Note: The following review of The Callisto Protocol contains spoilers for the game and the original Dead Space.

The Callisto Protocol is a spiritual successor to the Dead Space video game series with Glen Schofield serving as the game’s director. When I first heard about this game back in the 2020 Game Award’s, I was very excited to see spiritual successor to Dead Space when the series was mostly laid and buried.

Two years later, it finally comes out and it gets a pretty middling reception with very low sales. I was still willing to give the game a chance and after finishing the game in 4 hours. As predictable as I sound right now, I found it to be very underwhelming and lackluster compared to Dead Space. I’ll be doing a lot of comparisons to this game with Dead Space. To be specific the original 2008 not the 2023 remake by Motive Studios. I can safely say you’re better off playing both the original and remake over this.

The game begins with you onto a mission as something akin to a space trucker but first you’re followed by a mysterious woman who’s looking for something in a town full of dead people. She encounters a weird small cube with an anime-chibi on it. I don’t know what significance this plays but we’ll find out.
After that you’re taken to the game’s main protagonist. Jacob Lee and his co-worker/best friend Max. While checking up on things you’re ship gets raided by an unknown agency; lead by the same woman in the flashback now known as Dani Nakamura. Max winds up getting killed in the raid where I was just like whatever. Not enough time to get to know him so yeah.
Your ship crashes onto Jupiter’s moon Callisto and taken prisoner by the warden Leon Ferris and a couple of tough and big robots. The story of the game can be best summarized as. Very lacking, I couldn’t give any two shits about Max or Dani throughout my playthrough as they felt underdeveloped and uninteresting. Dani is meant to be more of the mysterious woman type but she hardly has anything that interest me in the slightest aside from the times she tried to kill me.
I can’t say that the characters in the first Dead Space were the most captivating but what makes up for them is how helpful they are in giving you objectives and their environmental storytelling that carries it throughout the game. Which pulls me in thanks to the lore and mystery behind the Ishimura. After taken prisoner and branded. Jacob wakes up to a prison cell followed by chaos and seeing prisoners brutalized by the robots and prisoners killing security guards and themselves for survival. Jacob hooks up with a man named Eli and admittingly he was probably the only character that had more screen time compared to the rest.
In my playthrough I was expecting there to be some prisoners and security guards for me to fight but It was mostly just mutant monsters. I get that this is a horror game but a lot of the mutants you fight are a joke. Once you get the hang of it, it boils down to this, dodge, dodge, whack, whack, dodge, dodge, whack, whack, rinse and repeat. The monsters and their variants never change their fighting style and do the same thing over and over. There are a couple of ones that aren’t humanoids such as the one that crawls up onto you and blows up, one that has an annoying as shit sequence where you tap triangle to shank it to death, a small leech-like monster that just sucks your face and you kill it by pressing triangle and an invisible monster that shows up a few times and fucks off until the final act. You can also levitate enemies with a pull that allows you to toss enemies in spikes or shred them. Its satisfying at first but gets old later on as you’ll just be mashing dodge and melee.

The enemy variety is very lacking in terms of variety. What makes these encounters less intense is that at some point in a callback to Dead Space via a wall of text. Is that they grow tentacles and turn into a much stronger version of it but can also be circumvented by just doing the same thing. It gets so tiresome and when you shoot the tentacle before mutation it dies instantly. Stomping their bodies like in Dead Space gives you credits, ammo and health which is always nice but not enough credits for me to upgrade my weapons which I’ll get to in a sec.
I was kind of hoping to see more personality of this prison site. Such as prisoners killing security guards, forming gangs, taking advantage of the chaos and being about as dangerous as the monsters you fight. They can dodge your attacks, parry you and would even resort to guns and killing them would give stuff in return giving you ammo and junk to sell to give the prisoners personality and story to them.
The security guards could be the deadliest as they have access to things like security drones and robots to aid them. There’s even a point where you could hack the robots to turn against them on their masters. Fighting them one on one would be scary as they have better armor and more experienced in all the training they go through.
Plus, prisoners ganging up on you and the guard which would result in a very chaotic scenario and the monsters killing anyone indiscriminately giving you an advantage.
I’m stretching as wide as I can but I just got so tired of doing the same thing over and over again. Not to mention there is stealth in the game but is hardly ever implanted. There are a few sequences that are scripted requiring you to avoid the robots. Which I find waaaay more terrifying than the monsters you fight. They’re extremely underused and seem lack a dire need of some tense stealth sections that require less combat and more sneaking around trying to avoid getting instantly killed.

