Cleaning Backlog: my recent Max Payne playthrough left me craving for more Remedy.

Control excels in world-building and offers thrilling action sequences. The full potential of these sequences is best experienced later in the game when all powers can be utilized, making you feel invincible. Personally, I was drawn to the game's atmosphere, its weirdness (especially the Dr. Darling videos), the lore, and the fast-paced action. The exceptional visual quality of the game left me speechless multiple times. However, due to the office setting, different areas often felt too similar.

I must admit, the action can become monotonous over time. This happened to me when I started focusing on side missions and challenges. Returning to the main plot rejuvenated my interest, especially as it coincided with one of the game's standout sequences (the one with the music, which was a lot of fun).

Impatient Gamer verdict: While Control's optional content can be time-consuming without feeling rewarding, the main plot progresses at a good pace and kept me engrossed throughout my playthrough, resulting in an overall exciting experience. I crave more, but I need to try something different for a while.

I tried so hard to like this game, but simply could not. The gameplay mechanics are sometimes fun but eventually repetitive and boring. The guns are weak, and by the end, you'll be spamming launch around. The game is not challenging at all, either in gameplay, which is pretty easy, or in level design, as the game holds your hand and tells you where to go almost all the time. There are one or two puzzles which are nice, but again, the game throws in your face what you have to do right away. The only part I enjoyed was the labyrinth and soundtrack by Remedy's beloved Poets of the Fall. There is no denying it has amazing visuals; I played it in 4K, and it absolutely demolishes some of the new games that are coming out in graphic design. Also, the art and sound design are great, as well as an innovative story, but it is not actually captivating. Control could have been so much more than it is.

+ Satisfying action gameplay. Combat generally feels really good to play around with. Props especially to the psychic powers that you gradually obtain throughout... probably the best implementation in this genre of both telekinesis and a later-game power.
+ Destructible environments and (especially combat) particles look great
+ Some pretty fun lore and worldbuilding, alongside plenty of collectibles and secrets

- Combat, while generally fun, tends to drag a little bit. Lots of "oh, there's still more?" waves of enemies that don't provide additional challenge or intrigue
- Some questionable design choices with combat alerts and lighting sometimes led to damage/deaths feeling a little cheap (I died more from falling into pits I didn't see than literally fighting enemies). Felt like the game couldn't decide whether to lean more towards action or horror at times
- Characters are mostly dull and uninteresting
- A couple weird design choices here and there. Most prominent one that comes to mind is that gear is randomly generated and unlocked through grindable random resource gathering? I never felt weak in my own playthrough, but weird decision to make it that way in the first place.

The viiiibe the tech(ray tracing) the lore it is such a weird game love it to death for that . This is the only game that will have me reading text logs with excitement. The theme of wanting to Control the inherently uncontrolable supernatural through bureaucratic means is such an interesting exploration of the inherent human desire to know everything even when it is not possible you want to believe everything has an explanation and that explanation is something that you can grasp fully within your lifetime just look at religion. Deep down everyone at the FBC probably knows that what they are doing is inherently sort of a lost cause but it is a reframed as a noble fruition of the scientific method by FBC rhetoric and the way this tension is portrayed is ahhh so magical. Also this game is one of the few games post 8th gen that lets you absolutely dogpile the environment and personally I am a big believer in asthetics being a driving force in subconcious gameplay enjoyment

I get it. I get why people love this. But to me, the combat and enemy design was mostly bad. But much worse is the incredibly poorly designed skill tree:
The game has 8 different branches of powers to level up, but if you level up anything other than your throw power this is a huge mistake and you will have a bad time playing this game. The melee power even fully upgraded does essentially no damage. It is just wasted points. Health upgrades also don't matter at all, because everything basically tickles you or one shots you. I didn't explore the shield powers or ground slam, but I would be shocked if those could hold a candle to the throw.

I would have liked the combat and therefore the entire game better if that skill tree wasn't so horribly balanced.

