Remedy has always been a studio I've held in very high regard, they've always strived with their general gunplay and art style I can't get enough of them.
Back when Control first came out I thought it was beyond fantastic. The level design was top tier with some fantastic gunplay that did a great job reacting to your surroundings, with a pretty interesting story with an SCP inspired main location that I just adored ( I was really in SCP lore when the game came out)
On a revisit not much of my opinion has changed but mostly to the negative.
Don't get me wrong I still like the game, but I feel like I was too nice to it and looked over a lot of flaws that I really didn't want to say given I was such a big fan of Remady.
I think the one thing that hasn't changed for me this time around was the visuals and the art design. This game is still probably one of the best examples of ray tracing really improving a game's visuals and I've always liked the drab government office clashing with the otherworldly entities infesting the walls. It really does a great job altogether and I think it might be my favorite Remedy Game in terms of just visuals and presentation; I just wished the overall gameplay lived up to my memory.
I don't think Remedy has ever had a game that I didn't like playing, and for the first few hours, I had blast with the game. The first gun you get feels very good to use and the impact it has on the enemies were very satisfying. Eventually you start unlocking other powers like dashing and even flying, and that's when it starts losing me and starts being extremely easy and boring, once you unlock an ability where you can pick up any item off the ground and huck them at enemies you've pretty much unlocked the best power in the game. At that point you start to realize that the guns are on a cool-down instead of having ammo, which would be fine but the cooldown doesn't really matter because you can just start throwing shit at enemies and then get right back into the fight, after that point I never felt like I really needed to try in a fight, it was just a consent barrage of enemies the game would send my way and I would mop the floor with them in seconds.
It doesn't help that as the game goes on you unlock other guns that are not really as fun to use or actively handicap you in fight due to how situational they are so the only ones that are useful are the handgun and the machine gun which feels really weak and doesn't have much impact on the enemies.
I don't know if it's just me being actually good at video games for once or the game itself but if I was able to change the difficulty mid-game I would've in a heartbeat.
I also wanna add this little bit about the metroidvania-like maps the games have is honestly really meh. Like yes you can go back to older areas and unlock areas you couldn't get to before by using new power you've unlocked; but you don't get anything out of it other than some more mods to slap onto your guns, all of which you can get literally everywhere else in the game so it's not like I really NEED to go out of my way to find them.
The story was also something that changed a lot for me, I don't think it's bad; but I sure as hell wasn't invested in it at all this time around.
All the characters are generally just ok but they all talk in such a deadpan and direct way you'd think they were just trying to recreate how the character talked in Twin Peaks (which knowing Remedy that probably was the case), I'm pretty sure it was supposed to come off as charming but I just found it really dry and mixed together with the very boring combat made for a super unengaging time overall.
All the missions mostly boil down to go to A and kill B or go to A, clear out B, and then go to new area and look for C and then possibly kill D. The only times when the missions really stood out were times you had to deal with altered items that could lead to fun boss fights or a very trippy platforming sequence.
I'm glad I did go out of my way to replay this mostly because I've been really depressed and have been looking for games that I've had fun with in the past. but now it just reminds me how I feel I've become more critical of media over the years and it's become really hard for me to just look past stuff and enjoy myself.
I hope like hell Alan Wake 2 is much better because man this really bummed me out
Back when Control first came out I thought it was beyond fantastic. The level design was top tier with some fantastic gunplay that did a great job reacting to your surroundings, with a pretty interesting story with an SCP inspired main location that I just adored ( I was really in SCP lore when the game came out)
On a revisit not much of my opinion has changed but mostly to the negative.
Don't get me wrong I still like the game, but I feel like I was too nice to it and looked over a lot of flaws that I really didn't want to say given I was such a big fan of Remady.
I think the one thing that hasn't changed for me this time around was the visuals and the art design. This game is still probably one of the best examples of ray tracing really improving a game's visuals and I've always liked the drab government office clashing with the otherworldly entities infesting the walls. It really does a great job altogether and I think it might be my favorite Remedy Game in terms of just visuals and presentation; I just wished the overall gameplay lived up to my memory.
I don't think Remedy has ever had a game that I didn't like playing, and for the first few hours, I had blast with the game. The first gun you get feels very good to use and the impact it has on the enemies were very satisfying. Eventually you start unlocking other powers like dashing and even flying, and that's when it starts losing me and starts being extremely easy and boring, once you unlock an ability where you can pick up any item off the ground and huck them at enemies you've pretty much unlocked the best power in the game. At that point you start to realize that the guns are on a cool-down instead of having ammo, which would be fine but the cooldown doesn't really matter because you can just start throwing shit at enemies and then get right back into the fight, after that point I never felt like I really needed to try in a fight, it was just a consent barrage of enemies the game would send my way and I would mop the floor with them in seconds.
It doesn't help that as the game goes on you unlock other guns that are not really as fun to use or actively handicap you in fight due to how situational they are so the only ones that are useful are the handgun and the machine gun which feels really weak and doesn't have much impact on the enemies.
I don't know if it's just me being actually good at video games for once or the game itself but if I was able to change the difficulty mid-game I would've in a heartbeat.
I also wanna add this little bit about the metroidvania-like maps the games have is honestly really meh. Like yes you can go back to older areas and unlock areas you couldn't get to before by using new power you've unlocked; but you don't get anything out of it other than some more mods to slap onto your guns, all of which you can get literally everywhere else in the game so it's not like I really NEED to go out of my way to find them.
The story was also something that changed a lot for me, I don't think it's bad; but I sure as hell wasn't invested in it at all this time around.
All the characters are generally just ok but they all talk in such a deadpan and direct way you'd think they were just trying to recreate how the character talked in Twin Peaks (which knowing Remedy that probably was the case), I'm pretty sure it was supposed to come off as charming but I just found it really dry and mixed together with the very boring combat made for a super unengaging time overall.
All the missions mostly boil down to go to A and kill B or go to A, clear out B, and then go to new area and look for C and then possibly kill D. The only times when the missions really stood out were times you had to deal with altered items that could lead to fun boss fights or a very trippy platforming sequence.
I'm glad I did go out of my way to replay this mostly because I've been really depressed and have been looking for games that I've had fun with in the past. but now it just reminds me how I feel I've become more critical of media over the years and it's become really hard for me to just look past stuff and enjoy myself.
I hope like hell Alan Wake 2 is much better because man this really bummed me out