In this article, we’re going to dive into the Callisto Protocol, the super hyped game that got a lot of Dead Space fans excited but ended up launching in a terrible state. They want players to have to deal with frame rate issues across all platforms.
Although there was no rate racing in the Series X version, it still ran horribly for some reason. and the PC version was played with some of the worst stuttering. We’ve seen this year that the game has already received a few updates, so is it good now?
Also Read: Sony A95K OLED Review
Review
First of all, I don’t know about you guys, but I played tons of games this year, and the Callisto Protocol is easily one of my top three best-looking 2022 games. I usually prefer 60 FPS, but the game looks significantly better in quality mode thanks to the rate-race shadows and other effects, so I ended up choosing quality mode because I’m such a graphics horror and the game is gory. which is something I love, but I had to blur out some stuff because you know how much of a flake I am.
The minimalistic design makes the game even more immersive, as does the fact that on the PS5, the Callisto protocol uses pretty much all of the Dual Senses features. We’re talking haptic feedback adaptive triggers and the controller speaker during radio communication. Another thing I really liked is how the game can be extremely challenging; make one false move, and these guys will take you down. Sometimes, because the difficulty level isn’t well balanced, you’ll come across certain parts of the game where you’ll clearly notice a difficulty spike out of nowhere.
This section, for example, got frustrating, and it gets even more frustrating when you die, and that’s going to happen. I still ended up making it through that part because I’m not a noob; I just had to get good, and I also pulled out some six spin moves. Crystallia would be proud, no, but the thing is, if your strategy ain’t working, you have to try something different in this game.
It’s usually the spot you pick, but if you don’t have good enough visibility, you’ll quickly get overwhelmed, plus the combat system seems to be made for only 1v1 situations, so whenever there are multiple enemies, it hits the fan real quick. I mean literally, because if you don’t pick up enemies and throw them into fanned, you’re going to be separated from a couple of specific areas.
I didn’t find the game too hard; you just have to learn its mechanics and use them properly, that’s all, but keep that in mind. There are a few bugs here and there, and monsters can go through walls for a couple of seconds, so make sure you punch the air first and then you get up.
Performance
On the PS5, a couple of effects, such as Sparks, appear to cause a micro-freeze every time they appear on screen. Other than that, there are only a few frame rate drops that I noticed here. and there on Series X, though the game appears to run slightly worse, in fact, those drops are more frequent, which is surprising given the graphics are also worse and appear to belong in a PS2 game.
When it comes to the PC version, my PC is a little too old to run this game, but according to the research I did on YouTube, the game seems to run better, though not all issues have been resolved yet.
Gameplay Upgrade
The new weapons are fun and make the combat better; I just wish you could upgrade your weapons a little bit earlier in the game because I feel like you unlock most weapons. and the best upgrades come way too late in the game. The healing animation used to take around 6 seconds. I mean, look at this dude; he takes a look at his injector before shooting himself every single time.
There are monsters about two feet away who are ready to beat the hell out of him.Well, the good news is that now that the game has been patched a few times, the healing animation only takes about 3 seconds, which makes healing finally possible during combat.
I’m sure if they had people play it while it was still in development, they would tell them that it feels more like a linear action adventure than a survival horror game.when it comes to horror games, but this one didn’t scare me at all. It’s full of shitty jump scares that you can see coming from a mile away.
You’re blind, no, but for real, it’s really bad. I remember there was a section where I had to deal with the same jump scare three times in a row within like 10 minutes; that’s ridiculous. I feel like what makes Callisto even less scary is the combat system. the fact that you can simply hold the left stick left or right and dodge incoming
Attacks like yours and his prime do not make you feel vulnerable; correct me if I’m wrong. I mean, don’t do it because I’m obviously always right. I believe that feeling helpless is what makes these games frightening, but the fact that you can simply get rid of enemies by lifting them with gravity removed, aka the grp, and throwing them away makes you feel overpowered.
which is, like I said, the opposite of what you need in a survival horror game, at least the story is decent. I won’t give anything away, but I like the ending; it took me about 10 hours to complete the game, which I think is reasonable for a linear game like this one.Speaking of linear, everyone on the level design team should be fired. The level design feels so lazy and repetitive, especially if you enjoy crawling through vents, squeezing through tight spaces, replacing fuses, and matching triangles every now and then.
Then you’ll enjoy the Kalisto Protocol. By the way, there are some stealth sections throughout the game; some of them can be decent, but unfortunately, the AI ruins a large portion of them.I mean, listen to how quiet these stealth attacks are; yeah, good thing these blind enemies are extremely sensitive to sound. Imagine what they would do. If they weren’t now, let me show you something else that doesn’t make any sense. There’s this part where you’re supposed to help a trapped worker, except when he starts talking to you, you can’t even tell where he is, and long story short, you can’t actually save him.
It’s just scripted and confusing, and I’m sure a lot of you guys probably restarted this part several times trying to save the poor dude, unless you really didn’t give.
Anyway, quick question: why would you have a manual save feature when all it does is copy the previous autosave? To make things worse, some of the checkpoints in this game aren’t well placed, for example. There are spots where the checkpoint is placed right when you enter the upgrade room, but right after that there is a pretty tough fight, so every time you die you have to sell the same items, reorganise your inventory, and upgrade your weapons again and again and again. There is no way I know this is right. That’s really annoying, but somehow that doesn’t prevent the game from being fun to play because even with all its flaws I honestly enjoyed playing the Callisto Protocol; it wasn’t a blast, but it wasn’t a chore to finish either.
I would recommend getting it for $70 bucks, though not really. I feel like $50 bucks or even less would be more appropriate for a game like this, plus I think after finding out a little bit more about the game most people would rather just wait for the Dead Space remake.
Callisto Protocol Verdict
The Callisto Protocol has an interesting story, good sound design, and some insane graphics, but it has frustrating difficulty spikes, repetitive level design, and most importantly, it’s not scary at all. That’s why I gave it a 6 out of 10. The updates definitely fix some of its technical flaws, but I don’t think the main problems here can be fixed with batches.
Anyway, let us know if you like this format better or if you want me to go back to splitting the review into multiple categories. graphics performance, sound, gameplay, etc.
