Control – briefly

Only about three months have passed since the release of Control, but it feels like more than a year has already passed. And I forgot. I don’t know how you felt about the project, but after going through it up and down, I conveniently forgot about its existence. But I wanted to make a video review, analysis, review, I even made notes to myself during the game… Oh, it’s good not to waste.

Why now?

Because I’m a lazy ass.

Yes, because it finally became known from Remedy reports that the game sold quite poorly. Against this background, it is interesting to consider individual pros and cons and, perhaps, find a specific reason why the project did not take off, received a passable seven from Metacritic users and disappeared from the field of view of the players.

Let’s look at the non-systematic theses that I put forward as pros and cons of the product against the background of other representatives of the genres, from the mixing of which Control was obtained, and then, if desired, we will speak on this topic in the comments. And I’ll warn you again that theses will be put forward in random order and there is no pattern in them. I’m an idiot, I see it that way.

Definitely the advantages of the game:

>Destructibility

Without a doubt, the main feature of the game, which kept me going for the entire 15 hours during which I ran through Control. Colorful, juicy, amazing even at the end. The very possibility of lifting a working projector with telekinesis, around which a local magnetic field will arise, lifting small debris into the air, opening drawers and scattering pencils, sheets of paper, etc. around the room is simply amazing. What, what, Remedy implemented this at the highest level. Moreover, destructibility is often not very realistic even in its theoretical understanding. For example, the main character, using dodge into small objects/thin walls/concrete curbs and railings (or by throwing a fire extinguisher at it, for example) it can smash them into a dozen fragments, which looks, to put it mildly, unrealistic. On the other hand, such a convention is more likely to benefit the game, making the action more colorful and pushing the player to engage in the destruction of everything and everyone just for lulz. It’s amazing how meticulously the developers approached the creation of interactive furniture and environmental objects. Interactive primarily from the point of view of the reaction to the player’s actions: he lifted a cabinet with papers into the air – the drawers spontaneously began to open and close, the documents began to circle around, he fired a burst at the wooden table – the furniture staggered and believably tilted, and chips flew from the holes from the shots… I assume that the setting allowed us to achieve such a level. It is unlikely that you will find a dozen different cabinets and tables in one office, so more effort can be devoted to fewer models.

>Control over the character’s actions

Jesse jumps, runs and generally moves extremely believably. The animations are not only informative and have a good effect on the dynamics (no delay, large “weight” of the character), but also look realistic and neat. At the same time, the environment predisposes one to climb on it and, for example, run around tables, throwing work supplies.

There’s no doubt that Control is a very stylish game. And I’m not just talking about the late brutalist architecture, the introduction of visual cues into the gameplay and consistent color scheme, but also about the user interface. Although such a statement may be subjective, I believe that the internal menus in Control could not be done better from a UI design point of view. They are high quality, convenient, intuitive and at the same time very well stylish. Important things are always highlighted in yellow or red, the icons used in the menu are beautiful and professionally designed. Often the HUD in games can put me off, but here it, along with the menu, is made very cool, except one element, which we will definitely talk about later. In general, it doesn’t hurt the eyes and fits perfectly into the setting with its style. Respect, Remedy.

>Shooting and action

A little boring at first, https://bigspinx.co.uk/bonus/ but the shooter component of the project, which is gaining momentum very quickly, cannot but rejoice. Compared to Quantum Break, the battles have become even more dynamic And even more colorful. At the same time, praise be to the level designers, the levels always have a huge number of objects that can be blown up, thrown, as well as shelters behind which you can hide. There is no reloading in Control, there is only “overheating” of the weapon a la the first Mass Effect, which at first throws you into a stupor, since it does not allow you to destroy even one enemy stronger The GG, without going on the defensive three times, however, soon begins to play to the benefit of the gameplay, forcing her to use the heroine’s special abilities. Motivates to turn on the mode Quaker and autoregen of health, which, by the way,, No. Instead, HP is restored using glowing orbs dropped from killed enemies. Kill or be killed – the logic is extremely simple. With all this, Control remains a relatively simple but very effective shooter until the end of the game. The casualness is compensated by the bright effects with which opponents are sent to the next world and the frantic dynamics of the shootings. As a result we get something like this:

>Acting

The motion capture actors did their job superbly. Facial expressions, speech – it all looks and sounds simply amazing. I don’t even want to say anything more here, just play, watch and listen for yourself.

