Control is a 3rd person action Sci-fi adventure game developed by Remedy Entertainment, who notably developed the first 2 Max Payne Games and the Alan Wake games amongst others you have probably heard of or played. I wanted to play this game from the initial release but never got around to playing it until recently. I had the time to see what other people thought about the game and it seemed to get quite a lot of praise…but what did I think of it?
Gameplay is what is the most important aspect of a video game. If your game isn’t fun to play then you lose interest in the game despite the game maybe having a masterclass story. Control however does not suffer from this, Control is a blast to play combat and enemies have a good balance where it isn’t too easy that i don’t feel challenged, but not too difficult i smash my controller and give up on the game after a few hours of playing. Using all the different powers on the vast array of enemies is great. Using trial and error to work out which abilities work best against which enemies and trying to juggle all these in a firefight makes you think about what your next move needs to be rather than feeling like a powerhouse that can shred up armies with ease. The game is also filled with other elements that keeps you busy such as puzzles to get from place to place despite it being a pretty linelar game there are tons and tons of collectibles (Despite only having to collect 120 off them for 100%) you actually want to get them because it adds to the narrative quite a lot so it’s pretty much essential you get them, if you don’t like collecting things then the story might seem a little muddled and confusing (more than it already is) but if you’re just playing for a blast and to pass the time Control is also a game for you.
I played this game on Xbox One and found slight performance issues, such as everytime i paused the game or pulled up the Player menu the game would freeze for a round 5 seconds, which when I’m pulling up the map every couple of turn ins to make sure I’m heading the right way is a little frustrating. The frame rate would also dip from time to time during the bigger battles the game throws at you but nothing to game breaking that wanted me to stop playing.
The game looks amazing from both a graphical perspective and an art style direction the game has a colour palette that uses mostly Black and White and different shades of Red and just from the colours alone most people could probably figure out exactly what sort of game this is in terms of story and a gameplay perspective. It’s kind of its own type of art that is easily recognisable without looking too different from most games out there which is quite impressive to stand out in a somewhat overcrowded industry filled with copycats and duplicates, when it doesn’t stray too far from realistic look.
After the story is done though there isn’t much to do in terms of feeling the push to carry on, however reading the collectibles that add to the narrative could add a fair few hours but i buy and play games too immerse in the gameplay as much as possible, so however much fun it is to continue to kill enemies after its done there isn’t much that keeps me going to upgrade my characters skills that i have left if i don’t need them to complete anything. Playing just for the sake of 100% might put a few people off. And not having a multiplayer aspect in a world where gaming is mostly online dominant it would have been interesting to see how a online mode with Control’s premise would have played out
The narrative is one of Control’s strengths. The main draw in is that I had no idea what was going on and wanted to keep on pushing onward to try and figure it out. I found myself standing watching tv screens around the map hoping they would give me more of an insight on the story and maybe explain why my main character had the powers she had and where the enemies come from. It kept me interested for a fair amount of the 9-15 hour campaign however I think it relies too much on the collectibles to explain what is happening whereas other games such as The Last of Us just adds backstory to some of the characters and makes it an option rather than an essential.
I picked up Control for £30 which i think for a game that is just solo based is a fair price (even though there is a lot to do) rather than the £50 it would have cost me when it first came out. However there is a lot to do in this game when it comes to content for a single player game it’s just if you have the push or the patience to do so. I personally would not have paid £50 for it but was happy with my £30 purchase.
Final Score.
Title:Good
Control is a great game and some of its unique game play mechanics are lots of fun. however overtime can feel a little tiresome, and the story feels like you need to collect a lot to understand what is happening.
Head Over Reels 