Control
PlayStation 4
Nostalgia Factor:
Control is a relatively new game, and this was the first time I had ever played it, so there's not much to report on the nostalgia side of things.
I first heard of Control back in 2019 when it won Game of the Year honors for IGN. Upon hearing of its premise, the game immediately piqued my interest and I made a mental note to check it out someday when I had the chance. Well, in 2021 that chance finally came.
Story:
I hope you at least have SOME idea of what you are getting into when you start this game, otherwise you are going to be just as confused as I was the first time I started playing. You are in control of a woman named Jesse Faden. She enters a government building only to find it oddly empty. Time to explore. It isn't long before you meet a janitor, who says some weird cryptic shit to you. You explore a little more and find the body of a man who has taken his life with a gun. You pick the gun up and are transported to some weird kind of astral plane where you are taught how to use it. After your lesson, you return to the real world where you find that you've been tasked with clearing an enemy named The Hiss out of the building.
The building you are in is called The Oldest House, and apparently it is some kind of government installation dedicated to the research of paranormal objects and events. The Hiss have come through to our world through some kind of breach in the fabric of the universe? I don't know. This game is REALLY cryptic and confusing and its plot didn't make much sense to me. The biggest comparison I can think of is if David Lynch and the TV show Legion had a baby. That baby would be this game.
As you play, you discover that Jesse came to The Oldest House in search of her missing brother, who was kidnapped by agents of the house years and years ago. But it is all some kind of weird, elaborate plot by the mainframe or the computer that controls the Oldest House to lure Jesse in so it can make her the new director, fight off the Hiss, and bring stability back to the building once again.
Or something.
Look, I am going to be straight up with you. I had NO IDEA what was happening throughout this game as I played it. Things aren't spelled out for you. Many of the characters talk in riddles. What happens on the screen is ridiculously abstract. Visually, the game is amazing. But storywise I had no fucking idea what was happening half the time. This entire recap is probably 100% wrong and completely inaccurate as far as what actually happened in this game. Any diehard Control freaks are probably laughing at my pathetic attempt to recap this game's story for you. And you know what? I don't care. Once it became clear that I wasn't going to be able to comprehend or enjoy this game's story, I completely stopped paying attention to it. I played for the intense gameplay and the awesome visuals. Everything else became completely secondary to me.
Gameplay:
While I can't say I enjoyed this game's storyline very much, its gameplay is what made it a fairly enjoyable title for me. Jesse has all kinds of fun abilities and powers which slowly unlock as the game progresses. You begin to feel like a real badass as you are playing. Not only can you shoot enemies with your cool astral gun, but you can also use telekinesis to pick up objects and whip them at them. This was just so, SO satisfying to me. Eat it, motherfucker!! Late in the game you feel like an unstoppable force of nature, almost like you're controlling a superhero pulled straight from the X-Men universe or something.
I'm not sure how to describe this title's gameplay, as it is not quite open-world. You start out in the administrative offices of the building. You team up with the remaining survivors of the Hiss attack and look to start fighting back. You take on missions for characters, almost like you would in a GTA game for example. An area of the building is marked on your map. You have to make your way there, kill whatever it is you have to kill, save whoever it is you have to save, do whatever you have to do. When you complete your mission, return to the person who gave you your mission and collect your reward. As you play you can level up your character. As you level up you gain new keycards and abilities which you can use to access areas of the building you couldn't access before. I hate to use the generic term Metroidvania here, but there's almost no way around it. Control fits this video game template to a T.
As you play you're going to notice that there aren't very many unique enemy characters. There are battles pretty much everywhere you go. Expect to fight, and fight a lot. I found the action of this game to be quite repetitive, but at the same time I didn't mind too much because it was just so fun. My main gripe with the game is its absolutely AWFUL map system. This is one of the worst maps in video game history. Routes aren't clearly defined, different levels are confusingly stacked one on top of another, it is just a mess. I got lost sooooooo many times as I played this game, and quite honestly it was really beginning to frustrate me. The fact that all the environments kinda sorta look the same wasn't helping matters at all either. I'd know on the map where I needed to go, but not how to get there. It felt like I was aimlessly wandering for hours at a time, no idea where I needed to go to reach the mission marker. They could have given us an arrow that guides you to your goal, or a clearly defined route on the map. The Guiding Wind. SOMETHING. But no. And let me tell you, it is a real struggle. It almost wrecked my enjoyment of the game completely.
