1Upsmanship: Callisto Protocol (Feat. Tom Reimann)

Stranded in a cold, dark, and surprisingly poop-covered future, our 1upsmanship crew battles its way through Callisto Protocol. Joined by longtime colleague and friend Tom Reimann (Gamefully Unemployed) our heroes debate whether this game got unfairly maligned and whether there’s ever truly enough spike-covered walls. They answer key questions like do we really need this particular white male protagonist? How does Callisto Protocol stack up to its obvious predecessor Dead Space? And will anybody ever bring Adam the space cowboy he so desperately desires? Listen and find out!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh, nothing. You should know. I thought of you immediately

(00:26):
when I was playing this game. I was like, this
is this is some Tom shit, if ever there was
Tom shit, it's this one. Why what about it? Well, okay,
I'll tell you a few thinks, Like so one of
them is that HI know you love Dead Space. It's
always the show. You never know when the show starts here,

(00:46):
you can never tell, You can never tell. Welcome to
one OPSD Ship. This is Adam Ganzier, one of your hosts.
Mike is out today, but joining us the most qualified
person I can imagine guest co hosting this episode. Introduce yourself, Sir,
I'm tom My name. Now you are? That's my name?

(01:06):
Sure you are. So I'm gonna tell you why I
thought of you. So, first of all, I know, like
you're the dead Space guy, Like that's your like to me,
like you're that guy. But also, uh, there was something
about the way, like the sort of tone of this
that I just kind of thought you would super dig. Yeah,
like the sort of the low, the low simmering vibe

(01:28):
of this game Colosto protocol that I thought you would
super dig. Was I totally wrong about that? No, you
were totally right, yeah. Yeah. I've played through this game
two and a half times, and I'm just shit. Every
time I play through it, I'm just vibing the hell out.
I'm just like yeah, yeah, like cruising on a crunchy groove.

(01:51):
It is a crunchy game too. It is very crunchy.
That is one of the top words I would use
to describe it. Yeah, somehow. Also, squishy is another top word.
It's a little breaky. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, little,
a little snappy. Yeah, this thing's not You're you're not
gonna come out clean from this episode, ship Heads, Like

(02:12):
you're gonna get a little dirty in this one, because
you're gonna be climbing through some viscera. You're gonna be stained.
There's a lot of poop. There is a much more
poop than you may expect when you first boot the
game up. I'm gonna go ahead and say much more
than I needed. They still delivered. Yeah, they delivered the poop.

(02:33):
They delivered it. There's an amount I needed there. Like,
we're gonna double that minute we go right past, We're
not even gonna look at it. We're just gonna zoom
right by that. Like we're like we're a truck blasting
by a way station. We're gonna hurl you spike first
right into all that poop, actually right right into it.
So okay, Well, if you haven't if you haven't read

(02:56):
the title or listened to any words we've said so far,
today's episode of One Optionship is going to be about,
I think the largely mixed reviewed game Callisto Protocol, which
was released in December of twenty twenty two. Uh just
there were mixed vibes on this game critically. I don't
want to get too far ahead, but that feel like

(03:17):
that's true? Yeah, well, I mean I'm gonna let you
do the auspicious honor of doing the tell me like
imt bit part. So actually, let's just pass our first
checkpoint and jump right into that. Time to feel up
to that, Adam, I can't wait. I've been waiting, and
I've been waiting all day to tell you like you're
eight months. We've been waiting for the months to throw

(03:41):
this in your face. You ate fool, hurl away, sir. Okay,
So Callisto Protocol. You play a it's it's in the
distant future. I forget what you're exactly. You play a
guy named Jacob, who's like, you know, a freelance uh
cargo spaceship flyer um and Reese. He's been flying missions

(04:01):
to and from two moons of Jupiter. One of them
is I Forget, but there's like a city on it,
and you know, like a normal futuristic blade to interspace city.
On the other moon, Callisto is a prison planet and
on a job there, he gets ambushed sort of. They
get boarded by the leader of this quote unquote terrorist

(04:22):
organization and the ship crashes back down in Callisto. She
gets taken into custody, but so does your character Jacob,
and he's thrown in the middle of this mystery. As
as he's thrown into this prison, some huge breakout happens.
You're not sure what's going on, but all of a sudden,
there's chaos all through the prison. There's monsters all about

(04:44):
Boogins and Boggins crawling him to the floor and ceiling,
and you have to make your way through this prison,
try to escape and get off the planet, and also
try to uncover the mystery of what's going on on
this prison. And that's that's pretty much it. That's pretty
mu shit. Yeah, I totally agree, I should. I should
describe what the game is, right, Oh yeah, that would

(05:06):
be Sorry, I forgot exactly. I just gave you a
plot description. It's a third person action game kind of
survival horrory made by the one of the lead creative
director of the original Dead Space, glenscoe Field. So it
has a whole lot in common with Dead Space. It
shares a lot of the same DNA controls, largely the
same except for the new edition of this melee system,

(05:29):
a lot of the fighting you do in the game
as opposed to there's not very many weapons. There's only
about four or five guns. You do most of your
fighting with this big old stick, this stunt baton, and
you get to do cool combos and standard kind of
survival horror stuff. You start out pretty bleak and pretty desperate,
and you get powered up as the game goes on,
and you can do multiple playthroughs. Like a lot of

(05:51):
other survivor horror, survival horror games tend to sort of
play around in the speed running space, so there's like
a reward for you to continue playing this game over
and over again, so you get more unlocks and really
go ham on some of these monsters. Yeah, I can
see that that makes perfect sense. That was beautifully done.

