#aka this is the shot of the whole arc and I would like to spam you with it again

[aheathen-conceivably]

Gather one, gather round, my friends! Lets play a little tabletop game I like to call....

[impurelight]

Control - You Can Tell Instantly About A Game By How The Doors Work

Control is the most recent Remedy game and it lies at the halfway point between the technological explicitness of Quantum Break and the uncanny strangeness of Alan Wake. Put another way if Alan Wake and Quantum Break had a baby it would be this game. But that's not exactly a good thing. And here's why.

So you start the game playing as tall Ashley Birch as you make your way to the Federal Bureau of Control where you are inexplicably made the new director. Yeah, I thought affirmative action has gotten a bit out of hand but this is ridiculous.

So it's a really interesting set up for a game. But here's the thing. That initial set up is never really explained. Oh, there are hints of what's going on throughout the entire game but no one really tells you. And there are multiple examples of this. By the time I was wrapping up the game all the big stuff was explained but the little things, like what the janitor was doing all this time, were not. In fact the ending is a pretty big disappointment. I mean I think the bad ending is better than the good ending as it makes more sense. The good ending is just... weird in the Captain Marvel 'How do I beat this threat?' kind of way. AKA just get stronger. Whatever that means.

I know it's supposed to be 'Ooo spooky...' with the whole 'Hiss' threat which manifests by weird chanting that you can hear all the time which is super creepy. It actually reminds me of a horror movie I saw once of a virus that spread by chanting. Anyways it's clear the story wants to be like Alan Wake. Speaking of Alan Wake there are a few Alan Wake references. Because it's pretty clear Control is set in the same world as Alan Wake.

But anyways, in Alan Wake the game opens with, "In a horror story the victim keeps on asking 'why' but there is no answer and there shouldn't be one. The unanswered question is what stays with us the longest and what we'll remember in the end." And this appears to be what Control is aiming for. But you can't do that if you just explain half the story points and use pseudo science mumbo jumbo to explain all the lore. It just doesn't work.

So yes, the story is a sore spot for this game. I mean, compared to other games the story is phenomenal but not quite up to the high bars set up by Quantum Break and Alan Wake. I do particularly like the opening of this game. In the opening of Quantum Break I was like, "Dude, you could tell me everything I need to know right now but you're not!" and it frustrated me so much. In Control you genuinely know nothing because everyone else genuinely knows nothing. It really gives you this feeling of building up the Bureau from scratch.

But the story is also very disjointed. There's this 'internal monologue' thing which would have been fine if it was just to deliver witty one liners. But it is often, especially earlier on in the game, used as an excuse to dump exposition like this thing called 'P-uh-laris' in your head. It's not explained super well. This has always been a Remedy problem. No one tells you anything, you always have to put the pieces together yourself. But it's just worse here because they also combine it with tons of inexplicable exposition and there's a very noticable disconnect between what tall Ashley Birch knows and what you know.

Also problematic is that the story sort of putters out a bit near the middle of the game. Your intentions go from, "I want to help the people." to "I'm going to do what I want." Basically they include this whole sepparate plot arc about tall Ashley Birch's brother and they should of just dropped it. It doesn't pay off in any meaningful way. They should have kept the story about rebuilding the Bureau.

So onto the gameplay. I think Remedy outdid themselves this time. There are two ways to damage enemies. Your powers which you unlock throughout the game (I mostly just spammed the telekinesis power) and the service weapon. The service weapon is what you get at the start of the game. It's basically a pistol although you can unlock some alternate fire modes. I just mainly used it as a pistol throughout the entire game. There's just something nice about manual fire weapons.

So the service weapon has infinite 'ammo' but it doesn't reload in the traditional sense. Basically it recharges which can take some time. And during this time you have to use your powers (or sit around awkwardly waiting for it to recharge). And this fixes the number one problem with 'powers' in shooters. Why should I use them? Also enemies have shields which are easier to take out with your powers.