Talvez tivesse feito mais sentido eu jogar esse jogo antes do Alan Wake 2 já que ele explica e introduz uma cacetada de conceitos pro universo da Remedy, mas jogando agora foi até um refresco entender melhor algumas coisas. Control é realmente impressionante tecnicamente, ainda mais em um mundo onde os jogos carecem de personalidade, todo lançamento da Remedy esbanja disso e sempre tenta fazer algo de diferente, Control consegue fazer um ótimo uso da física, que é algo que eu me amarro, sou simplesmente viciado em ficar me jogando de prédios e carros no GTA IV só pra ver o Niko se esborrachando, e aqui os cenários são altamente destrutíveis, tudo tem interação de acordo com suas ações e a gameplay é uma delícia, os poderes são extremamente divertidos e o conceito de uma arma que se transforma em diferentes armas acrescentam ainda mais variedade pra gameplay.

Eu vi muita gente falando que a história desse jogo é muito confusa e complexa, até certo ponto realmente é, mas por trás de tantos termos complicados e conceitos sem explicação, a história é bem simples, o problema é que o desenrolar dela é bem lento e se você não ler nada ou não prestar atenção suficiente, você vai ficar boiando do começo ao fim. Superficialmente, a história não passa de uma irmã tentando achar seu irmão e salvar ele, a questão é que o universo da Remedy é repleto de coisinhas complicadas, Objetos de Poder, Itens Alterados, o Ruído, a Presença Obscura, o Lugar Escuro, o Plano Astral, mas sinceramente nenhum desses termos tem muita utilidade, o quê você precisa saber é que os objetos de poder são conectados com o plano astral e o plano astral se conecta com qualquer fenômeno paranormal no mundo, já os itens alterados não se conectam, porém, são afetados por fenômenos paranormais.

O Ruído é uma espécie de infecção paranormal que toma controle de tudo que toca, menos a protagonista por ela ser imune, aí cabe a você achar seu irmão e acabar com essa praga. O interessante é que a Jesse não tem "livre arbítrio", tudo na vida dela foi manipulado, a Polaris basicamente controla ela o jogo todo, o próprio Alan Wake interferiu na vida dela pra história do jogo acontecer, e você, como jogador, também tomou controle da vida dela durante toda a jornada, então mesmo que ela tenha controle sob o ambiente, sob os inimigos e seja super poderosa, no fim, ela não controla nada, e sim os outros personagens desse universo que controlam ela.

A trilha sonora do jogo é fodástica igual nos outros jogos da Remedy, principalmente o pedaço tocando rock com o cenário inteiro se modificando, os gráficos do jogo são do caralho apesar dessa engine ter um problema chatão de delay de render e ghosting no PC, a direção das cutscenes trazem alguns ângulos bem inventivos, o level design do jogo é bem intuitivo, raramente você se perde e quando se perde é por culpa do mapa horrível desse jogo que funde todos os andares em um só, as missões secundárias são bem legaizinhas e recompensadoras, no geral o jogo é extremamente competente, infelizmente a má apresentação da história e alguns problemas de pacing acabaram estragando a experiência de muita gente.

Control foi um jogaço, tava bem curioso pra jogar e eu me diverti muito, aí como eu sou pobre, gostaria de agradecer a @chrisredfield que deixou de comprar açaí pra me dar o jogo, te amo mano.

Story is fantastic and the vibes are off the chart. I really enjoyed the combat, especially in the middle of the game where your slate of abilities really make you feel powerful with lots of options to deal with things. The combat sometimes feels little overturned, many enemies will reduce you to next to no health with 1 hit making the longer combat encounters later in the game (especially in DLC) feel punishing. The game design to encourage you to run back to old areas just to farm mats feels like a waste of time and I didn't feel the game needed that level of filler.

