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The Callisto Protocol

The Callisto Protocol is a survival horror game and the first game developed by Striking Distance Studios. The game takes place in a Lockout-style moon prison - on the titular Callisto to be exact, one of Jupiter's numerous moons. Players have to survive a viral outbreak in the sinister facility, as the prison degrades and becomes more and more unhospitable and dangerous with each passing hour.

What's interesting is that Striking Distance Studios' and the game's primary directors Glen Schofield & Scott Whitney were both originally responsible for Dead Space, with the former creating the sci-fi horror property and the latter working on some post-production for the first game in the series.

If it weren't for that fact, it would be easy to view The Callisto Protocol as a straight plagiarism of Dead Space - on the surface, The Callisto Protocol is a sci-fi horror game that takes place on a derelict space station where the main character arrives on a ship and is thrust into a conspiracy revolving around undead virus-like monsters. Yeah, it's Dead Space to a tee. It's also a game trying desperately to create its own universe with its own setting, and in doing so, Striking Distance Studios tries with all its might to escape the monolithic shadow of Dead Space as a franchise and in its looming remake just around the corner to admittedly mixed results.

The game still deserves a fair shake however. I have issues with the title for sure, but in general, I enjoyed my time with The Callisto Protocol - for one thing, the game's setting is inherently interesting, the small-scale claustrophobia of the prison walls juxtaposes with the larger-scale fact that you're on a basically inhospitable planet with no escape beyond those said walls anyway. There's never any point in the game where you feel safe (not even for a moment) and the prison actually becoming more and dilapidated worked well as you eventually return to areas that at one point looked completely different and more closely resembled an alien nest a prison. The atmosphere is also superb in the sense that while the prison itself is utterly bleak and gloomy, the outside world holds a surreal beauty that you feel you could only admire from a dreamy distance - the sheer aesthetics of Jupiter looming over your character is something awe-inspiring and cosmically frightening at the same time. You feel small and miniscule in the large expanse of the solar system.

It is then a damn shame that the actual mechanics of The Callisto Protocol falter so greatly. First, the control scheme itself is a real mess. I was never really comfortable with how menus functioned, always clumsily tripping over myself on the d-pad to do even the most simple of maneuvers like switch weapons or check my inventory. I think a radial wheel menu would've better served this game well. Then, there's the combat itself. It's melee focused, which I was joyed to see as getting up close and personal to the creatures in any horror game is always welcome. Unfortunately, the dodging mechanics do not work past one creature. It's one of the most baffling systems I've ever seen in a video game - at once too easy and yet astoundingly difficult once things start getting even the least bit hectic. Fighting one enemy is a breeze, even if most of the time you're awkwardly awaiting the enemy's attack, shimmying left or right as the dodge system it uses it semi-automatic; as long as you're holding a direction on the left analog stick, you will dodge in that direction, and it works on every enemy in the game from the grunt force to large bosses. You dodge, counter with melee, and finish off your combo with the game's snap aiming system. All hell breaks loose though when a second enemy enters your periphery. It's so easy for combat to become jumbled messes of spamming attacks at monsters instead of using any real strategy, as the dodging systems' general usability is revealed to be too clunky and rigid for any real flow to be achieved.

A dedicated dodge button would've been a simple fix to make this game's combat outstanding I feel. As attacks are appropriately weighty and satisfying, I would've loved to be given more control over my movements and truly unlock the game's potential as an excellent horror brawler. Unfortunately, it fell short of those ambitions, and generic gunplay with a pretty boring arsenal of standard weaponry withers it even more as combat becomes a rote chore instead of a high octane, thrilling horror experience. By the end, it's merely a tepid array of enemy mobs that become more and more frustrating as the game throws more and more enemies at you with more and more haste. It becomes overwhelming not in a survival horror sense as it should, but in a punch-to-the-gut, crash-and-burn, failure-to-fulfill sort of way.

The other, even weaker part of this title is the game's story, or rather, lack of one. Jacob is a milquetoast lead who is a purely reactionary character, a stereotypical everyman who is a good guy but also not really, and the characters he interacts with are also stereotypical but likable enough I guess. Unfortunately, I found myself utterly uninterested in Jacob and his supporting cast. Conflicts are resolved in eye blinks - Dani, the leader of an extremist group and the catalyst for Jacob's imprisonment eventually teams up with you in what seems like mere moments after just minutes prior treating you as an enemy in a stand-offish manner. The pacing is all over the place but the exposition dumps of lore near the game's climax were the most disappointing part for me. You are fed absolute breadcrumbs up to that moment until Doctor Hologram bursts on to the scene to finally give some semblance of world building. The writing was clunky and stilted to say the least, and the characters were all extremely one-dimensional; if this game was trying to set-up a brand new sci-fi universe to be interested in, then I'd say it was a failure, as I have no real desire to learn more about the mutations, the tech, or the conspiracy behind it all. And then there is the clichd ending, one that's so closely plucked from Dead Space I have to wonder what the point of this game even was.

I have gripes for days with this game. And yet, as I said, I still liked The Callisto Protocol despite its many, many warts. Its grim tone and macabre setting works for the most part; at the end of the day, it doesn't try to try to be more than what it is, which is just a silly horror game, one that provides enough thrills to last its relatively short run time. Its high production values in graphics & sound were more than enough to keep me hooked. So, I recommend The Callisto Protocol even as it stands; it's one of those games that doesn't really deliver on its promises, but it still feels like it put in the effort to be a worthwhile game and try some different things, and at the end of the day that's what's important even if most of it didn't pan out quite like how they imagined it. It's not a bad game, but it's nothing to write home about either, and if you like space horror, I'd say give it a try. Just ignore the story for the most part.