The Callisto Protocol Review (Tony Baloney)
If you're even remotely curious if this game is worth a shot, the answer is no. I picked it up on sale almost two years after release expecting at least a semi-competent Dead Space clone (after all, it's directed by a guy who worked on that game) and it failed miserably. The most complimentary thing I can say about this game is that it's playable in the most basic way and the visuals are good (although the art direction is incredibly boring). Everything else is terrible and ill-conceived. I'll go into more detail below, but the bottom line is you should play the Dead Space remake instead of this. If you've already played that, play Dead Space 2 (or hell, even 3 clears this game).
I first got a sinking feeling this game would be bad when I started it up and the first credit that appeared on screen was for Glen A. Schofield - game director. Well, Glen, if you're important enough to put your name first (even over the expensive Hollywood actors hired for the production!), then you're important enough to take all the blame for this turd. The level of importance he assigns himself seems a little ridiculous considering his claim to fame is executive producing a pretty decent game for EA back in 2008, but now he's back to give us a significantly worse version of that!
The next bad omen I had was a progression bug within 15 minutes of actually playing the game where a gate wouldn't open until I reloaded a checkpoint. This also gave me an introduction to the save system, which is based on autosave checkpoints but lets you do manual saves.... but the manual saves just put you back at the checkpoint anyway? Baffling. Genuinely not sure why it's even there. Also not sure why the game forgot my saves existed at all when I was about 2/3rds of the way through it. I was fully prepared to uninstall the game and never touch it again at that point, but I decided to start up a new game and try loading from there after skipping the intro cutscenes. Lo and behold, the game remembered my saves existed! Seems like kind of a major bug for a game that's been out two years, but I guess selling DLC was more of a priority.
Anyway, the gameplay here is mostly just wacking gooey zombies with a sci-fi wiffle bat while the camera bounces around like it's in a tumble dryer. There's not a lot of challenge involved given that there are no timing windows for dodges – you just hold the stick one way and then the other until their attacks are done. Every other idea is shamelessly cribbed from Dead Space – you upgrade your guns at stores, you stuff random gizmos into your comically small inventory to sell at stores to get more upgrades, you get a gravity gauntlet that lets you throw goo zombies into spike walls, you pick up audio logs, you avoid buying guns that seem like they suck because then you get ammo drops for guns you don't use, you use your stomp button to open crates and stomp limbs off corpses so money pops out. One thing I wish they had stolen from Dead Space is a map but I guess they figured this game is so linear you wouldn't need one. They're almost right, but I still feel like I missed some of the (surprisingly sparse) audio logs because I didn't correctly identify which way was the critical path and which was the bonus stretch of hallway.
The game isn't very long at least, and the final boss really lays bare how shallow and clunky the gameplay is. I did finally get to see some of the amusing, extremely graphic death animations the game supposedly had (most of the time when I died in the rest of the game I got some generic get-shot-in-the-chest-and-your-arms-fall-off stuff), so that almost made up for how lame the boss looks. Then I looked it up and found out that they're selling death animations as DLC, so maybe that's why I didn't see more. Then after I ran down a corridor to an anti-climax that rolled credits, I looked it up and it turns out they're also selling the end of the game as DLC! Gotta love the modern AAA gaming industry. (No, Glen, I will not be buying the ending of the game separately)
TL;DR: This is pure unadulterated AAA slop. Playable in the most basic sense, devoid of any interesting ideas, and mostly a worse retread of a game that came out over 15 years ago with better graphics. Also some of the crassest DLC practices I've ever seen for a single-player game. If you were curious about it like me, trust me, there is nothing interesting here. Watch a let's play if you must.
And Glen: props to your team for clearly putting in the time to try and polish this turd but man, screw you for telling them to make it.