Callisto Protocol: Helix Station Review

One of the best things about Halo 5: Guardians was the podcast that led up to the games release, Hunt The Truth. This was a 2 season, 19 episode podcast with each episode ranging from around 15-20 minutes. It featured Keegan Michael Key from Key and Peele fame and Cobie Smulders of How I Met Your Mother Fame in an extremely well acted conspiracy tale that served as a great marketing campaign that tied into the launch of the game.

I don’t remember too much about it but each episode kept me on the edge of my seat, and I remember learning about some planets being glassed over, bad things being covered up and the harsh reality of the spartan program and how it targeted youth coming from poverty. The point is what it did do was amplify my interest in the launch of Halo 5: Guardians because that is exactly what it was supposed to do because it was marketing on a different medium than we are used to.

What’s odd to me is that it hasn’t been done since to my knowledge, which is strange because it can’t cost much more to produce than another traditional marketing campaign featuring internet and tv ads.

The wait is finally over and I coudnt’t think of a better game to have a podcast tie-in than The Callisto Protocol. From what little story we have seen from the trailers of the game, there's plenty of lore to dig into with the huge universe as a playground. In this series we will be reviewing each episode of The Callisto Protocol: The Helix Station. Stay tuned for our review of Episode 1: The Proportion.

Episode 1 Review: The Proposition

Just like Hunt the Truth, Helix Station stars Gwendoline Christie of Game of Thrones and Micheal Ironside who you would likely know as Jester from Top Gun. Within minutes you can hear the quality of the acting. These two star as intergalactic bounty hunters or skip tracers with their first bounty setting the tone for the dark and gruesome nature of The Callisto Protocol universe.

They are quickly highjacked by a ship from the Black Iron Prison, which if you have been paying attention to the trailers, is where The Callisto Protocol takes place. From what they are told a terrorist named Lennox has escaped from Black Iron Prison and is now on the Helix Station, an abandoned space station that used to be inhabited but clearly has a dark past. It’s unclear but these two bounty hunters clearly have some expertise with Helix Station that is likely tied to what they are hiding about their past as well.

They are given an offer they can’t refuse or in better terms, blackmailed if they want to continue to be bounty hunters. Why is Lennox so important to Black Iron? What is Percy trying to forget about her past and what happened on Helix?

There is a lot that the listener can’t be sure of early on including if this escaped prisoner is truly the enemy and what happened on Helix Station. Without spoiling too much, this prequel podcast has done a great job of increasing interest in The Callisto Protocol, which is due out December 2 and the final episode of the Helix Station due out December 1.

The production quality it high, the story is intriguing and i’m very excited to see where the Helix Station goes from here.

9/10

Episode 2 Review: Shipwrecked

After establishing the characters in Episode one of The Helix Station, The Callisto Protocol Podcast gets off to a fast start with episode 2: Shipwrecked. Here is our review for the second episode of The Callisto Protocol podcast as it starts giving fans more information about what we are likely to expect when the release date for The Callisto Protocol happens on December 2.

We are immediately thrust into the action as we pick up where the space ship is on a crash course for the Helix Station. The crew is able to fly the ship just in time to land safely enough but it won’t be flying again anytime. Shortly after that we get to start peeling back the layers of psychological trauma that our protagonist, Percy is going through.

The theme of the episode is unraveling some of the things that we have seen in the trailers for The Callisto Protocol from the deadly security bots and how much of a threat they truly will be in the game to some rats that are clearly infected with the biophage that we have seen thus far. In both instances, we can see the harsh universe that Callisto will be set in.

If the eye scene from Dead Space 2 bothered you, be prepared for some more squeamish surgery if the podcast is any indication because during their exploration of the Helix Station, the team encounters who they think might be the fugitive they are looking for but the body can’t be identified so they have to retrieve the CORE which stands for Cranial Optical Recording Engine also known as neck implants, which allow you to playback what the person has seen.

The CORE also serves as a delivery device for more tension as watching playback on these devices is similar to found footage which always has a creepier undertone as the quality is low and it has a more authentic feel. The footage found on the core also starts to reveal what is happening on Black Iron Prison and why the person has escaped.

What we have seen from the trailers of the game are lots of action and gore sequences, which is great but if the first two episodes of the podcast are the canary in the coal mine of the story, it will be leaning heavy themes of psychological trauma and conspiracies

8/10

Episode 3 Review: Loss In Space

The deeper we get into The Helix Station, the harder it becomes to avoid spoilers. Episode three is definitely a character building episode, as we see the morals of most of our characters on display and pushed to their limits. With Percy at the forefront deciding to do the right thing even though it is going to cause her a lot more problems. We can also see Kane, show his loyalty yet again towards Percy just like he has in previous episodes, almost like a father figure.

