Me:
extremely excited for The Calypso protocol
Also me:
sees the reviews
Excuse me I was almost feeling something resembling joy nowadays
I wanted to pre-order it, and Im a "never pre-order" type of guy. But my rational brain held me back and thank fuck for that.
Im not even mad at its technical issues because those CAN be fixed with enough time and patches (but I want to make it clear I hate that shit as much as the next guy and they should be ashamed of themselves), but the issue is on the gameplay...wow...how can you fuck up a survival horror game this badly? You gotta literally Punch-Out them to death with the gunplay feeling like a secondary when in Dead Space (and in nearly every S.H game), the guns are literally what is fucking keeping you alive because once these abominations get near you, its usually death or at least a good chunk of your HP being gone.
But in TCP, thats the gameplay loop. Getting close to the enemies and fucking beating them to death with melee weapons with guns being used once or twice.
I guess I wouldnt mind that so much if this game didnt constantly advertise itself as the "new dead space" (Im starting to notice a patern here with these "spiritual successor made by the 'same people' that made X successful turning out to be disappointments at best). If it was its own thing, it was not good but at least it wasnt banking on a pre existing property to get people to buy it. Its fucking dishonest.
So based on the new gameplay showcase im actually pretty excited for what they are doing for the new one.
Apparently they are going to turn it into a metrovania where you can explore the whole ship at anytime. There will be more survivors and side quests to interact with. You'll get "pick your poison" options where you can restore power to rooms but have to choose between oxygen in total darkness or lights with no oxygen. Issac wont be a chatterbox and his lines will change to reflect how hurt or stressed he is. I also like how the Stasis power has been made a lot less of a game breaker, ive seen it fail to work a couple times.
They also mentioned tying the story more into the sequels, which greatly allays my fear they'll kill Issac off.
My issue is with that is, assuming this works (and honestly after seeing T.C.P failing, it will no doubt be a big sale boost), will they remake 2 and eventually 3? Or go in a different direction? I wouldnt want them to kill Isaac off, its ultimately HIS story but I wonder if we will return to Titan Station or if they will possibly even change the origin of the markers (the brethren moons felt like they worked better in concept than execution).
To me? Not remotely. To be spooky I actually have to give a shit about whats happening. One of the spookiest things in Dead Space 2 for example is during the initial outbreak, you can hear shit going on in the residential area and are given rather strong clues that a bunch of kids are getting massacred and there isnt jack you can do about it. Calisto is: 'Boo I'm a scary monster. Heh heh but you didn't expect me to pop out here.'
This, DS 2 really made you feel this was an outbreak. In DS 1, you saw the aftermath of one, in DS 2, you got the honour of seeing it happen in the middle of it. Citizens running for their lives. Some getting massacrated, others committing ritualistic suicide (or simply because they would rather die quickly and painless compared to what the necros would do to them). Mad laughter coming from closed doors you cant open and among many many other hints at horrible shit happening to which Clarke cant do anything to stop it, merely focus on saving himself.
It added to the sheer horror and helplessness, these people are dying, you are probably the most "capable" of dealing with these necros and its still is far from enough to do any sort of difference.
It reminds Clarke he couldnt save anyone, especially Nicole.
TCP has no sense of horror and powerlessness to what is happening.
Kinda hard to be spook when you can just beat everything to death with your stick.
There is a reason why fighting necros head on was usually suicide, they are very fast and brutal. They have sharp bladed arms that can stab and slice you into pieces in just a couple of swings. Thats why the game and lore made it clear that you gotta take them from a distance and "CUT THEIR LIMBS", it was to harm them effectively and stop them from being able to close the distance between you and them so quickly.