This game was a blast to play through but it was far too short, preventing many of its great qualities from really shining. Control is a graphically beautiful game, which boasts a solid physics engine and destructible environments. It also does a lot of world-building through scattered classified documents that you can read, recordings that utilize 1980's-era video technology, and dialogue with a few important characters. All of these collectibles set the groundwork for a really mysterious and interesting story, though it sort of falls flat. As far as optimization and playability are concerned, I was able to run this game pretty well on high settings with ray tracing on, though there were many occasions where the game would crash abruptly. Combat was very fun, with a variety of special abilities, forms for the Service Weapon, and objects in the environment at your disposal. As you progress through the game and collect resources, the Service Weapon will become more versatile, capable of transforming into many different weapon types. Special abilities are unlocked by "cleansing" so-called "objects of power (OoPs)" found throughout the story or through side-missions, and these abilities will aid you in fighting certain enemy types or in traversing through the environment. The enemies you fight are personnel of the Federal Bureau of Control who are "Hiss-corrupted," with some possessing powers similar to those you are able to unlock. Each enemy type requires some strategic use of your arsenal. The building the game takes place in, "The Oldest House," is home to many different sectors with notable set pieces that were very fun to explore and fight enemies within. The architecture is very abstract and provides a lot of verticality to spice up enemy encounters. This game has two expansions available: AWE and The Foundation, both of which contribute to the lore and add some fun and distinct elements. AWE serves as a crossover between the new Control IP and the Alan Wake franchise, also by Remedy. I cannot really comment on the quality of this crossover as I still have not played the Alan Wake franchise as of the writing of this review, but from the perspective of Control, the new elements meshed well with the already established gameplay. In contrast, The Foundation is purely focused on a new threat taking place in The Oldest House after the events of the main campaign. This expansion provides more new abilities for you to use, though they are isolated, and unable to be used outside of the new sector that the expansion takes place in. In conclusion, this game was a very fun experience that gave me a lot to play around with. There were many unforgettable moments during this game that left me anticipating the sequel that is apparently in the works.

did a quick replay through the base game plus all side quests and hidden areas so i can move onto the DLC and Alan Wake II finally. there's so many nice costumes/skins in this game that end up available after you're finished pretty much. such a waste tbh.

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as with Quantum Break before it, this was also a bit better than i had given credit for in the past. the combat plays like a refined version of what that game was working with but the powers stand out more on their own and have much more oomph/impact to them. Jesse feels like one of the biggest examples of glass cannon i've encountered in a game in that you will be reaming EVERYTHING but can only take two, maybe three solid hits yourself before dying. playing this the first time years back near release before any of the updates with combat settings and better performance (this game made my PS4 pro sound like a hairdryer constantly) made for a rough adjustment with the relative difficulty of everything but today it fared better. as long as you boost your health/energy a few levels earlyish on, level your launch to max asap, and keep moving you should be okay.

elsewhere i also enjoy the moment to moment gameplay of navigating the Oldest House which has a surprising amount of variance in pathways, hidden areas, and other stuff to uncover. getting from point A to point B at times can be more complicated than expected which is natural for its setting. this was a replay and my prior knowledge kept most of this just fresh enough that i wasn't getting lost much, if at all.

the only place this truly stumbles is in personal investment to the narrative, overall universe, and characters honestly. Jesse as a lead character is someone that i go back and forth on. some of the abrupt cuts to her inner monologue are funny and among the best parts of the game but at the same time she falls into the gabby protagonist/player character thing that wears thin for me. at large, the characters are stronger than the narrative and universe itself for me with Arish and Marhall being my favorites. almost every section of the Oldest House is absolutely stunning, it just ends up being a bit of a pretty but otherwise vacant thing for me.

who knows, maybe the DLC chapters will be what fully pull me into Control investment wise. at the very least, i'm under the impression that the second one in some way helps set up Alan Wake II so it should have that going for it at least. curious to how Control 2 turns out as well. exciting times for Remedy.

I was really looking forward to an engaging narrative and I don't think this really delivers on that front (the main story, anyways). The first three-quarters or so of the game are structured in a way similar to open world games, where you're running errands and doing favours for different people. The decision to do this is all the more puzzling as the game feels as if it struggles to fit the story it wanted to tell in its last leg, as it crams so much in the last hour or two of the game, making what should have been important plot points feel rushed and underbaked, whilst the rest of the games feels largely empty.

Admittedly, I skipped reading many of the notes scattered about the game, and I really wish I hadn't. After seeing reviews which recommended reading through these and playing through the side missions, I spent some time doing just that and came to appreciate the game much more by the end of it.

