I do not recommend: The Callisto Protocol

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“I don’t play games to kill time, I play them to enjoy them” - Ralph, the Destiny player

So i guess the 2 people they couldn't hire back from the old team are the writer and the combat designer

Dead space had the instant health packs and it was great because if you made that one mistake you could sacrifice your finite resources to heal through the damage so you don't die. It worked really really well

Alien isolation is still one of the best horror games ever made. I've never felt more hunted in a game nor that actually scared of something I understand.

always sad to see a highly anticipated game miss the mark.

Dead space's map was one of the bests parts of it, how it all connected together and looped back on itself.

The thing about melee combat in this game is that the game can't decide whether it wants to be a survival horror game, or a Souls-like action game. The reliance on animation locks and timings make me think of Souls-likes, but at the same time they only went that route to make hack & slash melee gameplay work in the context of survival horror mechanics, and the result is basically what you see here: an odd mishmash that should work okay on the surface, but absolutely frustrating at times. This is the reason why the GRP is your absolutely strongest weapon in the entire game: you can bypass the majority of the combat system simply by using the GRP to throw your enemies at the environment or fall to their death. In fact, once I treated the GRP as my primary weapon, the game became a lot more fun since it basically became Darth Vader Force Throw simulator.

The scariest parts are legit the workplace safety hazards there are just spikewalls and shredders everywhere. I was expecting a level where you are on a conveyor belt having to dodge stompers and saws and not fall into a big lavapit or something. I mean there was the shredder in the vents, that came close.

As a huge Dead space fan I was super excited for this. When I found out it had a day one embargo I was instantly worried.

It honestly seems like they were more focused on making the game look as pretty as possible rather than the things that make a game great 😢

Callisto starts strong but after the first few chapters of your character not upgrading at all you start to get this feeling that the game has shown you all it has. Yes you upgrade eventually but it just health and a shotgun really. The game only has 6 guns and half of those are pistols and shotguns. Then you end up in a chapter where all you can do is slow crawl through meaning your upgrades are worthless as you get swarmed if u fire a gun. Then everything after that is a huge slog and full of jump scares and troll moments. I saw someone call it essentially a tech demo which fills really harsh but it doesn't feel like a full realised vision either. This is in no way competition for Dead Space I'm sad to say.

The Callisto Protocol is a great reminder that GRAPHICS ARE NOT EVERYTHING. Yes, it’s nice to see how the newer consoles have surpassed their previous generation. It’s nice to at least have games now be cinematic. But the problem is that most game devs would rather create a movie, rather than an experience. Video Games are meant to be an experience. Your supposed to entice the player’s experiences inside the game they bought.

Another example to never preorder or get hyped for a game simply because of the previous games of its creator.

Would have been cool to actually have some space elements tied into the game. The fact that gravity on Callisto is somewhere around the Earth's moon gravity, that could have been a great additional game element.

20:06 was literally the hardest part of the game for me. Only because you are constantly being jumped from the back out of nowhere. the monsters literally spawn behind you with no way to turn around after engaging one. when that no leg having ass blew me up 5 times without me knowing what the hell happened i had to take a break.

Its hard to imagine how the dodge/combat mechanic loop got past QA for this game. Like was the entire team just "yes men" that told the Devs that everything was great.

It turns out the scariest part is the performance.

"I don't play games to kill time, I play games to enjoy them" - I have never heard anyone else say this out loud and I agree 1000%. It's downright depressing to me when people just play games to kill time and don't really care if it's good or not. I play games because they enrich my life and give me meaningful experiences. I love sinking in to a game's world and atmosphere, taking in all the details and appreciating them as experiences. Unfortunately there's a lot of people out there who don't genuinely care and just consider games as disposable, which is why so many games suck

Well, I just finished the Callisto Protocol, after waiting to purchase it until it was offered for free with my Playstation Plus subscription. Thank you again for this review, as always, it served to manage my expectations (and, helped me to decide to wait to play the game until the price-point made sense). That being said, and likely due to my lack of personal financial investment, I have to say that I had a LOT of fun with my time here. I re-watched your review post-playthrough, as I often do, and it REALLY holds up. Your comments about the visual fidelity of the experience are VERY true, the game is GORGOUS (especially on PS5, where per your note I experienced exactly ZERO glitches). The lack of these glitches certainly made the somewhat predictable combat model much more tolerable, as I didn't notice any of the moment to moment game freezes that you referenced during your PC experience. The 3D printer weapon upgrade system was a fun and unique path to upgrading your kit that I haven't seen before, and the weapons all felt (and sounded) really good to use. I did find the recycling of that one mini-boss to be somewhat laughable, and the ability to absolutely massacre the blind baddies during the "Colony" chapter right in front of others without any negative repercussions is certainly emersion breaking, but aside from that I did enjoy deploying my arsenal on the other enemies thrown my way during the campaign. I COMPLETELY agree that the game fails to by scary, given how over-powered you end up being if you properly upgrade throughout, and also with the unabating application of the trap chests and those long-neck variants coming at you at EVERY place you'd expect to be attacked (it's incessant, never lulling you truly into a place where you CAN be surprised). I had some trouble with the final boss battle, but it wasn't as hard as I maybe expected it to be, given your description? I played on normal difficulty. I will say, I know that you mentioned that there wasn't any story to speak of here (largely told through sound bites from campaign adjacent audio logs), threadbare as it was (and, "just a dude" as much as our protagonist is) I actually didn't mind what they cobbled together here. Paired with the on-rails way that you're propelled through the campaign, the story expounds in a metered way that keeps you aware of the tense, while not giving away ALL of the cliff notes (not that you can't see the writing on the wall, several hours before the end of the game). Like the action movies that we all grew up watching, it won't win any awards for ingenuity or originality, but it does the job and doesn't ruin the aesthetic. I know you'd mentioned the lack of in-game cut scenes, I'd argue that the gameplay graphics are SO good here that you almost don't even need them (given the lack of truly meaningful complex character interactions). While there aren't many other cast members here, I think that they've done enough writing-wise to let you invest in them while playing, as they're the only things to cling to while you're maneuvering through pretty dire circumstances. At any rate, no one's probably reading this long winded comment (haha), but I just wanted to add some additional texture to your review if anyone was interested. As always, SUPER appreciate your (and Austin's) content, by far the best game review channel on YouTube.