Also some powers are better against certain enemy types (the grenade launcher guy can't even hit you when your floating which is so so unfair but cool and dodging is great to get out of tough spots like those invisible pulsing guys) but these enemies are few and far between. Mostly you'll be fighting only two types of enemies. The pathetically easy guys and the pathetically easy guys with shields. Oh, and the would-be pathetically easy guy if they didn't have a rocket launcher that could take out half of your health in one shot without any warning. No, I'm not mad.

Speaking of the enemies Remedy has got to cool it with their boss enemies. In Quantum Break there was a Paul Serene fight which was way too hard. I had to turn it to easy and try multiple times. Here there's really only two hard fights. The fight with the levitating guy that hurls rocks at you (all the hurling rocks at you guys are really tough because they're basically flying rocket launcher guys) and of course the final fight that is a bit on the long side with no checkpoints.

This is doubly annoying when you can only respawn at 'control points'. Basically quick travel points. They're pretty common but not common enough as sometimes I'll sometimes be running through areas I already cleared of enemies. Thankfully enemies don't respawn that fast. Also the loading screens take forever. So I soon discovered the optimal strategy in any fight: stay as far back as you can and pick up enemies one by one as they get near. Not very fun but it works.

This is not to say the combat is amazing. The entire game takes place inside 'The Oldest House', which is a giant building in the middle of New York City. It actually reminds me of Prey with the whole 'science-experiment-gone-wrong' thing. And in both games you're trying to find out exactly what's happening. Yeah, it's basically a better written less futuristic version of Prey. Seriously, there's this document explaining that the Old House doesn't like new technology so everyone's using old CRT's and pseumatic tubes to get mail around.

But as I said the entire place takes place in the Oldest House. Which is basically a giant concrete building. Sort of like the Science Wing from my University. Anyways I was a bit concerned that the game would be super repetitive. Not so. I mean, yeah, most of the places look the same. But they're just different enough. There's the executive area with tons of offices, the research area with a cafeteria and a giant tree growing through it, and the maintenance area which has a bunch of pipes going through it.

Also they play around with the lighting a lot. Well, not as much as they should. Also this game definitely uses the same tech as Quantum Break. And I should know, in Quantum Break there was so much volumetric lighting. Same here. You can hardly see your hand in front of your face. Well, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. But sometimes I wish they turned down the volumetrics just a touch.

And the amount of damage is very impressive. You can shoot through cover and it will break apart and the telekinesis power will actually pull objects from around you and fire them which is very cool. Except when it can't find anything it'll just pull a generic piece of concrete off the wall. All the powers are really cool. I'm reminded at Saint's Row 4 which I thought had pretty cool powers when I was playing it but it's nothing near Control.

Of course with this new 'items can be flung anywhere' comes some problems. Mostly the enemy pathfinding which can be quite annoying if you're trying to find the right enemy to kill just to proceed. And they'll sometimes fire from weird spots.

But perhaps the biggest problem with the game is it's just not clear what to do at certain places. It's a bit rare but there's this one location that I was just dumbstruck of what to do. I finally read a guide and it was like, "Oh, just shoot at the things that no one ever told you to shoot at."

There's also a crafting system and a quest system and a skill tree. Yeah, I know who is getting my vote for the most unnecessary crafting system/quest system/skill tree of the year. Well, maybe not skill tree. There are some interesting power modifiers here.

Anyways, the game wants to be a metroidvania and I guess it sort of works. When you enter a new area you get full screen text like the Captain America Civil War transitions which is cool except when you're being shot at while they play. My only complaint is they should have used the powers more to get to new areas rather than just for combat. Now they're just using 'clearance levels'. It doesn't make much sense because I'm the director. I should have all the clearance levels.

So that's Control. Remedy said they're doing something more agile this time so the game came out after only 3 years rather than the usual 5. And I don't see that much quality reduction. It's still through and through a Remedy game. Although that could be because the engine here has no disernable difference than the one for Quantum Break.

Sure, there's a lot of things I think could have been improved, but it was ultimately a very fun experience if a bit unsatisfying at the end.