Calisto Protocol 5/10 OOOFF

Looks like we're all owned here. This is very sad because I was looking forward to this game.

Review GS

On a positive note, it's sitting at 76 on MC currently and 75 in open critic. I feel the game might be redeemed if given time.

Open critic link

Metacritic

It doesn't look bad to me, it's just same old same old. Same type of game we've played a million times before. Just like with Gotham Knights.

• Stutterfest on PC (since it is UE4: surprising no one of course)
• No DLSS
• No HDR

Glen Schofield returned to put up both middle fingers.

@hrt_rulz01: this is one of those games I will have to try to form my own opinion. Especially after the months of hype.

@R4gn4r0k: is it time to drag ghosts yet? He hyped this game to the moon and back, and I gave him credit because he nailed it with deathloop.

Mostly negative on steam with 21% of reviews being positive. Yeah... this is one of the most negative receptions I have seen for a game on Steam.

76 Metacritic. Too little time in the oven? No idea what went wrong here.

If he uses the term 'masterpiece': thread very carefully.

Putting aside free to play games like last years efootball failure: I actually have to think back of Arkham Knight to compare a game that was priced AAA and received such negative reviews on Steam.

Now I understand why the game costs less on PC: it's beyond salvagable. They just dumped it on there to make some quick money and split.

There was way too much shaddy stuff going on, I knew something was off.

O no, another brain dead trash shooter gets a 5? Who would have thought.

Seems like it.

I don't mind a buggy experience. Fallout New Vegas is one of my favorite RPGs. But this game has serious stuttering issues on PC, and combined with unskippable death scenes. The stuttering combined with the annoying death "mechanics" sounds like a recipe for disaster.

This so much. I see Starfield constantly getting hate on here (by the same two folks) because Bethesda launches buggy products.

I'm playing Mass Effect Andromeda right now and that game was hated a ton because it launched buggy... I'm having barrels of fun.

But all this pales in comparison to a game launching outright broken, and that is what Callisto and Glenn are guilty off here: they kept the PC version under wraps, launched some shady system requirements yesterday and that was it. They launched it with no fanfare and it seems like the game does not run at all: as much as you try: the stutters will get in the way of your enjoyement and will ruin your enjoyment.

heck, I'd return to 8 bit graphics in a heartbeat if that would mean we would get fluid games again, and none of these unreal engine stutters. Most games moving to Unreal Engine now has me very, very worried. And Hogwarts Legacy will likely be the next game on PC that launches this broken.

IGN gave Callisto Protocol 7/10 but the keyword: Similar to Dead Space is what this game is all about. IGN reviews have been more deep coverage than GS reviews as of late. That being said, I'm still excited to play in the morning.

The Callisto Protocol supports Ray Tracing for Transmission, Shadows and Reflections. However, these RT effects are as unoptimized as they can get in this title. Hell, the Ray Tracing Shadows are awfully pixelated and can look worse than their rasterized versions.

Zero effort put into the PC version

Zero effort put into shader compilation

Zero effort put into Ray tracing effects

@BassMan

Yeah... UE has serious stuttering issues, and stability > good graphics any day. This is why most console gamers I know prefer to play on lower resolutions, just for the higher FPS.

Hell, when I see switch gamers ask for a successor to the switch, it is not because of prettier graphics, they just want to play at a stable 60 fps.

Edit: The Callisto protocol's shadiness, is inexcusible. I am glad it is called out for this.

Neither CPU or GPU are being utilized in this game. Resulting in a 43 fps experience on a 4090

I love you too much to see you suffer through this mess: refund asap :(

Game looks good graphically but the gameplay mechanics especially the dodging when you have multiple enemies attacking you seem quite frustrating.

Nintendo games break milestone after milestone and still I see this industry is obsessed with pushing better graphics and better technology all the time. It's like this is their one trick pony and they have nothing else.

I like good graphics as much as the next man, but not at any cost.

Even more, I often return to games that are a decade old and I can have jaw dropping moments. The fact that graphical improvements is linear in time is a fallacy. In my opinion it all comes down to asset quality: Doom 3 for example still has amazing lighting, so simply installing a texture pack can have some amazing results. Just to give one example.

That’s what they get for focusing on graphical gimmicks. Gameplay is trash. And Sony helped develop this trash too. No surprise as Sony just focuses on graphical gimmicks too.

