Control

(Played with Xbox One gamepad.)

The announcement of Control at E3 2018 was the rare moments I felt seen. I was about to finish reading Authority by Jeff Vandermeer back then and Remedy’s new game’s premise sounded awfully a lot like that paranoia inducing New Weird novel. I felt as if the universe was pulling my leg.

14 months later, I played the game on Epic Game Launcher and it became my favorite action game of 2019 after 2 long summer months with no good fun high octane action to be found on the big screen. Its balance of combat, exploration and narrative is what I look for in video game all the time. I was going to write a review by the time AWE expansion hits, but after beating the main quest of the Foundation expansion, the urge to write a review was like a xenomorph about to bust out of my chest. I would call Control an awesome game and here are the reasons.

To keep your/our new/old house in order

John Rodriguez, call sign “Control”, is the newly designated director of Southern Reach, a secret government agency specializes in the supernatural phenomenon known as Area X. After his predecessor got missing in the unknown, Control was brought on to keep the house in order. But he didn’t know is that he is besieged by enemies within and...Sorry, my mind slipped into Authority land again, allow me to start over.

Jesse Faden is the newly designated Director of Federal Bureau of Control, a secret government agency specializes in containing and preserving supernatural objects. After the former Director seemingly committed suicide, Fedan was promoted to her current position by the Bureau’s mysterious Board through a shape shifting hand gun known as Service Weapon. She has to uphold her duty to fight against the threat known as the Hiss while look into a personal matter. All during her first visit to FBC headquarters in New York, the Oldest House.

It is certainly funny to see Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach trilogy of novels all got loose visual audio adaption in the last 2 years. The first being Alex Garland’s Annihilation, a sci-fi horror movie shares at least the title and some plot elements with the Nebula Award wining Southern Reach Book 1 it was based on. The recent Nic Cage vehicle Colour Out of Space was the last, as Richard Stanley’s take on the classic Lovecraft story has a lot in common with parts of Southern Reach Book 3 Acceptance.

Between those two, there is Remedy’s Control, a fitting companion piece to the aforementioned Southern Reach Book 2. Their premises are similar, but that’s very much the long and short of it, the opposite directions they go made them fitting companions.

While both has compelling plot centred around bureaucracy and supernatural, Authority is a novel with the impression that it has no action to speak of. In Control, Fedan practically has to shoot her way from one plot point to the next. Authority by all means is a spy novel in which the hero can’t even trust his co-workers within the organization, supernatural elements take a back seat until the very end. Control has a nice split between those elements, as Fedan would find paper works chronicling people’s life destroyed by the combination of bureaucracy and the supernatural they deal with.

Despite the absence of “Previously on...” and other TV facade, Control’s not-as-linear-as-previous-Remedy-titles structure makes it the most TV show like video game Remedy ever made. Besides the main quest regarding the Hiss, Jesse Fedan also takes on several side quests, chasing monsters loss in the Oldest House. Shows such as X-Files and Fringe on Fox have their fair share of memorable monster of the week episodes not connected to their main mythology, Control’s side quests feel like homage to those.

Whether you like Weird Fiction in which people of science trying to figure out the unknown or police procedure with a twist like X-Files, Control is likely your cup of tea. And 7 years after Fringe concluded, a certain itch of mine is getting scratched by Control.

To silence/kill/video game the Hiss

Control is a third person action adventure like previous Remedy titles. It has a badass looking evasive manoeuvre by the way of a dash with a push of the B button. Whether a third person action game have such evasive manoeuvre or not is important to me. So much so that I would regard games from studios like Rockstar or Naughty Dog as “failures” just because those usually do not include such dodge moves. Namely the “beloved by many but not me” the Last of Us.

Control is a run & gun game instead of a stop & pop one. Jesse Fedan can crouch by a simple click of the right stick and shelter herself from incoming enemy fires behind waist high covers, but keep moving is the key to surviving any fight. Much like DOOM’s 2016 reboot and its sequel Eternal, enemies drop health pick-ups for Fedan when hit. What Control does differently is that you don’t have to kill an enemy before they drop the HP supply.