What I like about the necromorphs in Dead Space is how diverse they are in terms of size and design. The common slasher that utilizes the vents to flank you and one variant that’s tougher and spits acid. The lurkers with their tentacle projectile attacks and crawling up on walls. Infectors turn dead bodies into a stronger necromorph that takes less damage. Pregnants (no that’s literally their name) that mutilate their stomachs and small parasite creatures gang up on you, twitchers being more aggressive and faster. Divider’s, brutes, leapers and exploder’s and the hunter that encourage strategies for the player to be careful of. I mean shooting their limbs off does get easy. It’s their aggression and tactics is what makes them memorable and fun to fight.

Here I can’t stand to dodge and fight the same re-skin humanoid freak over and over. Another last thing to bring up before continuing is the blind enemies you fight in the game’s third act. If you get caught by them, you just do the same thing or stealthily kill them. They’re a massive joke and easily the worst enemy of the game. There are no repercussions of getting caught and its just a normal battle.

Now that we’re done. Let’s talk about horror, horror is subjective when it comes to video games. You’ll either find yourself uncomfortable or stressed out. Dead Space isn’t a super scary game either but it has a lot of atmosphere and the sense of isolation. The Callisto Protocol is mostly just scripted sequences where you crawl into vents or gaps and followed by a jumpscare to startle you. This gets old really quickly and it’s in every single section of the game. For a man who wants to make a scary video game. The build-up, sense of tension and dread is lacking.
There is a plethora of jumpscares and half the time it gives me a good laugh. I about lost my fucking shit at one that y’know the cliché where the character is face is turned around and the character tells them “hey, is something the matter?” and followed by a scare. It’s their alright.
Despite the negativity there are a few positives. The presentation in this game is incredible with great art direction, enemy designs and style that’s very appealing to look at. I’d like the mine section and some parts of the third act did good for me but not enough to make me change my opinion of it.
The combat may not be all that good. Exploration makes it worse. There are optional areas you can explore and it mostly boils down to fighting a few enemies and chest with some loot to sell at your store for upgrades. Much like in Dead Space, allows you to sell items for more credits (dubbed ‘Callisto Credits’) and improve your weapons. You’re going to be mostly relying on melee attacks and less on your guns often. Gun schematics can be found in the game ranging from shotguns, pistols and a machine gun. The weapon variety is pretty small but you’re going to be not using them a whole lot until the final boss which I’ll also get to.

The guns are mostly good for shooting the tentacles rather than killing them outright. I need to bring this up before I forget. The inventory management is GOD FUCKING AWFUL. You have so much shit in your inventory that you’ll wind up dropping some pieces of ammo or health to pick up a shiny thing for a ton of creds. Which makes me think why wasn’t there and upgrade the station to improve your inventory space? It’s so annoying. Not only that, but the loot you also get is akin to finding only one-dollar bill and an occasionally hundred-dollar bill. It’s a little unsatisfying, the stronger upgrades cost tons and tons of money and you won’t find much if you conserve.

The Callisto Protocol is a little lacking in bosses and difficulty. Given its repetitive combat and scares. We are now entering spoiler territory.
During the mine section of the game of the third act, you fight this conjoined two-headed boss that you fight four times in different sections of the game. This and the robots are probably the best enemies of the game. As it encourages you to use your guns more and use less melee. Why couldn’t they have more enemies like this is beyond me.
After a pretty engaging fight, you stop at a place called “MidTown” (perfectly sums up the game for me) and you fight the two headed-monster again. The prison warden Leon Farris makes another appearance as this mutated-albino Thanos-esque monster. Who I’ll admit could’ve been a tough fight. Once you realize that you have to dodge four or three hit combos followed by a few whacks. He becomes a joke.
We are now in the steps of finding a doctor named Mahler. As she is working on a cure for your friend/half-villain sidekick Dani after getting infected by that small parasite thing that face fucks you.

You escape the prison, fight your way through and that town with all those dead corpses was a cover-up to test out the virus and the small cube turns out to be Dani’s little sister.
You fight Leon one last time for a cure and he becomes a giant mutated creature who much like the two-headed monster can damage you hard if you don’t dodge. You use your guns, followed by an escape sequence. You sacrifice your life for her and followed by a message saying that there is hope to stop the virus and another jumpscare by Leon in another callback to Dead Space.