One of my big issues with the current push is of technology is tech being pushed in the wrong areas. I have been pretty known to hype Dwarf Fortress on this board. And there is a good reason of that. The game pushes technology, like no other game. But the tech it pushes is in the gameplay. Not visual fidelity. The game may have crude graphics, but it also simulates an entire fantasy world.

The fact that Switch Games are breaking records and dominating sales should tell the industry just how unprioritized graphics are, and if not the Switch, and that MineCraft was not a fluke.

Yeah, Doom 3 can still look amazing even today. Better yet, it is really stable too.

knew this wasn't going to end well. been saying game was looking worse with every new trailer released. didn't expect 5/10 bad though

Didn’t know Krafton was involved with this game. That explains the problem. PUBG devs.

At least I still have Dead Space Remake and Resident Evil 4 Remake to look forward to for my horror game fix.

Gonna be interesting watching the Digital Foundry video.

Of course we all know that Gamepass is the reason why this game is flopping!

I keep thinking back to the source engine: Valve was able to craft a new engine, build it with new technology and launch it stable on a wide range of systems: from the high end, down to the low end with anything in between. To this day the engine remains stable and well optimized. You can still see CSGO in many, many benchmarks.

Secondly, I read your discussion about Dwarf Fortress, I often try to push niche games on here as well, and they always fall in deaf mans ears as well. But I'll definitely wishlist the game if it's on Steam ;)

Lastly, I feel games have sacrificed so much having these ultra realism graphics now:

Instead of playing our games, we are mostly watching cutscenes of boring characters talk to eachother right now, which wouldn't feel out of place in C-rate TV series.

Instead of a fun sense of exploration or cool puzzles we have games now that have become completely linear, and don't even allow to veer off the beaten path. It's not your experience, it's the devs experience.

I wish you so much fun wiht Dwarf Fortress, I know my GOTY's this year (Sniper Elite 5, Entropy Zero 2) are games not a lot of people care about, doesn't ruin my enjoyment in the slightest.

what about Dead space remake?

@ghosts4ever: got very little interest in it but haven't seen much of it either tbh, bit strange considering its due end of jan, but you can bet their dev team are popping champagne at the cp scores

Im not very interested. just will play it.

more interested in Alan wake 2 and also silent hill 2.

Yeah, doesn't seem great. Guess one should check out Signalis for a new survival horror game.

@BassMan said:

@R4gn4r0k said:

The Callisto Protocol supports Ray Tracing for Transmission, Shadows and Reflections. However, these RT effects are as unoptimized as they can get in this title. Hell, the Ray Tracing Shadows are awfully pixelated and can look worse than their rasterized versions.

Zero effort put into the PC version

Zero effort put into shader compilation

Zero effort put into Ray tracing effects

@BassMan

Unreal Engine is such a great engine, so why are developers taking the piss with it?

I never had issues with UE3 and now UE4 has been a non stop mess on PC.

@R4gn4r0k: PC is just a mess in general. Always has been.

just because it got a 5 out of10 don't mean u not going like it.

So i don't understand. On gs it gets the same score as Fallout 76, a game that wasn't only borken, but a shitty fallout to boot. On steam, if its getting 21% "mostly negative", for what kind of reasons can this game be down voted THIS bad? We're talking about CP2077 bad, so what in the **** is going on???

@R4gn4r0k said:

@BassMan said:

@R4gn4r0k said:

The Callisto Protocol supports Ray Tracing for Transmission, Shadows and Reflections. However, these RT effects are as unoptimized as they can get in this title. Hell, the Ray Tracing Shadows are awfully pixelated and can look worse than their rasterized versions.

Zero effort put into the PC version

Zero effort put into shader compilation

Zero effort put into Ray tracing effects

@BassMan

Unreal Engine is such a great engine, so why are developers taking the piss with it?

I never had issues with UE3 and now UE4 has been a non stop mess on PC.

It is more the move to DX12/Vulkan which requires extra work from the developers to handle shader compilations in the appropriate way. This can effect every game engine that uses DX12/Vulkan API. Many devs are lazy and don't bother, are oblivious to the issue or don't know how to fix it. Epic is tackling the issue with UE 5.1 and onwards, but older versions of the engine do not have a simple solution to combat the issue without extra work and research from the developers. Overall, there is just a lack of fucks given and that is why it has become widespread.

