My high takeaway from Control is the same as it has been for other modern Remedy games: It is wonderfully weird. The Oldest House and the Federal Bureau of Control (FBC) are formidable to understand at first, offering many questions upfront but stringing along the answers over a roughly 10-15 hour main campaign and a healthy offering of side content. The world Remedy is building here is nonetheless engrossing. Navigating The Oldest House might not initially be as invigorating as the narrative threads, but I found myself quite comfortable with the task after a couple hours with the game. There is a lot here to love. Jesse Faden, the protagonist, comes across a bit blunted at first. She speaks with a flat affect, but ultimately a subtle tone of dry humor and unnerving acceptance regarding the bizarre series of events that unfold. Other characters are written with contrasting enthusiasm, such as the excellently acted Dr. Darling who appears throughout various Live Action recordings littered through the game world. Ahti, the janitor, is a particularly excellent character. He leans into the sheer mystery and unabashed quirkiness Control builds its identity on.
The Oldest House itself, as a character, surprises. I approached exploration in Control with incredulity, fully expecting the excellent visual fidelity and art direction to be marred by repetitive environments. However, this is proven untrue by The Oldest House's unwavering commitment to surprising the player with its shifting structures and secretive connections. Yes The Oldest House and the side quests it harbors are absolutely worth exploring, further unraveling the nature of what the FBC is. There are some outstanding highlights throughout the main missions too, particularly one sequence involving a "maze," to put it vaguely. Remedy also outdid themselves with the combat in this game. Telekinesis has never quite felt so good in a video game, especially while coexisting with a smooth 60fps performance, environmental destruction, various explosive effects, and some of the best visuals in modern gaming from a pure fidelity perspective. 1000 enemies later and hurling a fire extinguisher across the room is still exhilarating. Gunplay and other abilities are similarly fun, giving an overall polished combat experience. The game would be better off without its incessant commitment to spamming you with personal/weapon "mod" drops and also with time-dependent radiant quests that serve no purpose beyond giving you more excuses to dabble with the combat. Another point of criticism I could see leveraged towards the game is its convoluted storytelling nature, albeit this is something I found charming and rewarding to solve. While the narrative delivery might be obtuse to some, I would wager the scattered puzzles are more likely to be appreciated as being quite clever. I normally don't clamor for more puzzles in games, but I think some of the interactive ones on display here justified having more in the game than we got.
Overall, Remedy has constructed something masterful with Control. Its intricate connectedness to the world they have built with "Alan Wake" intrigues to a degree that might be unparalleled in terms of connected universes we see in the gaming medium. The combat is slick and satisfyingly unique. The art direction and overall wackiness of the experience elevates it, even if some of the flavor text comes by way of collectible notes or non-mandatory side content. From music videos to sentient refrigerators, Control surprises with glee and charming distinctiveness.
The Oldest House itself, as a character, surprises. I approached exploration in Control with incredulity, fully expecting the excellent visual fidelity and art direction to be marred by repetitive environments. However, this is proven untrue by The Oldest House's unwavering commitment to surprising the player with its shifting structures and secretive connections. Yes The Oldest House and the side quests it harbors are absolutely worth exploring, further unraveling the nature of what the FBC is. There are some outstanding highlights throughout the main missions too, particularly one sequence involving a "maze," to put it vaguely. Remedy also outdid themselves with the combat in this game. Telekinesis has never quite felt so good in a video game, especially while coexisting with a smooth 60fps performance, environmental destruction, various explosive effects, and some of the best visuals in modern gaming from a pure fidelity perspective. 1000 enemies later and hurling a fire extinguisher across the room is still exhilarating. Gunplay and other abilities are similarly fun, giving an overall polished combat experience. The game would be better off without its incessant commitment to spamming you with personal/weapon "mod" drops and also with time-dependent radiant quests that serve no purpose beyond giving you more excuses to dabble with the combat. Another point of criticism I could see leveraged towards the game is its convoluted storytelling nature, albeit this is something I found charming and rewarding to solve. While the narrative delivery might be obtuse to some, I would wager the scattered puzzles are more likely to be appreciated as being quite clever. I normally don't clamor for more puzzles in games, but I think some of the interactive ones on display here justified having more in the game than we got.
Overall, Remedy has constructed something masterful with Control. Its intricate connectedness to the world they have built with "Alan Wake" intrigues to a degree that might be unparalleled in terms of connected universes we see in the gaming medium. The combat is slick and satisfyingly unique. The art direction and overall wackiness of the experience elevates it, even if some of the flavor text comes by way of collectible notes or non-mandatory side content. From music videos to sentient refrigerators, Control surprises with glee and charming distinctiveness.