That’s the jest of it. The final boss was pretty easy if you know what you’re doing. The bosses in Dead Space were only two, if not counting the brutes or the hunter. The Leviathan and The Hivemind were faaaar more memorable compared to them.
Not only that all the plot twists with Kendra and the revealation of The Marker and your girlfriend was very shocking. Dead Space’s story may not be strong, it does its job well.

I don’t know if we’ll ever see a sequel to this game but I hope Glen and his crew can do better. The Callisto Protocol can be best described as “wasted potential” there is a meat to this game. The bone, however, is missing and needs an extra spice.

One more thing to add is that there’s something about this being connected to PUBG due to contractional obligations and it just became its own IP. Does anyone even give a shit about PUBG these? Eh, who cares.

Not the worst survival horror game I’ve played but it could’ve been so much worse.

Note: The Following review contains spoilers for Life is Strange: True Colors and other Life is Strange games.

Life is Strange: True Colors is a standalone video game set in the Life is Strange universe. I got this and its sequel for free on Humble via a friend of mine. Life is Strange 2 was pretty good and I found myself favoring its sequel more than the first one. While the sequel had its problems, I did enjoyed the dynamic between Sean and Daniel. Not as memorable as Max and Chloe. But they were very enjoyable leads.

If were to describe Alex Chen is. She’s just simply ok but nothing too bland or generic. She comes across as pretty much your average girl with emotional problems. Like the previous games, where Max has the power to rewind time and Daniel the ability to levitate objects. Alex has the power to read people’s thoughts and emotions. Represented by different colors. Red represents anger, blue represents sadness, purple represents fear and yellow represents joy. By pressing the left trigger, you can enable this via a circle around the said person and at some point, even unlock extra dialogue options. You can even trigger this option to unlock flashbacks but that’s mostly for achievements and for those who wanna go on a completionist run. Her powers don’t seem to have a lot of impact on how you play aside from a few moments that utilize this power.

The key problem is that her power is not used quite a lot in this game. Max’s power for example is utilized quite a lot for events and to change your choice if you feel like it was the wrong decision. Not only that, in scripted sections of the game it really requires you to use it more for events like saving Chloe from a train and sneaking in the school to steal money for disabled kids (No I’m not fucking kidding) Or the most impactful choice is saving Kate Marsh from suicide. Where you couldn’t use your powers at all and had to use your knowledge of the bible to rescue her. By saying her favorite passage, it rescued her and she lives making it one of the most satisfying things to ever pull of in a video game. Life Is Strange is not a masterpiece as it does suffer from some flaws like questionable writing decisions and its divisive finale. I still had a good time overall.

True Colors however feels a bit more of the safe route. As in, it’s not as intense or as shocking as the previous games. No twist and turns, no relationships being broken or anything. As a standalone game, it’s not half bad but as a Life is Strange game. It falls really flat.
True Colors to be best described as; it’s a Telltale Game where they decided to make a Life is Strange game but never utilize why the games were enjoyable. In other words. Your choices and decisions you make don’t have a lot of strong impact on how people view you, especially at the end.
I didn’t know what I did right for my choices for the endgame. I was in the small minority for this one which makes me think. Why weren’t there any repercussions and why wasn’t there any depth or pacing to make it so? It felt like a quick buck for this game and it certainly shows. It doesn’t detract I still had a good time with this game.

