Resident Evil 2320? (The Callisto Protocol)

So the first AAAA game came out, moreover, not from whom, but from the creators and authors themselves truly the legendary Dead Space series! To say that the expectations from the project were high is to say nothing, especially if you, like me, love and adore games about the adventures of Isaac Clark in dead space. It would seem that it may go wrong?

I understand that I did not have time to add a little before the review of the review from Flynn, but the attempt is still not torture.

Graphics and optimization

Let’s start with the most popular topic on which I don’t want to linger at all. It was the problems with optimization that became the main reason for low assessments and negative reviews, which, in my opinion, is not entirely correct. Firstly, this is true only for a PC, since on consoles everything goes well without any questions and problems. Secondly, this is a fixable business and in a couple of months it can be fixed and forgotten. Unfortunately, so often happens with games on the release and you are already starting to get used to it. This is not good, of course, and therefore to call these claims unreasonable the language (and hands) will not turn. And yes, the visual here on average is really as beautiful as possible: the faces and bodies of the characters are made very qualitatively, the environment is detailed and believable, it can be seen every slightest part, moreover, so that it immediately wants to touch … but this is all the same as it loses any meaning, especially when the sagging of the fps and frizes begins in the most colorful and important moments. And this wildly spoils the impression of the game as a whole. You can endlessly look at how blood, bile, guts and scraps of the body of a newly blown up enemy fall from the ceiling and scatter throughout the room, but when at the end of the duel from some kind of creature you could admire the enemy masterfully with his club, the game begins to lag right at the moment of spectacular twisting, not to mention the wilder provinces inaction katsen.

Combat system and gameplay

But let’s move on to what is unlikely to change greatly and is the basis of this game. The fighting here, to put it mildly, is strange and ambiguous. The essence is: the basis is, suddenly, waving a club, block and evasion. Moreover, the block does not always completely block damage, but rather simply reduces it. Slopes, in turn, the thing is much more universal, because they are performed simply by squeezing/holding the button left/right until the enemy strikes. Only this does not save in any way when the number of opponents exceeds one (even considering that there is no need to get into a timing to perform a slope), because with such a camera and sound, accompaniment does not always manage to even understand that someone else got out of your back somewhere behind you.

By logic, this should be decided by the firearm and the shooting of part of the opponents at a distance, but it plays more a secondary role here and is used more like auxiliary weapons that you use to get an advantage in moments when the hero is tired of making one single combo with the main weapon. At least the idea was clearly in this. Does it work in this way? And yes, and no.

The problem is that even the number of cartridges and first-aid kits pouring from everywhere, it is so large that you can simply shoot most of the opponents without a twinge of conscience somewhere in the whole half of the game. At the same time, already in the first couple of hours you understand that the club is doing no worse, and sometimes much better than the firearm (since the opponents are surrounded regularly, but often they just stand somewhere behind them, kindly awaiting while you spread their ally along the wall), and therefore why spend the cartridges if they may need some more difficult situation? As a result, they accumulate, and sometimes even throw it out simply because there is no longer a commonplace, and shops are found about once per chapter. The only mechanics that really makes you somehow spend ammunition, are tentacles, which from a certain moment begin to climb out of most opponents. If you do not shoot them in the process of beating, then the creatures quickly mutate, turning into semi -terminators, which do not really feel blows on your part, and they themselves can quickly and effectively break your skull, especially when several such fucks came out. As a result, it is easier to make one or two shots in time than to pour the entire clip or tighten the hand-to-hand duel.

Well, ending with the theme of ammunition, one cannot but say that in the last third of the game the situation is sharply unfolding in the opposite direction: we are simply falling asleep with a new, ultamous type of opponents, which is guaranteed to bell out of any hit. And now, of course, it can be beaten into hand -to -hand three days, risking at any moment to drive into another world, but it is much easier to shoot to the desired state from a safe distance, to which the cartridges go away even from the maximum pumped guns. Add here that at this stage any self -respecting biofag has long acquired by tentacles and we get a picture where the expense of ammunition and their number is absolutely abnormal.

Two -headed – the first and almost the last boss of the game. True, you really have to kill such 4 times in a row and each time in a narrower arena.

