Striking Distance Studios was a studio that launched with such promise behind it- that of a name AAA-level action horror game produced by one of the core minds that birthed Dead Space- one of the greatest horror games of all time- even with everything it shamelessly borrowed from Alien and other Sci-fi properties. (Mostly Alien though.) It was creative, repugnant, thrilling, scary, exciting and mind fogging nearer to the end. I remember distinctly finding the world of Dead Space so very interesting, not only for it's industrial-space-farer aesthetic but for the bizarre ecclesiastical heart of the body-bending disease- leaning into the unknowable unfathomable depth of pure cosmic horror. What's worse than something you can't see in the dark- something you cannot even comprehend higher above it. Which is partially why I was so excited for Striking Distance's virginal title; The Callisto Protocol.
Otherwise I was excited because the original Dead Space was so groundbreaking in the way it worked with Physics engines to create a combat system unlike anything before- where shooting off the limbs of enemies could be used tactically in order to dismantle your way around tough encounters. Dead Space truly was a classic worthy of it's plaudits and the Remake it enjoyed not that long ago. A Remake I have already played and which I love quite a bit, I might add. (It truly adds so much without losing the spirit like I so feared it would.) But I wanted someone who was going to take that next leap and who better than the core team that pushed that envelope the last time around? Who were now free to innovate again, free from corperate boots on their neck? What would the Callisto Protocol bring to the horror world?
I am currently sitting on the other end of a playthrough across the entire game in it's top-most difficulty and I have to say, much as what I heard at the time of it's release, that was largely mediocre. To a decree that actually deeply bothers me. The Callisto Protocol does literally only two things better than Dead Space did- it is visually gorgeous to look at, and I care more about the characters. Although that might be because Dead Space's Isaac was mute and that game purposefully limited contact with the rest of the crew in order to heighten that sense of isolation- as opposed to in Callisto were you have someone nattering across your comm link every two minutes or so- it's actually a little annoying. Everything else that Protocol does feels like pale imitations of what Dead Space achieved fourteen years previously. And I still can't wrap my head around that.
Most importantly, the combat. Wowzer. So the original Dead Space was literally innovative in the way it opened tactical depth in a survival shooter through the dismemberment mechanic- The Callisto Protocol might be innovative in how they made possibly the least engaging combat system possible in their 'horror thriller' game. When I tell you the entire system is literally holding left to dodge an attack and then right to dodge it's follow-up I am not exaggerating. That is the entire combat system. You don't even need to see which direction the attack is coming from- any direction is fine as long as you point the stick the other way for the follow-up. Also, there is no timing window, (As the game stupidly puts in the in-game tutorial. Never talk about what the game isn't- that is so professionally sloppy!) I had several moments where I was fiddling with something on my phone and weaving through attacks without looking because it was that unbelievably simplistic!
And what's worst of all- all the enemies patiently wait in line whilst you kill them one-by-one. Groups add practically nothing to the challenge of the game because they will simply not attack you out of order, even if they surround you. Apparently they did at launch, but because this game's controls are so sluggish there really is no means of effective side stepping or really anything to counter multiple incoming hits- so they just removed that possibility from the AI and ripped any bit of challenge out of the game. Now you can be a bit more active. Shoot to interrupt combos, use the telekinesis power to chuck enemies into spike walls, throw a power attack to knock enemies flying into one another- but you don't need to. You can just slap them around all day and win like that. You have to try to be exciting, which I tried to do because otherwise I'd have torn out my eyes playing this game so lethargically.
Funnily enough, polite zombie monsters who attack you one at a time and can be dodged in your sleep also don't illicit anywhere near the amount of dread of the Necromorphs from Dead Space who could pop out from the floor and tear off your legs at a moments notice. In Dead Space rounding a corner into an enemy was a 'jump out of your seat' fear moment, in Callisto it's a cue to start wiggling the old mouse as your eyes droop shut in boredom. I cannot overstate how badly they dropped the bag with every aspect of the game on a tonal level. And a gameplay level. So let me touch a bit on story and character to wrap it up.
The characters aren't good. They're more present than in Dead Space 1, but that largely serves to show how annoying they all are. Everyone dances around their grievances and meanings with one another as though they have some grand conspiracy to unravel, only for the basic-most explanation for literally everything to end up being the route the writers take every-single-time. Why was Jason specifically taken by Black Gate? Why is Dani so unduly upset with Jason for half the game? What is the guilt stalking Jason? They are all the first guess you imagined when these questions are brought up. The guilt one does confuse me however, because Jason acts like he genuinely did not know the answer until it was unveiled through McGuffin in the third act but... how could he not have? He was literally suffering guilt hallucinations the entire game as embodied by truly pathetic jump scares that were frankly embarrassing to sit through. (I remember the chills that Dead Space Extraction gave when we started seeing the ghosts. That scene at the tram station shook me to my core. I yawned my way through Protocol. I am a horror coward, by the way- I shouldn't have been so blaise!)
