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The Callisto Protocol |OT| Galaxy of Terror

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
The game is finally running as I expect it with the 1.08 patch on my PC. 99% above 55 fps, generally runs at 60, and looks fantastic at high even without RT.
Well, to be fair, I'm getting more FPS now in DX12 than I could get before (DX11 is unplayable now), so that's good. But the problem is that CPU utilization is not fixed at all - my 8700K hovering around 20% mark all the time, while 3070 is at 100% utilization and that's without RT. It also does not matter which settings / screen resolution I'm using. There's also and still random frame drops and stuttering for no good reason whatsoever - cutscene starts and FPS drops from 90+ to 20-19 FPS until you get control back, same goes for say activating grinders in a square room with two switched at the top.

There is literally nothing in this game visually or design-wise, which could be the cause for all this BS, well, nothing except UE4 and hands from the ass of those who can't do what The Coallition (or any other developer who can work with UE at the god tier level) can and did in Gears 5, which is way more ambicious design-wise, more graphicly complex, can be called true PC version and it does not have any issues TCP has now and since launch.

Something tells me that DX12 and Denuvo is also to blame here, but they won't remove Denuvo cuz it'll hurt sales a lot, especially considering how horrendous PC version is, and DX12... well, xbox version also suffers cuz of it. I think they should completely remove DX11 and make the game work on Vulkan instead, maybe that'll fix some problems as well, but Xbox version is fucked.
 
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raduque

Member
Well, to be fair, I'm getting more FPS now in DX12 than I could get before (DX11 is unplayable now), so that's good. But the problem is that CPU utilization is not fixed at all - my 8700K hovering around 20% mark all the time, while 3070 is at 100% utilization and that's without RT. It also does not matter which settings / screen resolution I'm using. There's also and still random frame drops and stuttering for no good reason whatsoever - cutscene starts and FPS drops from 90+ to 20-19 FPS until you get control back, same goes for say activating grinders in a square room with two switched at the top.

There is literally nothing in this game visually or design-wise, which could be the cause for all this BS, well, nothing except UE4 and hands from the ass of those who can't do what The Coallition (or any other developer who can work with UE at the god tier level) can and did in Gears 5, which is way more ambicious design-wise, more graphicly complex, can be called true PC version and it does not have any issues TCP has now and since launch.

Something tells me that DX12 and Denuvo is also to blame here, but they won't remove Denuvo cuz it'll hurt sales a lot, especially considering how horrendous PC version is, and DX12... well, xbox version also suffers cuz of it. I think they should completely remove DX11 and make the game work on Vulkan instead, maybe that'll fix some problems as well, but Xbox version is fucked.
A good chunk of the poor performance can be attributed to Denuvo - it's a shit-tier DRM and needs to go away. Denuvo games typically seem to get it patched out after a few months, so maybe by the time NG+ comes out, it'll dump Denuvo as well.

As for the utilization, well, yeah same. It's bad. My 2080 is pegged at 99%, while my Ryzen 3600 hovers between 20-40%. It's definitely a GPU bound game. I don't have any more awful frame drops to 10-12FPS like it was before the 1.08 patch though, so that's great.

I disagree with you on the design and visuals, the game is absolutely gorgeous and Gears5 was underwhelming to me, visually. Gears5 was also boring, and I put it down after about an hour.
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
I disagree with you on the design and visuals, the game is absolutely gorgeous and Gears5 was underwhelming to me, visually. Gears5 was also boring, and I put it down after about an hour.
Okay then, please elaborate on what's so good about almost 100% linear design with very restrictive A to B paths, a ton of crawling and squeezing through and under walls and almost zero variety of memorable places to explore, events to experience etc.?

Imho, design of TCP shoots itself in the foot, preventing the game to be something great and special when it comes to more open, coherent and interconnected world design, combat / gameplay-wise. TCP is very good looking game, sure, there's also good and severely undercooked combat ideas, but unfortunately nothing more than that and it'll remain so cuz SD can't make it better, only tweak some stuff like they're doing now with patches. Story DLC can be better, but it'll be 1,5-2,5 hours long at best and won't be intergrated into the main game like it should be (see DC version of DX: Human Revolution).

