Control is a Third-Person ShooterMetroidvania heavily inspired by surreal, quasi-horror works like the SCP Foundation and House of Leaves, and produced by the folks who created Alan Wake and Quantum Break. If you're familiar with any combination of those things, you probably know what to expect: a labyrinthian Action-Adventure romp with emphasis on stylized atmosphere, an esoteric, somewhat metatextual plot, issues with integration of story and gameplay, and a whole lot of love for its inspirations.
Remedy Entertainment has always made interesting games, and even if they have clear struggles working with the paradigm of gameplay, they've at least found intrigue in hitching players along for the ride. If I had to mark Control with a single theme, it would be "discovery", and it's a crux much more robustly defined than usual for Remedy. The game being much more nonlinear/explorative than their usual work ties in nicely with the uncovering of the The Oldest House, the various extradimensional threats, and the fate of your mysterious brother. The Oldest House is a beautifully unsettling world that gorgeously blends the mundane with the truly alien in ways you rarely see being explored with games with budgets as big as this. Esoteric, perhaps, but adventurous and imaginative, creating many really fun scenarios, puzzles, and story beats to get lost in.
The biggest faltering point is, unfortunately, the main gameplay loop of combat, which once again for Remedy feels conspicuously detached from their strengths, like a token addition to justify what it really wants to do. This lack of tact manifests in some enemies and especially bosses as being not as palatable as they should be, brought on not necessarily by harsh difficulty spikes, but the game throwing a few too many patterns and combat paradigms at you to work with.
Not that the combat lacks merit; the alternating gunplay among a vast array of psychic maneuvering and firepower is overall functional, the joy of psychically launching the environment is a fun enough "hook" to build on, and there is catharsis to be found in these volatile clashes in such an aesthetically pristine world, but it definitely deserved more ambition and refinement to put it over a baseline of "ok".
This is a tricky experience to rate: it's a game that sets off to achieve very ambitious goals and pulls them off very well, they just have an unfortunate problem of being mostly secondary-to-tertiary when packaged as a "game," and the perfunctory core loop of gunplay may very well be enough to alienate those who prefer experiences which weaves these aspects together better.
But from me personally, if you're willing to overlook the occasional jank, it's worth it. Dark and confusing as it may be, there's so much intrigue, uniqueness, and just plain love that Control has to offer that's worth remembering. It's a flawed, but unforgettable experience.
Control: A Flawed, but Entrancing and Unforgettable Experience
Control is a Third-Person Shooter Metroidvania heavily inspired by surreal, quasi-horror works like the SCP Foundation and House of Leaves, and produced by the folks who created Alan Wake and Quantum Break. If you're familiar with any combination of those things, you probably know what to expect: a labyrinthian Action-Adventure romp with emphasis on stylized atmosphere, an esoteric, somewhat metatextual plot, issues with integration of story and gameplay, and a whole lot of love for its inspirations.
Remedy Entertainment has always made interesting games, and even if they have clear struggles working with the paradigm of gameplay, they've at least found intrigue in hitching players along for the ride. If I had to mark Control with a single theme, it would be "discovery", and it's a crux much more robustly defined than usual for Remedy. The game being much more nonlinear/explorative than their usual work ties in nicely with the uncovering of the The Oldest House, the various extradimensional threats, and the fate of your mysterious brother. The Oldest House is a beautifully unsettling world that gorgeously blends the mundane with the truly alien in ways you rarely see being explored with games with budgets as big as this. Esoteric, perhaps, but adventurous and imaginative, creating many really fun scenarios, puzzles, and story beats to get lost in.
The biggest faltering point is, unfortunately, the main gameplay loop of combat, which once again for Remedy feels conspicuously detached from their strengths, like a token addition to justify what it really wants to do. This lack of tact manifests in some enemies and especially bosses as being not as palatable as they should be, brought on not necessarily by harsh difficulty spikes, but the game throwing a few too many patterns and combat paradigms at you to work with.
Not that the combat lacks merit; the alternating gunplay among a vast array of psychic maneuvering and firepower is overall functional, the joy of psychically launching the environment is a fun enough "hook" to build on, and there is catharsis to be found in these volatile clashes in such an aesthetically pristine world, but it definitely deserved more ambition and refinement to put it over a baseline of "ok".
This is a tricky experience to rate: it's a game that sets off to achieve very ambitious goals and pulls them off very well, they just have an unfortunate problem of being mostly secondary-to-tertiary when packaged as a "game," and the perfunctory core loop of gunplay may very well be enough to alienate those who prefer experiences which weaves these aspects together better.
But from me personally, if you're willing to overlook the occasional jank, it's worth it. Dark and confusing as it may be, there's so much intrigue, uniqueness, and just plain love that Control has to offer that's worth remembering. It's a flawed, but unforgettable experience.