Hey hey folks, Dave here. Welcome to my critique on Control. I’ve been excited to play this game since its release in 2019. I grew up watching the X-Files, so the idea of exploring a government agency dedicated to understanding what’s beyond our understanding, spoke to me on a fundamental level. Now that I’ve played the game and both pieces of DLC, I’ve made a video. What I loved about the game, what I didn’t, and why I ultimately had trouble connecting with it. Enjoy.
My Favourite Moment in Control
The Ashtray Maze is supposed to be the visual climax of Control. For the entire game The Oldest House, the facility that Jessie Faden finds herself trapped in has been shifting and changing. The Oldest House is full of impossible spaces. It captures the imagination, and as we're nearing the end of the base game, we are treated to a spectacle. The Ashtray maze. It warps and shifts more than any other part of the house. It's backed by a metal soundtrack. It's high octane, and definitely impressive, but for me it was far from the most visually arresting part of the game.
That's because Control is full of visually arresting moments. As I played I was continually dumbstruck by how good the game looked. The use of colour and framing in each new location was jawdropping. It felt like everytime I paused the game I was treated to a wallpaper worthy composition. So what was my favourite visual moment in the game? Well it occurs right before the Ashtray Maze. To be able to work her way through the maze, Jessie has to go find Ahti, the janitor, who has left on vacation. We follow the images of tropical beaches until we find ourselves in the Foundation of The Oldest House.
Now the Foundation itself is imposing. A series of concrete columns that span out from here to eternity, bathed in the glow of the great beyond. The gondola ride over to this area was impressive enough, allowing the player to gawk at the grandiosity of the space, at the scope of The Oldest House. Does it stretch on forever? With these thoughts fueling my imagination, I make my way through the pillars. As I do, visions of forests overlay the concrete structures. The relaxing vibes of nature and holiday floating over this stark, drab series of columns. Eventually Ahti appears, gives Jessie the walkman to get through the Ashtray Maze and we make our way out of this area, only returning briefly to access the DLC post-game. It felt like after this moment, the Ashtray Maze just couldn't compare. Heck, I have fonder memories of battling the TV to acquire the levitation power, as I think that sequence utilised twisting the shape of the Oldest House to greater effect. I dunno, maybe I found the metal song playing during the Ashtray Maze too corny.
Great Setup, Little Payoff
But I do think the Ashtray Maze is the core of what Control is as a game. Spectacle, engaging encounter design, fun, but little more. Now I've been playing Remedy titles since Max Payne. Man did I play a lot of Max Payne. I liked the sequel, but then I started to sour a bit on Remedy’s output. I didn't like Alan Wake. There's a video on this channel about it. It's far from my best work, but it should communicate my feelings about the game. Then I tried Quantum Break, and didn't find that worth continuing with. Now I play Control and it really feels like this is two decades of a studio who knows what they're doing, crafting something they're passionate about to the best of their abilities. But I listed out my history with Remedy's games for a reason. Max Payne was the only character I cared about out of Remedy’s entire output because his motivations were so well laid out at the beginning of that game. It was easy to empathise with losing his family and his path of vegeance. If we look at Alan Wake, yes he's searching for his wife in this strange new town full of shadow monsters, but I never connected with that plight, and it felt more like as the player I was caught in the whirlwind of a mystery without being attached to the character I was helping survive. Which brings us to Control and Jessie Faden.
Jessie is searching for her brother. This search brings her to a non-descript building in the middle of New York. The Federal Bureau of Control. Unbeknowst to her, the building is on lockdown due to a resonance contagion from another reality, The Hiss. Despite this, she not only makes her way in, but to the director's office, only to find him dead. We pick up the service revolver and create a pact with the enigmatic board from the astral plane. Jessie is the new director. She has to help the surviving members of the Bureau push back the Hiss, and hopefully find her brother. As as setup, I think it's great. Not that we know a lot about Jessie, but there's sufficient mystery to keep us invested. Well at least there was for me. Of course after a few hours I thought about how I was enjoying the rollercoaster ride of combat and the visual design more than I cared about Jessie or anything happening plot wise. I earmarked that as a possible problem, but was confident that eventually this mystery box of a videogame would start providing satisfactory answers, and would hopefully get me emotionally invested. Spoilers, but that never happened.
Setting the Table
When Bioshock Infinite came out, there was some writing by critics on how they felt the world of Columbia was done a disservice by being the backdrop for a generic first person shooter. The more I played of Control, the more I thought about that. The Federal Bureau of Control is such a great concept. I love the weirdness of the setting. I love the Oceanview Motel, the Quarry, the giant tree growing in the middle of research, and how it feels like the Oldest House can contain anything, and can be anything. Not only does the house not play by the rules of physics as we know them, but so many of the objects of power are from alternate realities, alternate dimensions. Not only are The Hiss pushing through from someplace else, but the entity that led Jessie to the Bureau in the first place, and is the reason we ultimately succeed by the end of the game is also from someplace else. I have no complaints about the setting, and yet my thoughts towards Control aren't in line with the idea I just put forth about Bioshock Infinite. I love the combat in Control. Tearing chunks out of the concrete with the launch power and flinging desks at floating Hiss soldiers never got old. It's just with the strangeness of the setting, I would have appreciated more focus on the Bureau, and especially the characters, then the game being primarily about the combat.