The way I see it, Gears 5 is way better story and character-wise, more memorable, more varied in terms of gameplay, environments, combat, various gameplay scenarios, scripted events etc. etc. etc. Visually it is also way better looking game overall and threre's native PC version which was developed specifically with PC in mind, which can't be said about TCP.
 
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I can’t for the life of me beat the arcas platform ride. Even using the grip. Caused me to stop playing for a while. Any tips?
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
I can’t for the life of me beat the arcas platform ride. Even using the grip. Caused me to stop playing for a while. Any tips?
Did you upgraded the grip at all? I've used the grip here almost exclusively staying at + - center of the platform. There's also plenty of boxes with supplies there as well.
 

R6Rider

Gold Member
I can’t for the life of me beat the arcas platform ride. Even using the grip. Caused me to stop playing for a while. Any tips?
The enemies here always spawn one by one, but only one side of the platform at at time. They all seem to have tentacles too.

For the ones climbing over the side simply shoot them in the chest for quick easy kills. The others you can throw against the wall using the GRP. You want to take them out as quickly as possible. Refill ammo and GRP recharge using the crates around the platform.

When you get to the two-head boss, DO NOT use your strong attack. Dodging still works here, but the easiest way is to run around the platform in a clockwise direction and popping a few shots, then running more until you have distance to repeat. Once you temporarily down him, use your regular melee combo (which can knock him back).
 

Con-Z-epT

Live from NeoGAF, it's Friday Night!
I can’t for the life of me beat the arcas platform ride. Even using the grip. Caused me to stop playing for a while. Any tips?
I didn't fought a single enemy. I only pulled them in with the GRP and then i threw them off the platform.

There is a checkpoint before and when you reload the containers always have different supplies. Make sure to stock up on batteries. And as already suggested you should upgrade the GRP a bit. Also try to aim high enough before you throw them.
 
I really enjoyed this, me. Played on PS5 and finished last weekend. A couple of bits were pretty tough but I enjoyed the ambience and the visual influence of Prometheus/Alien Covenant. It felt quite polished on console, lighting in particular was great. I think it's possibly the only effective example of strobe lighting I've seen in game.
 

GymWolf

Member
Okay then, please elaborate on what's so good about almost 100% linear design with very restrictive A to B paths, a ton of crawling and squeezing through and under walls and almost zero variety of memorable places to explore, events to experience etc.?

Imho, design of TCP shoots itself in the foot, preventing the game to be something great and special when it comes to more open, coherent and interconnected world design, combat / gameplay-wise. TCP is very good looking game, sure, there's also good and severely undercooked combat ideas, but unfortunately nothing more than that and it'll remain so cuz SD can't make it better, only tweak some stuff like they're doing now with patches. Story DLC can be better, but it'll be 1,5-2,5 hours long at best and won't be intergrated into the main game like it should be (see DC version of DX: Human Revolution).

The way I see it, Gears 5 is way better story and character-wise, more memorable, more varied in terms of gameplay, environments, combat, various gameplay scenarios, scripted events etc. etc. etc. Visually it is also way better looking game overall and threre's native PC version which was developed specifically with PC in mind, which can't be said about TCP.
Not hard to have more varied gameplay than callisto even for a game with an old ass formula like gears, in callisto it feels like your are fighting the same enemy type from beginning to end and the boss fights are horse crap.

Not sure about better story\characters, in callisto they are bland and deep as a puddle but the new group from gears 4 is pretty trash all around, both games are bottom of the barrel characters wise tbh.

Graphic wise i think callisto kinda smash gears 5 on the ground with ease tbh.
 

Tomeru

Member
I really enjoyed this, me. Played on PS5 and finished last weekend. A couple of bits were pretty tough but I enjoyed the ambience and the visual influence of Prometheus/Alien Covenant. It felt quite polished on console, lighting in particular was great. I think it's possibly the only effective example of strobe lighting I've seen in game.
I loved it too. The way it opens up on environmental story telling was a great experience. Im hoping for a 2nd game, but cant tell with how divisive the game is with people.

