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The Callisto Protocol


Nag
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Played for a couple of hours and I'm happy to say that, so far, I've loved every minute... everyone already knew it was going to be a spiritual successor to Dead Space and apart from the inclusion of melee combat that's just how it feels.

 

You play as Josh.... sorry Jacob.... who for reasons finds himself locked up and awakens in his cell with things very much already fallen to shit... not long after you receive your first melee weapon and after a quick tutorial you're left to it... I was worried by the dodge mechanic in this for a while but it's actually not too bad... there's no timing window, something I'm immensely grateful for as I have none, instead as long as you're holding left or right when the enemy swings you'll dodge... just don't dodge in the same direction twice. As for the hitting things, it feels meaty as in The Last of Us 2 meaty... and messy which I suppose trying to batter a monster to death would. I've picked up a pistol but so far I've not had much cause to use it... ammo seems sparse.

 

As expected it looks really nice, they nailed lighting and sound... something that would've been criminal coming from the guy who gave us Dead Space... he sure knows his outer space.

 

I've already died a number of times on the middle difficulty with some pretty disturbing death scenes... I think I'll be seeing lots more of these during my run time.😂

 

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Spoiler

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It definitely looks absolutely stunning on PS5. I’ve seen several reviews of the PC version where it stutters like crazy, which must suck for those only playing that port. But it runs great on PS5, from what I’ve played so far.

 

Had a few fights, getting the hang of the dodge mechanic. It’s immensely satisfying smashing enemies to bits, then stomping on their corpses. 
 

Off to a good start.

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2 hours in, and the fight I just got through demonstrated the “It’s a bit of a mess” comment that both SkillUp and Gman have pointed out. When you’re up against one enemy, it’s fun, dodging their attack, then lamping them with your melee weapon, and stomping them to bits. You know, just to be sure. 
 

When you’re up against multiple enemies, it’s less effective. The room had several health packs, and multiple spikes/saws to chuck enemies into. So, I started it up. Sure enough, 4 enemies rocked up. I figured I’d stasis grab one of them, chuck them into the saws, and see how I got on from there. Unfortunately, that didn’t work. My aim decided to go to one of the larger enemies, which i didn’t seem able to grab. Meanwhile, one of the other enemies started hitting me, while another spat at me from a distance. I legged it round a corner, to try to stasis grab a second time. Again, didn’t quite go according to plan. 
Healing takes quite a significant time to do, so I had to leg it up some boxes, rapidly try to heal, which I just about managed to do, before the fuckers were on me again. 
Because both the health meter and stasis bar are relatively small, and move as you’re moving Jacob, it can be tricky sometimes to see what health/stasis you’ve got left. 
 

That fight was a total shitshow, and if I hadn’t been playing on Easy, I’d definitely have been killed. 

 

I’m still enjoying what I’ve played thus far. But I can already see where the complaints about combat are coming from. 

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I checked under settings before I started, it’s turned off, I reckon.

 

Just had a quite frustrating session with this. I reached an area that had two paths. I went one way, clearing it of enemies, ammo and collectibles. Your inventory is pitifully low, you can carry 6 items. The issue there is, as you go exploring, you’ll frequently be unable to carry stuff you find. There’s salvage you can sell in the shop for credits to upgrade your gear, but it takes up 1 inventory slot each. What I’m frequently finding, is I’ll find some stuff, but struggle to make room to actually carry it. 
I cleared one side out, upgraded my gear in the shop. Before I progressed the mission, my curiosity got the better of me, so I decided to check the other path. 
Huge, fatal mistake. Despite being on my guard, I ran into two enemies. One started kicking my arse. I tried to get out the way to heal up, but the second enemy stunned me by spitting shit at me. Which led to the other enemy grabbing me, and killing me. 
 

I thought a checkpoint had kicked in before I went to the second path way. Nope. So a good 5 minutes progress, pissed up the wall.

 

It’s absolutely baffling that there’s no quick heal option. Because it takes so long to use a bloody health syringe, doing it in combat is next to impossible.

 

When you’re up against one enemy, yeah, the combat is fun. But two or more, and it’s a fucking mess. God help anyone playing this on Hard. 
 

I’m having fun with it, but the harsh reviews most definitely have a point. 
 

Dead Space is one of my favourite games of all time. This is certainly going to be a “one and done” playthrough. 

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12 hours ago, AndyKurosaki said:

Dead Space is one of my favourite games of all time. This is certainly going to be a “one and done” playthrough. 

