This game has some very heavy inspiration from the community driven writing site SCP, so some of the criticisms of control's story seem shared. For example there are multiple competing versions of the #1 most important anomaly, it is in part explained that the real one is intentionally obfuscated because you interact with the SCP world as if it were real thus characters in the world could too. But I believe the biggest reason is different writers have created branches of stories that kind of contradict and that is a compromise where the writers differing SCP worlds are valid but I believe Control as it is a game should be more structured. Overall Control seems to have inherited the lack of clarity from SCP.
This video does what my favourite long-form content does: someone better at media analysis than I am helps me figure out the things I couldn't put my finger on. I had the same general pain points playing the game, but was too compelled by the world for them to make me stop playing.
I feel like a better way they could have handled the ashtray maze was to make it an area you return to multiple times and gain the ability to go deeper each time so that it at least feels like more of a maze you can actually explore, instead of just a single (admittedly cool) setpiece. PS: It upsets me deeply that you don't get more views.
My friend just sent me a bunch of your videos and this really is great stuff. I love how genuinely constructive you try to be and your suggestions for fixes always seem well considered (they really make me think about the games differently beyond just feeling like something is off - what could they have done differently?). I also appreciate how focused your scripts are - clear throughlines, not a lot of repetition or fluff. Going to be an avid watcher going forward!
Great video! Control is one of my favorite games, but you nailed its problems. I was just able to move past those issues more easily, I guess. I'm a sucker for Remedy's larger lore/world building and I liked the characters a lot, so I was able to ignore a lot of the clumsier parts of the narrative. I loved the combat, but the lack of development made the late game a bit of a slog. I started running through old areas without fighting around midgame because it just got tiring. I'm real excited for Alan Wake 2 and more Control somewhere down the line. I will absolutely be here for more, loving the long videos. Keep it up! Edit: I'm quite interested in the coming Vampyr video as well. The game was mid but super interesting, lots of discussion to be had with its good ideas and shortcomings.
I think fascinating yet frustrating is a good description of basically all of Remedys games. Max Payne with the absolutely ridiculous difficulty curve, Alan Wake with its dodge that never felt right, Quantum Break with the 45 minute live action cutscenes, etc etc. I absolutely adore everything they make but on a very base gameplay level, they always have these frustrating quirks.
I can only speak from the perspective of a relative newcomer to their games (I've only played Alan Wake and Control) but I also think the acting in both feels off. It's not straight up bad, but the dialog delivery in particular often feels unnatural and stilted. This isn't something I talked about outside of a passing line in this video, but it was noticeable in both games. Thanks for watching and commenting!
This is something akin to an in-house style for Remedy. They have a particular fixation on network television as a source of inspiration, typically a variety with somewhat wooden acting. Alan Wake is heavily indebted to Twin Peaks (and David Lynch in general,) Quantum Break has something to do with Sci-Fi Channel shows, etc. It gives them a unique style but also causes problems when they're a little too dedicated to the limitations of that format.@@kaldini
Max Payne 1 feels difficult until you realize how broken the roll is. You can dodge any enemy attack, turn on bullet time as you exit the roll animation and annihilate whatever threat is in front of you before they have a chance to do anything. And Max Payne 2 is a much easier game in general, you are insanely powerful in that game. But MP 1-2 are great because they are short. Remedy's gameplay was always very basic, it never evolves through enemy or level design. That type of gameplay is not bad, but it cannot keep you engaged for too long. But MP games are short. You can beat them in 2,5-3 hours. 4 at most. And that is their strength. Starting with Alan Wake, Remedy games started to become longer and longer, but the gameplay loop cannot sustain that length. AW is like 10 hours long if you take your time exploring, and 90% of the chapters are drawn out. Chapter 3 is the worst, the pacing there is awful. Control is 30+ hours long with all of expansions. And AW2 is like 20+ hours, which is a cardinal sin for a survival horror game. Survival horror game akin to Resident Evil 2-3 remakes are meant to be short, 5-8 hours for the first playthrough, because if you drag them out, they become tedious. To sum it up, Remedy really suck at pacing their games.
