Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - The Callisto Protocol Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: December 2, 2022

How does Striking Distance's spiritual successor to Dead Space hold up? Let's find out! Time Stamps - 00:00:00 - Start 00:02:00 - Our Callisto Protocol Review 00:07:20 - Housekeeping 00:10:00 - Callisto Protocol In-Depth Review 00:26:23 - Ads 00:29:36 - Back to the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast. Of course, I'm Tim Gettys and I'm joined by the new face of video games. Blessing at Eioia, Jr. What's up, Tim? What's up, bless. Joining us as well, the Big Daddy himself, Greg Miller. Hi, Tim. Hi, Greg.

And rounding out the group today, the Master of Hype, Snow, Bike, Mike. Always a pleasure, Tim. Thanks for having me on. I love the glasses. I love the haircut. I love everything going on right now. Would you love the glasses more if they were prescription and helped his poor eyesight? Yes, but they're not.

Me and you haven't talked. a lot about this. You and I. I know you're getting bullied every which way about this whole situation. His friends who see his struggle to see and we say you should wear the glasses you are. I'm bullied Tim. I'm bullied.

I'm going to admit. I've been bullying him lately and I feel like that's, it's my last resort. Tim, but you get me, Tim. I guess to be you. I used to be you and I want it clear. Not everyone's bullying, but there is some bullying. There is some. There are people out there that take things too far and I've seen it happened. You haven't.

you know what I mean? But I have. You can't because you can't. Okay. You see what I'm saying? Okay. You should just give up the goose at some point because it's not worth it. The moment you put on glasses you can actually see, you're like, I've been a fucking idiot this entire time.

I'll tell you what? A lot of people, you know, they're saying things about this to say, Mike, you got to take the leap. What are you doing, right? And it's really just getting in the flow, the comfort factor of wearing glasses every day, doing my best to try to find some stability in the idea of this because, man, oh man, Do I want to rip these things off, throw them against the wall? Would you do LASIC? And just keep going.

Do it, bro. I mean, his eyes do look pretty. Best decision to ever make. You got to do it. We'll talk about this later, everybody. We have things to talk about. We're going to get right into it. We are doing our review of the Colisto Protocol coming out.

I guess it's out now, right? There's the time of this posting, which is really exciting for everybody involved. I'm excited to hear what you guys had to say about it. So without getting into the rigmarol, I want to get into it right now. Greg Miller, you are the lead reviewer of, Clisted Protocol 4. Kind of funny. What score do you give it

on the kind of funny scale? Well, if you've never been here before, there's a few different things to talk about. Number one, of course, top of the order, it needs to be pointed out. We are doing a sponsored let's play on Friday with Glenn from Striking Distance Studios,

you know, creator of Dead Space, game director on this, CEO of Striking Distance, they came in and we already recorded it, are doing a let's play with them, and then a spoiler cast with Glenn on Friday. So if you feel like you can't trust our review because we're sponsored,

we totally understand and we wanted to put that out there for you. And if also, if this is your first time maybe coming into a kind of funny review, we added the scale this year, right? And we put the scale in there just for a little window dressing, for billboards for what we thought. But the main point we've always said is that the scores don't matter. It is what our words are, right?

And so I want you to know that I hemmed and hawed a bit on this one of what my final score would be. And what I kept saying is like, man, it's either a really high three out of five or a low four out of five, right, in terms of where I am. And what I've settled on going around is the more I talk about it, the more I engage me and Mike, me and blessing, actually having conversations with Jen about it, right?

Like, I say stuff like, man, I love this game. And despite its flaws, it's not a 10 out of 10. It's not a 5 out of 5. It's all these things. I enjoyed this so much. I did this. It's great. It's blah, blah.

After I stopped and really thought about how I talk about this game and the way I do, I think it's a 4 out of 5. I think it's a great game. I had a blast with it. I'm a huge Dead Space fan, and I think this is a great spiritual successor to it. I think it's an impressive first game for striking distance, and I'm excited to talk about it today.

both what I loved about it and what I thought might have held the back of it. Very, very cool. Bless, what about you? Funny enough, I think I went through the same thing trying to figure out, all right, what am I going to give this game?

It's a weird one where I think the game is very polished. I think the game presents very well, I think graphically. In some places, it's very incredible, especially when you look at character animations and environments and lighting, and like, oh, someone was happening with audio in this game is really impressive.

But then you get into gameplay, and there are so many things that I really like in terms of the approach with action. This is a survival horror game that really wants to be actiony. And on one hand, early on in the game, I was like, ooh, I don't know how I'm feeling about this. But after I got used to it, I was like, oh, actually no, I understand what they're doing here with the combat system, which we'll talk about later. But like, it grew on me the ways in which it approaches survival horror in terms of, you know, setting you in this environment, making resources scarce, but not

as scarce as arising to evil, but still somewhat scarce. You know, taking it room by room, planning these encounters. A lot of the stuff, I think, in this, there is impressive and a lot of the stuff I like where they're taking it in direction. But there are other things in things like combat, in things like where a lot of the final product lands that I think could have used more polished and a little bit more consideration in the design. But overall, I think I'm similar to Greg where I give it a four out of five. You know, I think the game is great.

I think there are going to be so many people that enjoy their time with this game. But I think there are a few places where I can see them improve easily for a next game. Mike. Yeah, these guys crushed it. That's exactly how I feel, guys. and it's so much fun doing these reviews, right? Because we're kind of isolated. We don't talk much about them while it's all happening.

And so I'm always eager and excited to kind of hear where you guys fall, what your thoughts are. And I am just like Greg, where this is a four out of five when I look at the kind of funny review scale. This is a great game. And there's some instances, a lot of frustrations that come from gameplay and a couple of choices that the team made that I could see some people giving this a three out of five, right?

But the more we learn about it, especially sitting down with Glenn, right? and like hearing what striking distance mindset was, the thought process behind some of these decisions. It was like, oh, okay. Like I understand now, right? From just a basic outside looking in, you'd be mad. You'd be frustrated. But when you hear him actually spell out,

oh, this is why we did this. You're like, oh, okay, like that makes sense. And that kind of pulls me back into that four out of five. And I think that's one of the important things to piggyback off of, right, is that when I'm, and we'll talk about this in a second, I know. But like, when I was playing it early on, I'm with Bless, right?

Where everything grew on me. The more I played Callisto, the more I liked it, to the point that now that I've rolled credits, and I do still want to start the hardest difficulty play through to go through for the platinum. I do want to play it again. I was asking him on the spoiler, which goes up on Monday, this is not the spoiler. Why no new game plus? And he's like, we're working on it. It's like, I'll hold off for that, right?