 

Yeah, liked 1 and 2. Really atmospheric I thought, but the way you're describing this is tells me it's not for me. I listened to one reviewer saying the combat system simply doesn't work when faced with multiple enemies. I can hardly think of a worse thing to say about a game of this kind. It's like saying the double jump mechanic doesn't work in this platformer....

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So the thing you mention about progress getting pissed up the wall, I saw this from a steam review which seems to describe the weird checkpointing situations with this game. Sounds rough, maybe it got rushed out before Dead Space remake cause it seems like a mistake you don't tend to make with games like this

 

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Your manual save is the last checkpoint you reached... I'm pretty certain that's explained in the save screen, it has nothing to do with saving position but not actions so I've no idea what that whole A/B scenario paragraph is. It even tells you the time lapsed since the last checkpoint.🤷‍♂️

 

I've put a good number of hours in today, I'm in chapter 5 (out of 8 I believe)... I've no idea how folk are saying you can clock this in 7 hours for a new run, I must be closing in on that now easily.

 

So far I've been finding things pretty manageable in regards to multiple enemies... I think you just need patience and timing... as long as you're strafing at the start you'll dodge, wait for an enemy to back off and your ok to start up a combo in which case you're totally safe. Maneuvering an enemy in-between you and a spitter works wonders too.

 

I've only really encountered one frustrating area so far that involves invisible enemies and a sentry Bot but that was mainly down to me not figuring out where to go properly.

 

I continue to be pretty happy with this so far...

 

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I’d disagree about patience and timing in regards to multiple enemies. I’m about 6 hours in, and I’ve been killed in several fights purely because I’ve been unexpectedly outnumbered. Even in scenarios where you know a big fight is coming (lots of ammo/health pick ups, spikes to chuck enemies onto), patience means fuck all. If you’re in the wrong place, have the wrong weapon equipped, you’re pretty much fucked, even on Easy. 
I just had a section that demonstrated that point perfectly. I killed a few enemies, but then in another part

of the area, 3 strong enemies appeared out of nowhere. I had no way of knowing where they were going to appear. By the time I got my shotgun to the ready, I was gangbanged to death. 
 

When it comes to multiple enemies, the combat is just fucked. And it remains absolutely ludicrous that you

cannot quick heal. The healing animation takes way too long. On several occasions, I’ve been down to half health, tried to run behind some crates to heal. Only to be jumped on and killed by some fucker before I got it done. 
 

Strafing is all well and good, when you have two enemies at once to deal with. But when it’s 3, 4 or more? It’s utter chaos. You’ll try to avoid one, only to be sideswiped by some

other bastard you didn’t even know was there. Quickly leading to death. 
 

The checkpointing system is so inconsistent. You’d think upgrading a weapon in a shop would trigger one. But nope. It’s extremely annoying to upgrade a weapon, sell some stuff off, walk down a corridor, get unexpectedly killed, then have to do that shit all over again. 
 

There’s been a couple of sections where you have to quickly move out of the way of something, or it’s instant death. I died at least 4 times each on both sections, because you’re moving so fast, and there’s no way you’ll know the correct route the first time. 
 

The inventory continues to be a pain. At one point I unlocked more inventory space. Soon after though I got a new weapon, soon leading to a consistently full inventory again. 
There’s been several times where I’ve had an inventory clogged full of salvage stuff to sell, which you need for upgrades. But is there a nearby shop to do so? Is there bollocks. 
 

I may sound negative about this, but despite that, I am enjoying it. It looks genuinely amazing, and when you’re dealing with a small amount of enemies, it’s quite satisfying. Soon as you get outnumbered though, the combat is an absolute farce. Dodging multiple enemies is a chore. It’s too easy to get battered about, and finding the time to heal is just ridiculously difficult. Even changing weapons isn’t the fastest thing to do. I’ve seen some reviews say they died in some sections because they had the wrong weapons equipped, and because it takes so long to swap them out, they died doing so. Though that hasn’t happened to me (yet), I can definitely believe it.

 

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Hit a major brick wall with this now, and severe frustration is kicking in. At a repeat of the first boss fight. If it gets near you, it’s instant death. I’ve got a fully loaded shotgun, several health packs, and a decent amount of ammo. But because the combat in this game absolutely SUCKS, I’m getting killed repeatedly. 
 

I back away, and fire a few shotgun shells in its face. If it was just it I had to contend with, maybe I’d be ok. But oh no. We have to have other enemies spawning in to help. And it’s them what’s getting me killed. Melee killing them isn’t an option, because by the time I’ve hit them a few times, the boss has got within instant-killing me range. 
 