The biggest narrative trips are both spoilers unfortunately so if you care I'll save you some time- the game is below average- get Dead Space instead. Now, I need to rant about how unforgivably disappointing the cause of the outbreak was. In Dead Space they uncovered an otherworldly alien 'Marker', an extra-terrestrial counterpart to the human marker which was said to have kickstarted the rapid evolution of early humans into what we are today. The fact that this Alien marker started twisting people into something horrific and destructive felt almost like the hand of an evil mother nature itself fraying the lines of evolution. The Callisto Protocol outbreak is caused by Aliens. That's it. They just... mined up some alien from under Callisto, shot it dead and then decided to start digging up it's glands and shoving it down people's throats. (I cut out a step or two in the middle there.) How generic! How boring! And why is the Warden spreading it around? Because he wants to find a subject who responds well to the virus to kick off the next stage of human evol- >Yawn< what is this, a template script for a sci-fi movie? How do you start with otherworldly cosmic horror and evolve to space Covid? What kind of backwards trajectory is that?
And then we have the ending. So Callisto actually ends on a cliffhanger. I've got nothing against that, I think it's fine. What I do find a bit objectionable is the fact that this cliffhanger does not lead into the next game, but a paid DLC which contains the true ending. I opted out of the obvious scam and watched someone skim through it on Youtube. (Thank you for your sacrifice, Oboeshoe!) What a waste of time. Truly. Essentially the entire extra four hours amounts to little more than those really lazy after credit scenes in bad 1990's move where the camera zooms in on the bad guy's shut eyes before they open- only in the context of the alien pathogen research being recovered so this franchise can perpetuate itself. Yet there's such an strange actual finale that I think killed any small amount of hype people might have had.
To cut a story short, the doctor who helped Jason near the end of the game before he cures Dani and shoves her on the last escape pod- (aside: Can't believe the Warden actually left an escape pod. Some evil genius he is!) contacts Jason about a possible second escape option from the planet. Jason rushes through some extra hallways, there's only one new enemy type, you get a new hammer- it's not worth the money. You collect the doctor's research but 'oh no' she is attacked by a monster who turns her into a boss monster. Jason kills her, the research burns along with her, he boards the escape shuttle and rides off into the sunset. And then he wakes up. Turns out it was a dream, he's actually being dissected by the doctor lady who is happy to have her research and presumably go do another war crime in the next game. Yikes, what a crappy way to send us off. Honestly, I think most of us was fine with having Jason's last on screen appearance be him heroically sending off Dani in atonement for his sins whilst he fended off monsters on an exploding station. This just feels... mean spirited and disrespectful. Like a punchline to a joke that no one remembered to set up.
There's a similarly dour ending to Dead Space Transmission- but that game handled it way better. First off, Transmission is a prequel, meaning you're pretty sure from the get-go that it's probably not going to be a happy ending given that no word of the carnage of the Necromophs got out before Isaac showed up. The entire latter half of the game offers a genuine look through the eyes of a mind being slowly broken by the Marker as the player fights to keep it together long enough to escape, and the extent of the physical toil reaches an extreme when the player has to literally cut off their own hand in order to escape the vacuum of space before their oxygen runs out. ( Did I mention this was a Wii exclusive game? It's some crazy stuff!) Only for at the end of game, when the final challenge has been overcome and he is aboard the escape shuttle with Lexi leaving the carnage- only then does the player finally succumb to the Marker and transform into a Necromoph which Lexi has to put down. A grim ending- but a purposeful one. This shuttle is the same one that players of Dead Space will remember seeing at the beginning of that game- tying the threads of story together neatly. Lexi goes on to star in another DLC for Dead Space 2- lateral movement is made in the plot. It's not just a footnote DLC that the team cruelly crucified the protagonist for in order to score cheap shock points. Callisto's DLC's ending was just another lazy move from an all around lazy game.
With embarrassingly lacklustre bossfights, (it's literally one bullet sponge copy-pasted four times and then a finale with a slightly different styled bullet sponge.) a near non-functional enemy they base one and a half chapters around (the 'blind' monsters quite literally can't hear you loudly stab one to death from touching distance.) and a 'twist' that is literally "I can't believe you accused me of facilitating the >bleep< on >REDACTED< Dani, what must you think of me" to "Oh whoops, guess I accidentally did. And I know that I accidentally did too, but also needed to be told for some reason?" You might wonder if there's anything good about Callisto Protocol whatsoever. Well, if you put it in a vacuum, ignore the many numerous ways that Dead Space is better, and turn your brain off- this could be a mildly entertaining enough B-tier horror game that isn't too awfully long. It's got fun set-pieces. You might get through it before the bad combat grates you too much. None of which stops me giving this game a D- Grade mind you. Experience pieces are all well and good, but a horror game with bad combat, crappy plot and near-fundamentally-broken gameplay? That is a mistake. (I'll admit the DLC might have knocked it down a couple of micro-grades.) Their next game is apparently going to be a rogue-lite in this universe... don't know what to make of that honestly...
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