Control Review - A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste

Written by Chris Woodside  on September 01, 2019

Reviews: Experience Remedy’s latest atmospheric thriller as you try to figure out what happened in the past and what you are facing now.

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Like a science-fiction version of the Room of Requirement from Harry Potter, Control takes place in the Oldest House, a secret government building whose origins are unknown and only appears to those who actively seek it, and perhaps who the building wants to find it. The latest person to enter the Oldest House is the protagonist of Remedy’s newest game, Jesse Faden. During the roughly 15 hour story, you will explore this seemingly limitless building to find your missing brother Dylan, and uncover the truth behind the mysterious interdimensional threat infecting everyone in the building, the Hiss. While your journey undoubtedly will be filled with some visual hiccups, rarely do they detract from your fight against the Hiss as Remedy turns out their best game in the studio’s history and one that I will remember for a long time.

Despite a fairly complicated intro into the story as Jesse first enters the Oldest House, which functions as the headquarters for the U.S. Government’s Federal Bureau of Control, the game wastes no time in showing the player that things are not all well in this bizarre building, as you quickly discover the Director of the FBC has committed suicide, leaving Jesse to take control of an agency she knows nothing about, apart from the role it played in turning her life upside down when her brother was kidnapped years before during a mysterious event. It proves to be an interesting narrative choice on the part of the designers, as players are simultaneously tasked with a large infiltration in hopes of rescuing your brother, while also assisting the surviving agents of the FBC against your common enemy Hiss.



The most impressive feat here is that Remedy has not simply crafted an engaging story that will keep you invested through the end, but rather that they have built an entire universe from scratch. The countless documents, videos, and other collectibles scattered throughout the building all contain such incredible detail in building this world and providing context of what has motivated Jesse to travel to this building in New York City that the story feels incomplete without it. Whether its providing backstory into past abnormal events, such as the one that led to Jesse’s brother being kidnapped, or information into the Orwellian propaganda campaigns that the FBC has facilitated for the government, the world that has been built for players here appears like a “greatest hits” montage of the calling cards of the dystopian science fiction genre and all fits incredibly well together. Every time that I gained a new ability for Jesse, I took advantage of the hidden Metroidvania elements of the games and immediately backtracked to various floors and previously locked rooms to scavenge for any new documents that I may be able to find. By the time I finished the game, I far surpassed the 120 collectible requirement I needed for the last trophy, and still have many more to find the next time I jump back in.

These abilities that you gain by interacting with objects of power are not limited to traversal mechanics that simply allow you to backtrack to optional areas that previously were inaccessible. While some certainly do, such as being able to reach previously unreachable heights with levitation, many are useful in battle as well. By spreading out these abilities to various moments in the story, it ensured that combat never felt boring or became monotonous as I constantly had new techniques and strategies that I could implement when clearing control zones with massive amounts of Hiss infected enemies and against more difficult optional boss battles. None of this is to say that the traditional combat of using your gun that you acquired from the deceased Director is a chore, as the ability to transform and modify the weapon to function as different types of firearms is an interesting mechanic, I spent most of my time in combat by using the environment around me, whether it was throwing explosive gas tanks into crowds of enemies, or using projectile attacks to deflect them back into the enemy. While none of the battles in the main story felt particularly difficult, the optional boss battles in some of the side quests proved much more challenging and provided me plenty of additional hours of gameplay after having beaten the main story.



While not in combat, the majority of your time playing Control is spent using the wacky physics of the Oldest Building to solve a variety of puzzles. While many of the mechanics of the puzzles felt repetitive at times, as more than a few required putting identical glowing blocks into place to function as batteries of some sort, the solution of how to accomplish it never felt stale and more often than not proved to be considerably challenging, but never frustrating. There is one particular hotel hallway that you are transported to several times in the game, with the environment built identically each time, but each visit had radically different puzzles to solve before being able to advance. As with any good Metroidvania, there are several puzzles in the game connected to optional side quests that are not immediately able to be solved and require you to return later when you gain the necessary ability. This is where the biggest issue with the puzzle-solving in Control appears. Because there are only a handful of abilities you gain throughout the game from the objects of power, it becomes glaringly obvious when you have obtained the ability necessary to solve a puzzle you discovered an hour ago, which took some of the guess-work out of it. It is not a huge complaint, but I still wish they made it a little less obvious on the connections between these abilities and the puzzles.

The most inconsistent aspect of Control by far is the technical work. While none of the visual issues are game-breaking in any way, the fact that the game is locked to 30fps and no HDR had me optimistic that we would see less visual glitches then were common in past Remedy games. Most of these were easy to ignore, such as the textures popping in and out upon teleporting to a new area via the fast travel or when coming out the pause menu. If nothing else, in fact, those visual glitches encouraged me to do more manual backtracking and utilizing the fast travel less often. The more problematic technical glitches came during larger scale battles. When conquering and cleansing control points (which also serve as the fast travel and checkpoint system), you are often faced with waves and waves of Hiss infected enemies. The FPS here dropped very often and more than once caused me to fail, only to be sent way back to the previous control point I had conquered. Luckily, this only happened a few times and never felt really problematic, but it is worth noting that I completed my playthrough on the Xbox One X, so these technical glitches may be more present on different models of the Xbox or Playstation. The sound design and voice acting, however, more than made up for any of the visual glitches that were present. The voice-over performance from Courtney Hope, a Remedy veteran from her work on their previous Quantum Break title, was masterful. In a world built with such complexity as the one here, the subtle changes from an intimidated and newly inaugurated FBC Director, to a powerful agent who could harness the power of the interdimensional Hiss was evident as Jesse’s character developed over the course of the story.



If Control came out just a few weeks later, it likely would have been overshadowed by some of the bigger titles coming out in September and beyond. As it is, Control is more than just an enjoyable experience that players will be lucky enough to experience in the dog days of summer but is quite simply the best game that Remedy has ever put out. Despite the small technical snafus, Control presents players with a thrilling story that has a perfect length and doesnt overstay its welcome, while at the same time providing ample and impressive activities after the credits roll, adding countless more hours to those who want to go back and uncover every last secret that the Oldest House has to offer. Add in the satisfying and creative combat system, and you have not just a can’t miss game of 2019, but a can’t miss game of this generation. Now get to work Director, there is work to be done!