Like, the game grows on you into what Mike just said, I think is the key part. The things that might irk you early on are decisions. For better or worse, you don't have to agree with the decision for why they did or didn't do something, but they did that on purpose for you to feel a certain way when you play the game. And I think that that's the thing. This game through and through has a vision. To bring that even further, right? I think one of those decisions was checkpointing where it was probably in a future show

that you're going to hear, right, of like the idea of like, yo, why is the checkpointing like this? And they have a reason for it. It's on whether, it's on you whether or not you agree with it. I, for one, did not like the checkpointing. There are quite a few places where I'm like, oh, why am I all the way back here, right? Like I went through this hallway. I did this combat sequence.

I got this important item. I came back and now, like, I have this enemy hallway, died, and now I have to do all this over again. Like, I don't understand exactly, like, you know, what this adds, comparative to, you know, what you're trying to bring to this scenario, right? There are moments like that. There are moments like... We'll get to that. A little bit of a checkpoint here on the conversation. I got some rigmarole to do because, of course, this is the Kind of Funny Games cast each and every week.

We get together to talk about video games and all the things that we love about them. you can watch it on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games, russe your teeth.com. You could also get it as a podcast by searching your favorite podcast service for Kind of Funny Gamescast and we will be right there for you. If you wanted to get the show live as we record it, and if you want to get it ad free, you've got to go to Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny just like our Patreon producers Delaney Twining, One Up Pest Control.

Gwynett? We got some added stuff there. Gwynet. Brian Chaney, Alex Gradle, Jason L., the nanobiologist, Derek, Donald Eccles and Jason L. thank all of you so very much. If you don't have a buck to toss our way, that's cool. If you're using the Epic Game Store to buy any games or to buy anything in Fortnite or Rocket League, etc., etc., use our code

kind of funny and at no extra cost to you, we get money. It's a pretty dope deal. I don't really understand how it all works, but thank you for helping us. So today we're brought to you by Shady Ray's Mint Mobile and Chime. I'll tell you about that later. We keep talking about some of this housekeeping. We've got a whole bunch of fun

Clista Protocol content coming up. We have a Let's Play live stream going up that's like a developer commentary director commentary of the opening hour of the game. You can check that out on Friday and then on Monday we will be dropping our spoiler cast. That is this crew with Glenn

Schofield himself, the director of the game going through all of the bits and stuff. Don't rush yourself if you don't beat it by then. It's not milk. It won't go bad. That podcast will be there when you're ready for it. Exactly. So that's going up Monday. So that's cool. But back to the review. Greg, continue. I think it's important to start at the top, right? We've all gone through and done the

blurbs of it, but of course, this is the Clisto Protocol. This is a spiritual successor, you would say, to Deadspace. Of course, not only did Glenn make Dead Space One, one of the many people who made Dead Space One, but the visionary of behind it, right? He has Steve now on the team who was the guy who took over and did Dead Space too. They have a whole bunch of of Dead Space vets over there. And of course, Glenn had gone off and done sledgehammer games after working on Dead Space, did a whole bunch of Call of Duty. Now back to Horror Roots over here. and that's what they wanted to make here. And one of the things I keep talking about when I talk about this is how impressive I think it is for their first game. And I know that, of course, we're talking about industry vets.

We're talking about talented people, but you can never take for granted how hard it is to leave the comforts of EA, to leave the comforts of Activision Blizzard, start your own studio. A grand, you know, get back by crafting and have all this different stuff, but start from scratch. You're hiring everybody. You're doing all the stuff. You're doing this. And this is in 2019 they start off on this game, right? And here we are in 2022 playing it.

and for all the little nitpicky things I'm going to have on it that I think take away from the experience, it doesn't take away from the overall package of what this is. And it's a great survival horror game that I think really does walk the line between being survival horror and being action. I am, you know, the same as Blessing, you know, we're talking about growing on you and doing it. What's really fascinating about this is that the combat is based in melee, which is not something we saw in dead space and really don't see that much in general. And I know in the content we filmed today, Bless, right, you talked about it, kind of feeling like a fight. fighting game, right? Because you will, enemies come at you and you hold the stick right or left to dodge their attacks. It's not timing base. You just have to be holding and then you'll do it. And if

there's a combo attack, you have to switch sides or whatever. But you can go left or right to dodge down to block. And then you can come back then and hit them with your melee attack. That is a really jarring, weird thing to start with. And I found myself going through it and loving it. But what's awesome about it is it grew on me and I got into it and I upgraded my stun rod, right? Was then, okay, now you unlock the sidearm and you have that. Okay, you start doing that. And every time in this game, I started to feel like a badass, the game changed. Something happened.

The game evolved, right, where the enemies I was facing, all right, cool, you know how to deal with these grunts. But guess what? Now there's multiple types in a room. How are you going to manage that? Okay, you figure that out. Now they're going to change somehow. Okay, you've seen these big monsters you're seeing right now as you go. You have bosses, mini bosses, stuff like that.

It kept me on my toes and I think stayed away from the problem Dead Space 2 had. As a Dead Space fan, right, I love Dead Space One, but then, and I, then I adored Dead Space 2. And so many people were like, oh, I didn't like Dead Space 2 because it was no longer survival horror. It was an action game. This game does a great job, in my opinion, of building the tension, right? And we talked about this earlier. It's not a scary game like you're freaked out. Like there's jump scares, but it's more the tension of it.

It's the audio design, which is incredible, I think, of what's coming, where you're going to go. But I felt like I was good on ammo most the way through. I felt like I was good on health most of the way through. But there would be those moments where I was like, you know what? I'm the apex predator here. And the game would change around that time to where, oh, there's a new mechanic, there's a new thing,

there's a new challenge for me to overcome. I loved that. Similar to what Blessing was talking about, like, there's something about Dead Space, this game, Colistow Protocol, this version of survival horror that really clicks with me where it's like, cool.

There's a room I have died in three times now. But I'm not frustrated like I want to walk away. I'm frustrated like, I know I almost got it. I know that this is. a puzzle to an extent, right? Of like, all right, I'm going to come in and the big guys there, but I have to worry about the ads, but this one explodes, but this does that. And when I move,

it's almost like a haunted house in a lot of ways of like, you know, you move into a, if you run through a level, you're going to spawn everything. But if you inch your way through, very carefully, you spawned one by one and can kind of mess with it. I love that shit. And that's why I loved this game. I think with that I want to commend the combat system. I think that's one of the things when review embargo goes up. I think a lot of people are going to have a lot to say about the combat

system both good and bad because I think there's a lot of places where it can get clunky, especially when you're overwhelmed by a lot of enemies. That's where the combat system doesn't shine, as if you are surrounded by four enemies, especially when they're doing the thing where they evolve. Because, of course, as you've seen in the trailers or if you've been following marketing, the enemies will grow tentacles sometimes and then you have to shoot the tentacles or else they turn into a stronger enemy. And once you have like three of those happen at the same time, it's like, well, I might as well put down the controller. Like, there's no point of this anymore. And so, like, there are moments like that where I think the combat system could

maybe adjust to try and account for that. But I do think that the way they approach it again it was that thing where when they first introduced it, they first teach you that yeah, hold left, hold right to dodge, hold back to a block fight back. So is it like punchout? It is like punch out, yes. Oh, that's cool. That's the thing

I kept thinking about when I was playing through the game. I was like, oh, this is punch out. Oh, I get it. All right, now let's go. I think over time it works and it's actually fun and, you know, I compare it to a fighting game. I'll compare it to like any action game, right? Of like, all right, you got to fight back, okay, cool, like, you know, you start to kind of learn the flow.

