opting for the over-the-shoulder shooter that has been done so many times now. I know some people had issues with the combat system, but I found it worked fine for the most part, most likely due to the patches that were released for the game. I liked that you had to use the left stick to dodge enemy attack and wait for an opening to bonk them on the head with the stand baton.
Sadly, the gameplay loop doesn’t evolve beyond hitting zombies with your baton and occasionally shooting them with your sidearm. Most zombies you’ll come across are human like, so combat encounters will work the same regardless of what you are fighting.
The art design feels uninspired. You’ll navigate through medical wings, prison cells, hydroponics centres, and mining towns. However, with everything being so dark and the walls being covered in metal and pipework, the levels rarely feel distinct from one another.
Levels are linear in their design. Being linear isn’t really the problem. The issue I had that, while the levels themselves can be very detailed, there was very little reason to explore the immediate environment that you were in. There’s rarely any loot that is hidden away in a nook somewhere. You do occasionally come across optional route that will lead you to a loot chest but it’s never clear if the path you’re on is the main path or the optional one.
The story is nothing to write home about. You’ll probably guess where the story is going after the first hour of playing. You’ll collect audio logs to get more backstory on what’s going on but even they are not worth listening to. It’s not like the original Dead Space or System Shock 2 where you’re piecing together the story of the events that happened have occurred before. The audio logs could be completely omitted from the game and the very little would have been lost from the removal.
My review probably gives the impression that I had a terrible time with the game but that’s not the case; the game is fine, but it should have been a solid first entry to a new series in the action-horror genre. It is a difficult game for me to recommend to others to play, at least as a full price game. The takes around 10 hours to complete, so if you see it bundled as part of PlayStation Plus or Xbox Game Pass, or you see it going cheap on a sale, I think it’s worth giving it a go.