Touching on the combat system once again, while I found it to be overall pretty fun and satisfying, I must say that the difficulty balance is really off-kilter. Most of the time I was able to squash my enemies with ease, but then all of a sudden I would fight a boss or a new enemy type and I'd be destroyed in seconds. The difficulty spikes in this game are SO weird and random. When you hit a difficult spot in the game, expect to die. A lot. Eventually through trial and error you'll make your way through the battle, but not after spending about 3 hours looking at loading screens first. Seriously. The loading times in this game. They are just awful. I had the same problem with Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order. Seriously, this is 2021. I know neither of these games are brand new or anything but how are absurdly long loading times like this not a thing of the past?
Graphics:
Ok, this game looks pretty good. I alluded to the show Legion earlier in my review and I can honestly say that this game's visual style reminds me a lot of that show. Trippy colors, flashy special effects, intense BIG LETTERs telling you when you enter a new area. This game has a little bit of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice in it too. Many of the hallucinations and visual tricks in this game seem to be directly inspired by that one. And I'm not complaining. It all looks really good!
My main complaint with the game's visuals is that the environments look somewhat bland from time to time. It's not like a government office building is exactly the most visually exciting place on the planet, but dang do things look really dull sometimes. Grey corridors, white floors, non-descript doors. Can you get any more bland? They all begin to look the same after a while too, which contributes to getting lost all the time, which I already touched upon. Don't get me wrong, overall this game looks really good. But mainly it looks good when things are weird and supernatural things are happening. Other times it can just be really... meh.
Sound:
I can't complain about the game's sound. Even though I couldn't follow Control's story very well, I could at least recognize that the voice acting was pretty good. The sound effects are creepy and weird and really help contribute to the bizarre situation you find yourself in. From an audio standpoint, all the little atmospheric sound effects are on-point.
I don't remember a single thing about Control's music, so it must not have been that good. But I don't remember it being bad either. So that's a plus. Like I said, nothing to complain about here.
Overall:
I have such mixed feelings on this game. I didn't like the story, but I appreciated the intense visual effects and the fact that they got really weird with the direction of the game. Combat is fun and satisfying, but there are very few enemy types and things start to get really repetitive really fast. The spikes in difficulty are random and somewhat unfair. I hated the map system and how I got lost all the time. I died a lot of what I thought were unfair deaths where I wasn't watching where I was going or I would mistime a jump and plummet to my death. The load times are TERRIBLE. The environments often look bland and too "same-y" everywhere you go. I have no freaking clue what the game's ending meant or what I should expect if this game ever has a sequel.
It sounds like I have more negative things to say about this game than positive ones. And that surprises me because I did enjoy the game, or at least I thought I did. When I started writing this review I expected I'd give it a B- or a C+ grade. But coming to this blog and putting my thoughts in words makes me realize that I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I should have - especially considering this was a title that won Game of the Year for one of my favorite video game media sites. I expected so much more... and I didn't get it.
I have zero desire to ever come back and play Control again. I'm not even sure if I'll play its sequel. I know that sounds really harsh - and let me assure you I did NOT hate this game. I did have a good time with the combat and completing some of its missions. But it is so flawed. So flawed. I didn't even mention the lagging frame rate and how the action would always get super choppy when a lot of stuff was happening on the screen. I don't know how I almost forgot that, but I'm guessing it is because I was so focused on the plethora of OTHER flaws that bugged the shit out of me as I played.
I won't knock Control and say it is a crappy game. It isn't. I think buried under all the flaws is a fun and enjoyable title, and I won't judge people for liking it if they think I'm wrong. It's just not my cup of tea.
Final Score:
C-
If you liked this review, check out some of my other game reviews:
No comments:
Post a Comment