Control (2019)

I still stand by my earlier statements that this has a lot of missed potential, and is basically SCP mixed with Candle Cove inserts, but I have to admit it's fun to play - even with as generic as the enemies are - and the creature fights are awesome, and while the story feels like it's the sequel to a prior game that never existed, overall it's interesting and tonally cool and aesthetically neat. Control might not be perfect - hell sometimes it barely breaks greatness - but it's definitely one of the most intriguing and entertaining titles I've played this year just because of what it tried to do.

Sure narratively I couldn't give less of a rats ass about her brother and her, and sure I'll admit I was mostly interested in the game because of its connection to Alan Wake, and sure it runs kind of like dog piss on an Xbox One at times thank to unnecessary light blooms and particle effects that you can't turn down or off, and sure the setting is beautiful but completely empty and devoid of anything of substance, but otherwise it's so engaging and bizarre that I can't actively dislike it, even with all the things it does wrong, and boy it does a lot wrong.

Getting pretty close to the end, doing the AWE DLC right now before I continue the main path towards the conclusion and then I'll do the Foundation DLC afterwards, and I have to say it's definitely worth the trip simply because it's such a unique experience. Yes it's an incomprehensible mess of a story that lacks any sort of feeling of attachment and has never once made me feel urgency to actually forward the plot proper because the plot is so dull, but everything that surrounds it is worth investigating at least. While I do think locking most of the lore behind collectible documents is such a 2010 concept, and wish there were better ways to get that information across to the player, I'm willing to forgive it, if only because it just oozes coolness.

Remedy always tries to do something different, and usually does it well enough to be enjoyable, and the case remains the same here. Control is definitely worth the time, even with its faults.

Trying for a FOURTH TIME now to even get this remotely started, but by god is it challenging every last remaining nerve I have. Rise of the Tomb Raider might've sucked on every conceivable level, but at least it TOLD ME WHERE TO FUCKING GO TO PLAY THE GAME.

Sam Lake, I love you man. I really do. But this game absolutely reeks of a 13 year old screaming "I have ideas and they're cool!" but they're all super vague because they don't understand anything about what they have ideas about, and so it's all neat in concept, but even in concept it barely makes sense.

Sam. Sam. The fuck happened, dude? My guy? You okay? Please blink twice if someone is forcing you to be an edgelord at gunpoint. I sincerely wanna help you.

This is overhyped and incredibly underwhelming, not to mention largely incoherent. As a longtime fan of Sam Lake and Remedy, this is extremely upsetting, especially considering how it ties into Alan Wake in a way, but them's the brakes. Most "popular" titles are often the worst it seems. Smug and seemingly self important to the point of trying so hard to make the player think its intelligent, when really it's incomprehensible.

Oh well.

Getting back into this finally and boy is it nauseating how smooth it is. It's so perfect and clean and there's no jank or lag at all. It's like the video game equivalent of uncanny valley. Where's the roughness. It's all too well made. Games are supposed to be kinda shoddy around the corners here and there.

That being said, still fun lol

I'm truly sad about having to drop this because I was enjoying it a lot, but the continuous lag spikes as soon as the physics system had to do anything made this pretty much unplayable in combat :(

I hope I can resume it some day in other platform, as my computer slowly moves from "too old to play modern games" to "too old to play anything at all".

Completed on Xbox Series S, 10 hours.

A game with incredible atmosphere and art direction, and also mediocre (sometimes terrible) gameplay. I found myself questioning basically every design decision. The combat is boring and repetitive, completing the sidequests is worthless, the game is poorly optimized to the point my console crashed 3 times during my playthrough. I also didn't care anymore about the collectables like 3 hours into the game.

Still, it's a unique game, beautiful in a twisted way. Check it out, but prepare for some disappointing gameplay.