My experience with the first episode felt a little underwhelming at first but then progressively got better with EP2, 3 and 4. However EP5 is where it went reaaaaaaally downhill fast. I couldn’t find a strong connection with these characters as your relationships with them are pretty paper-thin. Gabe felt like he needed more screen time and he doesn’t appear later until the last episode as a figment of Alex’s imagination. We see him, talk to him for a bit and then he dies after trying to save Ethan. EP1 gives us a bit of taste of the town of Haven Spring and some of its residents. I wished that we get to see more of them. Like the ice cream couple who runs a business and a man with anger problems. We do help some fat guy who in the record store is coping with his lost dog. But he seems like one of the only residents we help with compared to a few. I didn’t know there were other events like that but I did wished we got to do more with these people and learn their stories for a much more interesting outcome.
The entire plot involves Gabe, your brother who while trying to save Ethan after getting lost in the woods for his fantasy adventures. Gets killed by an accident which leads to the story. EP2 is where we get to his funeral and followed by more conflict. Center of the attention is a man named Mac who back in EP1. I winded up whooping his ass because he was accusing of my brother of having an affair with his GF and then getting his GF to break up with him after lying his ass off. I disliked him at first as he seemed kind of a scuzzball. Not when we got to EP2 when I felt sorry for him because everybody blamed him for Gabe’s death despite having scrutiny to him. It felt one-sided to me and it seemed everybody was jumping to conclusions. Later on, we see his side of the story and it seemed like everybody was at fault. I kept blaming this on Ryan considering that he was the one who cut the rope and lead to his death (Plus isn’t that like manslaughter?). Which to me made me think there should’ve been a trial to either accuse Ryan or Mac in this which leads to more conflicting feelings from the characters. Like Ryan’s father Jed having neutral or resentful feelings for me or Mac winds up being ostracized by the entire town. This entire thing did paid off at the end with a nice little emotional send off but it didn’t really have a lot of strong impact as a whole. I might be thinking too deeply about this.

We never see Mac or his GF Riley ever again in this story which made me think to what’s even the point? EP3 is my favorite, mostly because it’s just a LARP and its mimicking of RPGs is very charming at best. I loved the music that played in the background whenever I got into combat and the fun they had. I really loved the final boss fight which turns into a fantasy setting with Jed in full costume looking something akin to a Warcraft character. I had fun finding scrolls, coins and interacting with the people in character and reading their happy thoughts. It was a pleasant one at best.
After the LARP we get to the center again. Like with Mac, this time with Ethan. The little boy who starts to feel a sense of guilt. He feels like he got Gabe killed. I felt sympathetic for him because he’s just a small child and he wouldn’t ever think it would be his fault.
Then were cut to Charolotte. His mother who starts to feel a sense of hatred for her son because of him getting him killed. She was also apparently a love interest for him but I didn’t really pay much attention for me to care. I had the option to either use her emotions or just leave it be. So, I let it be, I didn’t know if this affected anything but I let it slide.

There are other events I should also bring up like Elanor having dementia and some other events but they felt like a foot note.

I’d say EP4 is where we get to the real meat of it. It begins with a party and other shenanigans. Like with the first Life is Strange. I decided to get a rose and I gave it to Steph. This winds up building a weird relationship that feels like it could’ve had more buildup. But fuck it, lesbians (Though Alex is bisexual) Yes, I was one of “those” guys who decided to kiss Chloe which is dangerous because it’s a toxic barrel.
I’m just going to skim through EP4 and EP5 because I’m in a rush. So, we get interrogated after stealing a USB and we get to choose to either toy with Piker’s emotions or sign a paper to give up. But it felt regardless of what you do you still get the outcome of the end. Jed tells us to meet up somewhere and it turns out he was in cahoots with the company and he shoots us under a mining well.

I will give it this though. The plot twist was pretty shocking to me and I was stunned by it. But EP5 is where it went really downhill. We’re given flashbacks of Alex’s past and after finding a piece of jewelry that belonged to her father. We used it for evidence that Jed is solely responsible for not only Gabe’s death but some other incident where got her father killed. Everyone was on my side shockingly and what made it even more shocking is that I was in the small minority for this one. I didn’t know if I made the right choices for them to be on my side but it was a surprise for me.
After that, Jed is in jail and the company is facing some lawsuits. Followed by a choice to either stay in Haven Springs or go out on an adventure. I chose to stay.
Not much happens aside from some excellent music. True Colors is decent as a standalone game but as a Life is Strange game it falls flat. I recommend this game overall if you want more Life is Strange. Its decent for what it is and I had a good time.

This review contains spoilers for EP1-5.


I remember highly praising the first Life is Strange and thinking it was really good. As time flew by, I started to find it to be a bit of a decent video game at best. While it has some flaws such as some questionable writing choices and the times, I wanted to fucking strangle Chloe Price to death. I did find some moments to be fun and pleasant though it’s certainly not the worst thing I’ve played. As it could’ve been worse.

