The Callisto Protocol - Spiritual Dead Space successor

[rgraves]

15 minutes ago, BubbleFish said:

10GB PS5 patch today. Haven’t seen any notes for it yet.

 

New death animations.

[dvdx2]

12+gig on the series x

 

starting to really shape up now

[Dark Soldier]

Been playing this an hour at a time here and there.

 

Absolutely fucking love it. I could see it getting annoying if rinsing it for a few hours on end but played in short bursts it's a banger.

 

Melee is so so good. Its like a boxing game.

[BubbleFish]

I think I’m going to come back to this at a later date. Been playing in small chunks and about 3/4 way through. It looks stunning but the constant one note, grim dark setting is pretty exhausting. While it’s beautifully crafted there does seem to be a small number of assets that are just repeated over and over again, scenery and enemies.

[dvdx2]

It becomes very like Dead Space when you get more guns and ammo. I’m pretty loaded up and hardly even use the melee.  It’s a game that’s really good in bite size sessions. 

[Colonel Panic]

Check pointing on this is still occasionally annoying. Just before the inevitable moving platform/lift section so I needed to redo upgrades when I die. 
 

Past it now so back to sneaking. 
 

 

[Colonel Panic]

Oh, boss encore. Much trickier this time and I really needed to scrounge ammo from around the area. Enjoyed that fight!

[dvdx2]

Anyone who has completed it, can you give me a rough indication of how much is left?

 

i just turned on the generator by resetting the 3 breakers and and heading to a new section

[Sumire]

I know this could be said of a lot of games in the genre, but it would have made a better VR game.

[Fargo]

How is this now on Xbox series x ? I might get a disc copy if it’s in the Jan sales 

[Pug]

It was on day one.

[pledge]

10 minutes ago, Pug said:

It was on day one.

Performance I’d expect is the question…

[Pug]

Lol, what a dimwit!

 

To answer properly.....runs great. It was patched almost immediately to sort initial hiccups.

[dvdx2]

Survive the platform ride ……..what a *unt

[Colonel Panic]

Hey, who doesn't love a lift section with an enemy pile on, a boss after and limited ammo? Oh, and the checkpoint BEFORE the shop so if you die, you need to redo any upgrades.

 

At least you don't see that boss type again... OH WAIT!

[Popo]

I’ve played about an hour and a half and am enjoying it so far, although the checkpointing is quite harsh due to the brutal melee combat and how it can go sideways quite easily if you don’t dodge in time. That same combat is also too simplistic and formulaic to hang a whole game on - needs more variety in enemy encounter very soon. 

[Sumire]

55 minutes ago, Popo said:

I’ve played about an hour and a half and am enjoying it so far, although the checkpointing is quite harsh due to the brutal melee combat and how it can go sideways quite easily if you don’t dodge in time. That same combat is also too simplistic and formulaic to hang a whole game on - needs more variety in enemy encounter very soon. 

 

My brother (a none gamer) gifted me this for PC. I have also played about an hour and agree on the combat so far. It actually seems too easy unless of course you get more than one enemy on at a time or it turns into a battle with the camera. I love the atmosphere and of course the gory deaths. Sound is top notch as well when playing through headphones. There seem to be a fair amount of jump scares which none have worked on me so far.

 

I did have to just turn Raytracing off altogether to get a stable 60fps with max settings at 1440p. The game already looks nice enough anyway though. I am on a RTX3080, but am under no illusion that you seem to require something like a 4090 to run with full raytracing sadly.

[Popo]

Oh yes, the default graphics mode on the PS5 version gives extremely bad input delay, I had to enable performance mode right away, as the switch to 60fps sorted it all out. 
 

Like, it’s genuinely, nauseatingly bad. Perhaps the game was designed with 60 fps in mind? It’s mind-boggling to think that one game can feel so horrible while, say, Forza Horizon 5 feels absolutely perfect at 30. 

[Alan Stock]

Any other thoughts from folks playing PS5 performance mode? Also what difficulty do you recommend for a Dead Space veteran, I played that on the hard mode. I'm getting the game in a few days.

[Colonel Panic]

I find it okay on the 30fps mode but there is a bit of lag. 
 

