• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

The Callisto Protocol - Riot Mode

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


Venture into a previously undiscovered area in the depths of Black Iron Prison filled with hordes of biophage in Riot Mode. Fight through increasingly difficult waves of enemies, earning credits to unlock powerful upgrades and purchase health and resources to help you survive. Complete objectives to earn a temporary special ability granting unlimited ammo and GRP charges that instantly kills enemies to give you the edge in battle.
 

winjer

Gold Member
Bored Gilligans Island GIF by TV Land Classic
 

Con-Z-epT

Live from NeoGAF, it's Friday Night!
that seems to be the plan and the moment I plan to re-visit it. They made some changes to melee and other things apparently, that should be the "final" version

I thought they mentioned story DLC somewhere in the beginning shortly after release so I'm surprised to see so many non story related additions. Still cool to see support.
 

Drizzlehell

Banned
Did they actually fix the combat in this game or is it still just as horrible as it looked like at launch?

I actually did grab this when it was on sale at some point but I didn't even bother installing it, lol.
 
Last edited:

Bartski

Gold Member
Thanks. Are the changes you mentioned coming with the DLC or are they already in the game? I heard a lot of complaints about combat.
I only played the release version, but they seem to have fixed some top annoying things like dead zones on dodge or being ganked from all sides including off-screen. That will not make melee great but I still had more fun playing the game like a shooter a couple of chapters in.
 
I only played the release version, but they seem to have fixed some top annoying things like dead zones on dodge or being ganked from all sides including off-screen. That will not make melee great but I still had more fun playing the game like a shooter a couple of chapters in.
I see. Good to know. I cant decide whether to go for Dead Space or Callisto. I mean, the obvious choice would be Dead Space, but I already know the game since I played the original so meh.
 
Am I the only one that hates how they made the healing animation double the speed? Like all they did was literally turn the speed % up in the dev code lol. It looks terrible.

I thought it was sick how slow it was to heal. You had to actually be careful and make sure the room was clear.
 

R6Rider

Gold Member
Am I the only one that hates how they made the healing animation double the speed? Like all they did was literally turn the speed % up in the dev code lol. It looks terrible.

I thought it was sick how slow it was to heal. You had to actually be careful and make sure the room was clear.
Yeah, I didn't like how they changed it.
 

Dynomite

Member
I see. Good to know. I cant decide whether to go for Dead Space or Callisto. I mean, the obvious choice would be Dead Space, but I already know the game since I played the original so meh.
Dead Space is significantly better. Callisto was one of my 2022 worst games of the year.
 

ZehDon

Gold Member
Without a full combat re-tune, I can't imagine anyone voluntarily playing this mode. The core loop is just not very enjoyable - and fighting the "bosses" was the low point of 2022. I don't imagine this will be received well.
 

Kacho

Member
Not enough to get me to bite unfortunately.

I hope this team gets another chance. I want to see them deliver something great.
 

ElCasual

Member
I like this game just a flaw design with a boss and the final boss was meh. But have a great time gonna back for the story DLC.
 

CHEROKEEE

Member
Did they actually fix the combat in this game or is it still just as horrible as it looked like at launch?

I actually did grab this when it was on sale at some point but I didn't even bother installing it, lol.
I recently platinumed the game on PS5 and didnt find anything particularly ´wrong´ about the combat that needed any ´fixing´ honestly ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But maybe the numerous patches since launch did some of that ´fixing´ ...Me, I really LOVED the weighty feel of the combat.. giving every melee hit that resounding ´heft´ ...pretty much like Splitting Heads as Joel felt in TLOU !!
 

R6Rider

Gold Member
I recently platinumed the game on PS5 and didnt find anything particularly ´wrong´ about the combat that needed any ´fixing´ honestly ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But maybe the numerous patches since launch did some of that ´fixing´ ...Me, I really LOVED the weighty feel of the combat.. giving every melee hit that resounding ´heft´ ...pretty much like Splitting Heads as Joel felt in TLOU !!
I didn't mind the combat even at launch. Combined with the GRP and throwing enemies into environmental stuff was fun.

On top of that the later upgrades for weapons are fun to use.
 
Last edited:

Werewolf Jones

Gold Member
I still liked it and need to replay it but there's no denying an arena mode based around the combat is poor decision making. A mini campaign as Karen Fukuhara's character would've been a better decision.
 
This game isn't nearly as bad as people say it is. Sure, it seems most people agree that Dead Space is better.

But we need more games like this. AAA quality from independent teams. I personally don't care if Dead Space is better, I think it's fucking awesome that Glen Schofield basically said fuck you to EA and remade his own game in a different albeit similar style. And while the melee controls are difficult, I commend attempts like this at innovating new gameplay designs. You'll never find new things that work if you don't try them.
 