The aforementioned dash share a gauge with other supernatural powers like telekinesis to pick & throw object(mapped to right bumper), a shield that picks up rubble(mapped to left bumper) and a ground pound(click right stick when airborne). Each power would be accessible to Fedan after she recovers an Object of Power. So, unlike Jack Joyce making everything up along the way, Jesse Fedan here at least know where her powers come from.

The gun Fedan carries, Service Weapon is on cool downs rather than manually reload-able, and the usual Reload button X is used to switch it form. The gun starts with the typical semi automatic pea shooter, with more forms like shotgun, sub machine gun, charging snipe shot and grenade launcher. They all share one single ammo gauge, so when it is on cool down, you need to run or make due with other powers. Weapon forms can be forged at Control Points, the game’s save points.

Y is for melee, A is jump and through a upgrade holding to float. All the elements make Fedan into a glass canon goddess of war. She can tear apart landscape just like her tearing apart the Hiss enemies. Remedy finally realized their vision of interactive John Woo movie action with their in-house Northlight engine since Quantum Break. Control’s environmental destruction is one step forward. Director Fedan can really mess some office space up. Tearing rubble off ground, pillars or walls. Smashing through windows and other glass. Then the Oldest House would fix itself up before Fedan going back to places, so she can mess them up all over again.

Control is not an easy game. Fedan is a glass canon, any floating or power wielding enemy can take a big chunk of her hit points with one strike. The game does not have any check point outside the Control Point. It might be frustrating after retrying multiple gauntlets over and over again. But, it is more doable than From Software title. I gave up on Sekiro after failing at a certain bull Boss over and over again, yet I managed to beat Control.

Besides the combat, there are literally paper works to work through. The game’s sharpest writing is usually in the collectible pages of paper works. Whether it is a low level agent complaining about budget or some scientists’ wild speculation, if you found DOOM Eternal too self-serious and missed the self-aware humor of DOOM 2016, then you might find more fun in Control’s collectibles.

A thing I appreciate more about Control’s collectible is the real estate they taken up on the screen. After Quantum Break’s long email chains in narrow windows, those enlargeable single pages in Control is literally sights for sour eyes.

Control is probably the longest game Remedy ever made. Before the release of Foundation, I put about 22 hours into the game according to the clock on Epic Game Launcher. I have not found everything in the game yet, while over 20 hours I did everything in Quantum Break.

To the basement

Control’s Foundation expansion can’t come out more timely. It was mere days after the launch of Half-life Alyx, and this Half-life fan without any VR headset is very much in the mood for an action horror experience with a pistol wielding female protagonist. So I went back to the Oldest House instead of the world of Half-life. After a 5 hour long sitting and completion of the main mission, Foundation reminded me how much I like this game.

It’s interesting to see both Fire Emblem Three Houses and Control, 2 of my favorite games from 2019, sold the access to their respective basements as expansion. But unlike Fire Emblem having the access to their basement expansion as a separate menu option, the door to the Old House’s Foundation is added in game as a new mission in the quest log and a new waypoint on the existing map.

I don’t know how far into the game does it require to unlock access to this expansion, but it feels natural to have in my credits-already-rolled save file. Narrative wise, it feels like the continuation of the base game’s main story line, as the one character unaccounted for by the end of base game more or less got their due in the expansion.

Gameplay wise, the new hammer wielding enemy type adds to the challenge. The final boss of the expansion assume this form as well. Keep a safe distance is the key, as too close you will get whacked and too far they would throw their hammers as a fairly high caliber projectile.

Not to spoil anything, Foundation is very much about stopping the flooding in basement. It’s just not water that can endanger the Older House. Another reason why I chose to write the review now instead of waiting for AWE is that this expansion felt self-contained. Unlike the 2 pieces of Alan Wake’s DLC being a 2-parter, Foundation and the upcoming AWE are likely independent from each other journeys into previously inaccessible parts of the oldest house.

To say some final words

My playing through Control’s base game ended with a “being seen” moment. It was 4 in the morning when the credits rolled. After that, I picked a random collectible Hotline message to listen to and it was the deceased former Director talking about his working flow. Something about working until 4 am every day. It was paranoia inducing, not unlike Vandermeer’s novels. The game certainly nailed the vibe it went for.

Of course, Control is not for everyone. Like Vice’ Rob Zacny said in his review, this game requires you to be an active participant. So let you guard down in order for the game to build it back up, and welcome to the weird world of Control.