(06:12):
Thank you, absolutely, just what a gorgeous confused and rambling,
but I'm glad. I no, it was gorgeous. It was intact.
It was not a ship monster, though there will be
many of those display for us today. So I'm going
to pass our next checkpoint, which means it's time for
us to get into the hot takes that we are

(06:34):
each going to give about how we feel about this game. Um,
I'll tell you right up top really quick before I
even give mine. Mike hated this game. Mike and I
were completely talking about it, which is why I wanted
to do this episode when he wasn't here, so that
you and I can have talk about the game without
that anicious pain. I knew he hated it, yeah it,

(06:57):
he hated this game. Yeah, So I'm cheating them the
way that I often do. So when when the when
the cats away, the mice will play. That's what they
will That's the first game they'll play. Yeah, that's the
first thing there. Their little mice hands will pull off
the shelf. It'll blow their fucking mice brains out. They

(07:18):
gotta stand on each other. It's my shoulders to put
the disk in this story. I'm like, in the story
we're pitching here, Yeah, okay, player one Adam Ganzer plug
it in. Okay. So I just want to say this
game got a sixty nine on Metacritic, like meaning that's
that's the the collective consensus, and the game itself often

(07:40):
feels to me like like they were sort of desperate
to get it out before the Dead Space remake came out. Um,
just because there are pieces of it to feel a
little bit rushed. I'm sure that it couldn't be that uh,
it couldn't be that granular of a problem that they
knew for sure the Dead Space remake was coming out,
But it does like there's there were little pieces of

(08:01):
polish that we're missing. I thought this game was underrated
by people who like by the critical consensus. I thought
it was actually pretty fun. I do not think it's great,
in part because I don't think it is innovating anything,
but I do think it takes some fun risks. One
of those risks is it decided to include Mike Tyson's

(08:24):
punch Out as it's like feature combat Loop, which is
m I'm gonna go ahead and say a pretty ballsy swing.
It really is. It's a ballsy swing, and it's kind
of fun for a little while. The problem with this
is that it wears a little thin, and after a
bit you start to think about what you're doing because

(08:45):
it's a little bit thin and you feel the silliness
of it. So it kind of ends up undermining the
vibe of the game, at least for me. I'm sure
there's some people who would never have that problem. But
you know, after eight hours of like bobbing and we even,
like Mike Tyson something from these you know, it's like

(09:06):
or soda poppin ski or something like. It's like, I mean,
I'm glad these aren't racist monsters I'm killing. But also
there's a little stupid you know what I mean, Uh,
it's a little stupid. So it just makes you a
little bit aware of that. Um the storytelling. I think
the story here wasn't bad, but the problem is that
they condensed almost all of it into the third act,

(09:27):
so like, we really didn't get a lot of story
here for a very long time. We got sort of
mystery box horse shit and needless conflict. That was for
about six hours of the game where we're not really
coming into a clearer view of what is actually going
on in this place, like why are there monsters? Why
did they let the monsters out in the prison. Like

(09:47):
these kind of questions don't get answered until about six
seven hours into the into the narrative time of an
eight hour game, and I just think that's a mistake.
I think that we needed the mid point of the
game basically to kind of have the premise of it
more clear than it is. Um. But that said, I
don't think we're in the four spoken territory where the

(10:09):
plot is really really dumb and bad. I think we're
in the territory where like it's just not very artfully done, um,
and so it's not impactful. I think that's the key
problem here. Vibe wise, this game couldn't be more of
a gans game, like like give me the squishes, man,
give me give me these a dusty yeah, pour some

(10:30):
squishes on me, my dudes. Uh, it's super viby, man.
And like if you want to, like if you want
to play Dead Space again, but you've played Dead Space
again and you're like, man, I wish there was more
of it. This is gonna hit scratch that itch, you know, like, uh,
I don't I miss some of the creativity of dead Space,
Like I don't think the puzzling is here, really, I
don't think the weapons are as interesting as they were

(10:53):
in dead Space for me, Like, you know, the collection
of guns are pretty whatever, um, and the leveling up
as a little bit punitive, Like you never you don't
make a lot of meaningful leveling up decisions, I would
say for a pretty long time. So like, I know
that sounds like a lot of negative stuff, but that's like,
I really think that's the harshest critique you can level

(11:14):
at it. Otherwise, it's a pretty fun game, you Like,
it's pretty fun, like hurling a ship monster into a
spiky wall of which there are perhaps infinite spent throughout
this fun it stays fun the whole time. If you
don't like doing that, why did you buy this game?
If you do like doing that, congratulations, you've purchased the

(11:34):
correct game. That's my rant. Nice rant, well done, thank you,
well thank you. Okay, okay, player too, tom Ryman plugging
in here, Okay, get this beat beat boots in there. Um.
I also think this game is really fun. I'm a
huge dead Space fan, which if you've been listening to
the show for a while, you probably know that. Um,

(11:55):
and I just I like the core gameplayer this. I
thought the Melee edition was pretty cool. It took a
little bit getting used to. At first, it was it
threw me off for a little bit. Um. But as
you get into it, and especially as you start unlocking
some of the upgrades for the stun baton where you
can get, for example, one that if the monster tries

(12:15):
to block your swing, you'll just break their arm. That
is so satisfying. Oh yeah, you've got the Canesis grab
like you do in Dead Space. They call it a
grip in this game, where you can pick up the
boogins and throw them at all sorts of ship that
is no business being in a prison like so many
giant fans, so many spike walls. Um, there's a giant

(12:36):
harvester in one level yep ye where it's like grinding
up trees to create the atmosphere. I guess, um, you
and you you bet your sweet little space cheeks you
can throw monsters into that thing. I thought the just
the general gameplay, uh is super fun. Um, It's very satisfying.
It's very visceral. This is an incredible looking game, one

(13:00):
of the best looking games I've ever played. The level
of detail and resolution on specifically the environments are it's
so finely detailed, so it really it really helps with
that vibe. This like kind of spooky simmerin, kind of
grim kind of grimy vibe, like a grimy sci fi
horror vibe that I really dig. I agree that the

(13:23):
guns are not anywhere near as interesting as they are
in Dead Space. I don't mind that as much. There's
a mechanic with the guns that got a lot of
heat when this game came out, where it's when you
switch weapons. The conceit is your character Jacob. He has

(13:44):
basically two frames and you three D print guns to
put onto those frames. So every time you change a weapon,
you have to take apart the frame and put the
new gun onto it. So it takes a little bit.
It takes a couple of seconds, like not a couple
of seconds. It takes maybe like a second or two
to switch your weapon, which is an eternity if you're
in the middle of a fight. Now, the game got
a lot of heat for that, but I think that's

(14:06):
a deliberate I mean, obviously it's a deliberate choice. They
programmed it in there, and it's sort of on its face,
it seems like counterintuitive to like quality of life for gamers. Obviously,
you want to be able to switch your weapons as
fast as you can, just you know, to make it
a more satisfying and more fair seeming gameplay system. However,