And a little more about guns: almost https://gamesnotongamstop.co.uk/review/iwinfortune-casino/ each of them has an alternative fire regime that stands like a wing of the aircraft, and even spends some kind of immense number of cartridges. At the same time, it’s not to say that their power is so higher that these costs are somehow justified, and therefore such upgrades look like absolutely unnecessary things, especially when you can invest in pumping a club or gloves. Moreover, there is no balance in the overall efficiency of each individual gun. There are 5 of them: two pistols, two shotgun and assault rifle. Of these five, you can well manage the very first gun with all upgrades (except the last) and any of the two shotgun. The shotgunes are not very different from each other in terms of efficiency and cost of pumping, only in order to open the first of them you need to find in a separate location its drawing and printed on it, while the second is given according to the plot ready. The first pistol is a universal, rather powerful and quick -firing thing, while the second, according to my sensations, is absolutely useless against the background of any other gun and is not needed at all. The assault rifle, in turn, is a fairly powerful thing, but it opens in the very last chapter and really will not let you try to try it.

Full set of weapons in the game. Interestingly, the left lower slot is empty, as if hinting that there should be something else in it, but it smells my heart that without DLC we definitely will not recognize this.

Returning to the aforementioned glove: this is the very thing that completely breaks the balance of almost the entire battles. Of course, according to the first impressions, you can’t say so at all, because, unlike Dead Space, there are no so many kinds of reinforcements, pins, pipes, blades and other deadly when directed in the body of the opponent of things, and the opponents themselves do not grow spikes or claws, previously outposts that could be launched in their own former former formersowners or their friends, and therefore the maximum that you can do is knocking the enemy off your feet with some kind of container lying under your feet or its ally to win time. Moreover, the glove here has a charge that is replenished with time or special batteries (by analogy with stasis from Dead Space) and this charge is consumed without pumping very quickly. All this creates a feeling of uselessness of this device against the backdrop of a direct assault and execution, but in fact it turns out that enemies often can simply be thrown into that area of ​​the location where it is simply impossible to get out, which means that they will no longer deliver problems for you (this is perfectly demonstrated by Flinn on Stream). It is clear that this can be done not everywhere, but the fact that this is possible (and relatively often) is already breaking the system somewhat, let it and inaccurately. So far, it is not mentioned. The fact is that already literally from the middle of the game (or even earlier) literally at every step around will come across fans, crushers and walls that are simply packed with spikes (I don’t even want to know what designer solutions could justify this institution). And this finally kills any need to shoot, because it is enough just to throw all your enemies there to turn them into mashed potatoes or a trophy on the wall, since any similar thing is simply vanchalets of 99% of the types of enemies. And this is not to mention the fact that in some cases you can simply drop everyone into an impenetrable abyss, which makes some complex and tense (as an idea) contractions as simple as possible.

One of the most striking examples is a trip on the transport platform at the end of the head of Below. The bottom line is that this is a classic level where a bunch of opponents are falling on you from all sides, but you cannot escape anywhere and just have to kill them all to advance further. And it is made very badly. Firstly, they climb 3-4 in waves, but each wave goes from one side (4 waves, one from each edge of the platform), and they crawl out or fall from above, they do not immediately with the whole crowd, but in turn. And just just this gap between the appearance of each of them is more than enough to simply raise it and throw it over the edge of the platform, which is equated with the murder. Thus, you can go through this stage without having ever shot or hit the opponents (until the appearance of a two -headed one, of course).

And now I will finish you with a couple of extremely important nuances:

There are two types of first -aid kits: healing gels, which directly during their selection immediately restore you a small amount of CP, and injections that can
restore health almost completely, but require time for
usage. And while you work out for yourself a magic green slurry, nor move,
You cannot attack, which means you will remain completely vulnerable to several
seconds that in any direct clash can be fatal, not to mention
The fact that in the later stages of the game the bosses move and attack so quickly that
the use of this type of chilok becomes generally impossible

Switching the weapon is made to a separate button, which causes the menu for choosing a gun in which you must quickly have time to scroll to the necessary for you, and then confirm the choice by pressing the left mouse button. And this is not all: the character will not pull it out of the back or pocket, but at first it will remove the nozzle from the current modification of the weapon from the base for the print and only then will change it to another, because he has one nozzle, and he makes it three guns from it. Yes, with the advent of a police shotgun, the problem is solved to some extent, because this is a separate weapon more in size and it will be possible to quickly switch to a pistol/small shotgun, but it comforts it weakly and does not change the pictures globally (especially considering that with the appearance of an assault rifle the problem is returned, since she has one and this shotgun for a print). This, by the way, once again as if hinting that only two guns will be enough for a comfortable game – a standard gun and a police shotgun (so at least the rest of the guns will not interfere).