This game isn't nearly as bad as people say it is. Sure, it seems most people agree that Dead Space is better.

But we need more games like this. AAA quality from independent teams. I personally don't care if Dead Space is better, I think it's fucking awesome that Glen Schofield basically said fuck you to EA and remade his own game in a different albeit similar style. And while the melee controls are difficult, I commend attempts like this at innovating new gameplay designs. You'll never find new things that work if you don't try them.
No it is not. It's almost like people were mad that it wasn't dead space. Never understood the hate, its a perfectly serviceable 7/10.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
I enjoyed this game more than most people but this game is not RE4R, the combat is not in that level for this type of DLC.
 

Dynomite

Member
This game isn't nearly as bad as people say it is. Sure, it seems most people agree that Dead Space is better.

But we need more games like this. AAA quality from independent teams. I personally don't care if Dead Space is better, I think it's fucking awesome that Glen Schofield basically said fuck you to EA and remade his own game in a different albeit similar style. And while the melee controls are difficult, I commend attempts like this at innovating new gameplay designs. You'll never find new things that work if you don't try them.
It's cool that an independent team tried to make this type of game. It's too bad they completely failed. Glen did an FU to EA that turned into an FU to fans and his team. I wouldn't be surprised if the studio shuttered...
 

Larsowitz

Member
Did they actually fix the combat in this game or is it still just as horrible as it looked like at launch?

I actually did grab this when it was on sale at some point but I didn't even bother installing it, lol.
There was an update to the combat system, details are on the steam update page.
 
It's cool that an independent team tried to make this type of game. It's too bad they completely failed. Glen did an FU to EA that turned into an FU to fans and his team. I wouldn't be surprised if the studio shuttered...
But they didn't fail at all. They may have failed capture a lot of dead space fans. But I played it, beat and thoroughly enjoyed it. There were no glaring issues, the set pieces were cool. Everything that is not the best such a dodging the enemies and such can obviously be improved in a sequel if that happens.
 

MaKTaiL

Member
I just completed all trophies in this new Riot mode. I had to reach level 50 but got to level 61 and only stopped because of boredom. I could go on for much longer easily. Dodging makes this game incredibly easy.
 

Dynomite

Member
But they didn't fail at all. They may have failed capture a lot of dead space fans. But I played it, beat and thoroughly enjoyed it. There were no glaring issues, the set pieces were cool. Everything that is not the best such a dodging the enemies and such can obviously be improved in a sequel if that happens.
It failed to top the game it is emulating and it will not in any way hit its original target of 5 Million copies sold.
Metacritic for Callisto Protocol 69
Metacritic for Dead Space Remake 89
It's cool you liked it, but Striking Distance needed 5 million people who felt the same way.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
But they didn't fail at all. They may have failed capture a lot of dead space fans. But I played it, beat and thoroughly enjoyed it. There were no glaring issues, the set pieces were cool. Everything that is not the best such a dodging the enemies and such can obviously be improved in a sequel if that happens.
Also enjoyed the game more than most people but there is, the level designs is not good at all, this game went waaaaaaaaay over board on sheer amount of crawling and sliding through walls you do in this game and those enemies who are blind are laughably bad.

They only hear gunshot and walking straight, but you can kill so close to each other they won't hear you, can even throw explosive at them they wont still hear you, it was so bad that the game itself had to artificially make those enemies aware of your presence.

I dont mind dodging as concept in survival horror, in fact I enjoyed in RE3R but in this game once the combat starts it turns to turn based, you have to wait until the enemy finishes its attack then it becomes your turn to attack.

Edit: Also like concept enemy transforming but they executed the concept poorly in this game, in fact all enemies transform to the same thing with same animation.
 
Last edited:
This game isn't nearly as bad as people say it is. Sure, it seems most people agree that Dead Space is better.

But we need more games like this. AAA quality from independent teams. I personally don't care if Dead Space is better, I think it's fucking awesome that Glen Schofield basically said fuck you to EA and remade his own game in a different albeit similar style. And while the melee controls are difficult, I commend attempts like this at innovating new gameplay designs. You'll never find new things that work if you don't try them.
aaa quality graphics do not an aaa quality game make...
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
I got the deluxe bundle, but after finishing it I uninstalled the game. Thought I’d come back for the story DLC. Riot mode 🤷 not so much.
 
This game isn't nearly as bad as people say it is. Sure, it seems most people agree that Dead Space is better.