(14:26):
having it be designing the system so that you can't
really switch your weapons on the drop of a hat,
I think adds a whole lot to the immersion and
the vibes of it, because you're supposed to be trapped
in this horrible space prison with all these monsters, and
you can't really pull out your biggest gun whenever you
want to on the fly. You have to sort of
think a little bit ahead, and you can't really do

(14:48):
it in the middle of a huge fight, so you
have to kind of like pick your moments when you
want to do that. So I sort of compare it
to like how there's no real fast travel system in
like Red Dead Redemption too, and like traveling from one
place to another, and Red Dead takes a long time,
but that's on purpose because so much the game is
about the traversal. So I think it's a similar decision

(15:09):
in this game, where so much of what this game
is about the immersion and the vibes. So, like, I
think that's a great vibe choice and also doesn't matter
as much because you if an enemy gets into your
personal space, you just knock the Bejesus out of him
with your stunt baton. Related to the vibes, I love
the vibes of this game. We've said that word so
many times. Uh, the game is not scary at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

(15:32):
it really isn't. And I like in that to not
like in that. I credit a lot of that to
what you were saying about the melee system. I totally agree.
Like it's like, I don't care if a monster gets
close to me, because if he does, I'm going to
beat the shit out of him, just ruthlessly, mercilessly beat
his ass with a with a stunt baton like jose canseco. Um.

(15:55):
So it's not very scary, um, but I do. I
do love the vibe and I love the immersion. It's
also I'm a little I'm gonna come down a little
bit harder on the plot than than you. I totally agree.
I totally agree with it is it is very much backloaded,
where everything happens in the span of like ninety minutes
in the end of the game. UM. I also thought

(16:17):
that the plot, which is kind of it's it's very
extremely derivative of Dead Space. It's basically just dead Space again,
where not to not to spoil too much, but it's
it's the same idea of like this cult that's obsessed
with eternal life and they found this alien boogin thing
that they think will make them live forever, but really
it just turns everybody into burger monsters. Um and, which

(16:39):
is pretty much what Dead Space is about. Um So
it felt kind of derivative and a little like, oh,
he just kind of did the same thing. Like they
even call the enemy's biophages in this game, and in
Dead Space are called necrophages. Um So yeah, I was.
I was kind of let down by the plot. Um However,
I think the acting is really good. Uh specifically um

(17:03):
Josh dumal is as the main character, where you can
kind of tell he's just like when you get like
a movie star to be the lead. You know, he's
not a huge star, but he's been on a lot
of movies and a lot of big movies. Um, you
can just like he he just sells it a whole lot.
I don't really know how to describe it other than
you can tell that this is a person who's like

(17:23):
a little bit of a higher caliber than an actor
they might normally get to be the lead in a
game like this, So like, he really makes you feel
every gruesome death that you happen to stumble into. And
just like he really helps sell the the immersion and
and the vibe. And then obviously Karen Fukuhara from The

(17:43):
Boys is the leader of the terrorists and she's great. Um.
And then the bad guy is Sam Whitwer playing this
crazed captain of the Guards, and he he's not in
it that much, but he makes some bold choices with
his performance entertaining. Yeah, it is extremely entertaining. But yeah,

(18:06):
so all in all, you know, it's it's a little
jankie in some spots. Um, I not. I appreciate that
it's not very long. Like I said, this falls into
a category of game for me that I like to
play over and over again and try to speed run,
you know, like the original Resident Evils. You get a
rating based on how quickly you can beat it, and

(18:26):
that sort of extends into this game and in the
original Dead Space as well, which I've beaten multiple times.
And I've already beaten this game two and a half times,
so I'll probably play it a bunch more. I just
I dig the gameplay. I dig being in this universe,
even if the stories lackluster and there's some and it's
not very scary, Like the game doesn't scare me at all. Anyway,

(18:48):
rant Over loved it. Some good stuff for us to
talk about, because there are a couple like continuums of
when should this bother you that I kind of want
to talk about. Sure, uh, that's great, but let's save
those until the other side of the break. And so
grab your stun baton and you know, the piece of

(19:08):
the gun that you need to always have, that's right,
and uh, we'll we'll, we'll get all strapped up for
the bogans that are coming our way right after this.
Strap it on and we're back. Hey, are somehow I'm

(19:39):
not going to jab my gun this time? By how
many times did you screw up the gun switch because
of the system they create it, I still screw it up. Yeah, yes,
I still screw it up. Too. Uh, And it's actually
the first thing I want to talk about when we
pass our next checkpoint and get into a game on
where all opinions are welcome, though not equally good, and

(20:01):
all interruptions are tolerated. So I guess my first question
for you, sir. That sounds like a challenge. You know
how I do it. My first question for you, sir, is,
so you compared the gun system to Red Dead too, right? Yeah? Yeah,
and I get that comparison. It made intense and intense. Yes,

(20:22):
in intent, I agree, it makes sense. And in that game,
we forgave the inconvenience that it created by slowing down
our operation systems because we saw the intent. So why
do you think we didn't this time? Because I think
it's very clearly intentional too. I don't think that's a mistake.

(20:44):
You know, it's clearly intentional. Why do you think people
didn't forgive it this time? I'm not sure? Okay, I
think um, I'm honestly not sure. I think my immediate
guests would be the pay off is admittedly not as
rewarding like the experience of riding on your horse through

(21:05):
the world of Red Dead two is so cool and
so unforgettable. It's a great, great experience. You just it's
not the reward is not on the same level of
I can't switch my guns very fast, so therefore it
is scarier and a little more tense, like each firefight's
more tense. I just think it's it's more subtle. It's

(21:25):
not as loud of a thing, so it can feel
I think the intent can be missed because especially with
a game like this, where it is sort of like
a close up, kind of in your face action horror game,
people probably are used to that being kind of buttery smooth,
even though it comes from Resident Evil, which is notoriously

(21:46):
clunky on purpose the original ones. Anyway, that's right, So
I think I don't know, I think that's that probably
has something to do with it. It's it's a little
more subtle, it's not as it's not as rewarding. And
also I think people just you know, we're we're drinking
the Red Dead kool aid and wanted to you know,
just praise whatever. Yeah, whereas this game was already kind

