Control Review

By Tanner Linares

That was awesome.

  

Over the years, Remedy Entertainment has consistently put out some of my favorite games. From Max Payne, to Alan Wake and Quantum Break, they haven’t yet put out a game that has disappointed me. Control is certainly no exception to that. While not quite what I expected going in, largely because of my lack of expectations from how confounding and sparse the marketing was, it ended up becoming one of the most unique and special gaming experiences I’ve had this entire generation.

 From the earliest moments of the game, you are left wondering “what the hell is happening?” The game is a slow burn. It takes a while before the story really starts to heat up and dig its claws into you. While the game’s many mysteries are enough to grab one’s attention, alongside your slowly growing set of paranatural abilities, the story trots along at its own wacky pace. It moves slow, and early missions feel like you are being more sidetracked from protagonist Jesse Faden’s main goal at first, until you start reaching the game’s later levels and their true story purpose becomes clearer. The last few missions of the game presented scenes with such incredible artistry and emotional value that I hadn’t come to anticipate from the game yet, that I genuinely couldn’t help but gawk at them from time to time. There is one sequence especially, which I won’t spoil here, which has to be one of the coolest sequences I have played in any game, full stop.

Something Control does with its story that only makes it that much better is its use of side missions. All of them add so very much to the dynamic of each character and the lore, and, importantly, feel special. No side mission feels like it was simply tacked on for the sake of it, but instead, just as each main mission, each feels meticulously designed and implemented in a way that greatly deepened my appreciation for the game’s world, mechanics, and the zany nature of the Bureau’s many mysterious subjects and employees. This is in addition to the many, many documents and multimedia bits you will find throughout the game world. You can certainly ignore the majority of these if you’d like, much moreso than Remedy’s previous game, Quantum Break, which seemed to save a lot of very important information and explanations for its various collectible documents, I found that reading these was a great part of the game’s personality. I do wish there were a way to mark documents as read/unread, as I did have a hard time remembering which ones in my collection I had read or simply scrolled past by accident at times. They add a lot of fun and, in the case of a few very special ones, exciting depth to the game’s world, while also doing a good job at telling various sub-stories and hinting at future experiences, such as missions later in the game and even some of the DLC released post-launch.

The game’s general aesthetic is special, too. I’ve played a lot of games, witnessed a lot of game worlds, and while I constantly find myself in awe at the spectacular vistas, creepy forests, and oceanic views in many of them, something I never considered is how incredible a simple bureaucratic office building could be. Its brutalist design, meshed with a shifting, shattered look and supernatural elements, presents a unique view at something one would normally write off as a mundane setting for such a wild game concept.

Alongside the brilliant aesthetic is a soundtrack that never fails to match any scene it is present in. Remedy is no stranger to great musical choice, and Control takes that tradition in stride. In addition to a creepy, jarring, and sometimes exciting original score, the choice of licensed music in the game blew me away. The song choice for the game’s end credits, in particular, was a genuine jump out of my chair in excitement moment, as it just so happened to be one of my favorite songs from a vastly underknown band which I have long admired. Additionally, frequent Remedy collaborator Poets of the Fall provided multiple great rock tracks to the game’s soundtrack, even reusing their Alan Wake pseudonym “Old Gods of Asgard” for one.

Gameplay-wise, Control matches its story’s slow burn effect. You gain powers as you progress through the story, and they slowly ramp up in wildness and excitement. Early on you gain the Launch ability which is your semi-standard telekinetic ability in a game. What set it apart for me, however, is that you can use it at just about any time. While there are many, many objects at your disposal to hurl at the Hiss enemies you encounter throughout the game, and you will need to if you want to be effective in the game’s perfectly refined combat system, you also do not need to bother yourself too much with searching for them. If you find yourself in the heat of the moment, you can always use the ability to pull chunks straight out of the all or the floor, which, in addition to looking awesome, is extremely useful in the game’s fast-paced combat. There is also a melee ability which, while not likely to be anybody’s go-to form of attack, is helpful for getting out of sticky situations. You eventually get a shield ability, the usefulness of which certainly grows as the game goes on, and a quick dash. However, by far my favorite of the abilities in the game is the levitation that you gain late in the story. By the time you earn it, you’re starting to feel like you’ve just about mastered all the mechanics the game has thrown at you, and the gameplay starts to feel very familiar (not in a bad way.) Once you gain this, however, it shakes everything up. There are suddenly tons of secret areas strewn throughout the many areas you have explored for you to find, pathways opened up for various side missions, and absolutely mesmerizing level design that sprouts forth thanks to the new ability. It totally changes how you can tackle combat scenarios, giving you a sense of freedom you may not even have known you wanted in the game until that point. I was utterly shocked by just how much better the already well-refined gameplay became once a simple levitation ability got thrown into the mix.

Alongside all these abilities at your disposal, there is the all-important Service Weapon, a gun that can only be used by the Director of the Federal Bureau of Control, and has the ability to take many different weapon forms. The two I used most were the Grip, the default Form unlocked from the start, and the Pierce, a two-shot powerhouse that punctures straight through enemy shields. You can have up to two Forms equipped at any given time, and, through upgrading, can equip up to three mods on each Form. There are also “personal mods” available in the game which allow you to upgrade your various abilities, up to three of which can also be equipped. There are five tiers of Mod quality in the base game. The mod system is simple but well-varied, and with the option to dismantle mods for Source energy, then search for the various materials dropped by enemies and found in containers littered around the Oldest House, you can construct new, randomized ones. It’s a small component of the game to be sure, but it goes a long way into helping you mix up your playstyle and find a setup that fits how you like to play.

Having multiple ways to play is nice, as the game is no pushover when it comes to difficulty. While far from the hardest game I’ve ever played, there were certainly many battles that would have otherwise been mere momentary roadblocks that, thanks to the meticulously designed and wide variety of Hiss enemies in the game, meant I was always on my toes and watching all sides. The game forces you to know your powers well if you wish to make progress, which, in my mind, is a good thing. While the Control point (fast travel points that double as checkpoints) are not all ideally located (they are well placed for the most part) thanks to a few tough ones in regard to bosses and other tough encounters, as I played through the game they announced an update which will add checkpoints to various tough encounters, as well as move control points to more convenient locations. Additionally, the game will be adding assist options for those who find the game to be too tough in certain aspects. While I can’t quite comment on the strength of those, I suspect they will be a boon to players who are just here for the story and the magical set pieces.

Overall, Control is a game like a diamond. Rare, sharp, and refined. It plays off of Remedy’s many strengths from their past games while also setting out on its own path to become a unique and wild experience. It builds (or rather, fleshes out, but more on that in my perhaps eventual AWE expansion review) a fantastically wondrous world, paving the way to a great many spectacular possible stories for the future while standing perfectly on its own two feet all the same.

“Bad, Good or Great?”

GREAT

Game of the year 2019