Michael Meinhardt

I was going to give this 2 stars, until about midway through, there was a song so bad, I decided I couldn’t in good conscience give it anything more than that. There are two funny one-liners in the entire movie, some of the voice actors are downright horrible (the queen), the songs are terrible, etc, etc, etc. I thought Strange World was bad, but this is worse. Right from the get-go, the story and characters lack any believability. After buying it, we will likely never watch this again.

I really was looking forward to this game, and I can say, the visuals and sound are amazing! The atmosphere reminds me of playing Doom 3, which in terms of story and atmosphere, was the best of the series. Callisto Protocol (CP) is a spiritual return of Dead Space. However, past the initial experience, problems began to arise with CP: the limited inventory system was filled long before I had any way to sell items, the dodge mechanic, which many others have covered, and finally, the control scheme, especially trying to switch weapons when locked in a battle with multiple enemies you have to dodge or having the time to actually heal. These elements alone were such a big detractor that I rated the game lower than what I initially wanted to give it, which was 4 stars. The story is nonexistent as well - there is little depth added through the sound bites and personnel descriptions, the characters’ motivations seem shallow and facilitatory, and the general plot feels recycled. Things they could do to improve the game: - left button cycles through weapons instead of toggling - speed up health restore animation - add additional store kiosks - fix gravity aiming - add a dodge-to-roll button - add notes, diaries, etc that build up the “slow burn” dread and horror that games like SH4, RE1, and Doom 3 used. E.g. “my head is becoming fuzzy, I can’t escape my room, so-and-so is hearing things in the maintenance tunnel”

First off - it helps to have played Horizon: Zero Dawn. That sets a lot of the backstory, but it is not necessary. This is probably the most graphically beautiful game I’ve played to date. The attention to detail is amazing and quite smoothly rendered. This game is huge! The amount of side-quests available will easily make completion at over 200 hours. I’m at 80 hours, and there are large portions of the map I haven’t opened up yet. Most importantly, this game is just fun! I’ve read the criticisms of character development, boring side quests, etc, but I feel the majority of those cases are people rushing through. There is a lot here, and taking the time to appreciate all of the interactions and dialogue, it’s a vast improvement over the first game, and there is more depth given to NPCs. Finally, I have tried switching to Elden Ring, and found myself excited to switch back. Horizon Forbidden West is simply more fun to play.