(22:11):
of shaky out of the gate um. You know, it's
it's a brand new ip. It's not a very popular genre,
is that true? It seems like it should be a
popular genre. Yeah. You maybe maybe I'm talking out of
my ass. Yeah, but I feel like I feel let me,
let me, let me rephrase that it's a more it's

(22:32):
a more niche genre. M yeah, I see that that
makes sense. Like not like I think the horror turns
a lot of people off because the horror games are intense,
so people don't like that experience sometimes. So yeah, sometimes
with this game, I feel like, like in a macro sense,
there just weren't enough people rooting for it. Like I

(22:52):
feel like if people had been rooting for it, a
lot of the stuff that are complaints would have actually
in strengths, Like I think the gun thing is one
of those. And bear in mind, I'm sure if if
those old episodes of my stream exist, they probably don't,
but if they did, there's probably me being like, what
the fuck with the weapon thing? Right, Like I'm sure
that exists, right because it definitely frustrated me. But like,

(23:16):
I do think the intentionality of it makes sense, and
I think, I mean there's part of it to me
that like culturally, when there's a tech thing, like we
expect technology to always be sophisticated and smooth, Like that's
just like a weird cultural expectation we have, and this
game is creating tech that purposely frustrates you, so like

(23:36):
it's a little bit harder for us to mentally download
that that is true. So like, wait a minute, this
is a futuristic gun, but it sucks, Like why would
that be true? You know what I mean? Like, so
maybe that missed a little bit. And I think when
it's in a system like that, you know, like inventory management,
it becomes I think, Yeah, we've just gotten so trained

(23:57):
by games trying to you know, most like Triple A
or not even Triple A, but like popular mainstream games
try to make that quality of life for gamers as
smooth as possible. So I think that's that's part. There's
an expectation where we expect being able to just whip
out whatever we want in our inventory as easily as possible,

(24:17):
and when the game deliberately makes that kind of a
pain in the ass, were like, what the game's wrong? Yeah,
the game's wrong. See this game, I feel like, and
again I'm not defending, it's not a perfect game. It's
not dead Space, Like it's it's not dead space. Dead
Space is a classic, and I don't think this game is,
but I do feel like this game kind of couldn't
win because, like it did try to innovate in a

(24:38):
few very interesting ways, and like people kind of got
on their case for it. Like I think the melee
system is innovative, it's it's an attempt. I think this
gun idea is innovative, and there are a few other things.
But then to sort of counterbalance that they didn't innovate
on the story structure or frankly, the camera point of
view that like ninety percent of action games feel they

(25:00):
need to be resumeval for now for some reason, like
they they they didn't innovate in those areas, and they
got dinged for that too. And it's one of those
things where it's like, okay, so maybe they just made
all the wrong choices about where to innovate and where
not to innovate. But that is the kind of review
that seems like, so you just didn't want to like
this game, right, Like that's what it pulls down to.

(25:21):
If that's your opinion. You wait, you just didn't want
to like this game because you're not willing to give
it any license to be what it is. You know, Um,
I mean I don't. I'm not pushing back like against
anyone in particular. I just feel like, look, you know,
it's important to try to approach the game on the
terms it's setting out. And the terms that it's setting

(25:42):
out is we're trying to be in this lane. We're
clearly connecting to these other games that we know exist,
that you know exists, that we're all excited about, but
also do a couple new things and see if you
get into that. And our answer was no, right, that
seems I don't know, it seems a little unfair to me. Yeah,
it's sort of me if there's a there's a genre
of podcast or or articles that I don't necessarily care for,

(26:06):
where like the premises, let's drop someone in on the
fourth Harry Potter movie, uh, and then and they having
never seen or read any other Harry Potters and then
have them try to like experience in that way and
in very oh all the you know that's hanged together, Yeah, oh,
these fias names and stuff, and it's like, well, you're
not engaging the thing on its own terms, so like,

(26:28):
of course it's going to all be stupid, like what
So I think there might be an element of that
to it, for sure, Um, there are I was I
was gonna say that the controls, at least for there,
they're a little strange, for the for the inventory management,
like everything. The way the way that they've mapped things

(26:48):
to the dpad is a little counterintuitive. Um. And there's
not really there's no way to there's no like mission
log um, which is also a choice. Um. But there's
also no map again, which these are yeah, yeah, are
all deliberate choices. So it's not like which doesn't super

(27:10):
become much of a problem because the game is very linear.
There's a few levels that have interesting side paths you
can go on to get like a new weapon or
a new upgrade, or some crafting materials or some junk.
But it's pretty linear, so you don't really miss the
inclusion of a map. Um. But I don't think I did. Yeah,
I don't remember. I don't remember being like, what the fuck,

(27:30):
where's the map? I don't remember ever feeling like that
in this game. Yeah, I would have appreciated a mission
log or like a little bit more detailed I don't
know what are we doing right now? Right? Because yeah, yeah, exactly,
like I can sort of recalibrate and get my bearings
because you mentioned something before where it's like towards the
end of the game, you sort of like start really
thinking about what you're doing, just because it's it's repetitive

(27:52):
in a lot of ways. So like I'll be in
the midst of it, like, um, I don't feel that way,
Like I never got tired of beating up monsters, throwing
them into spikes, blast them apart, and shop like that,
but I do get so mired in it that I
forget what I'm doing. Yeah, kill and then kill them
all the story, and the story is so basic, it's
it's basically just it's so it's so it's kind of

(28:14):
embarrassingly video gaming where it's so predictable. Where you get
to a location, you meet a character, you immediately split
up with that character because they say you have to
go this will I have to go to this other location.
Happens like that happens like six or seven times in
the game. So I never really remembered what exactly I
was doing. In terms of the story, I'm like, wait,
why am I in the ship river? I thought I

(28:37):
was going to a train. Maybe you were. They also
have like the problem of like basically every narrative thing
they decide to do is like based on the o
Andi system, and you have to like learn what that is.
Like it's a lot of teaching you what the beats mean,
like like giving you a term or like a or
giving you like a lower explanation of like why this

