Late To The Party: Control

As bad as the pandemic has been for my ability to get together to play games, it's been quite good at letting me sit on my couch and clear up a videogame backlog. 

Control is a 3rd person adventure game that I finished up recently and enjoyed quite a bit. It is as if an episode of the X-Files was imported into a videogame: mildly creepy story, slightly eccentric but likable characters, and really solid design add up to an experience that knows what it is about. 

And I'm all about that. 

Control falters a little bit in the combat arena: it doesn't have the snap that games like the Resident Evil remakes do and the enemies can get a bit repetitive. Control seems to like the; 'throw waves at you' measure of difficulty more than the 'work this out smartly' idea. 

But one place where I think it really shines is in the level design. 

Section after section of this government building manages to evoke both the mundane qualities I expected with the semi-unnerving tweaks of 'something has gone wrong, here'. That is a cool trick to pull off, making dull concrete and wood paneling start to seem warped and uncanny. And they do stick to more an unnerving feel, not a gory one-which is very fitting, thematically. 

They do a few things quietly, too-also fitting with the atmosphere. For example; when the main character, Jessie, enters the Federal Bureau of Control, you can see portraits of the Director hung on the walls. When the position is passed to Jessie (an event that happens early) those portraits suddenly have Jessie's image. There is no explanation for this. 

Control has little spices like that all over, which help bring it together in spaces where it occasionally bogs down. I enjoyed the heck out of Control and I'm glad I remembered to pick it up-I might even get the DLC, I enjoyed it enough. I'd definitely like to see a sequel.