"It's a Video Game!" - Control

Imagine you’re a redhead with telekinetic abilities who has to stop an evil entity from entering our world. No, I’m not talking about Jean Grey, nor am I talking about Liz whenever “Frankie, The Annoying Dog” wants to act like a cat. I’m talking about Jesse Faden, the protagonist of Control, a 2019 game developed by Remedy. This was a game I saw some press for back in 2019 since it looked pretty unique. Of course, I end up waiting until 2021 to check it out. Thanks, Playstation Plus! I knew there was another reason to keep it around. It was also released on the Xbox One, the Nintendo Switch, and PC.

The game is about Jesse Faden, a young woman who has telekinetic abilities. In the story, Jesse heads to the Federal Bureau of Control, a government branch that deals with paranormal or supernatural incidents. When she gets to their main headquarters (The Oldest House) in New York, she finds that the building is constantly shifting and morphing. It’s revealed that it is a doorway to another dimension and that something on the other side is causing it to morph. The entity, The Hiss, is also possessing the building’s agents. Jesse gets the shock of her life as she’s made the Director of the FBC, and she’s forced to deal with the coming threat. She also has to find out what the FBC did with her brother, Dylan.

PROS

This was a pretty fun game. I didn’t really know what to expect when I started to play. A lot of it has to do with its pretty spooky setting. Even though you’re trapped in what’s essentially a skyscraper, it still feels like a haunted house ride. You don’t know what’s around the corner. You might find a FBC agent infected by the Hiss floating in the air, some weird entity that destroys everything in its path, or possessed soldiers. Luckily, you have some room to maneuver, a service gun that has all sorts of modes, and an entity that allows you to use all sort of telekinetic powers.

The story was pretty interesting in how things are told. While we have a few cutscenes and talking points, you’re mostly putting things together. You get all sorts of documents and audio clips to listen to, and that made things feel like a mystery. The game plays into all sorts of genres like horror, scifi, mystery, and balls-to-the-wall action. The Oldest House also stores various paranormal artifacts, and you sometimes interact with those things. Heck, all this trouble started over a freakin’ photo projector.

Jesse Faden was a good protagonist and does her best to take it all in stride. Her personal connection to it all (her brother and Polaris, the being in her mind) was also pretty interesting. This Hiss as a villain was interesting, but there’s only so much that can be done with possessed folk running around. There really isn’t much of a personal threat, and that’s fine. There’s more than enough to see and play around with. You end up having a quite a few threats to fight and luckily, most of them are just sidequests.

The graphics are good for the most part. They don’t seem that next gen to me at points, but they look better than most games. The Oldest House is split up into six big areas for you to play around in and trash up a lot of stuff. Too bad it respawns later, but I could see that being a problem for developers. The controlling was pretty good, and you can even use multiple abilities as you level up. Finally, the music is pretty good and eerie. It kept things intense especially during the action scenes. Just remember to crank it up when you get to The Ashtray Maze. Talk about amazing.

 

CONS

Not the toughest boss in the game, but definitely the most annoying.

While the game was pretty fun, it had some hiccups here and there. The biggest thing to me was the difficulty. There were some places where I had just walk away for a bit. There’s one boss (Salvador) that took a while for me to beat. When online help even isn’t helping much, you got problems. Apparently, other folk thought that, so the developers ended up adding some functions to make the gameplay a little easier. I only learned this after I got into one of the DLCs though.

One thing that annoyed me was the constant respawning of Hiss villains. You’re in one area and all the sudden, soldiers, that dude in the chair, those explodey (?) dudes, and that Rock jackass show up. It’s all a lot, ya know? I also ran into some glitches here and there. The most pervasive one is when I unpause the game. Things freeze for a couple of seconds then resume normally. It got pretty annoying especially during the more stressful moments. I also noticed that the audio in some cuts scenes wouldn’t match up with lip movements. Other than these things and those dang Rock mofos, this was a cool game.

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In the end, this was a fun, creepy ride. Control was definitely a pretty unique experience, and it’s one that I might replay one day. Check it out if you haven’t. While it may not be heavy on gore, it’s definitely has a creep factor. Anyway, that’s all I got for now. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and when all else fails… (Finds Alt Rock voice)…. TAKE! CONTROL!