Top 50 Favorites: #41 (Ultimate Edition)
Strong contender for most fluid, straight-up best combat in all of gaming. There are a lot of things to love about this one: Remedy's dependably batshit narrative, its sleek environmental mix of corporate and supernatural, the tremendous graphical prowess on display, etc. But I've always found it pleasantly productive that a game literally named Control has some of the most snappy and responsive controls in any game - and the fighting in particular is just leagues ahead of the rest, not only is the moveset/upgrading therein concise and effective but it just feels right, man. Like all of the history of video gaming - its evolutions, ideas, and all that - has led up to this particular combat system, as if I've been unknowingly waiting for it this entire time. The speed in which you can swap directly from beaming a telekinetic array of office supplies at an enemy's face to blasting a paranormal shotgun that auto-reloads ammo to just downright rocking some dude's shit with some ground-shattering melee attack is just... goddamn, it's bliss. Like, actual perfection. I see it as only a bonus that the rest of the game surrounding it is pretty cool, too. Severely underrated even by its endorsers imo.
Strong contender for most fluid, straight-up best combat in all of gaming. There are a lot of things to love about this one: Remedy's dependably batshit narrative, its sleek environmental mix of corporate and supernatural, the tremendous graphical prowess on display, etc. But I've always found it pleasantly productive that a game literally named Control has some of the most snappy and responsive controls in any game - and the fighting in particular is just leagues ahead of the rest, not only is the moveset/upgrading therein concise and effective but it just feels right, man. Like all of the history of video gaming - its evolutions, ideas, and all that - has led up to this particular combat system, as if I've been unknowingly waiting for it this entire time. The speed in which you can swap directly from beaming a telekinetic array of office supplies at an enemy's face to blasting a paranormal shotgun that auto-reloads ammo to just downright rocking some dude's shit with some ground-shattering melee attack is just... goddamn, it's bliss. Like, actual perfection. I see it as only a bonus that the rest of the game surrounding it is pretty cool, too. Severely underrated even by its endorsers imo.