Shady stuff like what?

Source Engine is one of the best engines ever made. The game did have some floatiness issues with some early games, but the fact that it has held up for nearly 2 decades, shows just how well that engine aged.

I started posting in SW, to hype up a lot of niche/indie games. By the time we hit 2007, which was for most of the part a good year. But at the same time it was also the year that marked the beginning of the end. Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, Uncharted. We bemoan a lot of trends popularized by those 3. It was the year I started moving away from AAA games to More Niche/Indie Stuff.

As for the walking/talking sections. I think that is a result of the Design By Committee design plaguing western devs. Everyone has too much of a say, resulting in a product that lacks a clear vision, and with dev teams getting increasingly large. You will have pretty much everyone working on a certain game. And with the large ammount of chefs in the kitchen, everyohne is constantly making compromises with eachother. As a result, you will end up with a game that isnt really for anyone.

Sniper Elite 5 is a damn good game. And while I havent heard of Entropy Zero, I just googled it and that looks really damn solid. Will probably play after TO:R. Thanks for the heads up.

Sniper Elite 5 is a true GOTY this year.

Is anyone surprised? The gameplay in Dead Space is also shit. Has a fantastic atmosphere, dope enemies and cool level design at times.

Free market so devs can indeed give zero fucks if they don't want to, I just hope the consumers are smart enough to respond and not buy this game, there are plenty of games to buy instead. Working games, or the dead space remake that is coming in a month's time and will give players the same experience (also runs on a competent engine like Frostbite).

It's true. Sniper Elite 5 and Entropy Zero 2 are the true candidates for game of the year. They offer the player an experience, not a b-rated TV series full of cutscenes.

Oh Krafton is know for PUBG. Well I should've definitely done more research.

I played PUBG and it looked and felt like an asset flip.

@hardwenzen: First selling base content as extra, that made me somewhat concerned.

Then, a game with so much marketing but reviews only dropping on release date, not a good indicator imo. Mind you, it can still be a cool game but it just shows that they don't fully trust their product.

You are singling out Unreal Engine which is not fair. It is the most widely used engine and that is why you notice a lot of UE games with shader compilation stutters. There are devs that put out games with UE that properly pre-cache shaders to avoid the stutters. Frostbite games have the same issue. Try playing Battlefield V in DX12 and you will run into the stutters until you have visited all areas of the map at least once. Play the game in DX11 and you won't run into the issue. So, again, it is not specific to a particular engine, but the usage of DX12/Vulkan and how the developers tackle it with the engine they are using. That is why it varies on a per game basis.

Do we know that the extra content is even done? I hear they will be selling death animations which is stupid, but if the game has already dozens of them, do we really care to have even more in the base game? And reviews dropping on release date is nothing rare. Yes, it can be a way to hide a garbo game, but this is usually for Ubi, EA, etc, this dev doesn't look like they are the filth that you can't trust. I'll watch the first hour of the game, and no further cuz i do plan on getting it, but from the little i have seen, a 5/10 sounds beyond ridiculous.

That's the thing. People think of UE as a silver bullet since it offers good and streamline tools however under the covers it's a mess. More so with DX12/Vulkan. It's great for indie devs because lots of things came out of the box with the engine but that flexibility comes at a cost.

I'm not singling out anything. I'm using examples and feedback based on my own experience. As well as the most recent example: Callisto Protocol which runs on UE4

yeah BF V in DX12 has some stuttering, nothing compared to what I've seen on Unreal Engine.

And as the cases get more and more numerous, I'd say the effort devs have to put in has grown significantly, or else this wouldn't keep happening.

Yup, this mostly happens at the ultra high end spectrum of graphical fidelity. More realistic lighting and more effects also means more shaders to precompile.

I'd say I'd get this game on consoles and be done with it, but I don't want to suffer the horrible optimization that this game also suffers from on those systems.

So this leaves only one choice: skip this game alltogether. Oh well.

Wouldn't call the gameplay amazing, but it was fun enough I thought. Forcing you to shoot limbs kept the action tense, and upgrading shit was fun.

But yeah, the atmosphere and enemies were awesome, pretty much made the game.