All this seems to intentionally knocking down the pace of the fight so that you do not turn into an annihilative machine. And at first it really works and makes you think through the strategy, makes the battles more tactical, forces you to use the glove more and go into hand -to -hand … And then you see all the above -described wild imbalance in almost all aspects and such mechanics and complications do not cause anything other than additional irritation.

The positions themselves are not saved in any way. There are not few of them here, but for the most part they are not much different: some are slower, but fatty, others are slightly covered in you from a distance, and in general and that’s all. Of the more distinguished crocozyabr, only “spiders” can be distinguished (which move extremely quickly and know how to crawl along the walls and go to the invis), two -headed, well, the blind. The first two to one degree or another need to bring down the firearm, but with the latter the situation is more interesting: if the usual varieties of enemies appear a maximum of three at the same time (on normal), then these scum just crawl out in some kind of unegrated quantities, but provide the opportunity to quietly (no) cut them sharpening from the back, passing the levels with them in the stall mode. Moreover, you simply do not have other options against them, because if you begin to peel them into the whole crowd, they will begin to mutate and just crush you with their authority, depriving you of your vision (if you are not a handle, of course). And at first it works like an outlet, which allows you to finally feel some horror tension and dilute the gameplay … but it turns out that literally the whole chapter and the next couple of hours you will squat and try to cut one hordes of these bastards, given that they move as if completely randomly and unpredictable.

Another rudimentary chip that migrated from Dead Space can be called trapping corpses. As in DS, for the performance of this action we are given a loot, but it falls only from the corpses of the enemies we killed. But I, as a fan of the old trilogy, constantly wanted to trample all the corpses at all, moreover, not so much for the sake of Lut, but to check this scum will stand or not, which regularly happened there. Here the corpses do not get up, because all opponents, albeit infected, but living. Nevertheless, in the last chapter there is a sooooo small area where the bodies are on the catals, some of which, suddenly, are simply pretended to be dead. Why was there such an appendix, it is absolutely incomprehensible to me personally.

See this man on the gurney on the right? He was not dead, just tired. But almost all other corpses in this game are really corpses.

Atmosphere and plot

Already literally from the first frames we are immersed in the very atmosphere of our beloved and adored Dead Space. We are immediately shown to a short, but impressive and steam cats Procen in the city, which should show what such a location from Dead Space 3 should be, hinting that it is, long -awaited work on mistakes! Immediately after this, we switch to the scene already familiar in the first part in a small ship, where our heroes have a household conversation, while against the background the very lifeless ice satellite of Jupiter is already visible, on which actions will occur.

IIIII, after that, all kinds of attempts to scare instantly switch to a torn (and not very) action, which will accompany you most of the game. Yes, some echoes of the atmosphere and references to Dead Space are still found, but extremely rare. There are also some attempts to scare some attempts, but they are limited to either banal scummers or a strange winding up of anxious music. Why strange? Because literally in all moments that I remembered, it arose somewhere closer to the end of the batch with opponents and for some reason continued until you climb through a narrow passage/crawl through the ventilation, which would be logical if something happened there. But no! Each time there was no one, which completely devaluates such moments, especially when they are repeated with enviable regularity. Yes, in some places new opponents and locations can catch a little horror, but even here everything breaks down when the same blind creatures appear by hordes the whole chapter, forcing you to just howl from the monotony of gameplay in it, which simply kills any atmosphere in these moments. Otherwise, the game resembles something like a slusher or Beat-Em-UP, sharply flowing into a third-person shooter. What can be the horror atmosphere at the same time I think it is not necessary to explain. Considering that in many ways the locations are very reminiscent of similar from the infamous third part of Dead Space, even the old game in some places turned out to be much more atmospheric and impressive, primarily due to the much better presentation of the plot and the Laura.