Thinking back on it, that's one of the main reasons I didn't like Alan Wake. Bright Falls, and what's happening with Alan, Thomas Zane, and the shadows is intriguing. It's a great location that wears its inspiration on its sleeve, but then the game spends its runtime interfacing with combat I despised. Now if I had enjoyed the combat maybe things would be different because I have as little attachment to Jessie Faden as I do to Alan Wake. I think it has to do with genre. Alan Wake is a horror game so the combat needs to feel tense and stressful, whereas Control is an action game, so the combat needs to feel visceral and exciting. That's why I found the horror elements of the Alan Wake DLC in Control so annoying. After a whole game of feeling powerful, the game tries to take it away during the multiple encounters with the Hartmann creature, but it just doesn't work. Jessie is still as powerful, we just need to keep her in the light. The tension of these sequences was borne out of annoyance rather than fear, and I doubt that's the emotion the developers were trying to evoke.
The Bureau Needs More Character
As I kept playing Control, I kept hoping that the answers to my questions would be as satisfying as the gameplay. Considering how much I love the idea of a government agency dealing with things we don't understand, I was expecting to care just as much about the characters. After all, that's what keeps me invested in a game, at least for a game where we're actually playing a character. For games where the player character is supposed to be a stand-in for the player, things are different. Often the gameplay and setting is the story in those circumstances, but if I'm playing a game where I'm put into the body of a character with their own motivations, emotions, wants and needs, I need to form an attachement with them, especially if I'm going to be spending hours controlling their actions. Early on, I thought perhaps Control was trying to split the difference. Jessie has a being in her head she calls Polaris. In dialogue sequences, the camera will zoom in on Jessie's eyes as she speaks to it. The being never answers. I wondered if we as the player were supposed to be Polaris. As the one in control of Jessie, whether she lives or dies in every combat sequence, it's not too far-fetched to say that we are indeed her guiding star.
But neat idea aside, it doesn't work in getting me to care about Jessie. To care about Dylan. About Emily, or Marshall, or Arish. It feels like Control is a game of neat ideas but that’s all. A Bureau shrouded in mystery. Like the Oldest House, the story is in flux. We have impressions of what the Bureau does, of what the Hiss is, of the importance of Jessie, Dylan, and Polaris in this conflict, and of the failures of the previous directors and heads of research. I feel strung along because I can’t sense the connective tissue behind these ideas. How they link, and what’s holding everything together. Like the many members of the Bureau overtaken by the Hiss, everything is floating in the air. I understand all the pieces, but I don't care about the whole. It means that even when a moment is well executed, it falls flat. A good example of that is Marshall.
We meet her in the earlier parts of the game, in the research sector. She's leading a team to try and acquire more HRAs which the members of the Bureau need to wear to protect themselves from being taken over by the Hiss. After getting production running again, she’s called away on another assignment, and we never see her again, that is until The Foundation DLC. She appears on The Hotline, which leads Jessie to believe she's already dead, but we keep seeing glimpses of her throughout our time in the Foundation. She ends up being the final boss of the DLC. She's been taken over by the Hiss and we have to put her down. Now the lead up to this fight was well executed. The cutscene before the fight was well executed. It's my investment that was lacking. I didn't know Marshall. She doesn't have a relationship to Jessie. I got an outline of her character through our brief time together in the base game. She's no nonsense and takes her duty seriously. She seems to have sacrificed herself for the good of the Bureau. I just never became emotionally invested in the character. Instead of actually caring about her downfall and that Jessie has to fight a previous member of her team, I said to myself "well, that sucks", and proceeded to chuck hunks of rock at this boss encounter.
Conclusion
And that's why when thinking back on Control, only the combat and visuals stick with me. They're the only part of the game that has any weight to it. There's no mystery to how beautiful the game looks or how engaging the combat is. The Oldest House is a great location. Its odd, foreboding, and adds texture to a world you could make many games about. I just wish I had been able to connect with the characters. For being in Jessie's head I don't know that much about her. I get wanting to save her brother, and then taking on the responsibility of looking after the Bureau, but it feels surface level. The closest I got to something I could latch onto is the playful banter between Jessie and Emily at the end of the Foundation DLC, as they're both settling into their new roles and what feels like a budding friendship. I've enjoyed my time enough in Control to be interested in playing another game in this world, but I hope that alongside a game that looks and plays great, the sequel gives me a reason to care. Thanks for watching.
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