On the other side of the coin, we learn about the darker motives that are driving our friends from Black Iron Prison towards their unethical decisions and what they are willing to do to accomplish what they set out to do. Not everyone from Black Iron Prison is on board with what needs to be done as we can start seeing the group dynamic possibly start to shift. Prendergast starts to show a different side of himself and it makes me wonder if redemption is going to be in his future.

After learning that the unidentifiable body from last episode wasn’t the fugitive they were looking for, things change in the blink of an eye and just like Percy, we learn that we are being kept in the dark about whats really going on. Even though our John Doe from last episode didn’t survive, we get other sources of information that start to reveal the truth about Black Iron Prison.

All of these story revelations have me very excited and interested about how The Helix Station is going to weave into The Callisto Protocol and how Josh Duhamels character Jacob Lee is going to fit into the universe.  There is still the large and looming question that seems like it adds up for his character to be the fugitive on the loose at the moment.

It also wouldn’t be The Callisto Protocol if we didn’t get another close encounter with the Biophage, except instead of a rat, this time we have some mutations to deal with. Loss in Space ends on a cliffhanger with the fate of almost everyone up in the air.

9/10

Episode 4: Severed

With what has become the standard for the Helix Station, we hit the ground running again. At the end of Episode 3, everyone’s fate was up in the air and we learn that Kane, the father figure and anchor for Percy didn’t survive the biophage attack. It’s now just Percy with her demons, juniper with what she knows about Black Iron Prison and Prendergast.

Prendergast is actually a bit of a wild card at this moment because near the end of last episode he began to question the motives of black iron prison. We still don’t definitively know where he stands and neither does Percy, but in the blink of an eye she must decide if she trusts him and reveal the location of Juniper.

After narrowly escaping the biophage, the odd squad agrees to form a truce for the time being. However, the group quickly learn that they are not alone on the helix station. There appears to be some form of settlers that have been badly affected by possible radiation and are referred to as gummers due to their lack of teeth among other missing things.

As expected things continue to go from bad to worse as a field operation within the group needs to take place and it is wince inducing from the level of detail and sound effects. This field operation also puts everyone at risk including Percy as it requires her painkillers which she has been using in every single episode to block her panic attacks and demons.

After many near death experiences, the remaining members realize that there is too much at risk if the biophage are able to get off the Helix Station and it sounds like they are going to be hatching a plan to keep this contagion from spreading beyond the Helix Station, possibly wiping out humanity. It’s unclear if they plan to blow up the Helix Station while still on it or go back and try to fight each one but this somehow ties into Percy and her haunted past. Outside of the field operation, this was one of the weaker episodes but was still entertaining for 20 minutes.

7/10

Episode 5: Old Ghosts

n the penultimate episode of Helix Station, we finally learn what has been haunting Percy for all of these years. What demons she has been carrying for decades and why she is addicted to escaping the trauma with self medication.

When Percy first began Skip Tracing, The Helix station was on its descent its “diamond in the dark” Utopia to a huge dystopian chunk of metal floating in space.  What was once thriving for working in the surrounding belt had become a place for squatters.  One of her first contracts saw Percy tracking down a radicalist who was dead set a proving a point against the capitalist UJC and blowing up the carpenter drive aka reactor along with the rest the Helix Station.

By the time Percy had tracked down her target, it was almost too late as she had strapped explosives to innocent women and children. What follows was Percy eventually having to decide what was best for the greater good. Unfortunately, Percy made some rash judgements and ultimately now lives with many what ifs. What if she just waited a few more seconds?

Once the past has finally been uncovered, Percy and Prendergast decide that they are going to use the explosives set by the radicalist to blow the Helix Station once and for all.  Once everything has been set into motion, the remaining three members will use the only ship possible of leaving the helix station that requires black iron prison biometrics and with Prendergast in his current state he is going to have to help the team in the command center, while Percy and Juniper go to the reactor core.

Old Ghosts feels like the episode that moved the story the least distance but had the most impact and has set up for very interesting finale. Will any of the remaining protagonists get off the helix station alive? Will Jacob Lee make an appearance?  And How will the podcast tie into the game?

8/10

Episode 6 and final thoughts

Episode 6 was pretty heavy on spoilers, so rather than do a review on the whole episode, ill just end with some overall thoughts of the full podcast. It was a very enjoyable ride, especially in the weekly release format, i’m not sure if it would have the same strength if it was binged. The production levels were high throughout, and the acting was mostly top notch with a few cringe worthy lines over the course of the six episodes. The pros outweighed the cons by a long margin.

My only major gripe with the podcast is that it didn’t really tie into the game as I wanted it to. I was very much hoping that Jacob would make a small appearance, but instead it just served as an explanation for how the outbreak started, which doesn’t get explained in the game too well. There could have been better synergy between the podcast in the game but it was a journey that I am glad happened. Hopefully, we don’t have to wait as long for another prequel podcast like the seven years between Hunt The Truth from Halo 5 and Helix Station.