The Callisto Protocol

[FuriousDemon]

Anyone else playing this game?
I saw the lukewarm reviews, but decided to go for it anyway based on looking at what the complaints were and seeing that PS5 version was looking rather good after watching DF review.

I have to say, I‘m enjoying it a lot. I am a huge survival horror fan, so I’m used to managing my limited inventory and ammo. Probably about 40% of the way into the game and it’s challenging on the normal difficulty, but definitely manageable. Many reviews made it sound like you have to play on easy to beat it. We’ll see, maybe I haven’t reached the problem spots yet.

Graphically game looks stunning. First PS5 game where I chose 30 fps mode over 60 fps. The reason is RT shadows make a huge difference in a game like this and the slow turn rates of the main character make the fps difference not as important.

Game definitely gives me Dead Space vibes and I’m happy about that. We’ll see how I feel in the end,but so far I’m enjoying it a lot. Biggest issue for me is the inventory limit is too restrictive. I hope at some point you can upgrade that.

 

[SPhilli911]

I've been looking forward to the game a while since I am a huge fan of Dead Space and this certainly is very similar to those games in a lot of ways, course it's by the same creator. Played a few hours and loving it on PS5. Gorgeous graphics and sound design (especially with headphones). Maybe I am numb to horror games lately, but the game hasn't been scary to play other than some jump scares. It's a creepy atmosphere, but it doesn't make me feel tense or afraid to progress.

But that may be because I started on easy difficulty since the reviews led me to believe it would be frustrating on normal, but easy is too easy with very abundant items, so I might restart the game. I can understand some frustration with the blocking and dodging mechanics, but once you get the hang of it, it isn't so bad.

I agree about the restrictive inventory, but it also gives me Resident Evil vibes because early RE games had equally limited inventory space causing you to make tough decisions and ration ammo/ health. I figured there might be an upgrade for that but maybe not.

Love the game so far, the story is intriguing and characters are interesting, super happy to get a space horror game again and even more excited that Dead Space remake is also just around the corner, so it's good to be a fan of the genre right now.

 

[FuriousDemon]

Inventory will eventually get larger (and for free!), but it will still be too restrictive at times. I guess I got really good at conserving ammo

 

[FuriousDemon]

Just finished the game. It was pretty damn good I have to say. Not game of year or anything like that, but very solid (and good looking and sounding) survival horror. I’d give it 8/10. Couple of things that dragged it down for me: enemy variety was almost nonexistent (and they were not very interesting to fight against) and the story was just serviceable. Combat mechanics itself were good enough, but also not really stellar. So yeah, solid game overall that hit the spot for survival horror games of the winter season. It doesn’t quite reach the heights of Dead Space or Alien Isolation, but still worthwhile entry in the genre. I hope it sells well enough that they make a sequel with all the good taken from this game along with improvements in key areas.

 

[Terronium-12]

Played this on PC and, as you can imagine, I didn't play most of the first week as there was a UE4 caching issue that caused horrendous frame stuttering.

Once the updates rolled out, I dove into the game more and I genuinely enjoyed. Callisto is, in many ways, the bastard child of Resident Evil and Dead Space — and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. There are several shortcomings that I'd love to see addressed in a sequel (provided the game does well enough and I hope it does) or even in the DLC.

One of the most annoying is weapon switching. I have no idea why it's so sluggish (or why you can't cancel out of the weapon sub menu; you have to select something, else that widget will stay on your screen indefinitely) but I hope that's addressed. There are times where Jacob decides to stop runni, er, jogging, and there were a few instances — especially during the final boss battle — where dodge just...stopped working.

The combat mechanics are refreshing for a game in this genre. Nothing explicitly new but it compliments the game exceptionally well. I'd like to see that expanded upon as well. The music was fantastic (Lost Again, the song playing during the end credits feels very 007-y and that's a compliment as well), and the visuals are amazing. Ray tracing is bugged as is FSR so I'm looking forward to that being ironed out. I think a second playthrough is highly likely as there's very little I genuinely disliked about the game.

I'd easily give this an 8-8.5/10. Can't wait for the DLC and I hope there's a TCP 2.

Spoiler

There's definitely more than enough meat on the bones for a sequel. Jacob isn't dead and the doctor wants his help with something in exchange for getting off the colony.

 

[zargdin]

One of the most annoying is weapon switching. I have no idea why it's so sluggish

Yes indeed, the system is terribly fiddley. You can only switch between the primary weapon and the secondary weapon instantly. Both the primary weapon and the secondary weapon have different configurations so if you want to change you need to bring up the side menu. Not only that, but the actual selection of weapons isn't that great - two pistols, two shotguns and a machine gun.