Much easier to play than Remedy's last two games. The shooting is pretty fun - each of the guns feels fun to use and distinct, and I appreciated the choice to forgo ammo in a game like this. The highlights of combat are the telekinesis and levitation powers - late-game fights with these upgraded make the combat feel tight, fast, and improvisational.
The game looks great and I really noticed the detail in the physics - SO much of the world reacts to your gun and your powers in unique ways, and the environments are destructable in an extremely fun way - I spent at least a couple hours marveling at the way doors on electrical boxes would swing correctly on their hinges, or all the ways hitting a table could cause it to break into pieces. I also liked the variety in environments despite most of it taking place in a large office building - I love when a game can show me bathrooms, and where the power comes from, and where employees eat.
Ultimately though, there's not a lot going on here, narratively. I said to a friend that Control pulls you out of combat to tell the story less than either Alan Wake or Quantum Break, but I think that's largely because there's just less story to be told. Very little invested me in Jesse, and all of the narrative interest came from short side quests, log pickups, or the well-made in-game videos you can find. The gameplay does very little to interact with the narrative, either. After an extremely cool sequence (the Ashtray Maze), the game also ends really abruptly - there's very little tension or buildup to the finale, enough to make me wonder if the game ran into timing or budget issues.
I was left wondering, after a late moment where you pull the lugs off of a giant lock on a door with your mind powers, why the game couldn't have leaned more into some light physics-based gameplay a la Half-Life 2. It would have broken up what can often be a tedious game, especially once you've unlocked all the guns and the levitate power. There's not a lot of meaningful enemy variety, and it feels like every combat encounter would have been more fun if 20% less of them spawned. Lots of little gameplay aspects - weapon mods, currency that drops on death - would not be missed at all if they were removed (and might make the game a little bit better).
The game looks great and I really noticed the detail in the physics - SO much of the world reacts to your gun and your powers in unique ways, and the environments are destructable in an extremely fun way - I spent at least a couple hours marveling at the way doors on electrical boxes would swing correctly on their hinges, or all the ways hitting a table could cause it to break into pieces. I also liked the variety in environments despite most of it taking place in a large office building - I love when a game can show me bathrooms, and where the power comes from, and where employees eat.
Ultimately though, there's not a lot going on here, narratively. I said to a friend that Control pulls you out of combat to tell the story less than either Alan Wake or Quantum Break, but I think that's largely because there's just less story to be told. Very little invested me in Jesse, and all of the narrative interest came from short side quests, log pickups, or the well-made in-game videos you can find. The gameplay does very little to interact with the narrative, either. After an extremely cool sequence (the Ashtray Maze), the game also ends really abruptly - there's very little tension or buildup to the finale, enough to make me wonder if the game ran into timing or budget issues.
I was left wondering, after a late moment where you pull the lugs off of a giant lock on a door with your mind powers, why the game couldn't have leaned more into some light physics-based gameplay a la Half-Life 2. It would have broken up what can often be a tedious game, especially once you've unlocked all the guns and the levitate power. There's not a lot of meaningful enemy variety, and it feels like every combat encounter would have been more fun if 20% less of them spawned. Lots of little gameplay aspects - weapon mods, currency that drops on death - would not be missed at all if they were removed (and might make the game a little bit better).