>Notes and small narrative

It’s a rare game that catches your attention notes. Control, although not always, often copes with the task of keeping the player’s attention with the help of in-game “literature”. Notes, staff notes, personal files – all this immerses you in the world of the game, does not overload, but provides the information necessary to understand the logic of what is happening. ███████████ ██████, characteristic of [DATA REDACTED] makes you read and think logically: “what was originally hidden behind the deleted word, what kind of secret is behind the document?", which means studying and comparing previously found papers. Of course, the game also contains a decent amount of filler, but personally I often found it interesting to read.

This is where the advantages of the game end for me, which, of course, is unfortunate. Perhaps because it is easier to highlight specific disadvantages than general, objective advantages, and perhaps because the product is niche and undercut. Decide for yourself, and I’ll move on to the negative aspects of the game..

Definitely the disadvantages of the game:

>Character’s "health"

Sorry, of course, at the end of the playthrough I literally hated the people responsible for the location of the main character’s health bar, as well as the people responsible for the TTK in the game. First, take a look at the healthbar itself, which should serve as an indicator for us of when to move from attack to defense and vice versa:

HE’S JUST INCREDIBLY SMALL! In the heat of battle, the last thing you’ll focus on is the tiny health bar in the very corner of the screen. At least somehow the only thing that copes with the task is the reddening effect of the screen, which, by the way, almost always appears too late and the main character immediately receives the bullet that ends the story. This is due, first of all, to the simply inadequate damage that comes from enemies. Thus, if you come across a relatively large squad of opponents, two outcomes await you: favorable, in which the enemies will be incredibly weak and will not be able to offer any resistance, flying off with a couple of hits and adverse, when you come across incredibly “fat” opponents (especially mini-bosses like grenade launchers, of which there are too many at the end of the game), capable of sensing your movements through walls and always shooting accurately at the target, despite smoke, stun and other interference. In short, it’s just terrible. It infuriated me the whole game and even now it infuriates me on a subconscious level.

>Optimization problems

Many people know that even on powerful PCs, immediately after release, the game allowed itself to seriously sag, so the performance of the project as a whole left much to be desired. Partially, the patch that came out a week after the launch corrected this problem, but only partly. Personally, for me..

GTX 1060, 8gb ddr4, intel i7 8700, SSD Sata 500 gb

. FPS could drop as low as 40 in action scenes, helped by the huge number of effects and explosions on the screen, and the average out-of-combat performance on high settings was ~56 FPS. Not the best result, considering that even problematic the last Metro ran relatively stable on similar settings.

>Where the fuck is the flashlight??

Yes, the game is full of dark locations where you can’t see a damn thing. Yes, changing the brightness is not a way out of this situation. I honestly don’t understand why such a familiar attribute of third-person action games as a flashlight is missing here.

They don’t harm the game much, but they are present. Moreover, both small (for example, immersing an object in the texture of a wall after sending it flying with telekinesis) and more significant (losing most of your health from contact with a certain moving boulder – I run along it).

