So, success lies in marrying the two and working in the GRP. Then you've got the baton, which is powerful but requires careful timing with dodges as you draw closer to enemies. The pistol deals damage, sure, but rattling several blasts into a baddie isn't going to rattle them very much. But when presented with a group (I'm unsure of the collective noun, suggestions on a postcard) of snarling biophage, the game's combat is akin to a puzzle sequence as your moves, reloads, and swings all take time to complete. When presented with one enemy it's almost a sickening delight, as you're able to chop their legs off with the pistol to hinder their movement, then bludgeon them to a pulp with the baton. Again, this is where the heaviness of combat really kicked in, as I relied on a combination of three tools: my stun baton, my pistol, and my GRP (a magic fist that let me telekinetically lift enemies, then chuck them forwards). My time with Callisto shone in the combat sequences, which appeared just enough to keep me on my large metal toes. It's impossible to tell if the entire game follows the fuses and red gears pattern, but I'd like to think it introduces new ways to explore or otherwise it risks becoming a touch samey.

Otherwise, I had to find and turn a specified number of red gears to open more doors.Īgain, I take no issue with Callisto's linearity, as it felt like a proper curated ride of thrills and spills that landed at just the right times (plus, it saved me from getting lost). Where really, a lot of my time was spent ripping fuses from fuseboxes, then plugging them into clearly labelled boxes to open closed doors. But, having talked with the devs and sat through many presentations, it morphed in my head into a game of grand scope and scale. I know that's a weird thing to say as, shock-horror - it's a video game.

Not that this was a bad thing! I just tempered my expectations, which went from an unrestrictive, twisty-turny romp around a space facility, to a romp that still has twists and turns, but conforms to much more of a traditional, video-gamey structure. I could see scares coming from a mile away, as I'd await the arrival of a baddy as I backtracked and know that they'd burst out of a vent or slither out of a nearby crevice.Īnd the linear-ish path I followed seemed reminiscent of the types of games you'd get back in the day, like Gears Of War, or dare I say it – Dead Space. The path I followed was largely linear, with quite a few sections where I'd need to advance towards the objective by taking the one optional path ahead, flick a lever, then double back to where I'd started. I know fear is subjective in horror games, so your goosebumps may vary, but I rarely felt frightened and swayed more towards the tense. The sound and lighting effects expertly peppered what were largely dark environments with a sinister hue, illuminating flickering consoles in an eerie light or drawing my ear to the rustle of something in the vents above.īut I wouldn't say my time with the demo was all that scary, to be honest.

If it wasn't cold iron and fizzing wires, surfaces writhed with pustules and fleshy webs that encased former workers in a bloodied tangle. The demo saw me explore a portion of the game – a good chunk of the way through the story already, I might add – where I clunked through dark corridors of a facility overcome with some form of bio-engineered parasite. This might sound a bit boring, but trust me, the excitement of health pills and kits are elevated when: A) You don't regenerate health B) You're on the brink of death and would rather not reload a checkpoint. Exploration off the beaten path is rewarded with lockers and crates filled with health top-ups, ammo, and the odd audio log. The game isn't 'clunky' in the sense that it's difficult to control your character or sock a biophage (the game's name for a zombie) in the dick, it's more that everything is a heavy, weighty affair. If you asked me to sum it up in one vague action, I'd swing a Toblerone into a metal bollard and listen for the heavy snap as the dense mountains of chocolate snap in two. If you asked me to summarise my entire demo experience with The Callisto Protocol in one word, I'd select 'clunky'.

The callisto protocol dead space