And it is, you know, Greg mentioned feeling over, feeling overpowered, right? Like at a certain point, but then the game adjusts. It is that thing of once you understand the combat system, it's like, oh, okay, I'm never going to get hit again because it is left, right, left, all right, fight back, all right, left, right, cool, cool, I got this. And then they start introducing these different scenarios where I'll compare it to when Doom Eternal came out, the director of that game was talking about the combat chess of Doom Eternal and that's the thing that I've kept in my mind since playing that game because

it's a thing that a lot of games do right and I think this game is included in terms of hey we've taught you this combat system that's relatively simple right that it that grows as you unlock more weapons and do more stuff right but then also we've we're trying to figure out these scenarios from combat encounter to combat encounter where it is all right you got this down now let's introduce this enemy here that is this kind of enemy this enemy here that's a crawler and this enemy here that is stronger than the other two, right? And you have to figure out what that is. All right, cool, you got that down now in this new area.

Here's four different enemies all stacked in a line. See how you're going to figure that out, right? And every single encounter, I think, has some thought put into it in terms of, all right, how am I going to take this out? The thing is, I don't think every encounter is perfect. Like, there are some encounters where I'm just like, oh, man, really? Like, I'm fine against these, like this many of these guys and I don't have that many bullets.

All right, I guess I'm going to die five times trying to figure it out. Sometimes that would be a fun thing, though. Sometimes it is, right, fifth time, I got this. know exactly how I need to do it. Other times I'm like, ah, really? Like this guy? I guess I'll fight this guy now. It's imperfect, but I think a lot of the time to get it right. And I think overall, for me, the combat system isn't that positive. It's a fun one. Yeah, I think. Speaking with the combat, what was your thoughts? Yeah, I want to talk about the combat, because it's interesting when we had Glenn on, he talked about 50-50 and the combat system of

being 50% melee, but also 50% of the different layers of the range and also your glove that you get throughout the game, right? That's going to be a big factor in the combat and how you play. You have a thing, telekinesas glove like Dead Space, called Grip this time around, so you can grab both objects and shoot them back at people, and you can grab enemies and shoot them around. And so, yeah, just to piggyback off of them on the melee combat side, I think they chose a big risk here. They really chose to say, hey, we want to double down on this kind of in-your-face melee

combat, which I think works in some occasions. In other occasions, it doesn't, right? Because it feels very one-on-one. I don't know if you guys noticed, but early on the game, before you start to see the ranged enemies or the crawling-type enemies, it is. it is just stand-up grunts and they will fight you one-on-one. And so instead of a uncharted or any other action game where you're just swinging wildly into the void

to hit multiple enemies at once, you're really just focusing on a one-on-one fight. Well, the other grunts all just kind of stand in a circle around you and stare at you, right? And so I had multiple encounters where I'm like, what are you three going to do here? You're just going to wait for me to finish this guy and then one of you's going to punch me in the back.

It never felt like three were attacking at once, which was my worry, right? or my thought of what are we going to do to evolve this, right? And that was my thing, to your point, just to make sure we're being clear, is that, yeah, they might stand around, but it's like they're waiting for the animation of the enemy to fight you, or your animation to stop, and then, yeah, they cheap shot you, which I fucking hate.

And that would be something for a sequel, right, that would be great of. Same thing happens, but now I can pick, choose. I have a more area, area of effect, you know what I mean, somewhere to get some distance between. And so it felt very one-on-one. And then talking about checkpoints and frustrations, right? early on, I hit some checkpoints where I had low health before. I stepped into that checkpoint.

Now I'm fighting four guys. I die. I respond at this checkpoint. Guess what? I'm on low health again, right? And that did suck. And those were some of those pinch point frustrations. I want to talk about the other pieces of combat.

These guys kind of focused on melee. I was impressed with the range and the glove, right? The layers that you add on to this, where by the second half of the game, I wasn't as melee focused as I was at the beginning where they really kind of put the melee in the forefront, it was, okay, here's my arsenal of weapons that I have, a shotgun, a shotgun, a machine gun. How can I play those to stay away from these enemies, maybe use the environment to my, you know, benefit? And then also use this gravity glove right there that I can use to use the environment. I found myself way more lining up enemies and looking around the room and going,

okay, here's an expletable canister that I can shoot at right here. Here's a stealth kill that I can grab. Okay, here's a giant fence with a bunch of barbed wire on it that I'm going to to pick somebody up and throw them into, grab his next homie and throw them into. And so it started to be like chess, like Blessing said, where I would start to put myself in a position to win and really enjoy the combat more and more. And that 50-50 blend, I think when he said that during our developer interview, really stuck with me because by the second half, I was more 50-50 than just melee. Like I wouldn't that start it?

That was the fun thing of talking to you guys about it, is the fact that we each chose different ways to tackle this problem. Where I would say 50-50, I'd be like, no way. I was definitely 75-25 of melee. Like, I stuck with that. I immediately upgraded, or I shouldn't say immediately. I threw out the hours of the game, made sure I was upgrading my baton first,

so that I was doing hell of damage. Like, when I got, there's this awesome perk eventually you unlock in the skill tree, right? Of like, when the monsters block, you just break their arm, and they just smash their arm straight off. And it was like, oh, my God, like this is what it was all about.

Guns come into play for stopping the tentacles and then for some of the bigger boss monsters where it's like, I do know, it's one hit kill from them, so I got to stay back. I got to use a shotgun and got to use my pistol. Yeah, and the skill shot as well. We haven't said the skill shot yet, but as you are fighting on the one-on-one combat

and you break their guard and kind of push them back and you both look at each other kind of stunned, you have a moment where if, you know, I'll tell everybody right now, reload your guns as often as possible, you have a moment where you can take that active reload from gears of war where now you have the active moment to shoot them and get a little bit more pressure on them. It's really, really cool. And I like that kind of elevation of the combat that they ended. I was very impressed.

when we were talking about are different kind of builds that we had for the way we played, right? Because there is an upgrade system. You can't upgrade certain weapons over other weapons. I assume that the way I played would be the way that every single person played. And yeah, hearing Greg be like, no, actually I use my baton most of the time. And like I focused in on that baton and like a small handful of weapons. Whereas like Mike looked for more variety in his weapons, right? I'd say I was probably somewhere in between, right?

