Control

[AndyKurosaki]

I’m with Nag, I absolutely hate this game. The combat is utter shite, with cheap deaths galore.

I loved all of their other games. But Control can just fuck right off.

[DisturbedSwan]

I loved it.

 

Remedy’s most assured and best game since Max Payne for me. 
 

It’s almost flawless. Fantastic combat, great bosses and incredible level design coupled with a surprisingly simple story - that’s told in a purposefully obtuse way - the entire package is just great. Only negatives would be the check pointing at times and a bit too many written collectibles.

[DisturbedSwan]

 

[DANGERMAN]

be nice to reward those that have already bought it with a free next-gen upgrade then

[Nag]

Fucking A.

[mfnick]

The games industry is great at pleading poverty while at the same time telling us how well things are selling, telling us how it’s the biggest entertainment media, telling us they have record profits etc.

Or at telling us something is impossible, such as giving lest gen owners current gen upgrades. Then accidentally doing it. Yep, impossible. 
 

Arseholes, the lot of them.

[one-armed dwarf]

Next gen release date

 

 

I feel like people will come to appreciate RT once they've had enough time with it. I don't even think Control is the best application of it or anything tho, at this point that prize has to go to Cyberpunk

 

RT global illumination is the coolest thing about it, not the shiny mirrors. Every object on screen looking like it belongs there

[DisturbedSwan]

 

[DisturbedSwan]

 

[Nag]

What's the verdict for people who really can't be arsed watching these videos?

[one-armed dwarf]

It offers 60fps mode and gives RT reflections on quality mode. Diffuse lighting and RT contact shadows are turned off, just the shiney ones are turned on. You also get transparent reflections, the one where you can see reflections on glass and see through

 

I'm back playing this atm, actually cause Medium reminded me of it but not in a way that is flattering to Medium. I like the Dark Souls approach to lore and I feel like it's maybe the main reason to pay attention to anything that's going on. It's better at visual storytelling than 'actual' storytelling

 

[one-armed dwarf]

I finally beat this, I've had numerous false starts with it considering I started on PS4 originally and got halfway through but stopped cause I felt like that version was just a bit shit with the frame drops and how busy everything was during those frame drops. On PC I never got that far until now. I think this game is hella uneven and has as many good things as it has shit things. Towards the end I turned on the cheats in assist mode cause the checkpointing is so bad and the room was completely red so you couldn't see anything. Even on my stronk computer with nice framerates, it was a shitty feeling. So cheating is wot I did to get around it, also that anchor boss. Like come on.

 

It is cool tho and I will stick with it but I took a look at that Alan Wake DLC and didn't understand what was happening cause I don't know anything about Alan Wake. So maybe I'll try it again or watch a video of it on youtube cause without the context of what it is the DLC seems to miss the mark with how it sets things up.

 

I took screenshots and I wanted to take screenshots of that ashtray maze place but it seemed like it would be a really bad idea to just sort of pause that thing while it was going on. It's a section that demands you pay attention and just let it go, but then I found out you can't actually go back in unless you beat the Alan Wake DLC so I'm miffed. It's literally the prettiest place in the game and all the colours combine great with the RT stuff. Unlike most other locations which are grey and dark. There's a better showcase for Remedy's tech here and it doesn't take place in a bunch of offices and power plants

 

 

The game is technically great looking most of the time but I think it's a game that works better in motion than in screenshots, due to how all the lighting plays with the debris and effects of all the shit that's popping off. When you're just looking at desks and envelopes or whatever it's just kind of ordinary.

 

 

I actually think combat wise this game has some pretty cool stuff, between the hovering and catching grenades and weird jedi powers of it all. Hiding behind a rock shield and doing big ground slams. But the screen is more often than not covered in this weird slimy effect or even completely red like the one I posted here and trying to operate with any sort of precision doesn't seem to work a lot of the time. Which is a shame cause I like combat which thinks outside the box like this seems to be doing, but moving around in Control's combat and trying to be ninja is like drowning in ketchup with bits of oil mixed in.

 

 

That's my review quote for the game, put it on the box. 

[one-armed dwarf]

I'm near the end of the Alan Wake expansion, I think. It's really bad IMO. The whole gimmick is based around dealing with enemies that like the dark and hate the light, but this is in a game that already suffers tremendously from visibility issues so it really compounds things if that's a thing you struggle with. A lot of the gameplay is the equivalent of block puzzles, you float around looking for boxes to wedge in the wall to light the place up. After a while I just turned the invulnerability cheats back on to get on with things cause it wastes so much of your time with the terrible, hard to discern visuals and bad checkpointing. Lots of sections where you lost almost your entire healthbar in dark corridors cause something clipped you, it's just not worth trying to do it legit imo.