Healing is absolutely impossible. I’m at full health. But the problem is, when I do take damage from the other enemies, there’s zero time to heal. Because no matter where I run to, because the healing animation takes a fucking eternity, I’m getting hit long before I get healed up.

 

Just died 7 times in a row, on Easy. I’ve no idea what the fuck it wants me to do. And right now, i need a break.

 

Anyone expecting a Dead Space experience from this, is going to be massively disappointed. Because from watching the latest footage of the remake today, it’s abundantly clear, that unlike this game, the combat in Dead Space isn’t utter FUCKING SHIT.

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Well, after 5 more deaths this morning, I finally killed that bastard boss. 
 

So what does the game do? Make you fight it yet again, for a 3rd fucking time, less than 10 minutes later.

 

What lazy bastards these developers are. “Let’s do a boss fight, that’s really annoying, and just repeat it over and over again”. 


Worst of it is, one review said you fight it 4 fucking times. So I’ve apparently one more battle to “look forward to”.

 

This game does have some fun moments. But fuck me, whoever designed that boss, and copy and pasted it several times, they’re a cunt.

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On waypoint radio they said that the way the combat works is the zombies alternate between left and right, and the player just needs to take account of that. You don't need to read the enemies at all, just swap back and forth between left and right

 

Which is also just kind of weird. Anyway, I don't know if that is useful to people or makes the game less or more of a cunt to Andy. But thought I'd mention it.

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I mentioned that in my opening post, don't dodge in the same direction twice... and don't try to dodge and weave Two-head because unless you're Muhammad Ali it won't work.

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And that’s it. I’m officially done with this game. Reached the last boss, it has two forms. The game has saved a checkpoint at the start of phase 2. And I’m now completely fucked. I’m at half health, so the boss kills me in 2 hits, sometimes 1. I cannot heal at all, because the fucker won’t let me. I’ve ran across the arena, but because Jacob takes a fucking eternity to stick a healing syringe in his neck, the boss is on me long before I’m healed. I ran around in circles near a window, getting a shot in now and then. But after a few hits, he summons some exploding friends to join the fun. And either they kill me, or he does.

 

I’ve had enough. I died 8 times to that absolute wanker, and I’m past the point of caring. I can’t be arsed to reload a previous save. So I’m out. I’m can’t say I’m bothered to miss out on the ending, because the story basically doesn’t exist anyway. The audiologs are so pitiful, they’re barely worth bothering with. Most of them barely last even 10 seconds, they’re so ridiculously short. 
 

It’s not a bad game. But there’s some very bad decisions in here, such as recycling a boss 4 times, and making healing/ switching weapons take approximately 5 million years. 
 

Fuck it, I’m off to watch the ending on YouTube. Dead Space, this most definitely is not.

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Done.

 

As is fairly obvious this game seems to be polarising opinions all over the place but it's fair to say I had an overall great time with it in most respects... had a few cheap deaths, a few more that were entirely my fault but I'll stand by what I said earlier... take your time and choose your moments and generally things work out.

 

Apart from the setting and exploration it's actually a pretty different beast than Dead Space and I find that all the better... for people saying why buy the DS Remake when this was on the way there's a clear answer... they're very different games. 

 

Bit of a bitch move with that ending and it's entirely obvious where that story dlc is going to used but I'll not hold that against it... hope it does well enough for a sequel to tell you the truth.

 

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  • 4 months later...

I’ve made a start on this, about 5 hours in so far. Reached the icy bit Nag has pictured further up. 
 

Got to say I’m loving it so far. The atmosphere, the pacing, the violence and even the combat just speak to me. The whole dodge, melee, shoot, melee, stamp just feels cool. I especially like the auto target thing it does. Loving the grip ability too, need to upgrade it though as it doesn’t last long enough IMO.

 

It does have issues still, I’ve had it hard crash on me twice & had a couple of progress bugs where I’ve had to reload a save. Some weird design decisions too, like why can’t I walk while listening to audio logs? Come on you guys sorted that years ago, why go back? I also wish it had a Dead Space style waypoint system, not because I get lost but so I can go down the optional paths first for secret shit. By the time I’ve realised I’m going down the critical path it’s too late. The frame rate is all over the place at times too - Series X.

 

Even with those issues though I’m loving it. I’d even go as far to say I prefer it to RE4 Remake so far. 
 

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