Of like having a shotgun that I really liked, but also trying to make sure that I was good with the grip glove and good with the baton and other things. but with that, right? Like I had fun, like, kind of understanding that the game was accounting for the way I was playing in terms of, okay, there's always ammo for something that I can use here, right? Like, I was always kind of flipping back and forth between using the grip in certain scenarios. Of course, the grip being the telekinesis, Darth Vader force, like, I'm going to grab this zombie and I'm going to throw them into some spikes or whatever. You know, I was using that as much as I was using the baton, as much as I was using the, like the guns, right? And baton being the thing that I probably used a little bit more than everything else. But I think there's a fairly good balance there.

And also to go back to the checkpoint thing, right? I think, you know, Mike was talking about how he went back to a checkpoint and he has low health. I think for me, my big gripe with that was there was one checkpoint I had that was before a very difficult combat encounter, probably the most difficult combat encounter in the game. And, you know, I'm dying, right? I probably died six, seven times during the combat encounter. And it was the thing of I had low health and I was right before an upgrade. thing, right, an upgrade kiosk. And what that meant is that

every single time I respond, I then have to do the healing, which is my character kneels down, shoots himself with the syringe, like, shoots all of it, right? It takes like 10 seconds, all right, cool, let's do that. Now I had to go back to the upgrade thing to then do the upgrades that I did just for this fight, and I do that every single time. And that's an extra

minute and a half of... It taps the fun of it, right? That was the thing of, like, there'd be... I don't know, you can... Go for it. But of, like, walking through, and I, like, I stealthily kill everybody. And then at the very and something went haywire, or it's just a canned event, I die there and have to go back

and then stealthily kill everybody or like the tram we talk about in the spoiler cast, but not that spoilery. There's all these things. I'm like, great. And I get there and I'm like, oh, this is all ammo.

I'm about to get into a big fight. I very particularly choose what I want, drop what I don't need, get killed. And yep, I started doing all that. And it's like, in that scenario, the game was trying to tell me, again, this is what I'm talking about.

These are decisions. In that scenario, the game was trying to tell me, like, how about you don't do it this way and do it this way? We're giving you things for a certain way to do this, but it's still frustrating while I tried to figure it out and get out of it. Yeah, that's one of my main big three frustrations, right, that I've written down as time to execute certain actions, right?

Putting on the hell thing takes a certain amount of time. Going to the crafting station and buying ammo, upgrading your look, is all a number of different seconds added to the game, right? And that pits those frustration points. But of course, talking with Glenn, that's a decision that the team made, right? They're sitting there going, hey, it needs to take three to five, seconds to let them heal to put more tension on them of you need to get away to have a clear space to heal right but in the moments of course it sucks right i'm getting chased down by a bunch of

baddies and i need to heal asap interesting there was you you can make health injectors in the 3d printing kiosk we keep talking about where you can also make your upgrades it's interesting that there wasn't a skill tree for it of like cool spend this much and you can get fast upgrade and you're done yeah it's one of those i the time to execute on certain actions and i think it's really interesting hearing him take some of the feedback from the Dead Space series that he did, right? Of like, hey, we listen to this and that's why we added it to this. I think there will be some feedback on that time to execute of positive and negative.

Some people might really like it, and it ratches it up the tension. Some people might be like myself where it's like, that's too long, right? I cannot spend two minutes, two and a half minutes pressing the same button over and over, watching the same screen build ammo, right? That's just too long to do that. I need health to go a little bit faster. And so it's really interesting to see where they'll come out later on with this time to execute. It's a big problem for me.

Some things I want to shout out, right? Things that I liked. Of course, really liked how the game looked. I shout out the lighting before. Can I ask you a quick question? Because I had an interesting one. It came back from Thanksgiving exhausted. It's hard, you know, going to Chicago with a 13-month-old.

And it popped in Friday night and I started to play it. And I'm like, oh, this isn't running at 60. Like, and I jump into the graphics menu. And I was like, okay, it's all set. and I turned off film grain, I turned on this, and I'm like, I'm not that guy.

So maybe I don't, but this doesn't look like, and I googled, and I remember something about 60, and it was like, oh, yeah, I've been dunking on Gotham nights when the Goth was like 30.

And I was like, shit, what's on? And so I played that whole night that way, because it didn't like garbage, but I was like, this doesn't look like, and then the next morning

I woke up after a night's sleep and I went to play, and I'm like, is this something I can only change from the main menu, and in the main menu from the front screen is where I could put on performance mode and have it look, it runs 60.

And the game, from there on out, gorgeous, just beautiful, I thought, personally. On my giant TV, it's great. But did you have to do that? Did you have to set it in the menu? Is this a note we need to give out? I think on my overall PlayStation settings, I have it so that any game I boot up automatically does performance.

Yeah, so I usually don't have to switch it out, so I didn't even notice that. Yeah, yeah, that's my thing is I'm not used to, I can't think of the last game that I did that. I was like, wait a line. Yeah. Right. Yeah, I mean, I want you to get to your giving out flowers because, yeah, one of my flowers is the UI and accessibility.

The UI, right, is like, there's not really UI. I don't think there's a HUD. Yeah. No, no HUD. No HUD. Yeah, no HUD. I would more than any of the subtitles. If you're an audio listener and can't see it, remember, of course, it's a third-person game, you're stomping around like Dead Space.

If you remember the spine on Isaac in Dead Space was your health, and you had a little thing on your shoulder that showed your TK glove. This one is all on your neck band. You're in a prison. You're a prisoner. They inject this thing. you can see your health on the back and then also yeah when you pull it up how much uh tk you have for your glove yeah that's the hood in quotes and i love and i love the direction for the visual style because yeah it is like the thing that's on the back of your neck you are you know

tracking the amount of bullets you have in your gun through like a ui thing that's on on the gun itself right all that stuff is happening happening digetically is that the right it's all dietic right it's happening in world uh the key upgrade kios right have a specific look like i love video game worlds that go hard in terms of finding ways so very much like identify, hey, this is the kiosk, right? It isn't like a pop-up telling you this is the kiosk. We just designed it in a way where automatically, boom, you know what this is, right? Or automatically you know how many bullets you have because we've built it into how the game

looks, right? I like that. I like how the prison looks. I like the environments. I like the, just, Colistow as a world, right? I really do think that this world is a memorable world, right? Like, I look forward to, I'm like hoping they make more of these because I want to play more games in this universe.

