Control (Remedy Games) PC, PS4, XB1

Finished it last night.

Great game and some of the side bosses were excellent but was I the only one disappointed that

Finished this up on Sunday; holy sh*t that was f*cking good.

I didn't want to post straight away as I wanted to give a couple of nights for it to digest a little, as I often think I love games only to realise shortly after finishing that I perhaps was a bit to generous when I "was in the moment" just after finishing. But having had a few days to sit on it, I genuinely think that is in my top 3 games of all time.

This may sound hyperbolic, but that was as close to a perfect game as I have played in quite some time. Technical shortcomings aside, everything was pulled off to a T; the gameplay, the narrative, the environment, world building, lore, sound design, graphics etc. etc. phenomenal stuff.

I do have a couple of minor gripes, the first being that the main missions seemed fairly mundane for the most part when contrasted against the lunacy of some of the optional side missions. I think to fully enjoy this game, you need to be open to exploring every corner, nook and cranny, because I think someone going through the game and mainlining the critical path could wind up feeling very underwhelmed; it's almost like one team developed the optional side bosses, and another developed the critical path bosses, such is the jump in quality once you hit the side bosses. My other main gripe is the ending of the game, the last gameplay segment is fairly underwhelming, though not enough to sour the experience.

Absolutely buzzing for the DLC, and like has been said above, they really have created a world with infinite possibility here, so I hope this sticks around as a franchise.

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I’ll have to agree to disagree there. My problem with a few of the bosses - the Anchor being the one that immediately springs to mind - is that they toss annoying and sometimes exploding adds at you, and that’s what makes it hard as opposed to meaningfully attempting to figure out the main enemy. I think this carries over to some of the combat generally, and it’s often simply the relentless amount of enemies that knock up the challenge rather than having to figure out the smartest and most effective path through a fight.

Again, I like the game a lot and generally the combat too. But like many games of its ilk (over-reliance on combat being what stops a lot of AA or AAA games being truly great for me) I’d have loved to see some of the fighting scaled back or edited out - especially when exploring it can be deeply irritating to have to battle through another two or three levitating chair guys.

Yeah I mean people's experiences are going to differ. The adds on Anchor were a pain, but again if you utilise the seize power effectively you can totally use those adds as an asset; whittle one exploding enemy down enough to seize and with those enemy types usually bunched up, that one seized enemy usually takes out the pack (or at least the majority) once he detonates. And to argue slightly against not being presented with a chance to meaningfully figure out the the enemy, at least as far as the Anchor is concerned, the adds don't start spawning in until you have him down at 50% health;. You're afforded two free shots at him using the main mechanic of the fight before anything else spawns in, so by that stage the fight is figured out.

Never really found enemy volume an issue myself but as said, people's experiences are going to differ. Enemy management seemed, for me at least, easily countered by seize so I suppose it will really depend on how people have built their characters.

I do agree that when exploring the constant re-populating of enemies is a bit of a pain, but with the need for farming materials for upgrades, perhaps is a necessary evil? There were times when I would be scouring for collectables and after clearing a room, 2 mins later it would be full to the brim again, and by the end it definitely led to a sense of ,"not these f*cking arseholes again". Handy when looking for materials, not so handy when trying to soak in the ambience is what I would say.

The Phantom Pain wrote: »

I got it on ebay for £23 despite all the grumblings about frame rate and general optimisation. My backlog is quite big so hopefully by the time i've got to it they would have patched it better.

I was playing on PS4 Pro, which I think you are also if I recall correctly from other posts, and found the game to be in a decent state relative to the complaints people had at launch. The framerate is fine now for the most part, which I think is what most of the complaints related to. I can only really recall two instances of it tanking, and even then it was over in a flash.

There is an annoying little quirk where the game completely locks up for a few seconds when re-entering the game from the pause menu. Everything freezes and you lose control for those few seconds, but again it is quick to rectify itself.

Probably isn't a bad idea to wait a bit more though to see do any further optimisation patches get released. There is also what sound like two fairly chunky story expansions coming this year, and if Remedy's form with Alan Wake years ago is anything to go by, these will be as integral to the overall story as anything in the base game so it may also be worth waiting for those to drop as well if you want to play the complete experience in one go.