Control by Remedy Catch All

The thing about combat in this game is that "move a lot" is sound advice against mobs of regular enemies, loading screen tips even say so, but there are some bosses where it's absolutely the wrong strategy so you have to abruptly override your own conditioning.

The Mold-1 glitch didn't work for me. Tried that encounter a few times but gave up again. Also frowned heavily when I was faced with the Former boss a second time and couldn't be bothered to try again when you have to run through a long lead up to the fight every retry.

I think I'm giving up on the game as a whole for now. If they patch in a balance change, or difficulty selector, I'll try to finish. I got to the part after the Ash Tray Maze with loads of platforms, waves of guys, and after 3 attempts, including trying to cheese it like posts here suggested, I just can't be bothered to continue anymore. The aesthetics and level design are incredibly strong, but the checkpointing, encounter design, and load times are too much for me to deal with at this point.

I really loved Max Payne 1 and 2, but I was cold on Alan Wake. After this game I'm thinking maybe Remedy games aren't for me anymore.

I finished the game last night. Dropped in here hoping for some insight into the ending - oh well, good to know everyone else was as baffled as I was Even Jesse says she is confused in a post-credits dialog so I guess that's what they were aiming for.

Think I enjoyed the combat more than most though. Apart from the final couple of encounters it felt almost made to measure. I'm terrible at shooters so will always use powers by preference (I'm always a Biotic or Sentinel in Mass Effect) and this game seemed to naturally lean into that. Plus, I never had any trouble seeing enemies thanks to the high contrast art style. It probably also helped that I did all the side quests as soon as they came up, so I was naturally over powered.

This is actually the first Remedy game I've played and I'd certainly play more in future. I really enjoyed the setting and vibe, but was less impressed by the background text/video/audio logs. A lot of them seemed kind of pointless, or maybe in-jokes.

I picked Control up for PC in the Epic sale ($30 after $10 coupon), and I'm just adoring it. Batman: Arkham Asylum, but with guns and superpowers? X-Files-ey world, with a Warehouse 13 story? Immense amounts of backstory and collectible descriptions? Holy sh*t, I think Remedy read my mind (presumably using some OoP) and made a game exactly suited to please me.

I feel like I'm approaching the end of the main story. I haven't read any of the prior pages in this thread to avoid spoilers, but I'm eager to see what you all thought. I'm surprised this thread is so short, given how much it seems to have been a universally-acclaimed game. Did people just power through it (or burn out on it) quickly?

If you've looked into the GotY thread you will see it has gotten a lot of love there, but some people did bounce off of it hard because of the difficulty.

Personally, it was my #1 and will be on my Game of the Decade list.

yeah, lot of love from me. Some frustrating boss fight / set pieces thanks to the checkpointing system, but overall i had a blast with it. The wobbly iron man style "flight" ability is probably my favourite thing from games in 2019.

I'm very curious to see what DLC looks like for the game (assuming there is DLC). It seems like a very easy world to naturally drop some additional mysteries into.

Awesome. I only played a bit of Alan Wake, but I loved seeing the redacted documents in Control linking the worlds together.

Also, there totally is a Photo mode in Control. Dunno why PCGamer says there isn’t. Unless it was added sometime after that article was written in September.

merphle wrote:

Awesome. I only played a bit of Alan Wake, but I loved seeing the redacted documents in Control linking the worlds together.

Also, there totally is a Photo mode in Control. Dunno why PCGamer says there isn’t. Unless it was added sometime after that article was written in September.

I think it was added in a patch later in the fall.

Awesome. I deleted my game for space- hope it doesn't require a completed save to access the DLC.

I'm in the "Really Love It" camp (Certified SPP #7 of 2019!), but where is the Lift upgrade that does 95% of a boss' health in one hit? They all seem to have it.

2nd place on my GOTY list! Looking up the page, I like it more now than I did straight after finishing. A few specific things about the endgame were disappointing, but overall I loved exploring (and destroying) the Oldest House.

I was surprised in the first 30 seconds of the game. For some reason I thought it was a 1st person game. Since it is 3rd person I assume a controller is the better method?

I was fine with mouse and keyboard.

Holy cow this game is weird!

I have been enjoying it so far. I am a bit lost quite often because the map isn't exactly great. I have to use the signs on the walls often to tell which direction I should go. It is actually kind of neat to have to use that rather than a automatically filled in map, but it is also kind of annoying that the map doesn't really help.