 

There is a lot of lore in there that I guess would make an impact if you're clued in on what Alan Wake is. I'm not and can only judge it in comparison to the main game in which case it's extremely wanting. But it does let you replay the maze and there is a wave based minigame if you just want to jedi around and clobber things. I might just skip the last boss or watch it online, or cheat my way through. But if the main game is a solid 7.8 or whatever then this is like a 3/10 imo, just rubbish and adds very little to the experience. Kind of suspect that the good reviews might be coming from people who recognise what this is setting up for Alan Wake 2, or the next installment in this connected universe.

[DANGERMAN]

I really liked it. I thought a couple of the battles were really good, a highlight for the game

[one-armed dwarf]

Yeah it just didn't click with me at all. 

 

To be fair, I quite like Control even though it took me a very long time to actually do a complete playthrough of it. The AWE dlc (which I have beaten now) feels weirdly like a very long MCU post-credits teaser. I cheated for the last boss cause it somehow managed to include every part of the DLC which I didn't like (dark stuff, putting boxes in holes etc). I will give Remedy this, I really like that they put a cheat menu into their game with a bunch of sliders. You can even adjust it so you have a health and ammo regen slider. They didn't have anything like this the last time I played and it's something which more games should include imo.

 

I do appreciate the wave mode at least, even tho the fighting can be bullshit in this game. I'm pretty underleveled as well I think and am going to spend some time trying to fight some rogue tea cups or toilet paper or whatever other objects of power there are. The AWE DLC was really stingy with the upgrade points for some reason.

 

I also just like how the game owns its weirdness and puts so much effort into all the stuff lying in the periphery. The weird text logs and visual story telling. Not feeling the need to just exposite the meaning of everything but making it pretty easy to come to your own conclusions anyway, where the mystery isn't completely solved but it gives you enough that you feel satisfied. Games are cowardly I find about that, they need to explain everything all the time

 

I wish I could take that weird translucent circle out of these screenshots

 

 

 

I love how the light bounce enhances the look of the game. Very subtle but very nice.

[mfnick]

Started yesterday.

 

What the fuck is going on?! 

[mfnick]

I said this at the start of last gen but I’ll say it again now at the start of another. I really hope some devs use the extra horsepower to create more physics heavy and destructible environments in games. It’s so much fun tearing apart and blowing a room to pieces in combat! Seeing the aftermath is just chef kiss good too. I love it. Even the basic boxes and tables getting smashed in Spider-Man added a surprising amount + this game now. I want more going forward. 
 

Really enjoying this game. It’s weird as fuck but I’m totally hooked. The collectible document stuff is well worth reading too. Some great little stories and lore building in them. Combat is just so much fucking fun. Like how the gun works and it’s animations. Absolutely love telekinetic powers in games, throwing big pieces of wall or explosive bottles at enemies never gets old. Plus like I say having the scenery get destroyed is brill. Effects gameplay too as you can destroy cover. It’s not quite Psi Ops but it’s best we’ve had in a very long time. 

[one-armed dwarf]

Yeah that stuff is great. I posted something elsewhere in the screenshot thread but when you rip up rocks and stuff for your abilities they get ripped out of the actual environment. I'm sure there's some smoke and mirrors happening sometimes but it's nice to see stuff actually get devastated when the fire fights get messy, even better on modern hardware like the new consoles and PC where it can actually hold itself together when everything is on fire. What I'd like more of is fully destructible cover. 

 

I think though the combat can get really unfair and I wish it balanced itself more in the direction of a fuck off power fantasy rather than like you're a glass cannon Neo. Lots of people would prefer the latter probably but sometimes it's like how do you even tell when you're going to get killed.

 

I played some of the Foundation DLC but like the Alan Wake one I'm not that into it. I think what happened for me with Control is that I was left perfectly satisfied by the main campaign and a lot of the mystery and intrigue dilutes in the post game DLC. If people have already played Control and were waiting to buy the next gen one again to just do the DLC I think it would be a poor value offering. 

[mfnick]

10 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

balanced itself more in the direction of a fuck off power fantasy rather than like you're a glass cannon Neo.

Agree completely with this. I forgot to mention I’ve had a couple of horrible difficulty spikes. Most recently just done the clock boss. That was  annoying motherfucker. I would prefer it if it was more of a power fantasy too. For the most part it’s been relatively easy though. I did actually increase the aim aid in the accessibility too as I found it quite difficult to be accurate with the amount of shit that was going on. Made it a lot more fun. 

[mfnick]

Completed. Really enjoyed it, the “maze” near the end was absolutely brilliant.
 

Not got anything to add to what I’ve already said really. As much as I enjoyed it though, it just seemed to be missing that extra something special to propel it to brilliance. 
 

8/10

 

Going to do the DLC now.