While the story is quite bland, the real meat of the narrative in this game is the world building present in the collectables. Learning about the history and inner workings of the FBC was endlessly fascinating, and I really wish this aspect of the game had a much more central role. I swear, some of Trench's inner monologues, available in the collectables menu, were not even shown in the game. I also wish this was implemented in a way which didn't kill any momentum the game had, which is why I largely skipped these. And while some of the side missions are just glorified fetch quests, some do expand on the FBC in meaningful ways, and have some great optional bosses.

The actual gameplay, however, is brilliant, and I feel as though I would love this game a lot more on a second playthrough! Although I don't want to commit to that just yet, I am very excited to check out the DLC.

I can't say I particularly enjoyed my time with Control. Any time I was enjoying the world building or the story, I would get completely sucked out of it by the combat. It constantly got in the way of any enjoyment I would be having, and there were parts that were complete slogs, and I was only kept going by my interest in the story and the the world.

A big problem with the combat is just repetitiveness, enemies respawn in places you've been before so backtracking for secrets, or simply traversing a hub area, is just annoying. Launch is a cool ability at first but it's never really supplemented with anything as useful, so even when new enemies are introduced the flow of combat feels the same. Mash Launch, use your gun while you wait for your energy to recharge, then repeat. Enjoy doing that for over 20 hours, I really didn't. Plus you have the disaster of a mods system. You practically drown in the damn things and you can only carry so much. Plus there's a completely arbitrary rarity system to boot that even includes the chance for rarer mods to be worse. It's a complete pain in the ass, and so many of them are completely useless. Why would I want more zoom on my weapon when I can just do an extra 30% damage? 15% less energy usage for dashing or 30% more health? It's completely shoved into the game with no thought.

As for the story, it does it's best to hold up it's end of the bargain, but it can only do so much on it's own. There are lots of cool set pieces, and plenty of interesting pieces of lore. I was by far enjoying the game the most when I was reading the documents scattered throughout the place. That, and the super cool environments kept me exploring every bit of the Oldest House.

Overall though, I just can't help but be disappointed in Control after having heard such high praise for it. It's a really interesting world and environment that's constantly gated by boring, and on occasion, frustrating, combat.

Took me by surprise how much I enjoyed this game! It has a lot of potential and I'm very excited for a sequel. Unfortunately I finished this game a few months ago, so I don't remember from the top of my head what the positives and negatives were, but it was absolutely a fun journey that I was hoping they would give more of. I think if there's one negative thing I'll say about it, is that the game's ending felt super abrupt, left a few things to be desired, and just made you want to see more of what they were giving. I will absolutely be seated for their sequel and I hope they will deliver a great experience.

Not long into this, my other half and I realised the mysteries we were soaking in would never have any kind of satisfactory answers. That we were totally fooled by the fakeout ending ("well, THAT was SHIT") is a testament to how little we were invested. But then it does something really interesting! But then it goes back to being a shootybang.

I don't mean to be cruel, there's some fantastic stuff in here, but your only real contribution to this world of endless possibility is violence. One sidequest has you run back and forth between two NPCs until one of them dies. Do they stay alive if you just don't do the quest? Yes or no, either outcome is ultimately meaningless.

As many have pointed out, this is basically SCP: The Videogame. But you could just read some SCP and you wouldn't have to play a videogame.

You know what this reminds me of? Moon: https://www.backloggd.com/u/JimTheSchoolGirl/review/204858/

Control é a Remedy Games em sua mais pura essência, maluco, profundo e frenético. A história é uma das melhores e mais promissoras que Sam Lake já escreveu, além de abrir uma ampla possibilidades de universos a serem inseridos aqui, o jogo também atribui sentido e significancia ao universo de Alan Wake, provando que a Remedy não trabalha com improvisos.
O gameplay pode ser definido como um third person shooter "apimentado", onde as habilidades sobrenaturais de Jesse brilham e ajudam a manter a gameplay fresca.
A exploração é interessante, e apresenta em sua estrutura elementos do amado gênero Metroidvania, com áreas e segredos escondidos por trás de aprimoramentos.
Control é uma estranha e incrível experiência que merece ser jogada.