Life is Strange 2; however I did found it to be a little better than the first game but it’s not the masterpiece I was looking for. Unlike most sequels, this one is very standalone but it does incorporate a few choices from the game if you decide to sacrifice or don’t sacrifice Arcadia Bay. It really doesn’t have a lot of strong impact on the game. As it focuses on two characters, Daniel and Sean. Two Mexican brothers who after witnessing the killing of their father by the hands of a police officer become runaways and wanted fugitives. The game has a ton of sensitive subject matters such as racism, religious cults, drugs, police brutality and homelessness. The handling of these topics is up for debate and I’m certainly not the right kind of person to judge this as how hard it is to convey about it. Though I’ll talk about some latter.

The choices I made throughout the game had been a mixture of unpopular and popular choices. Some I never realized were a thing and some that I never knew were unpopular. I don’t try and strive for all the wise decisions as it certainly adds to a lot of conflict between the two brothers and the characters around them. In contrast to Max and Chloe which I found to be a little more memorable thanks to Chloe’s toxicity and Max trying to handle her shit. Sean and Daniel, I found to be more favorable compared to them. Not because they’re complex or healthier, it’s because they’re just simply brothers. Bickering, Sean trying to be the better adult and trying his hardest to raise Daniel.

Like the first game, it does have a supernatural element to it. This time the little brother has the “quirk” than the character you play as. It’s never explained to how Daniel has this power nor does it need to be. The game is Life is Strange not Life is Explained. Outside of Sean and Daniel, some of the characters in this game are a little uninteresting to me nor standout. I did liked some like Finn, Cassidy, Brodi, and Joey. But none of the other characters compelled me in contrast to the main cast of the first game. From the devout Christian Kate, the film buff Warren, the snobby prep-girl Victoria, the egotistical rich guy Prescott, the teacher Mark Jefferson, Chloe’s drug dealer Frank and his little doggy companion and the over-protective David. I was very surprised that he appears in the last episode for a short while but hardly has anything to contribute or say to the plot which disappointed me.
David’s appearance felt out of place and weird to me because I had no idea what the heck, he was doing most of the time after the first game. The rest of the side characters felt like a footnote and I didn’t have a strong feeling when their father was killed by the police because it was just the move onto the plot for motivation. During the first episode when Daniel finds out about his father’s killing on TV this led to huge protest from people which draws parallels in real life with the injustice of marginalized groups of people. Its handling of these topics is up for debate and can be polarizing to a lot of people, especially to the very sensitive. I felt like they had the right intentions but some of it came across as a little laughable. In the first episode, Sean gets captured by an old man who arrests them thinking they stole the food despite the fact that in my playthrough I bought all of the necessities with the money I had. If only had a “receipt” to defend myself. After the old man kicks the shit out of me and ties me up. He winds up saying IN HIS OWN WORDS “We need to build that wall.” In hindsight its clear commentary but it felt so unnecessary to me and came across as more funny than serious. The one moment I did found to be upsetting was in EP4 where Sean gets pulled over by a couple of random white dudes who had no business outside of just adding conflict.

I mostly stood up for myself, got my ass kicked and smashed a toy that barely has any significance to the plot and just drove off. These kinds of subject matter and their handling can be very divisive but it’s more the lines of. “At least they tried”.

I could say it’s better handled than in stuff like Bioshock: Infinite but that’s being too generous. The gameplay is pretty standard fair, you walk around read and observe a few things and find optional collectables. Engage in conversations with people and Sean’s very “fascinating” observations. Later on, you get to utilize Daniel’s power such as levitating and smashing things.
I didn’t use a lot of his powers because I feared it might have repercussions to people finding out about his power. Which is why I didn’t utilize it in EP2 hardly. Though in EP3 it seems a few people are exposed to his power and is kept a secret. I scolded him for it and nothing came out of it, for this you’d expect to be like widespread news about a telekinetic Mexican kid but that never happens. In EP4 how the religious cult sees him as something tantamount to like an idol which would give some kind of public press about it but that never happens.
Some key aspects of the gameplay I did enjoy was sketching surprisingly. I didn’t do all of the sketches but I did found it relaxing. I’ve always admired Life is Strange’s art direction which is why the visuals are so appealing to me. The music as per-usually is really good. Outside of my complaints, it is a pretty good entry and I do recommend this game overall.
Life is Strange and its sequel is not everyone’s cup of coffee. It does have its moments that shine for me. If you liked the first game, you’re going to like this game but if you’re looking for more Max and Chloe you’re going to be veeeeery disappointed.