The Callisto Protocol Test – Dodges and Strikes, days without an accident at work: 0

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Striking Distance Studios takes you to a prison on Jupiter and clearly follows in the footsteps of Dead Space, but gives the brutal fights their very own touch.

All screenshots and video scenes are from GamersGlobal

Jacob Lee, the protagonist of The Callisto Protocol, is having a bad day of galactic proportions: he just wants to complete a delivery to Jupiter’s moon Callisto with his space trucker co-pilot Max, when his vehicle is hijacked and he has to make an emergency landing on the satellite, on which is the only thing infamous Black Iron Prison is to be found. In the process, he loses Max, and for some unknown reason, the warden of the prison orders Jacob locked up. Without much ado (or anesthesia), a neuro-implant is drilled into his neck and he finds himself in a cell. The good news: as soon as he is there, there is a chance for an outbreak. The bad news: The chaos breaks out because parts of the inmates and guards mutate into bloodthirsty monsters.

horror before a rustic one science fictionbackdrop, grotesque enemies and plentiful explicit Force, this ingredients recall Not from approximately on DeadSpace. So was Glenn Schofield at the first Part of said series of executive producers and is now game director at The Callisto Protocol such as CEO of developer Striking Distance Studios. So yes, The Callisto Protocol kicks apparently in the footsteps by DeadSpace. Some similarities are beautiful obvious: Similar how Isaac in Dead Space has also Jacob Hallucinations – probably a side effect of the implant, which also shows you your life energy and the energy level of your GRP (or Grip) called telekinesis module. We can also note the omission of a HUD in favor of in-game displays in the similarities. This test of the PS5 version tells you where The Callisto Protocol finds its own identity, where its strengths lie and where it cannot consistently maintain its high level.

You’ll only get your first firearm after a little over an hour, and you don’t have the guard’s electric baton in the first hand-to-hand combat, just a makeshift whipping instrument.

Dodge and hit

When it comes to the combat system, The Callisto Protocol emancipates itself from the model through the large role played by close combat. It will take a while before you get your first firearm, but even then you will find it difficult to get by without getting in touch. But it’s not enough to swing your baton blindly, because the enemies are faster than you when in doubt. So you better wait and dodge. All you have to do is move left or right when the enemy attacks. However, if you dodge a series of attacks, you’ll need to switch the direction you’re dodging after each slash. If you push back, you block instead, so you take some damage, but you can counter with a later upgrade. The whole thing is cleverly easy to use, but punishes if you throw yourself into combat blindly or want to hit back at the wrong moment after dodging, because the fights are generally crisp on standard difficulty, you die after a few hits and you will die often.

Once you get the rhythm to efficiently take out a single enemy, multiple enemies remain tricky. Successful: Enemies in your back often don’t just hit you, but grab you (which causes little damage), so that you don’t get beat up too often from outside your field of view. But if you have two enemies in front of you, quickly hit the one you are not raking. This gives the fights a nice touch of their own: It’s about keeping a cool head even under stress, consciously avoiding and using your resources in the best possible way. This also includes the grip with which you grab entire opponents and throw them around. However, it can be more life-saving to observe the enemies first and to pull an acid-spooking enemy towards you with your grip so that you take them out first, otherwise they will target you from a distance while you are busy with their close-combat counterparts.

You can also use stealth to thin out the enemies as a precaution, but this is only of greater importance with a certain blind enemy type. The Callisto Protocol is unusually merciful on the medium level of difficulty. Even when the creatures run into you, they don’t always spot you. However, this also takes away from the spooky atmosphere if it allows you to stab them one at a time (even if they’re close together).

Again and again, various infernal machines make the fights easier for you, since they can be used to shred mutants at lightning speed.

Days without an accident at work: 0

The studio’s flair for staging is also evident in the occasional action-packed script sequences in which poor Jacob never seems to get any rest. And just as many opponents have various, sometimes really cruel animations of how they kill the poor guy, there are also special ways in these scenes of first losing a small selection of body parts and then your life.

Over the course of the approximately 9 hours of gameplay, you will see a new enemy type in almost each of the 1 to 2 hour chapters. Not only do the enemies look disgusting, they’re the nasty kind of monster that won’t leave you alone even if you cut off their heads. Rather, after the first few hours, tentacles will shoot out of enemies as soon as they are downed. Then you’ll need to quickly finish them off or shoot the tentacles to keep them from mutating into a stronger variant. In practice, however, this is not so tricky thanks to a Quickshot system. Hitting enemies multiple times will mark a part of their body. If you now draw a weapon, Jaocb automatically aims at this point and you only have to pull the trigger. Again, this is easy with individual enemies, but in group combat you have to use it consciously. I liked the mutation as a feature and it brings in similar to the Plaga parasites Resident Evil 4 added spice to the fights, however, there is only one form of mutation. Several special variants would have added some unpredictability to the fights.

Even a few courageous punches can finish off a mutating opponent. But if things go badly, new, stronger limbs grow out of the tentacles even as you continue to pound the monster.