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| By Striking Distance Studios / Krafton - PlayStation Store, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70948364 |
After finishing Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. I decided to play another single-player experience, but of a survival horror variety. The Callisto Protocol is a sci-fi, survival horror game released in 2022, which bears striking similarities to a previous sci-fi, survival horror video game series, namely the Dead Space series. I was interested in playing this game and seeing if The Callisto Protocol is as good as Dead Space 1 and 2, or is it an inferior title like Dead Space 3.
The Callisto Protocol’s biggest strength is its atmosphere. This game nails the survival horror experience in its setting and its sound design. When I would normally walk through a hall or a room, the game uses the typical survival horror tropes such as dim lighting, unexplained noises, and jump scares. I find that The Callisto Protocol uses its moments of horror so effectively and it gave me that sense of isolation; that something was going to jump out at me at any second and that I needed to be ready. The movement of your character in this game is slow and methodical by design, which is a necessary contrast to how fast-paced video games usually are these days, and contributes to the atmosphere of the game.
The graphics of The Callisto Protocol are very crisp and sharp, so you can immerse yourself in the gore of this game. I forgot to mention that The Callisto Protocol is obscenely gory, and when I am bashing an enemy, blood, guts, and body parts fly through my screen. I also like the voice acting from Josh Duhamel and Karen Fukuhara, which I would imagine were not cheap hires for this game.
The positives are out of the way, so let us get into the negatives. The general gameplay loop of The Callisto Protocol is repetitive to the point of being boring. Most of the combat is melee-based, though there are some shooting and physics mechanics woven into the combat as well, so it does get monotonous to continually bash your enemies to progress. Dodging an enemy strike relies on you holding the left or right direction (rather than timing your press) so this makes most combat encounters a complete breeze and lowers the difficulty of this game.
The overall story of The Callisto Protocol is run-of-the-mill sci-fi and just boils down to “get off this planet”. I also encountered many weird bugs and glitches playing this game as well (I played this game on PC), such as enemies suddenly disappearing mid-fight, and my guns will not stop reloading on a few occasions. I also had this issue where I booted up my game one evening, and it looked like my save completely disappeared. After doing some research on this bug, I needed to start a new game, and then when I get control of my character for the first time, I had to pause and then load my previous save, that I thought was missing, from the pause menu. I have never had this issue before in any game.
I still ended up finishing this game, and I still generally enjoyed playing The Callisto Protocol. However, this is in no way better than the Dead Space games, because the gameplay in Dead Space is leaps and bounds better than The Callisto Protocol. This game has some significant flaws, and I would never recommend this game at full price. If you see The Callisto Protocol at a significant discount (or free on Xbox Gamepass like I did), and you are a fan of sci-fi games, or survival horror games, or both, then you may find some enjoyment in this game.
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