Man, this game is one amazing vibe that just gets stranger and more interesting the deeper you get. Though I'm not entirely sure I'll ever fully wrap my head around the strangeness that the Control world has to offer, that alone has me in constant thought about every thing I've ran into, every file I've picked up and can read, every audio file I've stumbled upon.
You play as Jesse Faden who has somehow stumbled into the Federal Bureau of Control, an FBI-like agency that handles otherworldly and odd situations/scenarios that pop up. The entire building is under lockdown due to some unexplained attack and it's up to Jesse to uncover the many, many mysteries of the Bureau and what exactly has gone on.
Along the way, you'll stumble upon a handful of employees that are trying to figure everything out just like you are, all with their own little oddities that will help you along the way and help paint a richer, deeper picture of the FBC and the overall world that Control takes place in.
Not everything will be answered and to me, that was perfectly fine. Not knowing everything helped make the weirdness that much more fascinating. Whether that was something like the Janitor and what his link to everything is or walking into a room covered top to bottom in Post-It Notes and having no real explanation for it. You can learn more through notes and various other things but Control is never going to fully reveal its hand to you and it's all the better for it.
The game play is a mix of gun play and various skills you'll learn along the way. The gun play itself is also a mixture of various types, ranging from your standard handgun style shooting, to a shotgun, to a grenade launcher of sorts. All have their pros and cons depending on the situation and the enemies involved. The game doesn't have a manual reload mechanic, the gun after a while will automatically reload which at first bothered me but as I played more of the game, I realized the purposeful nature of it and how it makes you use the full depth of your skillset. Same goes for your skills and the energy attached to it. You'll have to mix and match these abilities quite often to get through firefights and learn the best strategies to get through something. You won't always be able to shoot or throw your way through something with ease.
The skills themselves are also quite fun. Some will be more battle focused, like the ability to dodge or shield your character. Others though will have multi use to them, where battles will become easier but you'll also be able to traverse through the areas easier. Or even get through puzzles. Being able to levitate or throw things for example makes fighting a lot deeper once you've obtained them but also helps you power things up or reach areas you weren't able to prior. It's definitely in the same vain as a Metroidvania, as it does open up new parts of the areas to explore but its approach to this doesn't feel as necessary as many in that style make it. It's more so a fun addition and something that will help make side missions easier if that's something you choose to explore.
The game starts fairly linear as it unfolds the main story and your main objective but once it does set that stuff up, you are able to move more freely around. The characters will give you missions to do for them outside of the main story stuff and there are other objective based tasks you can pick up as well that will help you score some additional mods.
These mods aren't a requirement to beating the game but they will certainly make things easier for you. You'll be able to set personal mods up on yourself, whether that's energy regen speed, a general health, increase how much health you can recover when you pick up healing objects, or other things in that ballpark. There are also weapon mods for each of your weapon types such as how fast a gun can fire, how much damage you to on a headshot, how much damage you do when low on health, etc. etc. These are much more varied and also feature gun variety specific mods that can only be attached to one or two certain types.
As you progress and level up, the game also features various upgrade specific pickups that, along with a monetary-like system, will help you improve your weapons where you'll be able to equip multiple mods on them at one time, making them do more for you. These can be mixed and match to some degree of customization depending on your general play style which is nice, so if you want to equip a specific type of gun to not only to more damage but also do even more when low on health, you're able to do that on whatever gun you feel would be best in a near-death scenario.
The gun varieties themselves all have solid purpose to them. All have a variety of ammo levels to them, depending on the type selected which of course comes with its own set of pros and cons. Like the grenade launcher style type is great at hitting for big damage if you're seeing a bunch of bad guys come your way but it's only got three shots before you need to wait for it to start reloading ammo. Can you be more effective with that or with the SMG style type, where you'll get more bullets but you may not hit as accurately. These varieties mixed and matched with the mods available will definitely make you try different load outs to see what works best and for the most part, you'll find something that works best.
The only real issue I found with the gunplay is more a pet peeve than anything where some of the more explosive type gun varieties do have the chance if you're not careful of hitting something nearby you and exploding in your face, causing damage only on you and nothing more. Personally, I've just never been a fan of the "blast radius can also damage you" style approach to these things in games like this but this also digs into a bigger problem I had with the game.
For as crazy as Jesse's powers can get in this game and the otherworldly nature of the world and setting, at times it just felt like Jesse was always much weaker than some of the things she was coming up against. Granted a lot of the things you fight in this game aren't really people, at least some aren't people anymore, but it just felt like at times that, even as you progressed and got stronger, leveled up more and improved on your abilities, you would come up to something where, after one or two hits you were dashing and dodging around for more health to try and find. It felt like that was the case from the start to the finish of this game sadly.
As you get better with the combat and the strategies, this is mostly easy to get around but one surprise bad guy coming out of nowhere and blowing up in your face can happen and then suddenly you're on the ropes and that never really changed, even after I completely upgraded my health or various other skills. Bosses can also get pretty difficult and have this issue but it's a bit more understanding in those situations to me.
Overall though, there is very little to complain about for me and Control. The story is fascinating, the world created makes me want so much more (especially some of the things Remedy suggests in notes and what is setup in one of the game's DLC packs). The vibe this game is on is just addicting and incredible. It also plays pretty well and controls generally great, outside of the nitpicky thing mentioned and a few other gripes that really aren't worth mentioning in much detail. It's a game I've already started recommending to my friends as "just give this a shot and see if it connects with you". If it can dig its claws into you like it did me, you're in for one hell of an experience.