The alien and parasite eve vibes were spot on though 👌
 
I really enjoyed this, me. Played on PS5 and finished last weekend. A couple of bits were pretty tough but I enjoyed the ambience and the visual influence of Prometheus/Alien Covenant. It felt quite polished on console, lighting in particular was great. I think it's possibly the only effective example of strobe lighting I've seen in game.
To me it could also fit very well in CoD: Infinite Warfare universe too. Especially because Callisto is next to Europa, the planet that Infinite Warfare starts on.
 

Con-Z-epT

Live from NeoGAF, it's Friday Night!
Finished my second playthrough and got the platinum trophy.

Although i played on maximum security it felt so much easier than my initial run on normal. Where i struggled a bit before, i now knew exactly what the most efficient solution to any fight would be. All bosses on my first try.

I used one health injector to check the new and faster healing animation and sold every single one after that. I also sold an insane amount of ammo. With that i was able to max out both the baton and the GRP. I also got the pistol, the shotgun and the rifle to the penultimate upgrade.

Honestly i would go for a third run if New Game + would be available but i think i will stop now until we get some DLC.
 

R6Rider

Gold Member
To me it could also fit very well in CoD: Infinite Warfare universe too. Especially because Callisto is next to Europa, the planet that Infinite Warfare starts on.
Europa is a moon of Jupiter, not a planet.

How Dare You Greta GIF
 

R6Rider

Gold Member
Finished my second playthrough and got the platinum trophy.

Although i played on maximum security it felt so much easier than my initial run on normal. Where i struggled a bit before, i now knew exactly what the most efficient solution to any fight would be. All bosses on my first try.

I used one health injector to check the new and faster healing animation and sold every single one after that. I also sold an insane amount of ammo. With that i was able to max out both the baton and the GRP. I also got the pistol, the shotgun and the rifle to the penultimate upgrade.

Honestly i would go for a third run if New Game + would be available but i think i will stop now until we get some DLC.
Did you prefire any of those tentacle head bastards this time? I managed a few the first time through, but generally was always looking at stupid things like the walls.
 

Con-Z-epT

Live from NeoGAF, it's Friday Night!
Did you prefire any of those tentacle head bastards this time? I managed a few the first time through, but generally was always looking at stupid things like the walls.
When going for one on one it's always melee only but for two or more the best approach is still melee with shots on the weak spots. Going for guns only requires much more ammo. To much i think.

Edit: You mean the blind ones? I'm a bit confused.
 
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R6Rider

Gold Member
When going for one on one it's always melee only but for two or more the best approach is still melee with shots on the weak spots. Going for guns only requires much more ammo. To much i think.

Edit: You mean the blind ones? I'm a bit confused.
Nah, those little sac things that shoot the long head things at you and latch on lol
 
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I didn't fought a single enemy. I only pulled them in with the GRP and then i threw them off the platform.

There is a checkpoint before and when you reload the containers always have different supplies. Make sure to stock up on batteries. And as already suggested you should upgrade the GRP a bit. Also try to aim high enough before you throw them.
Just beat that part thanks for the tips guys. I threw all the monsters off the platform with the grip, and ran counter clockwise around the boss popping off shots.
 

sncvsrtoip

Member
Main feature of game is top notch face graphics - maybe even the best (at least for main character). But other then that many faults like terrible hdr, its better to play on sdr but still far from good experience even on oled tv. Played in rt mode on ps5 and relfections very noisy, reflection in mirrors in hilarious quality. Combat is mediocre at best with terrible doge mechanic. Vairaty of enemis very low (you fight like 3 or 4 times with same "boss" and 2 times with same mechanic with other). Story as generic as you can imagine. But besieds so many flaws I enjoyed enough to play it to the end so at least pace wasn't that bad and there was good athmosphere. 7/10
 

raduque

Member
Okay then, please elaborate on what's so good about almost 100% linear design with very restrictive A to B paths, a ton of crawling and squeezing through and under walls and almost zero variety of memorable places to explore, events to experience etc.?