That just shows how spoiled we’ve gotten

I also was really thrown off by not having a glowing line leading me to the destination, but the map at least gives some coding to show where the quest objective is. I usually just confirm I’m pointing in the general direction of where I want to go, then head forward and follow signs. It’s delightfully immersive.

robc wrote:

I was surprised in the first 30 seconds of the game. For some reason I thought it was a 1st person game. Since it is 3rd person I assume a controller is the better method?

Since there is quite a bit of aiming weapons and powers I stuck with mouse and keyboard. I'm sure the auto-aim on controller is probably... fine? But anything with aiming I am far more comfortable with a mouse.

I decided to give it a try with the controller because I prefer movement and using skills that way, even if I greatly prefer the mouse for aiming. So far I've been good enough, so I guess I'll proceed with the controller unless I start having too much trouble.

Thanks for your opinions! I didn't mean to ask and then go in the opposite direction.

robc wrote:

I decided to give it a try with the controller because I prefer movement and using skills that way, even if I greatly prefer the mouse for aiming. So far I've been good enough, so I guess I'll proceed with the controller unless I start having too much trouble.

Thanks for your opinions! I didn't mean to ask and then go in the opposite direction. :-)

I ended up going with controller as well. Even though I was playing on PC, it just kind of looked like the kind of game a controller was good for.

This game is freakin' awesome. The more I play it, the more I want to play it. It sets up such a weird setting. The action is good. Sometimes it looks a little sterile or something, but it still looks good. If I had a minor nitpick, and it's the same one as I had in Prey - I just don't like the visual design of the enemies.

After the rave reviews of this game all over GWJ I picked it up for $40 CDN through the Epic Store and it's the game I want to spend all of January in. I've got to say, 2 hours in, it's lived up to and so wildly surpassed the hype!

It's the only game I've ever played where I look forward to more collectibles and lore drops. The UI is gorgeous, fluid and so tightly wraps into the overall game aesthetic. The world is familiar and yet so different, it's that uncanny-valley esque "is this real? Because it sure feels like it could be real!"

I love just wandering through the world. It's the first game I've played with my new 2080ti and I get to experience ray tracing in all it's shiny glory. The physics is super fun too. Just this morning I saw a level 2 security door with glass paneling on either side, thought "hmm, I bet I could throw something through that!" and it made me giddy to chuck a table through the wall and get the goodies inside.

My minor gripe is for as beautiful and well rendered as the world is, it's a shame they didn't spend a tiny bit more time on the characters and skin textures. They're demonstrably low resolution when compared to the almost pixel perfect wall texture which is a shame. It always pulls me a bit out of the world when I zoom in on a face because it's just a muddy and incomplete texture.

Oh, did I mention I also had a dream about this game!? That's how much the world has sucked me in. I woke up covered in cold sweat because I thought I was the director and was flying around wielding purple fireballs. Can't wait for the work day to finish to hop back in!

Can someone without being to spoilery tell me how to find Containment? I'm trying to not look up guides, but I am completely stumped.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

Can someone without being to spoilery tell me how to find Containment? I'm trying to not look up guides, but I am completely stumped.

Use the elevator. That got me too.

merphle wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:

Can someone without being to spoilery tell me how to find Containment? I'm trying to not look up guides, but I am completely stumped.

Use the elevator. That got me too. :)

I feel like an idiot.

I finally got past a bit where I'd been stuck on forever. Not a satisfying unstuck solution, but the game feels so good now that it's opened up again. Looking forward to picking away at this game this month.

Awesome Games Done Quick had a fun speedrun of the game this evening. They skipped most story parts, but as stretch goals, they showed off the Ashtray Maze and a certain video from the end of the game. There are of course spoilers, but if you've finished Control I encourage you to watch it.

Well, this game was awesome. I just wrapped up the story. I hope they come out with DLC that expands the game with post main mission content. The devs definitely hit their stride with making a weird setting. I liked Alan Wake, but Control is so so much better.

Some random thoughts as I’m maybe half way through:

I like how the parapsychology and parakinesiology departments are feuding for funding in the internal memos. Just like those non-para institutions do at every university in the real world

The luck room was a lot of fun to figure out too!

The game NAILS the force powers and they feel so satisfying. It’s StarWars done right

I like the little timed events you have to go do. They’re a refreshing little change of pace!