Control - Review
Remedy have built their name on creating stories that, whilst might not be realistic, have characters that have a real foundation to them, helping players relate and it has been a few years since Quantum Break, but they are back with Control. The question is, are you in charge for this one, or just someone on the side lines?
Control is the story of Jesse, a young woman who has spent the vast majority of her life, looking for the Federal Bureau of Control, or the FBC. This is the organisation, who when she was younger, came to her hometown and took an item she and her brother found in the city dump, but also her brother, leaving her alone. The events that happened there, are slowly revealed as you progress through the game, so I won’t spoil that here, however there is a problem, and they take the form of the Hiss. The Hiss, named by Jesse, have invaded the FBC and things are in a bad way, thankfully there are some survivors around the place, that can help you find out what has happened, while you attempt to sort out the problems located within.
My biggest issue with the story is that, whilst there are times when it offers the illusion of choice, that is just that, an illusion as it sticks to the fixed path created by the designers. The problem with that, is the times when there appear to be choices that can be made, would have made for a more interesting character for Jesse to become, than what we got. Jesse, for all her desires about finding her brother, seems to have no problem is sorting out every single problem that is, evenly vaguely connected to the search. In terms of other characters, most of the information you discover about them is through redacted files, or on-screen videos that play in meeting rooms, or offices and only if you stick around for them. The issue with that, is while you can pick up and read a document pretty easily, thanks to a button press, if you enter a room, with a few of them, you spend more time going into and out of the menu for it, which slows down the already slow story.
Where the game shines though, is in its blend of shooter and psychic power gameplay, as you can’t survive with just one alone and the game does a great job of blending them together. Jesse starts out with just the Service Weapon, a pistol that has unlimited ammo, but can overheat for lack of a better term, soon though, she obtains the ability of telekinesis and can start throwing objects littered around the world at her enemies. If you run out of objects, you can start to rip chunk of floor and wall out and use that instead and later in the game, if you upgrade that way, you can even use the enemies themselves, to hit other enemies. The further into the world you go, the more powers you can obtain, as well as more weapons you can unlock and while you can only have two weapons at any one time, there is no limit to how often you swap them out for something else. The game does offer a lot of cover based elements, but staying put is not advised as for some reason, the enemy can always know where you are and easily take aim at you and as you can destroy the world for supplies, so can they, so staying mobile is your safest option.
As you complete missions, you will start to earn points, which you can use to upgrade yourself, mostly your abilities, having more health, more energy for your powers and such. As you start to unlock new abilities, more options start to appear in this menu and while it might seem like a sound idea to just wait until you have all the options unlocked, before you start to upgrade your abilities, there is a distinct downside to waiting and that is the pure and frustrating gameplay difficulty. There were many times when I would encounter a room of enemies, only to be completely owned by them, but then the room after, with just as many, would be a breeze and if that was not bad, it happened with the bosses. The first boss fight I encountered, was a complete breeze, to the point where I did not realise it was a boss, but then later fights proved to be so much of a challenge, I felt like abandoning the game from the frustration they induced.
That is not to say it is bad, just uneven, but after taking a break, then spending some time upgrading some mods, crafting new ones and making myself the strongest I could with what, I had, I dove back in and I kicked butt. The concern though, is that most people won’t do any of that, as the game does nothing to advise about the options, it barely offers up instructions on how to level up base skills, let alone using all the resources around the world, to craft new modifications for your weapon, or self. The way that the game comes to an end is also odd, again as it is highly story based, I won’t talk about it here, it does suit the rest of the game, as long as you have been paying attention. When you die and you will, you respawn at the last checkpoint you passed, which is quite a nice thing, as it gives you a chance to spec up if needed, but it also means you might have to back track a few solid minutes of walking, to get back to where you were and when that happens, the game is a little random in spawning enemies for you to fight, sometimes it does and others not so much.
There was another issue and I don’t know if it was my console, or what, but the game stuttered, a lot when it came to video playback, any cutscene, in-game video or overlay, there was significant lag on the video part, while the audio kept pushing forward. The in-game elements were not an issue, but when you are trying to watch a story central cutscene and the game lags out, there is just something annoying about it, I restarted the console, moved from internal Xbox One storage, to external and back again and still had the problem. The other technical issue was one minor thing, but consistently occurred, whenever I left any menu, the games pause, customisation or levelling up screen, there would be a few seconds of stutter, as if the game was not prepared for me to do this. Whilst standing still would cause it to only be minor, moving the camera around, would cause items to pop in and stutter the game a little harder and while both issues did not impact gameplay, they were both quite annoying.
What part of the game that really struggled for me, was the presentation, there are times when it looks amazing, especially when it comes to the rooms that have been warped by the events taking place. The issue is in the faces, they are at times, simply staggeringly amazing and then times when the uncanny valley makes an appearance and ruins it all. For the most part the visuals are solid, the world is full of things we know from the real world and I made a number of jokes to myself about walking through an office, whilst playing the game. Some locations are of course embellished for the sake of the game, but there is still a real grounded sense to them, giving the appearance that they could exist somewhere on this planet. When you venture into the darker spaces, the game does a somewhat ok job of giving you a sense of direction, the problem is that the darkness is more shades of black, than anything else and the game has an issues displaying them smoothly.
The audio side is actually the more impressive part, the game has a few music tracks, which play a little randomly, but they all suit the scene, when they do play, but it is the acting and sound effects that make the game feel alive. The actors who each portray one of the characters, do an amazing job, even when there are times when I wanted to throttle Jesse for making a choice, the amount of heart that Courtney Hope brought to the character, made it hard to maintain that thought for long. The sound effects though, were perfect, they somehow managed to blend office noises and something else, for the Hiss and fighting them inside a corporate office, well that is something amazing, Even when you venture into other locations, the sounds, or lack of them at times, all help build the world, which kept pushing me forward.
With Control, Remedy have once again given themselves another notch in successful story based games and while this is not their strongest entry, it is still stands quite a bit above a lot of the other ones out there. There are times when the game gets to bogged down in story, and has a frustrating issue with difficulty balance, but if you can work with them and overlook the constant technical problems, you can easily find yourself, getting immersed in the world of the FBC, even once the story comes to a close.
Review code provided by 505 Games