Imho, design of TCP shoots itself in the foot, preventing the game to be something great and special when it comes to more open, coherent and interconnected world design, combat / gameplay-wise. TCP is very good looking game, sure, there's also good and severely undercooked combat ideas, but unfortunately nothing more than that and it'll remain so cuz SD can't make it better, only tweak some stuff like they're doing now with patches. Story DLC can be better, but it'll be 1,5-2,5 hours long at best and won't be intergrated into the main game like it should be (see DC version of DX: Human Revolution).

The way I see it, Gears 5 is way better story and character-wise, more memorable, more varied in terms of gameplay, environments, combat, various gameplay scenarios, scripted events etc. etc. etc. Visually it is also way better looking game overall and threre's native PC version which was developed specifically with PC in mind, which can't be said about TCP.
We'll have to agree to disagree. I don't like Gears5. I like Callisto Protocol. I'm having fun with TCP, and I did not have fun with Gears5.
 

Umbral

Member
Main feature of game is top notch face graphics - maybe even the best (at least for main character). But other then that many faults like terrible hdr, its better to play on sdr but still far from good experience even on oled tv. Played in rt mode on ps5 and relfections very noisy, reflection in mirrors in hilarious quality. Combat is mediocre at best with terrible doge mechanic. Vairaty of enemis very low (you fight like 3 or 4 times with same "boss" and 2 times with same mechanic with other). Story as generic as you can imagine. But besieds so many flaws I enjoyed enough to play it to the end so at least pace wasn't that bad and there was good athmosphere. 7/10
I always saw him as a mini-boss. I think there’s really
just one boss in the game and that’s the Alpha at the end, which was not a good fight either.
I think everything else you said was valid though.
This game is hard as fuck in some places and i think the combat sucks. Not enjoying my playthrough
I found it hard initially but it’s an absolute breeze now. What are you getting snagged on? Maybe I can help.
 

Con-Z-epT

Live from NeoGAF, it's Friday Night!
Nah, those little sac things that shoot the long head things at you and latch on lol
Oh yeah, as long as you are able to shoot from a far. But many times the game forces you into one of these situations where you can't do anything.
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
Not hard to have more varied gameplay than callisto even for a game with an old ass formula like gears, in callisto it feels like your are fighting the same enemy type from beginning to end and the boss fights are horse crap.
Well, to be fair, you're not fighting the same enemy type the whole game in TCP, there's at least 4 unique ones - regular ass infected (not counting fat and armored ones), asid spitter, stealth ones and the ones that blow-up when they'll get closer to you. Completely agree with you on boss fights though. Gears 5 has the best feeling gunplay and combat than in all other games in the series combined.

Not sure about better story\characters, in callisto they are bland and deep as a puddle but the new group from gears 4 is pretty trash all around, both games are bottom of the barrel characters wise tbh.
I don't like Gears 4 at all, it's just as boring and ancient gunplay, design and gameplay-wise as the first one. The whole Kait's storyline though is way more interesting than anything in TCP - which is yeah, just bottom of the barrel Sci-Fi story (barely even exist and more like a teaser and not finished - Hey! Listen! Buy real ending in DLC next year!) from mediocre af Syfy channel show - I can't say the same about Kait's story in Gears 4-5.

Graphic wise i think callisto kinda smash gears 5 on the ground with ease tbh.
On a technical level and when it comes to quality of assets (though not all the time) and character models (mostly faces and facial animations), sure, but Gears 5 has way more variety when it comes to locations, art and art-design, while TCP has very samy looking hallways and coridors almost throughout the whole game with very little (if any) variety - even Dead Space had more variety back in 2008. In my book, what Gears 5 has is way more important than just better assets quality and character models. Also, Gears 5 is way better looking game now on PC with newly added visual features and tech and it does not run like shit in 4K maxed out, it uses my CPU like every AAA game should, it does not have stuttering issues, it's not using almost all VRAM and I can lock it to 40-45 FPS easily:
BldIJLT.jpg
 
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GymWolf

Member
Well, to be fair, you're not fighting the same enemy type the whole game in TCP, there's at least 4 unique ones - regular ass infected (not counting fat and armored ones), asid spitter, stealth ones and the ones that blow-up when they'll get closer to you. Completely agree with you on boss fights though. Gears 5 has the best feeling gunplay and combat than in all other games in the series combined.