But we need more games like this. AAA quality from independent teams. I personally don't care if Dead Space is better, I think it's fucking awesome that Glen Schofield basically said fuck you to EA and remade his own game in a different albeit similar style. And while the melee controls are difficult, I commend attempts like this at innovating new gameplay designs. You'll never find new things that work if you don't try them.
Melee: Hold the stick left (or right, doesn't matter), then the opposite side, then back. That's the melee in this game.

I agree with a lot of what you said, but the bolded makes no sense to me.
 

Barakov

Member
As someone who's playing through this right now.....oof. I'm intrigued by the story but that's pretty much the reason why I'm still playing. The combat as a whole makes the game a slog.

Also enjoyed the game more than most people but there is, the level designs is not good at all, this game went waaaaaaaaay over board on sheer amount of crawling and sliding through walls you do in this game and those enemies who are blind are laughably bad.

They only hear gunshot and walking straight, but you can kill so close to each other they won't hear you, can even throw explosive at them they wont still hear you, it was so bad that the game itself had to artificially make those enemies aware of your presence.

I dont mind dodging as concept in survival horror, in fact I enjoyed in RE3R but in this game once the combat starts it turns to turn based, you have to wait until the enemy finishes its attack then it becomes your turn to attack.

Edit: Also like concept enemy transforming but they executed the concept poorly in this game, in fact all enemies transform to the same thing with same animation.
Seems like they're going for something like the ganados transformation in RE4 but they implemented it in the worst way possible.

They had a great formula with Dead Space, since some of the people that worked on that I figure'd they knew all they had do was iterate on that. What they ended up doing was throwing out the baby with the bathwater. What we got was this mess of a game which is still pretty okay but the way of mechanics were thought out and implemented leaves a lot to be desired.
 
Also enjoyed the game more than most people but there is, the level designs is not good at all, this game went waaaaaaaaay over board on sheer amount of crawling and sliding through walls you do in this game and those enemies who are blind are laughably bad.

They only hear gunshot and walking straight, but you can kill so close to each other they won't hear you, can even throw explosive at them they wont still hear you, it was so bad that the game itself had to artificially make those enemies aware of your presence.

I dont mind dodging as concept in survival horror, in fact I enjoyed in RE3R but in this game once the combat starts it turns to turn based, you have to wait until the enemy finishes its attack then it becomes your turn to attack.

Edit: Also like concept enemy transforming but they executed the concept poorly in this game, in fact all enemies transform to the same thing with same animation.
I agree with you about the crawling. I think this had something to do with loading obviously like Jedi Fallen Order had. I can't imagine they added all of those air vents for the sake of it, especially the extra long ones. If they did, that's very poor design. But I couldn't help but notice that this game seems pretty graphically intensive even for PS5 standards and when your dev team doesn't take an extra 6 months to a year or so to iron out performance bugs before launch or you try and get away with not doing that at all, I think that's where these studios begin cutting corners by saying, "We'll just add a long air vent here so it can load in the background."

As for the enemy detection, maybe I'm blind, I've also only done one playthrough so far but I never really noticed that they were poor at detecting me like that. That's pretty terrible though if you can throw explosives at them and they don't notice. Other enemies not reacting to melee? I can see that happening and I don't necessarily have a problem with that (even if it sounds loud when you hit them) as this happens even in games like Uncharted sometimes.
 
No it is not. It's almost like people were mad that it wasn't dead space. Never understood the hate, its a perfectly serviceable 7/10.
I agree. That does seem to be the case in a lot of complaints. But it's also fair if you didn't enjoy it. I only played it once but I'd probably give it a possible 8. It played fine for me, it was fun, creepy, challenging in some parts without being unfair and the set pieces were pretty fucking sick. The most underwhelming part was the final boss.
 
Melee: Hold the stick left (or right, doesn't matter), then the opposite side, then back. That's the melee in this game.

I agree with a lot of what you said, but the bolded makes no sense to me.
Sure, saying that the melee was awkward would make more sense. It's not exactly difficult. But I don't mind controls in a game being slightly jank if it's a cool feature. Not every game needs to be super responsive to me. But that's just my opinion.
 
It failed to top the game it is emulating and it will not in any way hit its original target of 5 Million copies sold.
Metacritic for Callisto Protocol 69
Metacritic for Dead Space Remake 89
It's cool you liked it, but Striking Distance needed 5 million people who felt the same way.
This is like saying the second Tomb Raider reboot game didn't top Uncharted 2 which it was clearly emulating. People still enjoyed it. It was in a similar vein, with it's own style. There's really nothing wrong with that.

Review scores don't matter to anyone who just plays games. I'm not sure how much it sold but it may eventually hit 5 million over the years. If they make a sequel, sick, if not? Just move on and make another cool one off game.
 
Top Bottom