henke on 1/9/2019 at 11:47
[video=youtube;d3Y7azRTdJg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3Y7azRTdJg[/video]
I am IN CONTROL, that is, I'm playing it, and I wanna rave about it, but first let me do the opposite of rave about it, which is to whine about it.
Which of Control's BAD VERSIONS should you buy?Sad to report that the performance on PS4 is not great. First thing I did in the game was run up and admire a painting, only to be greeted with a pixelated mess of a texture when I got to it. Waited for 3-4 seconds and a more high-res version loaded in. Walked a bit down the hall and looked at a second painting, same thing. In heavy combat scenarios it usually turns into a LAGFEAST when lots of physics stuff is flying around and exploding. You could buy it on PC, sure, but you'll have to deal with the Epic Store. Honestly, if you wanna wait a few months for a sale/Steam-version/patches, I wouldn't blame you. Maybe it runs fine on PS4Pro or XBone tho, dunno.
HOWEVERRRRRRRRDespite all that, I am truly engrossed by this game. It is a very strange and striking thing. The mystery is intriguing, the combat gameplay is awesome, and the visuals are bold and beautiful. In fact the game is so commited to being bold and beautiful that it actually stars an actress (
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1890824/?ref_=tt_cl_t1) from The Bold and The Beautiful! In some ways the game feels very familiar (upgrades, loot containers, collectibles), but it also has enough personality to still feel fresh most of the time.
Anyone else playing it already? I'm at the bit where I'm about to meet Marshall.
EvaUnit02 on 1/9/2019 at 12:15
I've heard Remedy have branched out and made a less story heavy, linear game. How successful has it been in your opinion?
She played the main supporting character in Quantum Break as well, Beth Wilder.
The poor optimisation across ALL versions is a great argument for avoiding games at AAA launch. Quantum Break is on the same engine as this and that had similar poor optimisation upon release. I played the Steam version on current gen Nvidia hardware (RTX 2060) and it performed beautifully, so waiting on that game paid off.
Sulphur on 1/9/2019 at 19:04
Courtney was the best part of Quantum Break IMO - her Beth Wilder was just immediately likeable and charismatic from the off, in spite of all the weird shit going on around her. Control stars her because it's obvious Remedy felt the same way, and I'm kinda ecstatic about it.
I've just spooled it up, and it's pretty much classic Remedy in that it's weird, then gets weirder, and things keep getting shot up, exploded, or straight-up destroyed in the exhales between the weird. The destruction and physics at play are everything Max Payne 2 promised us a decade and a half ago. That fully realised vision is now - finally - upon us.
henke on 2/9/2019 at 06:23
Yeah, from what little I played of Quantum Break I did like her character as well.
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
I've heard Remedy have branched out and made a less story heavy, linear game. How successful has it been in your opinion?
It's certainly less linear. It's more of a metroidvania, with plenty of sidequests and backtracking.
henke on 3/9/2019 at 18:00
Man Jesus Christ fuck these checkpoints. I don't mind replaying a boss fight ten times in a row, what I do mind is the minute-long load screen, followed by the minute-long jog back to the bossfight every time I die. Especially considering the main reason I gotta sit through the loadscreen is that the game needs to load in the other part of the level that's 1 min away from the bossfight. The designers could've killed 2 annoying fucking birds with one stone here, but for some god damn reason they went with this design instead.
henke on 4/9/2019 at 17:26
Despite that tho, I am still engrossed by the game, spent probably 5 hours with it just today.
I wrote earlier that it's a metroidvania, but the more I play I wanna say it's specifically a Batman Arkham Asylum-alike. Except you're a Jedi. With a gun. And there's tons of SCP-esque creepypasta lore and I need to read ALL of it.
Sulphur on 4/9/2019 at 18:53
With less bat-biffing and a hell of a lot more levitating nearby objects and rocketing them towards enemies whose bodies explode into plumes of spectral iridescence. I don't think I'm ever going to get tired of holding a button, releasing it, and being rewarded with showers of sparks, concrete, and broken glass. If I find a hall filled with desks and chairs, you bet I'm gonna send a nearby globe ploughing through them just to watch the destruction and sheer physics mayhem unfold in its wake. It's all very pleasing. Things explode pleasingly. Just levitating something before launching it is pleasing, because it wobbles and floats like it's tethered to you by an invisible rope.
And that's because what's really grand isn't the story, it's the details. It's the big details, with the brutalist architecture, the stark reds and yellows bathing entire rooms and sections of tumbled geometry, vast halls of granite slicing upward and downward or dividing everything at eyeline in perpendicular strips; it's the small details, like how shooting a louvered window results in a single slat shredding itself to wood chips, or say you're levitating a fire extinguisher, which picks up a few stray books in its orbit along with little floating chunks of concrete, like it's collecting the most ordinary satellites known to man. And it's the background lore, which is entertaining (and very SCP-inspired), and more entertaining than the main story.
In short: I'm having fun, but not for the usual reasons in a Remedy game. I can take or leave the story at this point, five hours in, but the telekinetically charged combat and collectible side-details are what really keep me going right now.
Shadowcat on 5/9/2019 at 00:12
"SCP" in this context being...?
Pyrian on 5/9/2019 at 01:01
Quote Posted by Shadowcat
"SCP" in this context being...?
This: (
http://www.scp-wiki.net/)
It's a weird shared universe fiction thing about an agency called SCP "Secure, Control, Protect" dedicated to studying bizarre phenomena.
henke on 5/9/2019 at 05:21
I haven't read much SCP but I found at least one instance where I recognized elements of one of their stories lifted directly into Control. One of the later missions features an object that someone has to look at all the time, or it turns violent. I've also found some other pretty cool stuff but I don't wanna spoil anything this early after release.