I don't like Gears 4 at all, it's just as boring and ancient gunplay, design and gameplay-wise as the first one. The whole Kait's storyline though is way more interesting than anything in TCP - which is yeah, just bottom of the barrel Sci-Fi story (barely even exist and more like a teaser and not finished - Hey! Listen! Buy real ending in DLC next year!) from mediocre af Syfy channel show - I can't say the same about Kait's story in Gears 4-5.


On a technical level and when it comes to quality of assets (though not all the time) and character models (mostly faces and facial animations), sure, but Gears 5 has way more variety when it comes to locations, art and art-design, while TCP has very samy looking hallways and coridors almost throughout the whole game with very little (if any) variety - even Dead Space had more variety back in 2008. In my book, what Gears 5 has is way more important than just better assets quality and character models. Also, Gears 5 is way better looking game now on PC with newly added visual features and tech and it does not run like shit in 4K maxed out, it uses my CPU like every AAA game should, it does not have stuttering issues, it's not using almost all VRAM and I can lock it to 40-45 FPS easily:
BldIJLT.jpg
I don't agree on everything, but we can agree that gears 5 is a better game, and i bailed out from gears 5 after 2 acts, this show how much i liked callisto:lollipop_grinning_sweat:
 

kittoo

Cretinously credulous
Does anyone know how to disable dead zone on PC controller in this game? I am using a Xbox controller and this game controls terribly. Feels like running at 20fps even though I am at 60.

Or do I need to do something else for this game to control properly?
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Alright, bit late but I'm finally playing this.

At chapter 3.

+ The character rendering and faces look incredible
+ In an ideal world Jacob could just be Isaac and this could be Dead Space 4 :(
+ I like that this is basically like Condemned Criminal Origins in combat and not a shooter

- Everything feels so slow, slow movement, animation priority etc. This is definitely a 'game play on low priority versus visual flare' kind of game.
 

kittoo

Cretinously credulous
Finished it over the weekend. This game...well...it sucks. And not because of the concept. It has the foundation down. The idea is intriguing, the atmosphere is there, the graphics are great, the acting and production values seem very good. Its the complete technical and game-design clusterfuck that kill this game.

I was playing on PC and not only the performance is dogshit (on a 3080), but it also had multiple crashes. Initially it kept crashing every 2 minutes until I disabled ray-tracing. Then it would completely crash my PC every half an hour or so. There are also small things like you cant change graphics settings while in game (have to go back to main menu), the controller support is iffy (cant navigate menus properly with it, some presses wont register during menu etc.). Lost my progress so many times. That brings me to the checkpoint system. Who was the idiot who designed that? Checkpoints where I have to do the most boring and menial of tasks again and again?

And finally, the gameplay. It baffles me- the choices they made regarding this. This game should be called vents and endless waves of enemies. On top of it the movement and actions are super-slow so that doesnt gel with vents and hordes of enemies at all. The arena designs are frustrating. It locks you with an enemy whom you have to constantly dodge or it will one-shot you, but then also fills the room with tens of obstacles which only restrict your movement and dodging ability. Why? At least give me space to maneuver! Or it will have an enemy that you can only kill with bullets, but no option of retrieving more bullets if the scarce ones you have run out! Making it impossible to kill the boss!

Its like someone gave a group of developers a lot of money, but while the developers were certainly passionate and had a cool idea, they werent really upto the mark in technical terms and as the development progressed reality hit and the ideas had to be constrained and diluted and what remained was an average game marred by technical issues.

This game is AAA in certain aspects and A in certain others. Nowhere close to the AAAA they were claiming it to be. To be fair, there are a couple of levels in mid-game where things somehow come together and its a really good game during those couple of hours. The rest is a frustrating mess of missed opportunities and technical incompetence.
 
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Hugare

Member
Aye man why didn't they call it the Vent Protocol, so many vents in chapter 3 and 4 :messenger_tears_of_joy:
I was much more bothered by GOW Ragnarok tight spaces, tbh

There are a lot of vents in Callisto, but I was on edge most of the time. There are a bunch of unique animations, enemies crawling in front of you, dragging bodies and etc. In one instance one of them even tries to grab you.

