Control (2019) - Review

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Control (2019) - Review

Postby iMURDAu » Wed Nov 24, 2021 2:55 am

This game is fucked up.

In a good way.

If you like fucked up things, you'll like this game. Think of absurdity as a box you're holding and as you try to figure out what facet you're looking at the box is just constantly shifting. That's this game.

In this game you play as Jesse Faden who has arrived at The Federal Bureau of Control in New York City. She is looking for her long missing brother Dylan and would like to ask the Bureau for assistance.

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I plan on mentioning as little story as possible in this review as to avoid spoilers. But I assure you it is highly entertaining and you will often make the face where you raise an eyebrow and open half your mouth.

During your playthrough of Control, because you really should play this game, you'll encounter many wtf moments. They're draped over core gameplay that starts as just a third person shooter. Very quickly you end up acquiring the ability to grab and throw objects like you've got the Force.

You also get a gun. Yay another game with a gun. If any game needs anything its obviously a shooting mechanic. A couple caveats if I may. One is that shooting balances out your throwing of tables. You have a limited amount of "energy" that allows you to use your force powers. You also don't have unlimited ammo. Wait, actually you do. Just not all inside of your weapon at once. Your gun has a cooldown and reloads automatically.

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Which is super duper awesome because when you're in the middle of a firefight who wants to manage ammo stock for multiple weapons? I sure don't enjoy doing that. Combat is supposed to be fun, we play games to have fun right? Once you've unlocked more Force powers and more gun forms you can pretty much tailor the game to your preferred play style. That's the thing that really stands out in Control's combat to me, its the variety. You're not just facing the same crap enemies all game long. Getting more abilities as you progress just adds to what you're able to do when encountering enemies.

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I do wish that enemies made some kind of noise when they spawn beyond the initial wave. Most of my deaths outside of boss fights were to an enemy I wasn't aware existed until it was too late.

Overall the difficulty is what I'd consider normal. If you venture somewhere that has enemies too strong for you then just go there later. Sometimes you're given a ton of side quests at once and completing objectives unlocks more objectives and you could end up over your head. But its not a big deal. They're just side quests.

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The setting of Control is one large interconnected building. You'll open up new areas constantly. Its not technically an open world but it feels like one. The plot pushes you through with the regular "you're doing things for people" but its what you end up doing and sometimes where you end up going that hooks you. Some of the locations within the building will crack you up, others will drop your jaw, some will probably gross you out. Don't get belched on by a giant mold growth. Ick.

Presentation wise this game is candy. Just drop dead drooling gorgeous.
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Uh, provided you have the hardware. Current consoles (people need to stop calling consoles that came out last year "next gen") claim to run the game just fine. A streamer I watch played it on PS5 and the only frame drops I noticed were few and far between. My laptop's little RTX2060 pushes it at 70 frames per second no problems but if I turn ray tracing all the, all the way up it drops to 40 fps. Apparently previous gen consoles only run it at 30 fps, obviously with no ray tracing, yikes. I don't recommend that.

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There are two DLC chapters that are included in the Ultimate Edition, but you should get them if you just have the regular version of the game. They're both about equal length to play. The first one is a continuation of the main story. Definitely a proper bonus level type of dessert you want after finishing the main game. The second DLC is related to a game that is also by the same developer. If you've played this other game apparently you'll relate to the events of this chapter. Shortly after starting up it showed a character and I mockingly threw my hands up and said "I'm playing a sequel?". I have not played the other game so all I got was more confused than I already was. But. I had a lot of fun with the game mechanic you mess around with so I can't really complain.

Overall this game is. I don't know. Is this game perfect? Penalty for death is losing 10% of your currency and restarting at the last control point you visited. I could do without the death tax tbqh but it wasn't an issue when I played. You can only save at control points. But they're all over the place so you won't have to travel for long if you die. So uh, yeah.

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Control gets two thumbs up, 10 out of 11, won the taste test and is possibly recommended by a local physician. All/screenshots are my/own.
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