The most indicative in this regard are local blind and units from Dead Space 3. Their essence is somewhat similar: the first are former miners and colonists who were locked in complete darkness for decades, which is why they mutated and evolved not like the rest and lost their vision completely;The latter are former researchers who were locked up with an extremely limited number of supplies and without the opportunity to replenish them, because of which they simply had to gradually go to cannibalism and devouring the flesh of necromorphs, which led to terrifying changes not only of their appearance, but also by reason. In the first case, this information is casually thrown in a phrase in the dialogue only, and in the second, numerous notes, terrible audio days and no less terrible design of both the monsters themselves and the sounds and the environment, from which they are perceived much more frightening and memorable are much better indicate.

As for the plot and Laura – everything is very bad here. Firstly, Laura is practically no here at all. Yes, audio recordings are scattered here and there, but 90% of them are nothing more than cries that “oh no, we were clamped and we are in the ass, we will all die. “. Now let’s remember what kind of chic, wandering to trembling and really impressive audio days were in any part of Dead Space … it does not add interest and that in order to listen to such a record you need to first find it on the menu, and then do not turn it on and go anywhere until it ends, because otherwise it will simply be interrupted and you will have to turn it down again, but I learnI’m only from the review of Flynn). Secondly, something will happen to the best case in 15% of the game. The rest of the time you just walk along the corridor and perform simple tasks without any puzzles and mini-games (as it was in different parts of Dead Space). The so -called plot itself comes down to the fact that ..

. A kind of mysterious corporation dug up some kind of alien rubbish, extracted parasites from it, which turn most of the infected into monsters, but the individual of them still retain the mind and become the so-called “alpha”, which are better adapted to the environment and can infect others and control them, which this very corporation is being built and considers this to be the following and considered acutely necessary and necessaryhumanity with a turn of evolution, and therefore conducts experiments with Callisto and his clients on other satellites. In general, that’s all. Nothing reminds? Yeah, a straight spilled typical resident evil (and you can also remember that there is also a level in the sewage in the middle and ends in a secret laboratory). Is it bad? Yes. Why? Because this, of course, can work, but only if a year is a year of 1998, or if the gameplay and the atmosphere are worked out so well that it is not only pleasant to play, but there is also a desire to recall the game again and again, as it was in the relatively recent remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 3. About The Callisto Protocol, this cannot be said, unfortunately. Everything becomes even more fun when you see the ending, which, as it were, hints that this is only the beginning and we passed a kind of prequel or the first chapter of the series. Only now, given how the game was adopted by the audience, I believe in the possibility of continuing with difficulty.

A, and one more point: the protagonist (apparently already according to tradition) periodically has hallucinations. Only here, as well as about the plot, you can forget almost to the very end of the game, where they are sharply activated and thrown out to us the supposedly large plot twist, which we could have guessed for a long time, and therefore we need to understand the game in principle-it is not clear-it is not clear. Perhaps at some stage of development, they had to play a much big role, as it was in all three Dead Space, but for some reason they put a huge such bolt on them.

The Callisto Protocol is a beautiful, meat, drive, fascinating, merciless and absolutely meaningless … Action! Which, however, begins to come in 3-4 hours. Yes, and there is no balance. And the plot with Lor too. Something reminds of Oblaf … in fact, the game feels like a certain absolutely slurred mishmash of poorly collected mechanics and ideas, in pursuit of which they forgot about everything else at all. At the same time, I can’t say that I have not received any pleasure at all, and the game seems to feel the potential, but this is not enough to call the game at least good with confidence. It would be enough to tighten at least one of the aspects and bring them to mind and it would be possible to say with confidence for which it is really worth going through it. In this state, I generally cannot advise anyone, because it is simply in short in all in addition to almost all respects. I don’t know why it happened, but the feeling that they were just in a hurry to release earlier than the Dead Space remake came out. You can try to play, of course, but at the moment it is nothing more than a passage, which with a great desire can be taken on sale and run out once.