Yeah, like I have a lot more, but I don't want to keep rambling. Yeah, but before we get to what you like, to Mike, real quick, let me tell you about our sponsors. Shout out to Mint Mobile for sponsoring this episode. This holiday season, the best deal in wireless can only be found at Mint Mobile. Right now, when you switch to Mint Mobile and buy any three-month plan, you'll get another three months for free. Mint Mobile lets you order and activate from home with ESIM while saving tons on phone plans

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Go for it, Mike. Yeah, coming back, man, I have a lot that I like and I can't wait to talk more. But I do want to jump into we talked about the subtitles. I was really impressed. You can crank those things up really big, right?

From my eyesight, I like them big. I was impressed with the options of changing the color of the speaker to any colors that you want to really add that extra layer. They have the high contrasts for collectibles. In the background, I love the trend now of games allowing you to customize subtitles all the way you want because it was the thing of, all right, I do want the background, but I don't want it to be all the way black. I want the 70% opacity and, like, yeah, I was able to do that and it was great.

Same thing while you're in accessibility, right, We're talking about the gameplay accessibility, right? If you don't want to tap the button, you can tap it once and be done with it. You can turn on all these different assists if you want to play it that way. Yeah, they had one tap for quick time events, auto-complete for quick-time events. They had one tap for holds, if you would prefer. They had auto-dodge. They had auto- aim.

I was really impressed with that, especially when you hit these moments of frustration, right? Like, you can kick down the difficulty, but that might not help you with your dodging. Maybe you just don't have it. And so for me, I went directly into that. I was like, how can this help me? because I do need help. I'm having some tough times here, and I really leaned in that accessibility

for the gameplay side. So I encourage people to check that out. Another one for me, photo mode, right? I know a lot of games have been adding photo mode. I'm not going to say it's great. I'm going to say it's good, and I'm pleased with that. Good is good enough,

where it has the basic photo mode that you'd want because this is a stunning, beautiful world that I wanted to get lost in and take some cool photos. Also shout out photo mode during cutscenes, which I always am impressed with in life. Not many games let you do that while you can just pause.

You actually move the camera in the cutscene? No, it's just the cutscene stuff, which I like. I prefer that. I just want to be able to take a photo of the cutscene because there's some cool moments for sure. For sure. A little nod to the photo mode. Yeah, for, I mean, flowers and stuff to stick with it. Again, I'm talking about, you know, we're talking a lot about combat and getting more and more involved as you go.

For me, the game growing on you is also the narrative in how they deliver the narrative. You know, I started on Friday, Saturday morning I was catching up with Jen about it. And I'm like, yeah, like, I'm starting, I think, to get it. the game plan, I liked it a lot. The intro I thought was weird. And she's like, what do you mean? I'm like, it is a lot just go, go, go, go, go, and then you're off. Like, it's not bad.

It's just like, you know, you're a prisoner, right? And how did you get there? And what happens in the thing? And how does the – but it's like there are like four different like things that happened that are all shoved together and all happen really quick. And then you're off playing the game. And I think for night one morning after, I was like, it was kind of jarring because I don't know who everybody is yet and this is happening.

and it would have, why wouldn't you let this moment breathe? Why wouldn't you do this kind of thing? But the more you play it, the more I think it works. Because again, you're getting to know the characters as you play, obviously. One of the things where I'm like, this all happened really quickly, one of the enemies in the game makes reference to that. So, like, again, it's a decision for why it happened that way. And then again, you know, last night rolling credits and then today starting a brand new game

to see it all dovetail and see where the characters go and where it is like, I feel like it pays off as you play and go through it. Yeah, I think that's my thing is that I was pleasantly. surprised by the story. I actually really enjoyed the story in the world building that goes on. And it's funny because usually in survival horror games, it is few and far between where I'm like, oh, the story is incredible. Like, I think one of the few ones, probably like

something like The Last of Us, right? Which has a story that I absolutely love. But when I'm playing through something like Resident Evil, right? When I play through any of the Resident Evil games, I think the stories are entertaining, I don't know if the stories are always great, right? It's always the thing of like, oh, you get to the end and a fucking big human monster thing that was, you know, created by

a virus or whatever the fuck comes out and now you're fighting in, it's like, how did I get here? I don't know. I was fighting zombies 10 hours ago. Why am I suddenly fighting this thing? Exactly. And Colissa Protocol, I think, like, it sometimes goes places where it's like, oh, man, is this going to fall into like the Reson of Evil thing? But I think all of the, like, all of the lore and like world building and stuff they do to back up what's happening actually had me like, you know what, man? They did it.

Like, I really enjoy the places they went with it. I got a big question here that takes a whole bunch of different elements, throws it into one thing that are jumping off of this, right? I feel like going into Clissor Protocol, there's a lot of questions people want answers to. How does it stand up to Dead Space? Does it feel like a modern game or does it just feel like a spiritual successor to an older type of game? And I think the other thing that we talk about a lot is this is the first of the, hey, highest tier AAA Debs leave their company to do their own thing. Now that own thing is actually coming out. Is this a new AAA team now?

Like are we looking at this as kind of like, oh, wow, there was a new pillar, another team's out there. that we can talk about the same way we do some of these bigger AAA things. And I feel like all of that goes into looking at what they're known for, the pedigree of the people on this team going from Dead Space, which really was kind of that cinematic next gen at the time version of what survival horror could be. You went from the Resident Evil's to Dead Space being the thing, right? Then for them to go to Call of Duty and it is very much, yes, the multiplayer and all that. But Call of Duty, especially at that time period, also known for single player campaigns.

super, super high production value. Actors, Hollywood actors playing these characters. This game's interesting to me because it kind of seems like the culmination of a lot of those ideas getting an All-Star cast that we don't normally see for this type of video game

compared to a Resident Evil. We're not getting this, like, there are multiple actors in this game that are like super high profile. Wendellin, Christy. Well, she's in the podcast. Oh, she's not actually in it. No, she's on the game.

There's a podcast that's happening as well. and then Sam Whitwer. And Sam Whittwer. I mean, these are some big, great names. So with all of that, does this live up to the hype in terms of doing more than Dead Space, being a modern game itself, being AAA, and using the actors and all that stuff? I know it's a lot, but it's like. What a huge-ass question.

But I feel like it all comes together and in one way of just like, did it pull it off? I think, I mean, we're giving it four out of five, so I think it pulled it off. I think there's room for improvement. And I think that's where it's like, you know, where do you want a nickel and dime and what do you want to do, right? For the actors, right, I think the performances are great. Like, I really do. Like, I think they are, Josh Dumas does a great job, I think, of, you know, what do you not agree? I'm going to give them a good.

Okay. I think some line deliveries really miss. Yeah. I think there's moments where you like, hmm, I think that could have been better from a star-studded cast. So I'm going to give it a good. I'm more in the middle of like, it was fine. I like Josh is the protagonist, right? I think he does a really good job being Jacob personally.