It’s a similar game to Dead space in many ways, but the combat is quite different. Cutting off legs is definitely a good tactic for crowd control, but it’s more focussed on melee and the camera doesn’t always keep up. 
 

That said, most of the time, if you are locked to an enemy and attacking, it feels like the other enemies just wait, until they don’t. 

[Popo]

The checkpointing on this is getting on my nerves now. I’m at the part with the ‘trap’, and have now died three times, but the checkpoint is behind two ‘shimmy through a tight space’ animations, one of which takes 15 seconds to get through. Not great design. 

[Dark Soldier]

I play it on Easy, too old and lack of gaming time for a hardcore challenge. Game is vastly enjoyable on that difficulty.

[Fargo]

Surprised this isn’t available cheaper in the post Christmas sales. Maybe in January…

[Colonel Panic]

I'm on the last boss now so one way or another, this game is getting finished, but I must say: FUUUUUUUUUCK THIS!

[Colonel Panic]

Finished last night. I just think the combat is so close to being AMAZING - relying on a mix of dodge, guns and melee - but the clunkiness of it all makes it fall short.

 

The final boss took a good few goes to get down, and part of it is a) luck and b) cheesing AI pathfinding a bit.

 

Not a game I'll revisit for a LONG time, if ever.

[Spacehost]

I'm about halfway through this and very much enjoying it as a big-budget haunted house. Once I clued into some ideas a bit better (just because you dodged doesn't mean you can attack without taking a hit; the environment & GRP is easily capable of killing half of more of the enemies in many encounters*) it really clicked.

 

I especially like how it encourages looking around for hidden items and logs; I bet you could miss a third of the game's environment if you just went on the critical path.

 

There's not a lot here that I haven't run into before- it's a $5 Dead Space milkshake with even more System Shock 2 thrown in- but hey, I like a steak dinner and a pint of lager too.

 

*BONUS tip for handling enemies, may make game too easy:

 

Spoiler

If you put an enemy anywhere there isn't a route to the player, such as on top of a few benches or the other side of a fence, it dies of shame.

 

[Spacehost]

Some updated thoughts having just finished “Below”:

 

Spoiler

This was a fairly excellent chapter with plenty of tension, TLOU-style stealth moments, and great atmosphere, ruined at the end by a mandatory tram ride with auto-mutating enemies and a bullet-sponge boss who, frankly, can fuck off. Dumped the difficulty down to lowest and turned on auto-dodge and still took three attempts. Lame as fuck.

 

[Popo]

I played another few hours this afternoon. As awe-inspiringly impressive as it looks, it is breathtakingly unimaginative. It’s mechanically capable, yet slow; plodding; restrictive. 
 

There’s the promise of a really good game in this, but not with this creative team. The engineering work is sublime, but it’s been used to create a very dull game. 
 

The only technically bad thing in it has to be the enemy AI - there really isn’t any to speak of. The different enemy types can’t even interact with each other, much less fight when given the opportunity. That behaviour just hasn’t been implemented. 
 

The thing is, it’s not without enjoyment. The moment to moment combat is gratifying, if restrictive, I just wish the scenario was more interesting, and the actors given characters worth playing. 

[Spacehost]

Finished. I quite enjoyed it; once the beat of the combat finally made sense it was quite satisfying in a messy, hectic, brawling sort of a way.

 

A bit about three-quarters through that went full The Last of Us was probably the most tense section.

 

There's rather more game than ideas here- even at 12 hours, it feels stretched. I definitely get the feeling setting up the new studio, pipeline etc during the pandemic probably hit them a fair bit, especially in the rush to get it out before the Dead Space remake.

 

I hope SDS get another swing at a title regardless of how his does commercially; there's obviously a lot of talent and ability on show. Just a shame it didn't get a bit longer to gestate. A few more enemy types and mixing up the combat with some other melee weapons would've really made this special.

[Strafe]

It’s flopped, apparently. Which is an odd term for something that’s shifted 2 million copies but it was forecast to do 4-5 and cost a shit load to make.

 

https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2023/01/14/the-callisto-protocol-sales-flop/amp/

 

I bet there were a lot of trade ins on boxed copies, not because it’s a bad game - I enjoyed it - but there’s not a huge amount to go back for. Gamepass and PS Plus within 12 months I reckon!