(29:00):
beat matters. See, you never have like the visor, like, oh,
I see they need to get a cop like and
I know what that means. Like you never feel grounded
enough to care about the things they're doing, you know,
because it's all sci fi lower explanations and like that
stuff again, Like I think that people think it's cool
when it's on a spreadsheet, but in the experience of it,

(29:20):
you can't get your heart around it. You can't care
because you're too busy like learning acronyms and like trying
to figure out what it would mean if this group
of scientists was kicked out of the colony but lived
on the surface, like what you know what I mean,
Like just that kind of stuff you can't care about.
I also think the narrative has a huge problem that
contributed to that, which is it picked the wrong protagonist,

(29:42):
and by wrong protagonists, I don't mean that the character
that we play with is Josh. Is that his name?
I forgot his name. The character's name is Jacob, Jacob,
that's right, Jacob. It's not that he's bad. He's wonderfully performed.
As you said, he's wonderfully rendered. It's one of the
best looking captures of an actor's performance in any game.
Like it's kind of underrated for that. But this is

(30:04):
clearly Danny's story. Yes, it's her story. She's the one
with the stakes in it. And it really felt to
me like this is this is what people mean when
they say like, oh, you have to have the white
male protagonist. This is exactly the kind of like the
situation where they're point where people should point that out,
like we don't need this guy. He's clearly here to

(30:26):
like because you think it's going to get people interested
in the game more than if you picked this other
Asian woman to be the hero. But it's her story,
so like, let us see, we don't really ever learn
anything about Jacob. No, he's no, he's he's pretty much
just a blank slade. He's a proxy for the player.
The most we learn is that he knowingly smuggled some

(30:50):
bad shit for this company and that that's like a reveal,
but that's like the most we ever learned about, and
we learned way more about like his co pilot who
dies in the beginning too about him and get haunted
by his like by his unhinged jaw, the entire his
his blasted meat face. Oh my gosh, you know. Okay,
I mean hey, and look, I get it. It's a
horror game that doesn't bother that that I was gonna say,

(31:13):
that's an early moment that I really appreciated because it
happens within the first eight minutes of you playing, so
like right away the game is like, Okay, here's what
you're going to be seeing. Right. This is, by the way,
Like if anybody's like on the fence about whether to
play it or not, you need to like gore to
like this game. This game rebels in this era, Like
this is a Gorehound game for sure. Yeah, maybe the

(31:35):
most Gorehound game I've ever played. Uh. Next the PS
three reboot of Splatterhouse. I think Splatterhouse is actually sillier
than this game. It's it's silly, it is it's very silly.
It's intentionally silly, but like it it's gory beyond belief.
It's it's more like it's it's kind of more like

(31:57):
Peter Jackson's Dead Alive slash Brain Dead, whereas this is
this is more um something like a really gnarly Friday
the thirteenth or like uh, darker event Horizon, I think,
not not that dark, but like an Aliens movie like
that kind of gory, but more gory, more gory than that. Actually, yeah,

(32:21):
Eli Roth movie, Yeah, Roth, there you go. Now we're
in the zone. There, there we are. It's not scary,
as you said, but like it definitely thinks that you
like seeing brains, you know, are in like blood and gore.
Like if you don't like that, if if you're not
into it, this is just the wrong game for you,
you know. Yeah, it does to that point. It does

(32:41):
the same thing that Dead Space does where it sort
of rewards you when Jacob dies with like this extremely
graphic death scene the Dead Space. Yes it was infamous
for that as well. But yeah, so it's like you
get to see little fatalities basically when you die, well
so to return to the you're right, and and like
that's clearly like you know, soposed to that right, it's

(33:03):
clearly kind of this game's what this game's about. Yeah, right,
And maybe that's why they chose to have this sort
of this blank slate of a character that we're sort
of seeing the world through, uh, you know, because then
you don't get as upset about, you know, watching their
head get ripped off or whatever. I'd be pretty upset
watching Danny diet. I agree that would matter more so,

(33:26):
like they would have to tone down the gorefest if
they were going to tell a real story. And again,
and that tells you they don't really want to tell
a real story, you know, Like that's not that's not
really their goal here. And like the case and point
of that is the way the game ends. So like
I don't want to spoil every little detail of it,
but the one thing I will spoil is the very

(33:47):
very ending where we think that our Jacob is going
to die on Kalisto because they're basically doing a metroid
where the place is going to go up and explode,
and right is that it's about to happen. We get
a phone call from uh doctor mcguffin whose name slipped
out of my head, but doctor Maller. But mcguffin would

(34:09):
be more appropriate. Yeah, that's what she is. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
there's a winter exposition. There's a way off the base
said you can find it, and uh and like then
it cuts to a scare and like that's it. So
like clearly setting up a sequel when I feel like
killing him would have been actually more interesting. Am I wrong?

(34:29):
I might have liked that that might still happen. I
know there's a few planned DLCs, and one is going
to continue Jacob's story from the end of the game,
and the other's going to continue Danny's story from the
end of the game. So are you sure they're still
going to happen? You know? I am no, I am
not sure, okay, but I know that was the plan. Yeah, yeah,
because I like, I have to wonder if this game

(34:51):
is going to continue. It clearly thinks it's the beginning
of a franchise. Is certainly supposed to be, and I've
read I forget the exact number, but they had projected
some kind of some absurd sales figure for this game,
which was not realistic, and of course they didn't make it.
So I don't know if the DLC is going to happen.
That's a bomber. I mean, yeah, we haven't heard a
word about it. That's a little bit of a bomber. Also,

(35:14):
there's the possibility that the Dead Space remake just swallows
it up entirely, because the Dead Space remake, I think
is doing pretty well if I'm not mistaken, and I
would assume it would, but I looked it up, so
I don't know. They're very clearly going to do the
second one, like they're going to remake the second one.
If that's not already happening, I'd be shocked. And then

(35:35):
they I think we might just get new Dead Spaces,
you know, like we might get full on Dead Space reboot,
which I would be excited about for sure. Yeah, anyway,
that's not with this game, but just sort of the
game is clearly trying to jockey for position to be
the current version of that, and I think may have
missed its chance. Yes, so the Resident Evil four camera,

(36:00):
can we talk a little bit more about that? Do
you mind? So? I don't know why we think that's
such a great window to watch a game through, but
in a game where you get really really close to
your enemies the whole time, um, it's actually a problem
because you can't see enough. Like, did you have that experience?

