I found Control to be kind of mid. And I don't know if I should blame the game or myself for it. Remedy's universe seems to be really interesting, but the game itself is less so. When I was in about 3/4 of the game a friend tells me I was supposed to read the stuff I found along the way. I guess that's what explained many things and what makes the game actually interesting, but how was I supposed to know? I get that they didn't want to obstruct the gameplay for people who where there just for the shooting, but if reading and caring about the story is supposed to be such an important part, I don't see why they didn't put any effort in making it clear to the player that it is important. I do like games where I need to put from my part to learn about it and stuff, but I need to know what the game expects of me. If reading really was important, I would have made it an essential part to read to be able to progress in the game, and it almost seems like a coward move to just let you skip everithing to go shooting and be able to progress normally. The least I would ask for is for there to be a deliberate message saying something like "To get the best experience from control, you need to explore the world, put attention on the details and read the entries of your journal", or maybe it would also help if when you grab a readable it opens it automatically instead of needing to akwardly go to the menus and search for the one that you just grabbed (it is very easy to have the "pulse x button to open entry" to go before you manage to press anything.
If you play the game like purely a shooter, like I did since I didn't know what to expect, it is an alright game. Below average probably. The shooting is pretty much as basic as it gets. Just walking and shooting with some extra powers that are not really that creative nor fun to use. Upgrades that do not really add much to the experience, they actually even make it worse since you need to keep looking at numbers that do not really change your playstyle in any meaningful way, and do mini side-challenges that are not at all fun to do. Hitsgan humanoid enemies, noting really interesting either in that department.
The graphics are cool, the first two hours. After that, it becomes really, really repetitive and that repetition not only affects the visual style, but the level design too, since with how similar the areas look and how complex the layout can get, it is sometimes really difficult to tell where you need to go. The visuals are also really inconsistent in the cinematics department. Sometimes you have these very cool and almost mystic cinematics with a strong color direction, and then you have fallout-type dialogues with other characters, which really contrast with the previous mentioned cinematics.
So, what is the point of the game? After completing it I can't really tell. In the end (kind of spoilers) there's a section which I think that tries to criticize the the Laboral environment? Maybe that is kind of the point of the game, but I don't really know since the game was so worried that I would get bored after 1 minute of not shooting enemies. I think that if this game was a more directed experience that focuses on the themes on the story and makes you able to understand (at least a bit) of the universe instead of mindless boring shooting it would be a much better game. And as I said in the start, is it my problem or the game's problem that I didn't put enough attention at the universe to be able to understand it? I think is a bit of both I guess, but the experience I had was mediocre so that's how I'm rating this game.
If you play the game like purely a shooter, like I did since I didn't know what to expect, it is an alright game. Below average probably. The shooting is pretty much as basic as it gets. Just walking and shooting with some extra powers that are not really that creative nor fun to use. Upgrades that do not really add much to the experience, they actually even make it worse since you need to keep looking at numbers that do not really change your playstyle in any meaningful way, and do mini side-challenges that are not at all fun to do. Hitsgan humanoid enemies, noting really interesting either in that department.
The graphics are cool, the first two hours. After that, it becomes really, really repetitive and that repetition not only affects the visual style, but the level design too, since with how similar the areas look and how complex the layout can get, it is sometimes really difficult to tell where you need to go. The visuals are also really inconsistent in the cinematics department. Sometimes you have these very cool and almost mystic cinematics with a strong color direction, and then you have fallout-type dialogues with other characters, which really contrast with the previous mentioned cinematics.
So, what is the point of the game? After completing it I can't really tell. In the end (kind of spoilers) there's a section which I think that tries to criticize the the Laboral environment? Maybe that is kind of the point of the game, but I don't really know since the game was so worried that I would get bored after 1 minute of not shooting enemies. I think that if this game was a more directed experience that focuses on the themes on the story and makes you able to understand (at least a bit) of the universe instead of mindless boring shooting it would be a much better game. And as I said in the start, is it my problem or the game's problem that I didn't put enough attention at the universe to be able to understand it? I think is a bit of both I guess, but the experience I had was mediocre so that's how I'm rating this game.