Wow, way more spectacular and grand than I thought it would be. It feels like there's so much to unpack with this game and it actually felt like an improvement to every other Remedy game in some way or another. The combat reminded me of Max Payne, foregoing the powers of course, the use of mixed media in the pursuit of deepening the world reminded me of Quantum Break. But in the end I kept thinking about how much they've improved upon the story telling elements of Alan Wake. Of course they are in a connected universe, but Control stands on it's own as a game with a bigger scale than any other Remedy game before it.
The artstyle genuinely surprised me, the harrowing and often expansive interior of the "Oldest House" often left me just staring at some of the environments. I loved the Brutalist interior and the fact that the bureau was limited to technology from the mid 20th century. This was also the first game where I really embraced Ray Tracing and although I eventually turned it off for more frames (my PC struggled to get more than 60 fps) I definitely spent the first hour or so in awe at the technology.
At first I didn't know how to feel about the combat, but as soon as I got the dash ability and the shatter form, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I've mentioned that it reminded me of Max Payne at times, but most importantly in some combat sequences it reminded me of ULTRAKILL, which is my favorite FPS game. Maybe it was my gun form choices (Shatter & Pierce) and the fact that you heal from killing enemies. The end result? I spent at least 3 hours playing those damn SHUM arcade cabinets because the Crowd Control mode reminded me of the Slayer Gates from Doom Eternal. I will mention that I didn't really find a use for the other gun forms with my playstyle and sometimes the combat encounters when you were just traveling through an area again became annoying but this was the most fun I've had killing things in a Remedy game so far.
The performances, Remedy games are all about performances, and this game has them in spades. I sort of mentioned this in my Max Payne 1 review but I love oh so dearly how every character in these games is a real person. With Alan Wake 1 they took this to the next level by weaving some Live-Action videos into the game, and of course Quantum Break is part TV show. This game takes all of that and spreads them throughout different artistic mediums. The videos left behind by Darling, the Threshold kids, the hotline calls, and of course anytime The Board or the Hiss have something to say. Remedy never fails to make learning more about the worlds within their games interesting enough to have me go out of of my way to find them. I wanna learn what AWE's are, I wanna see the new episode of Night Springs, and I want to find out what's the deal with those creepy ass dolls. Speaking of Darling, Matthew Porretta gives that role his all and even though I never doubted his strength as the english voice actor for Alan Wake, it was nice to see him play a more energetic character. And I can't talk about great performances without talking about the main character herself, Jesse FADENNNN. I enjoyed her character and actually sympathized with her case of imposter syndrome that she doesn't get over until the end of the game. While playing the game I completely forgot that Courtney Hope who plays Jesse in this game also played Beth in Quantum Break and she killed that shit too. Excited to see more of her work in Control 2.
Of course I have criticisms, and they mostly relate to the new systems introduced for this game specifically. The quest system is cool and I did every side quest I could find but the Bureau Alerts and Board Countermeasures literally didn't add anything to the game for me and you have to repeatedly do them to even make the rewards worthwhile. I imagine an alternate universe where Control has a battle pass and you have to do Board Countermeasure weekly challenges to get the level 100 skin. Expeditions were right there next to those two mission types because I genuinely would not have touched them more than one time if I didn't get a new outfit for making it to tier 3. Moving past the missions, the inventory system also just kind of annoyed me for the first part. I would have a ton of fun in a combat encounter and then have to spend like 30 seconds directly after getting rid of Tier 3 junk that the enemies drop on death. Not to mention that even if I wanted to keep mods that I thought I would end up using (I never did), I didn't have enough inventory space! Whether these complaints were the result of a publishing deal with 505 or the devs just trying new things, I would say that they didn't work for me.
I put 32 hours into this one and that's the most amount of time I've put into any singeplayer game in recent memory. Although this game stands well enough on it's own, I'm excited to see how they expand upon the mechanics and world of this game in Control 2. 6 games down and only one left in the "Remedy Rampage", and from what I've heard, Alan Wake 2 is the best thing since sliced bread.
The artstyle genuinely surprised me, the harrowing and often expansive interior of the "Oldest House" often left me just staring at some of the environments. I loved the Brutalist interior and the fact that the bureau was limited to technology from the mid 20th century. This was also the first game where I really embraced Ray Tracing and although I eventually turned it off for more frames (my PC struggled to get more than 60 fps) I definitely spent the first hour or so in awe at the technology.
At first I didn't know how to feel about the combat, but as soon as I got the dash ability and the shatter form, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I've mentioned that it reminded me of Max Payne at times, but most importantly in some combat sequences it reminded me of ULTRAKILL, which is my favorite FPS game. Maybe it was my gun form choices (Shatter & Pierce) and the fact that you heal from killing enemies. The end result? I spent at least 3 hours playing those damn SHUM arcade cabinets because the Crowd Control mode reminded me of the Slayer Gates from Doom Eternal. I will mention that I didn't really find a use for the other gun forms with my playstyle and sometimes the combat encounters when you were just traveling through an area again became annoying but this was the most fun I've had killing things in a Remedy game so far.
The performances, Remedy games are all about performances, and this game has them in spades. I sort of mentioned this in my Max Payne 1 review but I love oh so dearly how every character in these games is a real person. With Alan Wake 1 they took this to the next level by weaving some Live-Action videos into the game, and of course Quantum Break is part TV show. This game takes all of that and spreads them throughout different artistic mediums. The videos left behind by Darling, the Threshold kids, the hotline calls, and of course anytime The Board or the Hiss have something to say. Remedy never fails to make learning more about the worlds within their games interesting enough to have me go out of of my way to find them. I wanna learn what AWE's are, I wanna see the new episode of Night Springs, and I want to find out what's the deal with those creepy ass dolls. Speaking of Darling, Matthew Porretta gives that role his all and even though I never doubted his strength as the english voice actor for Alan Wake, it was nice to see him play a more energetic character. And I can't talk about great performances without talking about the main character herself, Jesse FADENNNN. I enjoyed her character and actually sympathized with her case of imposter syndrome that she doesn't get over until the end of the game. While playing the game I completely forgot that Courtney Hope who plays Jesse in this game also played Beth in Quantum Break and she killed that shit too. Excited to see more of her work in Control 2.
Of course I have criticisms, and they mostly relate to the new systems introduced for this game specifically. The quest system is cool and I did every side quest I could find but the Bureau Alerts and Board Countermeasures literally didn't add anything to the game for me and you have to repeatedly do them to even make the rewards worthwhile. I imagine an alternate universe where Control has a battle pass and you have to do Board Countermeasure weekly challenges to get the level 100 skin. Expeditions were right there next to those two mission types because I genuinely would not have touched them more than one time if I didn't get a new outfit for making it to tier 3. Moving past the missions, the inventory system also just kind of annoyed me for the first part. I would have a ton of fun in a combat encounter and then have to spend like 30 seconds directly after getting rid of Tier 3 junk that the enemies drop on death. Not to mention that even if I wanted to keep mods that I thought I would end up using (I never did), I didn't have enough inventory space! Whether these complaints were the result of a publishing deal with 505 or the devs just trying new things, I would say that they didn't work for me.
I put 32 hours into this one and that's the most amount of time I've put into any singeplayer game in recent memory. Although this game stands well enough on it's own, I'm excited to see how they expand upon the mechanics and world of this game in Control 2. 6 games down and only one left in the "Remedy Rampage", and from what I've heard, Alan Wake 2 is the best thing since sliced bread.