(36:21):
I felt like I couldn't see enough to like grab
stuff sometimes not at all. I didn't have that problem.
Oh so this was it worked for you? Yeah, I
guess I'm just I don't know. Um, there may have
been a few moments where it was like I can't
I wish I could like see a little bit better,
But the camera was never an issue for me and
my interest. Interesting. Yeah, okay, well that might just be

(36:42):
my hinderance. I guess. Uh, like this is just my
complaint to game designers, Like how about a cowboy? Like,
give me a cowboy? You know, a cowboy is the
size of a shot where I see a little bit
of the thigh just enough to like, you know, see
the fucking I want a little cowboy in space. Yeah,
that's right, Like what I need to do, Just give me,
send me a tiny little space cowboy. So you didn't

(37:07):
get tired at all of the punch out. That worked
for you the whole time, Other than it getting a
little silly, Yeah, no, it gets really really satisfying the
more you upgrade. And I actually feel like the upgrades
you say you said they were punitive, and I agree,
but for a different reason. I don't think they're inconsequential.
But they are very expensive and you don't find a
lot of money in this game, so you really have

(37:30):
to hem and haw over which upgrades you want to get,
and it's not immediately obvious how useful each one will be.
I found each each one to be useful that I
got um, particularly with the stun baton. You get some
cool stuff with that, so I didn't get tired of
just wail tattoo and dudes with this with this bat

(37:51):
base an electric bat essentially, and it's great. Yeah, I
think my complaint about it would be that it's not
a very effective weapon when you first get it, and
it's the only weapon you get for a pretty for
a substantial amount of time. First level essentially, Yeah, I
think even longer, but it's like the first half hour

(38:12):
forty half hour, is that all much longer than I think? So,
and then you get I think, so it's like it's
like it's definitely within the first hour, but it is
a while that you and in fact, you won't even
get the stunt of time right away. You have a
worse version of it. You have just like weird pipe, right, yes, yeah,
And like I understand that that's grounded in the story

(38:33):
they're telling, Like look, you're an escaped prisoner, you know,
like they're not just gonna You're not just gonna find
a gun, like I get it, you know, like you
gotta just gonna John Matrix out of yourself, right, you know,
And Okay, I can accept that. Um, it's just that,
you know, uh, the Bogans are gross and they're super
groups and I want my pipe to work doesn't and

(38:57):
they're like god damn it. And you know, you just
feel like your glass Joe out here and he's there,
mister dream for a while. You know. It's just it's
it's really uh. And I think there's a there's a
certain cocktail that a game designer has to make for
you to feel like, wow, this is worth it, even
though it's hard. And I can see that they set
the bar a little high. So there's a lot of

(39:19):
people who are not going to say it's fun, Like,
you know, I don't. I don't. I would agree. I
don't think they always succeed in that balance. Yeah, Like
a lot of the problems with this game. I feel
like a couple of dials on a continuum would fix them.
Like giving us more money would fix this game. Um,
giving it like making the melee combat, like making you

(39:41):
a little better at killing the dudes with melee stuff
would make this game a little better. Uh, just a
couple of things like that. You know, like if there
was some kind of a dial, I feel like the
game would would have been like an eighty five for everybody. Right,
they have maybe they have patched two significant things. Uh
since the game released. One of them, they definitely patched

(40:03):
the amount of time it takes to switch your weapon. Yeah.
Oh interesting, So they that so many people complained about it. Yeah,
it's still it's still not instant. It still does take
a second or two, but it's not as slow as
it was, Okay. Um, And the other the other thing
is just a straight up quality of life thing, is
you can skip the Jacob's death scenes, um, if you've

(40:25):
seen them already, because there's that kind of Yeah, there's
a few that kind of go on for like eight
or nine seconds. You're like, all right, you're I get it,
Like right, I get it. Like murdering me yet again,
Yeah you win. You know, Like the game's really doing
Oulations game. But that is what you feel like end

(40:47):
Zone dance on right, It's like making a poster and
put your face on it, like I dunked on you fucker.
It's like I get it, you're the game. Congratulations. Sure
did oh look you ripped my face off again? Great?
So those are those are two significant changes that they
definitely patched. That is one of my favorite experiences in
video games, though, is getting mad at the game for

(41:09):
celebrating your death too much. Like that's the thing that
only exists in video games, and uh, it's I feel
like we all bond over it. That there's a guy
for one of the challenge pits in the latest Horizon game,
Forbidden West, where it's like he'll you kept losing. It
was you had to fight two guys at once and
they were cheap as hell, and when you would lose,

(41:30):
he would be like, try again, try harder. So after
like the third or fourth time, I'm sitting there scream
at this game. Fuck you. Yeah, that's right, that's right
at least, Like you know, I always like to use
elden Ring because elden Ring is like the gentlest version
of enemy triumphs over you. Uh, like at least they
take the monsters do a little dance and shit, right,

(41:52):
it's usually pretty anti claimactic, yeah in the Soul In
the Souls games, I mean, it's infuriating, but it's never like, yeah,
they're not doing the worm. Can you imagine like Millennium
fucking stabs you to death for the fifty eighth time
and then does like a little fucking pirouette and stuff.
You're like, oh man, oh fuck you bro. This game

(42:16):
is plenty. Like, I think it's also kind of the
fun of it. This game doesn't mind dancing on your
grave a little bit, you know, No, that's the point. Yes,
it's yeah, that's part of it. So um. The only
other gameplay thing that I wrote down that I definitely
wanted to go into some more detail about is the
weapon design in this game. And I don't I don't
mean the switching piece. I think it's strange that this

(42:37):
game's weapon choices were so limited, and I suspect that
the reason for that is ultimately that they wanted the
melee combat to be the primary experience. Like, yes, I
think that the designer believes and I can't say for sure,
but I think they believe this is a melee and
to a degree, telekinesis game Like you're you're in the

(42:58):
muck with with these guys. That's the goal, and these
guns are really here to give you a mild reprieve,
but not to replace that, right, Yeah, I think I
think that's definitely true. In point of fact, there's like
a combo system where you can wail on a guy
for a couple of hits and then like a little
radical will pop up on them, So if you press
the fire button quickly enough, you'll shoot them with your

(43:18):
gun for extra damage. So it does seem like the
guns were super designed to be supplemental to your your
your your beaten stick. I kind of think that, even
though I'm sure they've got a lot of negative feedback
and I don't know how they're going to internalize it.
I kind of feel like the instinct here should be chased.

