Control is a game I should love. I’ve always been a huge fan of Remedy’s games, starting with Max Payne all these years ago. In my book, Alan Wake is an absolute masterpiece and even though Quantum Break wasn’t really my cup of tea, I still respect the hell out of Remedy for pushing the boundaries of the medium with this game. When I saw trailers and screenshots for Control, I was hyped. This seemed to be exactly my kind of game, being heavily inspired by Twin Peaks, SCP, and X-Files. All this with a Kafkaesque twist that shines through the game’s brutalist world and narrative. Having finished Control now, I am happy to say that the game pretty much fully convinced me with its writing in all aspects. Control has some of the most delightful characters, Remedy has ever created. Dr. Darling, Emily Pope, and Ahti in particular were among the most interesting, charming and just quirky NPCs I’ve ever come across in a Remedy game, or any game for that matter. The dialogue (or monologue) writing in general is really strong. I felt like each character had a weird and fascinating personality and backstory of their own and I loved coming back to each one of them and indulge in conversation. The same goes for the plot and worldbuilding, another strong suit of Remedy if you ask me. The Oldest House is a fantastic setting for a game, especially one with such a strong focus on mystery and the obscure. This house is a shifting place where time and space are distorted. One minute you walk down a regular office hallway and in the next you’re standing in the middle of a huge quarry that extends into the sky. It shouldn’t and wouldn’t make sense in any other video game, but in Control, the weirdness and absurdity of it all is the very allure of the game. Each section that you visit during your time in the Oldest House is enriched by deep and evocative lore that is presented by audio logs, video tapes, letters or just very intricate environmental storytelling. I loved exploring this place and reading up on the strange events and items that you learn more about as you progress through the story. Exploration and traversal in Control is fun, not only because the writing keeps you wanting to learn more about this place but also because movement itself is a treat. Running, dashing, and levitating through the various departments of the building never got me bored. Same goes for using telekinesis to smash objects into enemies. That shit never gets old. However, speaking of gameplay, this is where we have to address a wide range of issues I had with the game. For one, the game just feels so drawn out in places. Fighting wave after wave of enemies, that don’t come in a large variety, can become quite tedious. I felt that even though I used different weapons (or weapon mods) and abilities, most enemies were quite bullet-spongy. You do have a large variety of ways to deal with enemies, which is cool, but sometimes I felt like the game just actively discouraged me from playing the way I enjoyed the most. For instance, I loved using telekinesis to pick up items and just fling them right into the enemies’ faces. But then the game decides that some enemies just dash out of the way. I cannot express how frustrating it felt to pick up three items with telekinesis, which takes a bit of time, aim those items at an enemy and release them only to see that enemy perform a sneaky little step to the side and evade my attack entirely. In the later stages of the game, and especially in the DLC sections, this shit happens all.the.time. and it sucks major balls. Unfortunately, I cannot say anything more positive in regards to the game’s boss fights. I don’t think that Remedy has ever been particularly good with designing fun bosses but this game definitely takes the cake in terms of frustration and tedium. Now, this is naturally a very subjective assessment but for me, all bosses in Control felt super random. Typically, a fight would go something like this: I enter the boss room, shoot and telekinize my way around the arena and the boss kills me with like two attacks that felt like they came out of nowhere. I try again, this time I am a little more careful, run around, dash around, use my shield ability, take cover and manage to decrease the boss’ health by half. Now, the boss decides to summon some additional enemies, some on the ground and others in the sky. Not only do I have to watch out for the boss’ attacks that kill me in one or two hits, I also have to keep an eye out for grenades flying at me or monsters that come at me kamikaze-style and explode on hit dealing massive damage. Sometimes I got lucky and defeated the boss anyway but mostly I had to rely on a semi-cheese strategy. I would find some spot of relative safety and try to stay out of sight, only occasionally attacking the boss and reducing its health bit by bit. I’m sorry but this was not fun and it never felt rewarding when I succeeded. Again, I felt like the game didn’t need those boss fights. They gave me the impression that their sole purpose was to artificially stretch the game length by making them as frustrating and unfair as possible requiring the player to try again and again. The placement of control points, this game’s checkpoints where you respawn when you die, reinforced that feeling. Having to run to where I died for 2 minutes may be an interesting mechanic in a Souls game, but it’s not in this one. Stretching the length of the game seems to have been the design philosophy in most side-missions as well. The core game consists of 10 missions that guide you through the Oldest House and are very much focused on progressing the plot and giving depth to the characters. Those missions were good, some even great with the occasional awful boss fight in between. So far so good. However, there is a ton of optional stuff you can do in this game and it all sucks. Again, I’m very sorry to say it so bluntly but it just sucks. Boring ass fetch quests, enemy wave kill quests, confusing cleaning (Yes cleaning!) missions that have you run around like an idiot looking for that last mold bubble on the wall, it’s all so very dull and lifeless. Why is this in this game? It doesn’t need any of this. Honestly, I don’t get why the devs didn’t simply focus on designing a tight 9-10 hours experience instead of bloating the playtime to hit that 20 hour mark for some reason. Now, of course you can ignore most of the side stuff but the rewards you get for completing side missions are really valuable. And I’m sorry but just because something is optional, it doesn’t get a free pass to be absolute dog shit in my book. It should be clear by now that I have my fair share of criticisms towards Control. I didn’t like most side missions, I hated all of the boss fights and I felt like the entire experience was somewhat bloated. I would still recommend getting this game, especially if you’re a fan of Remedy’s previous work and have a fondness for games with strange and mystical worlds and a strong focus on storytelling and character writing. I played this in preparation to Alan Wake 2 and I don’t regret it. If you ignore most of the optional content and focus on the core game, you will probably have a good time in the Oldest House. For me though, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed by some of the design decisions that Remedy made here. It’s a fun ride, but a sometimes frustrating one.
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