Not to mention that this is a 8h-9h game. In GOW you do this for almost 30h.

Its ridiculous. And yet thats a 95 MC game, somehow.
 
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I just finished it and it was a huge dissapointment for me. I'm a horror (game) fan in general and I love Dead Space 1 and 2 but this didn't do it for me.
The focus on melee combat was a bummer and the enviroments were just so boring.
I don't know what I'm missing here but the graphics were just avarage at best. Sure the face of the protagonist was very well done but all the rest... The enviroments were also dull, everything was dark or brown or a combination of both. There was no color in the game.
Played on PS5 and there were a lot of performance drops and pop-in of objects and shadows.
Such a shame, the reveal trailer looked so good...
6/10
 

winjer

Gold Member
I couldn't finish the game and gave up after 2.5 hours.
Gameplay is mediocre, with terrible combat system, all those sequences forcing the player to slowly go through vents and tight spaces, bad level design, and one of the worst checkpoint save systems I've found in a game.
It's clear they only put effort into the graphics and presentation, and gameplay was a mere afterthought.

Not the worst game of the year, but probably the biggest disappointment.
 

GenericUser

Member
I couldn't finish the game and gave up after 2.5 hours.
Gameplay is mediocre, with terrible combat system, all those sequences forcing the player to slowly go through vents and tight spaces, bad level design, and one of the worst checkpoint save systems I've found in a game.
It's clear they only put effort into the graphics and presentation, and gameplay was a mere afterthought.

Not the worst game of the year, but probably the biggest disappointment.
bummer. I love survival horror games and I wanted to pick this up at a 20 bucks price tag.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
The quality of the materials, characters etc is INCREDIBLE.

But damn if the game isn't fun to play ...

They have the tech down incredibly, hopefully the next game is better in the 'game' department as well.
 
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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Does this game have bugged achievements/trophies ?

I've been dodging enemies left and right (including the ones which look like they incur a tiny slo mo) but I still haven't unlocked the one that asks you to perfect dodge 5 enemies.
 
I couldn't finish the game and gave up after 2.5 hours.
Gameplay is mediocre, with terrible combat system, all those sequences forcing the player to slowly go through vents and tight spaces, bad level design, and one of the worst checkpoint save systems I've found in a game.
It's clear they only put effort into the graphics and presentation, and gameplay was a mere afterthought.

Not the worst game of the year, but probably the biggest disappointment.
It feels like a game made by people inspired by dead space. And a not a game made by the people that made dead space. Many times I wondered if this was their first game. lol
And yeah, the checkpoint system is awful.

I still think it's worth a playthrough. But not at full price.
 

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
Angry joe review


We generally roll our eyes at most of Joe's complaints which is usually down to him not actually being any good at said game as evident in his videos.
I don't know why you would think this would be any different.
His mentality matches the mentality of the people with the complaints.
 

winjer

Gold Member
The quality of the materials, characters etc is INCREDIBLE.

But damn if the game isn't fun to play ...

They have the tech down incredibly, hopefully the next game is better in the 'game' department as well.

This game feels like it was made by a team of artist, who have seen videos of games, but never played anything.
So they know how to make great graphics but have no concept of what makes a game fun to play.
 

Dynomite

Member
Literally just finished this game. Great graphics, mediocre everything else. I started forcing myself to finish around Chapter 3. I was hoping the story would pay off with a great twist or something like in Dead Space to make it all worth it. It didn't and I should have just dropped this game.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Motherfuckers, they could not have made a worse "WAIT FOR THE DLC GUYS" ending if they wanted to lol.

Fuck, man. This game had potential. The tech is fantastic. The actual game part is a big let down.

Callisto Protocol 2 should hopefully be fantastic.
 

rofif

Banned
Motherfuckers, they could not have made a worse "WAIT FOR THE DLC GUYS" ending if they wanted to lol.

Fuck, man. This game had potential. The tech is fantastic. The actual game part is a big let down.

Callisto Protocol 2 should hopefully be fantastic.
Seriously. I got so offended by this game, especially the ending lol.
Like if they slapped me in the face
 
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