I was actually kind of hyped for this game when it was announced and when they showed gameplay footage of it, there hadn't been a new Dead Space game in almost a decade and I thought it was going to be way better than the Dead Space remake but now after playing both, DS remake is definately the better game, however I can't say I completely dislike this game, I do get some degree of enjoyment out of it that is mainly just due to how Glen Scofield designs his games after the first Dead Space, having playing this game and the CoDs he directed, its easy to see that after DS1, the guy has really wants his games to be an bombastic over the top high budget Hollywood production which is why a number of his games tend to feature lots of scripted sequences, level design strung together by corridors with barely much room to go off the beaten path, very high budget production values and celebrity voice talent. Callisto Protocal isn't the bad game that some hype it up as, at the same time, it's not really the epic Dead Space stand in that many including myself wanted it to be, the game is very middle of the road. Now that out of the way, I might as well described what I like and dislike.
The story is just kind of there and not that great, it's not terrible since the performance by the actors in the game do a decent job at making the material somewhat engaging, the character interactions are solid and makes me want to pay attention even if much of the story is just, Jacob Lee wants to get out of prison then gets out, then some twists happen, he goes back and then there is an expostion dumps towards the end and then it ends. I don't think the bond between Jacob and Dani is as well earned as the writers want the audience to think since it's rather bizarre how much Lee goes at arm's length to help Dani even though they knew each other for a few hours and had no previous history together, that and Jacob's whole "redemption arc" feels like it kind of comes out of nowhere since Jacob just looked at the cargo his ship was carrying and then thinks to himself as a shitty person, there might be more to this but I don't think the game gave me enough character to latch on to the point where the reveal felt earned. The villains are very underwhelming and underdeveloped and they don't do enough to make me want to see them dead, plus the main villain's motivation doesn't make a whole of sense since turning humanity into brainless monsters is a nonsesical motivation on top of that how did Sam Witwer's character survive that monster attack? Also, he just so happens to be cahoots with the main villain and when he just seemed like any other generic guard in the facility. To sum it up, it feels like they are just setting up a bigger universe here, not even sure I want to see more.
The gameplay is...okay, it's basically Dead Space with a melee focus, and like DS it has amazing polish and game feel. The weapon sounds, the damage animations, the gore, all gives an amazing and very visceral feedback, the stealth kills give a nice satisfaction as well. If this aspect of the game wasn't handled well, I wouldn't even be able to beat the game at all and see it through to the end. I will also admit that I played the game on easy which is probably why I didn't get as frustrated like others did with this game, at the same time, some games aren't even fun even on easy so I am glad this game was more enjoyable since I can take more damage. I have seen some say the game is hard even on easy and I find that to be quite exaggerated, I don't think combat is good or well made that I want to consistently play on normal. Combat kind of feels like a ballet of shooting, melee, grip, and stomping. To this game's credit, the stomping feels much better than DS since you can actually finish off an enemy with the stomp when they are down as to opposed to enemies in DS that can attack you in the middle of your stomp animation.
I didn't even dislike the dodge as many other people did but I do see their point whenever there is more than one enemy and how hectic the combat can be when you are fighting more than 1 foe. Camera isn't that great and can give you lots of awkward angles especially in corridors surronded by enemies. On top of that, the camera tends to track Jacob whenever he falls down, so it makes it harder to get a grasp on the action since you can lose your alignmnent on where you were when facing the enemy. Trying to reload your gun while in trying to finish off enemies quick can be irritating because Jacob takes forever to reload. When you do get surronded, it basically a battle of finishing off enemies quickly before they overwhelm you and I think that was the intention even if I would prefer a dedicated dodge button especially when x could've been used. I would've prefered the Gears of War approach where the x button has more than one use, I don't like that either, but I prefer it over this super context sensitve stuff since with the one button does multiple actions approaches the only issue I got to worry about is not being next to waste high walls or latters when in combat as approach to the context senstive dodging hoping it registers my stick movments.
Another issue with the game is the lack of enemy variety compared to DS, it feels like DS3 in this regard since basically uses the same 1-3 enemies for the whole game, the game has enemies "mutating" also like in DS3 but from my experience I often like to hit enemies with the melee attack, shoot them when the prompt comes and finish them off before the mutation even happens. CP never has nearly as much enemy variety as DS does either. In DS you had pukers, kamikaze exploding monsters, enemies with no torsos but have a tail, enemies that can multiple into smaller monsters when killed, an infector, a head where you have to shoot it's tentacles to damage it. Compare this to CP and it can feel tame and dull by comparison. A lot of the combat can just feel like a game of, "hit enemy, wait for gun prompt to pop up, and shoot them". You will occasionally need to stomp or do a melee finisher on downed enemy, or grip enemies into spike traps, I did also tried to mix things up by using firearms to dismember enemies and finish them off before melee combat started but it just felt like I wish I was playing DS instead. Game feel and polish did do a good job at carrying this aspect of the game which I will complement the game for. The stealth which I heard wasn't that great I thought was decently handled, sure it's the same, crouch up behind an enemy and hit the takedown button that so many AAA games that attempt stealth nowadays do, however what I do like about this game is that you don't need to keep track of line of sight and the enemies especially the blind ones are forgiving enough to sneak past and stealth kill, I got a decent number of kills and bypassed a decent number of multi enemy encounters because of it, there was one moment where an enemy jumped me while I was sneaking up on one of the blind enemies but that happened only once. The stealth with the security robots aren't that great but they aren't numerous enough to annoy the crap out of me. There was maybe only 2-3 the whole game which is good.
The level design also isn't that great, while I do like there is some room for exploration so it isn't as linear as say CoD or Uncharted. Most of the levels mainly consist of linear corridors with an occasional branching path and that's it. I do like that there are resources you have to collect and there is upgrades meaning you have to observe and look around the enviroment making the level exploration feel somewhat more involving than the above mentioned games. However, there's lots of shimming, walking sections, vent crawling and scripted sequences which tells me that the devs didn't really know how to make moment to moment gameplay outside of combat exciting. The jump scrares with tentacle face monsters and smaller monsters attacking you when opening chests gets old very quickly and isn't as interesting as the devs want to think it is since it's the same tactic with the same context. Outside of that, it's mostly just trudges to get to the next combat area, Dead Space I argue did a better job with more resources to manage, upgrades and tons of items to sell to make money for weapons and suit slots. Callisto Protocal kind of has this but it's a lot more tame since there aren't as many weapons and the weapons you do have are the generic pistols, and shotguns fare, you don't have the node system and you can't buy suit upgrades and as a result, it feels like an okay scripted rollar coaster ride with combat rather than feeling like there is more worthwhile moment to moment gameplay, I don't dislike scripted rollar coaster rides but so much of CP is that, it's more like CoD meets DS rather than an action based System Shock like DS1 which I felt was more engaging than CP since while DS was linear, there was more decision making involved when not in combat as DS also has more experimentation with it's moment to moment exploration.
Overall, Callisto Protocal isn't a terrible game, but it's not a misunderstood gem either, it's about as middle of the road as middle of the road can get. It seems to be the case with a lot of big budget new AAA IPs lately.
No comments:
Post a Comment