This Week I Have Been Mostly Playing…
Control Ultimate on Xbox Series X
Games can produce some peculiar behaviours. Though you are probably already thinking that I am peculiar enough! I fired up Control back in February as it was on Game Pass and played for an hour. It had this weird 1960s paranormal setting with you exploring a government building. The place was empty and you had nothing to do but grab files. Talk about the slowest of slow starts. I made it to the Directors office and then stopped playing.
I gave it a go, but it wasn't for me. A couple of weeks later I went back for Gaming Homework, grabbed the gun in the Director's office, warped to this Astral realm and holy shit this is a great game! I suppose adding game play actually makes a game. Now with a gun, enemies, a huge building to explore with upgrades to find it's totally my jam. I was actually a big Alan Wake fan back on the Xbox 360 and wouldn't you know Remedy Entertainment made Control as well.
For context originally I was just going to try and complete this game, now I have picked up the physical Ultimate Edition and I am going to beat all the DLC as well. Smitten does not do it justice! It’s weird, I was barely taken with this title and now cannot stop playing. The elements all seem to fit perfectly together for me.
You play as Jesse, a woman hunting for her brother in the Federal Bureau of Control. A secret government agency that investigates paranormal activities, objects and events that violate known physics. You make it to the headquarters just as everything goes to shit. You have a huge building to explore that slowly opens up, with missions given by really interesting characters. Part of the charm of this game is the mystery and surprises along the way. As always I will do my best to keep it spoiler free.
I love the X-Files feel, the story starts as ‘what the fuck’ and gets weirder. There are puzzles as you go along that can be clever but for the most part problems are solved with a gun. I also love the pistol in this game. You get it near the beginning and you must unlock other variants of it. I actually stuck with the base model as it so well suited my playstyle. The game changer is recharging ammo, no need to scramble around looking for specific bullets. It was a great design choice, keeps things just as tactical without the grind.
Your health has to be replenished from pickups, usually dropped from fallen enemies. These are the employees of the Bureau who have been taken over by some evil force. They use guns, some can fly. It’s all very in keeping with the theme. I actually like the combat, particularly when you get some upgrades that unlock new abilities. Interestingly these are not part of the main story but off the beaten track which is cool. Easy to miss though, make sure you keep on top of the side quests. You end up being a superhero which is no bad thing.
Flinging rocks and desks at huge enemies is very satisfying. Though the rinse and repeat formula might put people off. Go here. Kill everyone. Unlock fast travel. Go to the next place… Fights are short and intense though. Boss fights pop up now and again, keeping things fresh. The story is really interesting, told through conversations and Jesse's internal monologue. I really empathise with her, one of the stronger characters in a game for a long while. Finding out the mystery of what happened to her family and cleaning up the mess in the Bureau are great reasons for me to get to the end.
There are some other gripes. Upgrading from the standard edition to next gen meant I lost my save files. A bit of a pain but I caught up my 10 hours of progress in just over 4 so not the end of the world. The upgraded version looks fucking brilliant, character models are stunning. The hair is still a bit ropey at times but there are moments it's life-like. What keeps drawing me back is the world design, this 1960s government office with weird psychotic changes. There’s a surprise in every new area.
Less than a week after release I’ve surprisingly had a couple of crashes, nothing a patch can’t fix. Luckily both were right after autosaving so nothing really lost beyond 20 seconds on firing it up again. After another 10 hours of playing they seemed to have cleared up. Missions are well structured though there are a bunch of timed ones that drop randomly. These are a bit of pain, particularly if you are in the middle of a boss fight. They are optional but can unlock goodies to upgrade things. I get why they did it but not really needed to be honest.
Talking to friends they found older Remedy titles to be rubbish, Quantum Break in particular. I have not played that so cannot compare but this is now one of my favourite games. It feels like comfort food and can see myself playing it every year or so. If third person action with solid combat mixed with a good story is your thing then definitely give this a whirl. Has cult classic written all over it!
Comments