>Location design

Don’t tell me I’m bipolar. Yes, I praised the level designers of this game and admire their work in many ways. The interior, the design of individual “arenas” that combine elements of verticality, help for playing “cover”, but at the same time motivating the player to attack, which are tailored for battles with a large number of opponents – all this is done professionally. But when it comes to the open-air “maze” environments that Remedy borrowed from metroidvania games, it literally makes me want to cry. Many of the corridors can easily lead to a dead end, where, with proper luck, you will only stumble upon a container with cheap resources. The locations themselves are complex, confusing and unclear. Like games of the above-mentioned genre, Control is characterized by backtracking, however, navigating on not the most successful in-game maps in locations with several levels becomes difficult and inconvenient, at least for me. To be honest, it is worth noting that sometimes the problem of disorientation is solved by visual cues, namely the visions of the main character, which highlight the following control point noticeable glitch effect. Let me also clarify that such a feature may initially lead you in the wrong direction, since it works through walls. With all this, all locations in the game are either designed in a strict brutalist office style, or, occasionally, when you are transported to an alternative dimension, they are tons of black stone floating in space. Both become boring very quickly, so after 5 hours of playing you begin to crave some variety. You (spoiler) will never get it.

No one forces you to complete additional tasks, of which there are several variations in Control. These are also relatively significant orders, i.e. e. the requests of your allies, and the most boring tasks of the old senile Ahti, and the challenges of the Council. And almost all of them come down to finding something, shooting a crowd of enemies, or repeatedly interacting with the same objects in different locations. In a word, mortal melancholy. The only ones that stand out among them are tasks on tying "objects of power" that, it seems, are optional, but they open up new skills, so it’s not advisable to skip them. Otherwise, side quests only drag out the already sticky plot, so I personally recommend skipping them, except for the funniest ones: you definitely won’t miss anything!

>Text and localization

There are a couple of problems with this that you might not think about. Firstly, which is not surprising, the game does not have a full Russian localization, only the text is translated. "How well translated?"- you ask. Not in my heart I know, Better ask Denis! I just wanted to say that subtitles in dialogues often do not stand out in any way. There is neither a color marker nor the notorious character name in front of them… In such an orgy of text flows, it becomes quite difficult to make out who owns what line. Moreover, our respected localizers are so busy that in in-game documents the text can go beyond the paper, thus becoming unreadable… Yes, this is rare. But damn, how can this be infuriates.

I decided to leave the juiciest part for last, but I suspect that this part will be the most subjective and unfounded. I don’t care. The entire passage of the game creates the impression that everything is about to begin, as if the developers deliberately kept the intrigue for a long time, giving the smallest clues to the player. As a result, at the moment when, it would seem, passions should become intense, the main character is simply… epically screwed, that’s all. It seems to me that already in the final version of the Remedy product they simply cut out the climax along with the entire main part, leaving a terribly drawn-out prologue and a confusing epilogue, suggesting an afterword that we may see in the form of DLC. The ending, in itself, leaves a rather unpleasant impression, as it feels blurry and indistinct. Omitting this most unpleasant fact, we can separately mention Jessie’s stupid way of talking to herself right in the middle of the dialogue, while the character with whom the heroine is conducting a dialogue at this time is silent and waits like an obedient dummy. Circus, in short. With all this, throughout the game the heroine gives the impression of a kind of “unlucky Mary Sue”, who, seemingly by a happy coincidence of circumstances, gets everything, but not in the form in which she originally wanted. Although, perhaps I’m being picky, you are free to answer me on this topic in the comments.

Afterword

It would be unfair to say that Control was definitely good or bad. The objective fact is that for its audience it turned out to be too faded, both against the background of the cult Max Payne with Alan Wake, and against the background controversial Quantum Break. And at the same time, I am rather inclined to advise it to you. Despite the problems with the integrity and composition of the narrative, despite the boring side-quests and monotonous locations, the game can still find its fan. First-class shooter mechanics, impressive ENT and stylish visuals still persuade me to recommend it to you at least for a try. Moreover, at the beginning of next year there will also be a DLC crossover with Alan… Eh, let’s live!

And that’s all I have. I will be glad to hear your reasoned criticism or (oh, I doubt it) praise in the comments. It’s very nice to share your opinion with other people knowledgeable about this topic. Good luck and… see you later?