I wasn't taken out by any of his things, especially when we, again, get to the end and we see this character arc he went on, and they do like, oh, I was like, oh, that's interesting, right? It's honestly, I would go the opposite, not the opposite, for Karen, right? Danny in the game, Karen Fugohara, again, this interview ran last week on the games cast.

Yep, last week, cool, go, go with me talking to her. But from the boys, right? She obviously doesn't talk, well, not obviously. If you haven't watched the boys, she doesn't talk of the voice. So her talking here, I think in the beginning, she's doing this very, like, gruff, yada yada and I was like I'm not feeling this yet by the end of the game where she is

I was like I kind of again get where you were and where you went with it and I liked that journey of it so I think the actors pay off I think I think there's I think there's Mrs. I like some of the side people you deal with I'm just like I don't know I bring up a really quickness there's one fight encounter where they just replay the same lines

from their previous fight encounter you're like oh we didn't think that one oh yeah yeah yeah that was one I was like that's a big red flag to me of like why are we saying the exact same lines lines. Word for word, same lines. I didn't like that. My thing is I like the performances. I think Josh Tumel and Karen Fukhara did a great job. And like all the performances in the game, I think are great. I didn't like the protagonist.

Like I think, not even I didn't like him, he was just boring. With Josh Dimele? Josh D'Mell's character. Yeah, Brayne and Lee. There are multiple times where I was just like, man, I wish this guy had more personality. Like I wish the character in terms of the writing and the stuff they were giving him to work with had more to it. But aside from that, like, I think the story was good, right? like I would put this story. Personally, I like this story better than like a lot of the

Resony Evils and a lot of the survival horror games that I play. When we're thinking about this tier of survival horror, and I guess back to Tim's question of, you know, how does this game work as a modern game? How does this is a game work as a successor? I think it's successful as both those things. I think both because it finds ways to separate itself from Dead Space. As somebody who didn't play through the first Dead Space, right?

Dead Space took place in like a space station setting. Yeah, the USG Ishmaer. Yeah. I like what they did with Clola Still I like the fact that it takes place in the prison Going outside and stuff Oh yeah awesome What's the what's the name of the prison?

Blackgate Black Gate yeah I like Blackguard a lot Oh yeah black guys They got the fucking Joker there I like the that as a setting right Like I love what I love what they do with it And I think it just gives a very different vibe From something like a space station Again the combat's different

I think this brings a lot of fresh stuff to the table And I think that's what you want to do something that is a spiritual successor, but really is its own thing and hopefully the start of its own franchise. I think it does all that stuff well. Playing this game, I don't feel at all like I'm playing a game from 2010, right? I don't feel like I'm playing a PS3 game. This feels like a 2022 game. See, now here's my thing about that is that for me, that's where in terms of is it modern, it's a modern game, yes. It's gorgeous. It's great. I think it's fun to play, yada, yada, yada. But my, is this a high three or is this a low four debate came down to me of

things in there. I'm like, this doesn't feel modern, right? We've already talked about the checkpoints. We already know that, right? This is a nerdy Greg thing, but I think it's again, we're talking about a 2022 game, right? You beat the game and there is no chapter selected. Go back and get collectibles you've missed before.

Like, you know, like life is strange or anything else really where I feel like it goes, you know, you only have four or five so you can go get it. You've got to replay the entire thing again. On top of that, right now, you know, Glenn told us that it is coming eventually. There is no new game plus. So when you finish the game,

if you didn't get all the collectibles there, tough shit. You got to go back and either start from any of the saves you might have that would put you there, or you got to just go back and do a whole game, which I dislike. Because again, this is a game,

and I think this is always so weird because I am not the replay the game guy. You know that. I love my games. I love beating them. I love putting them down. But Dead Space, Dead Space 2.

These are games that I immediately replayed again and was all about. I want to go replay this one. What am I looking at here? What am I looking at? your season past details. Posted just a little bit ago, like an hour ago. February 7th is when you're going to get New Game Plus, Greg.

Beautiful. Thank you. But it's that thing of like, that's one of those things that's not modern for me. We talk about it in Spoiler Cast and get, again, decisions on why they didn't. For this game and you, again, we're talking about it being a survival horror game. You know how heavy survival horror games usually feel your Resident Evil's, your dead spaces. There's not a 180 turn. So it's that idea of like, I had a checkpoint that started me, against a gigantic enemy boss that's charging at me.

And I could do the dodge to get out of his way, but every so often he would be able to grab me and kill me. And it's like, God, I wish I could just 180 around and run and sprint the other direction. And they have a decision for why they didn't, but I didn't feel like it, that's still not modern, right? One of the other things I don't like that isn't modern. They, again, I like the story.

I like the world. I like where we're at. They have all these audio logs in there that are really, really well done. It's the cardinal sin of you can't move and listen to this. You have to sit on the menu and do it. They talked about it. They want you to have a breather. There's some technical stuff too on why they didn't.

This is their decision to make it. And I get that, but I also have been attacked standing there listening. So it's like, why not let me just go that way? Yeah, it's funny because that stuff I didn't look at, look through the lens of like it feeling modern or not. For me, I think I looked at that stuff through the lens of this being, going back to Tim's question, right? It being a team that is made up of people that were working at a different studio, starting their own studio and making their first game at it, right? Like I think I looked at it as wow this game is really contained in terms of what it's trying to do It's not doing new game plus it's like not like there's a lot of a lot of stuff there especially content wise that I'm like yeah

This could have done more like this game could have it could have been longer it could have I was surprised to not see the many puzzles in this game It is like all combat and like you know going forward that's a great point yeah This is in something we haven't talked about if you haven't played it It is a linear game this is a you start and you go and no there's no fast travel you're not backtracking you leave environments and unless the story dictates you come back to them, you don't go back to them. It's very linear. Which I didn't hate. I don't mind.

I didn't mind that either, but I think it kind of, it does come back to my score a little bit of like when I compare it to its siblings of, you know, when I think of the best survival horror games, I'm thinking of like Resident Evil II remake. I'm thinking of Last of Us. I'm thinking of games that do what this game does and more in terms of, hey, here's really cool puzzles or here's like really interesting puzzles. here is like explorative environments. Here's a really good story, right?

Talking about the last plus. I think this game, this game like calls its shot, right? And it's like, cool, let's do the things we want to do. Like, let's do, let's make a very specific game and polish it and like make this, make this game that is filled with, hey, these are our decisions to do this. Is this going to hit for everybody? Probably not.

But this is why you don't get audio logs or walkable audio logs. This is why you don't get X, Y, Z thing. Like, weapon switching is another one of my things where I think that was a question. I did ask Glenn Filth as well. And he had a reason for it, and I'm like, cool. Like, it was a thing that annoyed me when I was playing the game, right? Of, like, why is weapons switching so slow, right? Why isn't there a weapon wheel?