(43:39):
Like I don't think they nailed it, Like, I don't
think they created a loop that is satisfying as a
new way to do melee combat that games can learn from.
I don't think that happened here. It could. It could
use a little more variety, for sure. Yeah, that's the
problem with it is there's no, it doesn't have a
strategic element to it. Um, it doesn't or it up. Yeah,

(43:59):
I mean again, like you know, the Souls Born games
are the ones that, for like Melee Combat, have created
so much variety with the very simple tools they give you.
And I think to really innovate in the way that
this game wants to, it needs to go more in
that direction where like the pacing and stuff is different
and the the inputs are slightly different, you know. Um,

(44:23):
but still but still good idea though, right, Like still
good idea. Um, they may need to like not give
you guns at all, you know what I mean, Like
they might have to go that far maybe like one
or two yeah, like just real you know, for for
you to whip out. Because there are a few enemies
in this game. There's like a sub boss and then

(44:46):
the final boss that you absolutely have to shoot absolutely right. Um,
there's there's this like two headed I think he's too it. Yeah,
he's two headed, a sort of sub boss character that
you fight a bunch where you you he if he
if he touches you, you I want to hit kills.
So you just have totch around him shoot him a
bunch of times. Until he drops to his knees and
then just beat the Christ out of him with your
bat and then repeat that twice. You can break both

(45:09):
of his heads. Yeah, there's one. They do work it
into some enemies. There's one particular outing that's very reminiscent
of the Giant Drill level. And I think it's dead
space too, where like you're you're fighting him in this
like big giant space where you're like, you know, trying
to fight off other dudes and stuff. Yeah, you're in
an elevator in this one. Yeah, but it was very reminiscent.

(45:30):
And that fight was the place I got stuck the
longest in this game. I think that was tough. Yeah,
it was tough. I got I honestly, I got stuck
on the end boss for the longest. Well. Well, it
was another difficulty spike. And that's the thing a lot
of games are doing. They're putting these final bosses where like,
now you need to learn a few new skills, and
it's like, no final boss should be should be the

(45:53):
combination of everything we learned. Yeah, it's the hero's journey, man.
It's like show me the new stuff you learned, show
me the old stuff you were always good at you know,
like it's hero's journey. Um, I think it is present
in this in this final boss fight, it's just not
immediately clear. I think that was my biggest issue. They
didn't they didn't lay it out enough, so it was

(46:16):
a little bit confusing. That's right. Yeah, I remember. I definitely,
I definitely spent the first I don't know hour getting
killed by this guy. Yeah, trying to figure out the
room and the exact sort of I mean, and that's
part of fighting a boss, but like trying to figure
out the room, trying to figure out the different phases
and exactly what I was supposed to do. Um, because

(46:37):
it was not the game does not make it clear
at all. This is still it is still a combination
of like shooting, hitting, throwing things with telekinesis, using little
exploding enemies on each other. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
It is. Maybe it's telling about how old we're getting,
but like an hour's a long time on a boss fight,

(46:57):
Like I just don't want to spend that amount of time,
you sure, Yeah, there are some exceptions where it's like
I get that that's what this game is, but like
I in general, I want the game to announce. Yeah,
it's like, I get it. That's the game always told
me that's what it was going to be, So all right,
fair enough, But I still get mad. Oh yeah, I
still get mad. I get I'm not sure if I

(47:18):
would get even matter if if they did little end
zone dances and the Elder Ring, like if Margaret the
fellowmen moon walked after killed me thrilled by the idea
of it, though it's such a good idea, Like, I
don't know if I would get more angry. I might,
I might be delighted by those little fucking magma worms
just like laying on their belly, like rubbing them like
they're having a good time. Yeah, fuck them anyway, this

(47:40):
is not an Elder Ring podcast, Chips, it sure does
a bag of ruby tummy tummy. The last, just the
last point I want to make about the weapons thing
is I think that part of the reason why people
didn't connect to the Melee, aside from the issues we said,
is that again they're kind of going against the cultural
xation that we have. So like when you give me

(48:02):
a gun in a game, and I have a bat already,
and then you give me a gun, I assume the
gun is going to be an improvement over the bat,
you know, and then every gun I get is going
to be better than the last gun I got, or
at least different, right, And in this case, I think
that they knowingly didn't do that. I think what they
did instead is like they wanted to spread out the

(48:23):
playing field enough that people could find a way to
enjoy the game if they weren't liking the main concept.
Like I think this is like sort of a hedging
their bets decision. And I mean, I don't know this,
this is my this is me philosophying a little bit
about it. But that's I think functionally what it became
because it didn't it didn't innovate on guns the way

(48:44):
Dead Space really did. Like Dead Space the first had
great ideas for weapons, you know, they were really fun
and they were story driven and they were interesting. And
this was like, nah, pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, you get it.
Basic stuff. And I'm guessing that that stuff's really only
me there to make it so that if you're not
loving the melee combat, there's another way to play the game,

(49:06):
you know, maybe yeah, yeah, And I would say they
might need to go all the way in if they
want this franchise to really distinguish itself, you know, they
might be cool more, more melee weapons too, different types.
That's right. They need Yes, they need to think broader
about what a melee weapon is, uh, and go all

(49:27):
the way in with this concept because otherwise I think
it's going to feel derivative and people are gonna pile on.
You know. I do like how gritty just a bat is. Yeah,
this game is the game is so grimy, but a
lot of games have a grimy bat, you know what
I mean? Like, this isn't the only ones true? Right
that I don't need to go to Kalisto in the
future to get a grimmy bat. You know, No, that's true.

(49:50):
I got one in my end right now, whisked four
hundred years. It's like you that's all I get. Yeah,
that's it. Anyway to recover from the shock of only
having a bat in the future, Tom and I are
going to spend all of our precious money on a nail,
putting that bat and come back and finish things up

(50:11):
on the other side of a couple of ads. See
you soon, and we're back, hopefully hopefully about the nail,
because I did not go to the chaos. Oh I
was putting all sorts of weird things on my bat.

