Several years ago, while playing DOOM [2016], I realized that I had an unforgiving level of intolerance for optional challenges that could outright ruin a game for me if I committed too heavily to them. Thankfully, DOOM made it quite obvious that its challenges were optional, making it easy and intuitive to skip them. I can't say the same for Control.
Control has this really bad habit of throwing new missions your way with very little context and without making it clear whether they're optional. As if this sort of thing wasn't already bad enough, the game sees fit to plaster a massive text notification over the screen at the most inopportune times, even for optional side missions, even during intense combat.
Even worse, if you decide to waste your time with certain optional missions, then you'll sometimes find yourself failing them for no clear reason with no option to retry them. Did I leave the "mission area" as you may find yourself doing in other games? No idea. I didn't receive a notification, outside of being told that I failed, despite supposedly having three minutes left to finish the mission.
Let's say you manage to stick to the main path without being distracted by any optional missions. You'll often find yourself lost, as it doesn't seem as though anyone as Remedy understands the concept of using visual cues to make navigation more intuitive. Furthermore, a combination of bad checkpointing and various areas looking too similar to one another will inevitably cause you to get turned around.
In case I haven't already made it clear how bad the progression in Control is, I'd like to now talk about the controls for the various traversal abilities you'll unlock throughout the game. If you've played another video game before, then you're probably used to the concept of holding a jump button to jump higher, right? Too bad holding the jump button in that fashion activates your levitation ability. To make matters worse, you then have to press jump to fall again more immediately, meaning that you're screwed if you need to jump in order to evade an attack. And whose bright idea was it to make a single press of the jump button cause you to float downward while falling? Isn't it generally customary to HOLD the jump button or a separate button altogether?
On the subject of controls and general handling, you'll often find yourself getting caught on level geometry, with the problem being exacerbated by the game's admittedly impressive destructible environments. You won't just find yourself getting caught on level geometry, though, as you'll find that your launch ability is damn-near useless in tight spaces, since someone at Remedy saw reason to provide some of the most impressive auto-aim I've ever experienced in a game while somehow managing to make all of your abilities completely inadequate for reliable use in cramped areas.
As if everything I've already described isn't bad enough, the game has various performance hitches, especially right after you un-pause the game. I've also experienced crashes to the dashboard on Xbox Series X, mostly during loading screens but occasionally during intense combat.
I really wanted to like Control. It has an interesting storyline with well-acted characters. Unfortunately, the game part of the game gets in the way of the narrative, making for a pretty lousy experience, in my opinion.
Control has this really bad habit of throwing new missions your way with very little context and without making it clear whether they're optional. As if this sort of thing wasn't already bad enough, the game sees fit to plaster a massive text notification over the screen at the most inopportune times, even for optional side missions, even during intense combat.
Even worse, if you decide to waste your time with certain optional missions, then you'll sometimes find yourself failing them for no clear reason with no option to retry them. Did I leave the "mission area" as you may find yourself doing in other games? No idea. I didn't receive a notification, outside of being told that I failed, despite supposedly having three minutes left to finish the mission.
Let's say you manage to stick to the main path without being distracted by any optional missions. You'll often find yourself lost, as it doesn't seem as though anyone as Remedy understands the concept of using visual cues to make navigation more intuitive. Furthermore, a combination of bad checkpointing and various areas looking too similar to one another will inevitably cause you to get turned around.
In case I haven't already made it clear how bad the progression in Control is, I'd like to now talk about the controls for the various traversal abilities you'll unlock throughout the game. If you've played another video game before, then you're probably used to the concept of holding a jump button to jump higher, right? Too bad holding the jump button in that fashion activates your levitation ability. To make matters worse, you then have to press jump to fall again more immediately, meaning that you're screwed if you need to jump in order to evade an attack. And whose bright idea was it to make a single press of the jump button cause you to float downward while falling? Isn't it generally customary to HOLD the jump button or a separate button altogether?
On the subject of controls and general handling, you'll often find yourself getting caught on level geometry, with the problem being exacerbated by the game's admittedly impressive destructible environments. You won't just find yourself getting caught on level geometry, though, as you'll find that your launch ability is damn-near useless in tight spaces, since someone at Remedy saw reason to provide some of the most impressive auto-aim I've ever experienced in a game while somehow managing to make all of your abilities completely inadequate for reliable use in cramped areas.
As if everything I've already described isn't bad enough, the game has various performance hitches, especially right after you un-pause the game. I've also experienced crashes to the dashboard on Xbox Series X, mostly during loading screens but occasionally during intense combat.
I really wanted to like Control. It has an interesting storyline with well-acted characters. Unfortunately, the game part of the game gets in the way of the narrative, making for a pretty lousy experience, in my opinion.