The Callisto Protocol Review
The Callisto Protocol—Glen Schofield’s attempt to revive Dead Space under a different title—is a cosmic survival horror where you play a pilot who finds himself marooned on one of Jupiter’s moons in a giant space facility just as a human-reanimating alien outbreak occurs which you must survive mostly alone—with only the narrative chit-chat and occasional door-opening help of another survivor—by stomping the limbs off the deceased humanoids and keeping your spine-integrated health bar above zero.
Starting Off
Yes, it does sound a lot like Dead Space; it plays a lot like Dead Space, too. It also has the same story setting, controls, vibe, and roles for supporting characters (i.e. they call you up from time to time to contribute to the story but only show up for a brief moment or two). The story direction is different, at least, and there’s a stealth-crouchy mechanic, and… well, that’s about it.
The game starts off with protagonist Jacob Lee—a self-confident space-traveling badass—being thrown in prison for smuggling, shortly before everyone starts becoming mutant zombified humanoids. A shady-looking surgeon implants a health bar at the base of Jacob’s neck, you spend approximately 5 minutes in your cell before the reanimated-human stampede begins and you’re busted out. You soon bump into another survivor who quickly becomes your BFF as you try to GTFO of the now zombie-infested prison.
Game Mechanics
Starting on Maximum Security difficulty, I realize the most difficult aspect of the game is its controls. The run button is, of course, L1… which only makes sense if you’ve ever played Dead Space. Switching guns mid-combat is about as easy as unlocking someone’s front door blindfolded; so, I resort to melee for most of my damage. Dodging simply involves not attacking while moving which sounds pretty easy—another nod to Dead Space; monsters do hit like a truck, though; so, don’t get hit. There are some rather difficult encounters throughout the game, but overall it’s kind of a walk in the park.
At some point early on, the game turns into a bit of a stealth-assassination game—except all of the enemies are blind, and you make no noise while crouching or killing… Don’t get me wrong, there are a number of difficult and well-designed encounters in the game; it’s just that savagely shanking ong blind mutant at the feet of another blind mutant who’s none the wiser really kills the “survival” feel, you know? It’s more of an annoying minigame than anything.
The most infuriating aspect of the game is the autosave feature; it’s the only way to save because manual-save merely copies the last autosave. Ugh. Every time I see the damn symbol, it means I’ll have to buy these weapons, upgrades and supplies I’m about to pick up a dozen more times until I finally survive through the next checkpoint. Checkpoints are infrequent and tend to happen right before walking through a door, so my habit of exploring before hitting up the nearest vending machine caused me a great deal of pain because autosave only happens once per location.
Conclusion
If you’ve ever wished for a Dead-Space look-alike, this is it; don’t get your hopes up, though. But while Callisto Protocol isn’t quite a masterpiece, it’s definitely not terrible. The visuals are great, the level design and the story are fun, and the gameplay is interesting, to say the least. The awkward controls and patronizing stealth mechanic do get in the way of the game, though, which unfortunately takes away from the experience. It’s still worth a play if you’ve got the time. Or, if you’ve never played Dead Space, go play Dead Space.
Feedback? Send queries to reviews@chaotyc.com