Like, why are we doing it this way? And, you know, it's a decision. But at the same time, I think there are places that they can go in the future, like in whatever the Clistopold Call 2 or whatever other game comes out in the franchise that is like, all right, cool, we identify this, this and this thing. Now you have the chance, now that we have more bandwidth than time to actually address these issues. I have one question for you on Modern. You looked at me when we did the Dead Space Preview.

Yeah. And you said, Mike, it doesn't feel modern. It feels old because there's Isaac reacting to all these people but not reacting. Yeah. Now, what did you think of this? Because I had moments where I spun the camera around while he was talking or possibly reacting to things. And I didn't see many facial animations of movement or voice cues where it was, oh, he's feeling this right now. Did you feel like it was modern to you in that sense?

I felt it was modern. Yeah, where I'm watching the character model on us. so I talked about it. I appreciate in this one that there are the Josh Dumel rubbing his head and looking around and being a thing. And like for the most part, right, the big scares or things he should be reacting to, I would say outside

of the fights you're in as the character, art cutscenes related, right? So it wasn't that very specific one from the remake of them watching that happen that I was like, oh, this doesn't feel right. Yeah, I felt like it was 50-50. I felt like they almost made it down. Say they took a good step in the right direction.

But when you asked me that question in Dead Space, I was mindful of that throughout the play-through, and I didn't feel like they made the full, hey, this is what Greg wanted in the modern sense in my mind, right? It felt like a half-step. Like, it was close, but not there. One thing I'll throw out is I wish there was a little bit more variety in the enemy design. Like, there's some variety, of course, you have the, like, you have, like, well, we call

them, like, the long necks that'll, like, get you out of nowhere when you're walking. They'll try to pull you in, and, like, if you get in, they'll fucking kill you. You have, like, little head crab creatures. You have, like, the regular runner kind of enemies. you have other enemies. But for me, once I made it enough of the way through the game, and I started really identifying each of these enemies, the way to approach fighting them became a bit sainty in terms of,

all right, like I know the fighting structure. I know the right, left, right. I know if the tentacles pop, I need to shoot the tentacles. I think my thing is, the tentacles became very predictable at a certain point,

where it's like, all right, I know any enemy. He's probably going to bust out tentacles after five hits. There was a point where it was like every enemy was doing. I was like, all right. It was like, I know what this is.

Right. And it felt, it didn't feel as emergent as I thought I was going to in terms of the enemies or the tentacles pretty much come out like the same way, right? It always comes out the chest. You always do like one or two shots to take those things down. And when the enemies do transform, they always transform into. They always transform into. And I wish they, I wish they're, I wish they're. That's interesting. I think there's so many, there's so much opportunity to do really cool stuff with that. Because even if it was, hey, there's three different varieties of things that these can transform into. I think that opens up combat way more in terms of where things can go because it is. And the one. And the one. creature they do transform into is very much like two hits and you're fucking done from that guy. And that was my thing of the guy he transforms into, right? He actually becomes, I think, easier than lots of the guys you were already facing. Right? Because he is just the same guy every time. Just dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge, dodge kill. And it's like, it gets annoying when there's multiple of them or you have somebody else crawling at you and yada, yada, yada. Yeah, when one enemy transforms, I'm like, oh, no problem. It's like when two or three transformer, I'm like,

all right, put down the controller. I'm just going to restart this. There was a couple of weird moments with the enemy variety, which I actually like, I think there was some really cool choices on some of the cooler enemy varieties. You're so right with the tentacles, what happens afterwards. But there's some moments where this is a very heavy melee-based game, right? I know I brought up 50-50, but most players are probably going to play it like you, Greg, where it's, I'm really sticking with this stun baton. Towards the end there, there's some enemies there where it's like,

melee is not an option. I can't even use this, right? Which is very odd because the whole game we've led up to this. And now you're telling me, don't do that, right? And I'm alluding towards the final boss. I'm not going to spoil anything, but like that whole boss fight, I just ran in a circle and shot at him. I was like, we just completely deviated from the beginning where it was like, hey,

this camera shoved up Josh DeMell's ass crack at 40 degrees because we want you to feel it, right? And then the final boss is like, no, you cannot hit this guy at all or you're going to die. So run for your life in circles. I hated that. I thought that was such a big letdown at the end. And that was like where I could be a three is some of these frustrations and especially the ending of that final boss fight, where I put the controller down and I was like, man, that was a big letdown for something that was so great. Story-wise, we talk about the graphics, the audio, everything that they've done.

And then to have that where it's like, oh, we've preached, you're going to do a lot of melee and we got this cool fighting combat, and you're not going to do that for this final fight. You're just going to run for your life. I hate it. Yeah, I'm right there with you. I think it's kind of the push and pull of this game being survival horror, but then also having this like action thing to it where there are parts of the game where they're like, yeah, run around, shoot. change guns because you're running out of ammo, do all the stuff, but like the options

they give you to do that don't keep up with what they're throwing at you. And so it does end up feeling clunky and you do end up like dying or getting frustrated because it's like, oh man, I really wanted to turn 180 or I really wanted to do like X, Y, and Z thing in the game either isn't giving me the options to do it or yeah, like to change my weapon and it has to be like

a few button presses to get there. And to go back to it too of like not feeling like an old game, but like it feels like a survival horror game. And to me that has always meant whether it's Resident Evil 2, whether it's dead space, right? It's being in these fights with bosses or creatures and using the environment against them. And that can be cool, of course,

but it can also be what my experience was with the last boss, where blessing could kind of put the fear of God in me, where he's like, dude, that final boss, I had to drop the difficulty, yada, yada, yada. And I was like, oh, shit, and I got there, and I just ring around the rosied him on the one thing. And it'd be like, he's going to spit, so I'd go behind the pillar,

and then I'd come out and shoot him, and then the ads would come out and I'd run, I'd TK them and do each other, and then do it all over again. You don't want ads, you can go to a Patreon. It's kind of funny. And so it was that thing of just like, all right, and there's a big monster that we saw there, but we don't have to talk about it.

You fight multiple times. Not the same one. You kill the one and then another one comes at you. And it was the same thing of like, I'm going to run from this creature and I'm going to zig and zag and zag and between some stuff so that it takes a little bit longer. And I'm just shooting, shooting, shooting, then run and ziggins. You know what I mean? And again, the combat got crazier when it's the other things that are coming at you.

But eventually I would clear all the ads, and it is me versus one thing. And for a long time, I was fighting them the wrong way. So I was just in long encounters of shooting this thing over and over and over again. But like, I feel like we're talking about all this. And this is like, I want to make sure we don't fall into a trap we often do, where it's like, this is us debating why this sounds more like a three. But in the end, it's a four because these are specific instances, I think, where it was like, not even that I hate this or anything like that.