You play as Jesse Faden who has somehow stumbled into the Federal Bureau of Control, an FBI-like agency that handles otherworldly and odd situations/scenarios that pop up. The entire building is under lockdown due to some unexplained attack and it's up to Jesse to uncover the many, many mysteries of the Bureau and what exactly has gone on.
Along the way, you'll stumble upon a handful of employees that are trying to figure everything out just like you are, all with their own little oddities that will help you along the way and help paint a richer, deeper picture of the FBC and the overall world that Control takes place in.
Not everything will be answered and to me, that was perfectly fine. Not knowing everything helped make the weirdness that much more fascinating. Whether that was something like the Janitor and what his link to everything is or walking into a room covered top to bottom in Post-It Notes and having no real explanation for it. You can learn more through notes and various other things but Control is never going to fully reveal its hand to you and it's all the better for it.
The game play is a mix of gun play and various skills you'll learn along the way. The gun play itself is also a mixture of various types, ranging from your standard handgun style shooting, to a shotgun, to a grenade launcher of sorts. All have their pros and cons depending on the situation and the enemies involved. The game doesn't have a manual reload mechanic, the gun after a while will automatically reload which at first bothered me but as I played more of the game, I realized the purposeful nature of it and how it makes you use the full depth of your skillset. Same goes for your skills and the energy attached to it. You'll have to mix and match these abilities quite often to get through firefights and learn the best strategies to get through something. You won't always be able to shoot or throw your way through something with ease.
The skills themselves are also quite fun. Some will be more battle focused, like the ability to dodge or shield your character. Others though will have multi use to them, where battles will become easier but you'll also be able to traverse through the areas easier. Or even get through puzzles. Being able to levitate or throw things for example makes fighting a lot deeper once you've obtained them but also helps you power things up or reach areas you weren't able to prior. It's definitely in the same vain as a Metroidvania, as it does open up new parts of the areas to explore but its approach to this doesn't feel as necessary as many in that style make it. It's more so a fun addition and something that will help make side missions easier if that's something you choose to explore.
The game starts fairly linear as it unfolds the main story and your main objective but once it does set that stuff up, you are able to move more freely around. The characters will give you missions to do for them outside of the main story stuff and there are other objective based tasks you can pick up as well that will help you score some additional mods.
These mods aren't a requirement to beating the game but they will certainly make things easier for you. You'll be able to set personal mods up on yourself, whether that's energy regen speed, a general health, increase how much health you can recover when you pick up healing objects, or other things in that ballpark. There are also weapon mods for each of your weapon types such as how fast a gun can fire, how much damage you to on a headshot, how much damage you do when low on health, etc. etc. These are much more varied and also feature gun variety specific mods that can only be attached to one or two certain types.
As you progress and level up, the game also features various upgrade specific pickups that, along with a monetary-like system, will help you improve your weapons where you'll be able to equip multiple mods on them at one time, making them do more for you. These can be mixed and match to some degree of customization depending on your general play style which is nice, so if you want to equip a specific type of gun to not only to more damage but also do even more when low on health, you're able to do that on whatever gun you feel would be best in a near-death scenario.
The gun varieties themselves all have solid purpose to them. All have a variety of ammo levels to them, depending on the type selected which of course comes with its own set of pros and cons. Like the grenade launcher style type is great at hitting for big damage if you're seeing a bunch of bad guys come your way but it's only got three shots before you need to wait for it to start reloading ammo. Can you be more effective with that or with the SMG style type, where you'll get more bullets but you may not hit as accurately. These varieties mixed and matched with the mods available will definitely make you try different load outs to see what works best and for the most part, you'll find something that works best.
The only real issue I found with the gunplay is more a pet peeve than anything where some of the more explosive type gun varieties do have the chance if you're not careful of hitting something nearby you and exploding in your face, causing damage only on you and nothing more. Personally, I've just never been a fan of the "blast radius can also damage you" style approach to these things in games like this but this also digs into a bigger problem I had with the game.
For as crazy as Jesse's powers can get in this game and the otherworldly nature of the world and setting, at times it just felt like Jesse was always much weaker than some of the things she was coming up against. Granted a lot of the things you fight in this game aren't really people, at least some aren't people anymore, but it just felt like at times that, even as you progressed and got stronger, leveled up more and improved on your abilities, you would come up to something where, after one or two hits you were dashing and dodging around for more health to try and find. It felt like that was the case from the start to the finish of this game sadly.
As you get better with the combat and the strategies, this is mostly easy to get around but one surprise bad guy coming out of nowhere and blowing up in your face can happen and then suddenly you're on the ropes and that never really changed, even after I completely upgraded my health or various other skills. Bosses can also get pretty difficult and have this issue but it's a bit more understanding in those situations to me.
Overall though, there is very little to complain about for me and Control. The story is fascinating, the world created makes me want so much more (especially some of the things Remedy suggests in notes and what is setup in one of the game's DLC packs). The vibe this game is on is just addicting and incredible. It also plays pretty well and controls generally great, outside of the nitpicky thing mentioned and a few other gripes that really aren't worth mentioning in much detail. It's a game I've already started recommending to my friends as "just give this a shot and see if it connects with you". If it can dig its claws into you like it did me, you're in for one hell of an experience.