(50:33):
Oh good, good, Then you can go first down this hallway.
Bottle caps, fish bottle caps. I guess they are kind
of sharp sand, a little bit of sand. Oh yeah, yeah,
some Tabasco sauce. You know that's texture pain. Yeah, yeah,
you're giving them texture pain. The texture is the thing
this game does better than I maybe any other game ever,

(50:54):
if I had to pick one word for sure, Yeah,
I think this is Like, like I said earlier, this
is one of the best, if not the best looking
games I've ever played. And when we say that, what
we mean is that like it's creating reality, Like this
place feels more real than basically any other video game
place I can think of. Like it's not the it's

(51:16):
not the best designed game visually, Like you know, Horizon
Forbidden West looms pretty large in that category. Um sure,
or you know Godawar Ragnarok, if that's your thing, whatever,
whatever version of that you like. This game chose to
be beautiful, yes, but to create an aesthetic that was
absolutely almost photographically rendered, and it's really well done, you know,

(51:40):
so well done to them. Yeah, I think it's time, Tom.
I think it's time that we pass that final checkpoint
and get right into keeper delete. Uh, you know you
have a full vote. You know you know you have
a tea here to the power. Yeah, you know I have.
I can I can stick this little key in here, Yeah,
you can. I just I'm just kind of rubbing it

(52:01):
around the edge right now. It's warmer than slide this key.
So what are you gonna do with this power? I mean,
I mean, honestly delete. It's like he said, like you said,
it's not a classic. It's I like it. Um. I
am glad that I owned this game. I will probably

(52:24):
play it through a few more times. If they make more,
I will play those games as well. But it's not
like you said, it's not dead Space. It's it exists
too much in dead Space's shadow. I think, yeah, yeah,
you've proven why you deserve the key, Tom, because you've
used it responsibly this day. I also am going to
delete this game. I think the reason, and I kind

(52:45):
of feel like we both knew that we would, But
I think the reason it deserved to be covered is
that it actually is a bit of an innovative game
in some ways, like it's super derivative in all the
ways that we said. But I respect any game that's
trying to do something on an interesting and new and
this game did do that. You know. Yeah, it's it's
super fun. Yeah it is. It's so it's so satisfying,

(53:08):
it is this game. Yeah, if you're a person that, like,
you know, loves practical effects, you know what I mean,
Like if you're if you're one of those those gore
hounds like that, you'll never find a game you like
better than this, Like it's right in there. Yeah for you.
You know, well, Tom, we loved having you. What a thrill.
Hey thanks, Yeah, man, I loved to be here. Yeah,
you've filled in admirably when we were micleish. Where can

(53:31):
we find and enjoy your content in the future, which
I know we all will want to do. Oh hey,
well listen. I co host and own a podcast network
with my buddy and former Crack co worker David Belton.
It's been on the show before. Oh yeah, um, Gamefully Unemployed.
You can check it out on Apple or or wherever

(53:51):
you get your podcasts. And also we have a Patreon,
Patreon dot com slash Gamefully Unemployed, where we have a
couple of exclusive podcasts. We do movie nights with our patrons.
You can uh commission your own podcast series about pretty
much whatever you want. We got a lot of cool
stuff over there. Um And we actually just started a
video game podcast called scream Play that's specifically about horror

(54:15):
video games. Is hosted by me and my brother um
and we covered this game but from a different angle
from the from the how scary is at angle basically,
So check all that stuff out. I want to be
on that. I want to you want, I want to
come on and scream into that podcast if if I'm
I'm sure, If I'm sure, I'd love to. Yeah, absolutely, anytime.

(54:37):
That'd be great. I love. Actually, horror games are I'm realizing,
like pretty high up in my list of game genres.
Like Yeah, I think one of one of the things
we sort of talk about in the show is a
horror is or rather video games is a great a
great um platform. Yeah, media, what am I thinking? Medium

(55:01):
for horror medium? There is a great medium for horror
because as you experience it, Yes, so the stuff that
doesn't seem as scary in a movie, like the simple
the simple fact of being chased by something not as
scary in a movie, But when you're playing a game
like the Resident Evil two remake, for example, or like
Alien Isolation, when you're completely powerless and this horrible monster

(55:22):
is chasing you down, it's scary. Yeah, Like a video
game can make that ridiculous asshole mister X from Resideval three,
the trench coated mutant into a legitimately terrifying experience the
whole time. Yeah you know this the gigantic basketball biker zombie.
Yeah with a noir trench Yeah. Yeah, I mean stupid looking,

(55:46):
fucking creature, but also legitimately terrifying. By the way, Tom,
Resideval like that might be one of my favorite video
game franchise. I'm starting to realize every time I go, yeah,
they're really good. It's like, you know what, this franchise
has been underrated at this point. Um, it's it's really good.
Um Anyway, Yeah, I was gonna say I think they

(56:08):
took too much of a hit for Resident Evil six.
Like a lot of people super didn't like that one.
Yeah okay, um, and yeah, like I this mean this
may just be me remembering it, but I feel like
a whole lot of people were super down on Resident
Evil after that sixth game came out, and yet the
seventh the one is a fucking home run, like the
seventh one is its great? Yeah, it's so good. Yeah,

(56:30):
even eight is very stupid, but it's but it's also
really good. Like anyway, Uh, Resident Resident Evil, maybe as
a series deserves a one obsmanship Like I like all
the games individually, and we could talk about them all individually,
and we probably will. But I also think once in
a while a series kind of deserves a conversation like
what does it mean? Um? And Resident Evil is important

(56:52):
in video games? Uh, for a lot of reasons. That's
neither here nor there. My friend, you were excellent as always.
I'm so glad. We let's talk about this. So were you, buddy,
Thank you, thank you. You can't hear that enough. We're
two excellent dudes. We are just the best. We would
have been the best Calisto protocols if it had been

(57:14):
in a space prison, had been the protocols. If it
had been us, we would have survived that space prison. Uh.
Let me get my cowboy hat in my tabasco bat.
I really do need a cowboy. Perhaps some designers listening
will sat my cowboy. In any case, see it next time.

(57:36):
Ship Heads on one upsmanship complete