It was just like, oh, this could have been better. It's less like seeing the vision for a five out of five game. Exactly. And you're so close on so many of these things. The overall, you know, overall product, as we've already talked about, sure, is great. I think the moment to moment gameplay for the most part is great. Like, right, like, there was, again, that first night where I was like, all right, this is, blah, blah, when I got the grip, the glove, right? And I walked into a room after having it.

And I was like, all right, I got to go over there. And I looked over there. I'm like, oh, there's a box on a shelf over there. I went, oh, wait, and brought it over and smashed on the shot at the ground of smash. I'm like, oh, it's a dead space. That's actually really. Yeah, it's real. Dead space.

And like, you know, that would, like, I love this game because I love the moment to moment stuff. I love walking into a room and seeing the monsters and being like, let's fucking go. And yeah, looking for the explosive thing to shoot and shoot at them and blow them up, use them against each other. Like, I'm excited for another playthrough. I will wait till February probably for a new game plus, right, to have what I already have because I fell in love with the TK glove so much. And I didn't invest in that till way later.

And I was like, oh, shit, I should have done that earlier. You said love. You used the word love here. Do you see this ending up in your top 10 at the end of the year? Yeah, 100%. Good. All three of you? Yeah.

I don't know, actually. I don't know if it's going to end up in my top 10. But I don't think it's like far off from my top 10, right? It's just I think this year has just a lot of games that do fit in the four category for me, right? Where it's like, what is the game that's more special, right? What are the things that are competing with it? But it's not like a, it's not one that I would write off of my top 10. It's one that maybe if I look.

Maybe. It still might make it at the end of the day. Yeah, but I think it's more likely not to make it than make it. But it could be in there. Really quick before we start ramping down here, because I know it's getting late, the death animations. We have not. Oh, yeah. This is a must talk about because that team clearly put a lot of love and care into the idea

of Josh DeMell getting fucked up. And it is awesome, gang. Everybody listening to Tim, it is well worth the time. It almost harkens back to Laura Croft Tomb Raider. She was just going to make their reference. But like, it's almost his violent. It was Lara Craftroom rating. Well, keep in mind, they're the ones again who made this.

Like, I remember when Dead Space did this. Dead Space did this, you know, the tear apart Isaac in all these horrible ways. And I remember IGN at the time doing the grind house trailer. That was all the deaths. And it's one of those that I totally had forgotten about this, that playing, that aspect of playing it. And then you do get, like, oh, right. Like, they're tearing jaws off, the gouging eyes out, the ripping limbs off. There's one where it's like, clearly they're going to rip your head off.

No, they're going to stop your arm. You know what I mean? It's like, on the stream we did it both on purpose. and not on purpose. I would say anytime you face an enemy for the first time, you should probably let it kill you just because it's worth seeing. But I've kind of forgotten that aspect of it.

They are gorgeous and gruesome and horrible. Yeah, they encourage death, and you should take that advantage and see all of them, right? Like there's cool moments where you don't want to die, but you probably should to see this different death animation because they're really, really well thought out and very, very cool.

So I wanted to make sure we gave a shout out to that because when we talk about this game, gore, blood, violence, is all going to be up on the high list of this, and you're going to be impressed by it. you're going to like that. You're going to want to see that. So, yeah, I want to make sure we give a shout out to something that was really well done. So any closing thoughts on this as we wrap up this episode of the review?

Remember, we have the spoiler cast coming out on Monday. We also have the developer commentary going out as whenever this is out, pretty much within 12 hours. Friday morning. Time gets hard. But hey, a lot of very, very, very cool, Colista Protocol content coming out. But closing thoughts, bless. I think for me, right? Like, it's a game that I really enjoyed.

I, like many games nowadays for some reason, I binge through it, right? Like, I played the hell out of this game and that wasn't like a review, like me trying to hit Embargo or anything like that. That was just me having a weekend going, all right, let's play some Colisto and then just just eating this game up. And so, yeah, I really enjoyed it. I think this is going to be a fan favorite. Like, that's my prediction right now.

I think people out there are going to really enjoy this. I think they'll maybe have the same nipicks or whatever, but I think at the end of the day, there are going to be so many people that are like, oh, yeah, this Colisto Protocol game fucks. I think a lot of people are going to have that reaction. and that's where I'm at you know what I mean like I am a Dead Space fanboy

right and that you know for Dead Space 1 or 2 don't talk to me about 3 but like I was so excited for them to do this

I'm as a fan incredibly happy with where this one landed yes there's room for improvement but again for the first game from this studio

for the you know a game what in three four years yeah no 19 2019 3 years right

like three years on this and I think that speaks to it and we talk about it in both the stream and the spoiler cast I feel that that's one of the reasons it's more intimate. It is very small.

Like there are the big action moments and the crazy things, but like those are few and far between. Those are tent pole moments. The rest is very grounded, very in the corridors and stuff. I'm extremely happy with it. I'm extremely excited for what has to be the start of a franchise here. And I'm excited for a new game plus.

And what will be honestly interesting is like, I keep saying on this stream now that it's happened, like, oh, I'll come back for a new game plus. February is a long time away. Like tonight I do want to go home and I do want to play Callisto, but I need to wait for a guide because I'm not going to find I was thorough team, but I didn't get all the clock. Dead Island 2 got delayed. You got time in February.

Oh, thank goodness. That was it. That was the only thing I was worried about. This game is really, really great. I had a ton of fun with it. There's some frustrations that I encourage all of you out there to make sure you reload all your guns before the interactions. Make sure you check out the difficulty settings. Don't be afraid to adjust them. Check out the accessibility settings to help fix that and help you play the way you want to

play and don't get discouraged by death, right? It's really encouraged they want you to do that. but at the same time, like, this is a really awesome story. And I loved the story from the start to finish. And that's what I was chasing was the story beats beat to beat. I was having a ton of fun with it. Play the puzzle, play the chess game like Blessing brought up of. Use the environment.

Use all the tools to your advantage to make the best experience you can. And most importantly, explore. We didn't talk about it, but there are some really cool moments that you can just go find, right? And it is that hallway that looks really scary and horrifying. And you know you shouldn't go down it, but you got to. You gotta go explore because it's well worth your time. This is a fun game. This is a great game.

It's a four out of five. We'll leave it at that. Let us know in the comments below how excited you are to play this. And if they've changed your mind any which way, or if you are too scared. But like they were saying, not that scary. Tim, are you going to play close to Proletal call?

Like somebody who likes Rise of Evil, seems like you'd really enjoy it. I gave it a shot. I was waiting. I played the first hour or so, and then I got stuck in this one room that I've been dying at over and over and I was just like, I'm going back to playing some other things right now.

I got to catch them all. guys you know what i got it got it here after this is my eye cool during the break i'm i'm playing through colistow for sure so uh excited for that but until next time i love you all goodbye