I am so glad someone else saw its flaws. Felt like I was taking crazy pills (or everyone else was and I tongued them) I finished the game and DLC, but turned on invulnerability towards the end of my time with it, only to find that the combat STILL was a bore. I appreciate your critique as this game was set to be something truly special but now it's become a world I will never explore again because its shortcomings outweigh its wonderful ideas.
I really like your writing and narration. Some creators, I wouldn't name names, can sound condescending towards a game and the people if there's supposedly the side arguing against them, paired with extremely pretentious language, so even if their critiques are fair, it can sound really off putting. However, your writing is good and actually fair, plus you're not pretentious with your language, or condescending with your tone, I'll be watching the rest of your vids.
Hello!! Man your videos are so good!! Even with the extended runtime, everything you say is necessary and concise. Even though I don't always agree with your gripes with a game, you always criticize in a fair way. About control: even though I love the aesthetic, worldbuilding, music etc... Two things that took me out of the experience completely was the acting that feels weirdly off, its not horrible but it's not satisfying either. And the other aspect of the game that I hate, is how the game runs, i originally played on a ps4 and the game was full of fps drops, freezing, glitches, bugs etc... I have a ps5 now but I haven't been able to play it yet. Thanks for the video! Excited about the next one!
Thanks for watching! I definitely agree about the acting and debated talking about it in more detail. Darling and Trench are the only two that don't feel awkward or stilted, or at least when they do (Darling) it's there on purpose. I just felt unequipped to talk about it fully having only played this and Alan Wake but not Quantum Break or the Max Paynes. It's hard to tell if it's bad acting *or* if it's Remedy's style. For reference too the game runs very well on ps5.
I’m so glad somebody finally shit on the ashtray maze - fuck that intro, it made me so much less exited once I finally reached it. I didn’t get stuck quite like you, only stuck around for around 5 minutes, but yeah, still made the 8 ish minutes of shooting just… shooting.
I had the opportunity to play this game when it was on game pass but ultimately never bothered. Certainly the level design was impressive but what was concerning was watching the game play. I watched hours of it and saw the same enemies, the same weapons, the same basic moves. The lack of variety made the combat seem like it could sustain interest for about 6 or 7 hours, maybe not even that long.
That was my exact experience playing it. The foundation for combat was solid but it doesn't expand much past the opening hours and when it tries to, the new additions get lost in the chaos of the combat.
This is possibly big spoilers for anyone who cares, so I'll leave a warning right here. It seems like the universe fundamentally had parallel opposite properties and nature. The altered items are reverting to the properties of the former universe. Altered items just are items just reverted to their former nature. The Hiss being an upright pyramid that removes free will suggests that the universe is now about chaotic individualism. The universe is trying to revert to a fully unified collective controlled state. The altered items only seem so strange because they are what they were before the universe became a chaotic mess and they exists in a universe fundamentally different from them in everyway. Different physics, different fundamental rules of reality. Dylan was actually the perfect candidate, but it involves the Hiss destroying the board to bring order to the chaotic universe. That's how Dylan was meant to take over all along.
Really great review. I loved Control, but I also had a ton of issues with it. You're the only reviewer I've seen who brings up how underwhelming a lot of the side quests are, like the mannequin side quest (seriously, what were they thinking with that one?!) Also, I thought I was the only one who spent half an hour trying to get through the initially presented Ashtray Maze 😅
Thanks for watching! So I don't know if you've played Hogwarts Legacy but they have a mannequin quest that is done quite well and is what I think Control should've tried to do. Obviously it came out before HL but still
@kaldini Thank you for making a banger video! I haven't played HL but the mannequin quest in Control can't be hard to top lol. I was like oh God mannequins this is gonna be scary (Little Nightmares 2 mannequins comes to mind) but nope, it's literally just walk around for a minute and find the "right" one. Control feels like an issue of being perhaps too ambitious at times? Like they didn't have time to fully work out all these neat ideas, so a lot of them end up feeling really half baked. And I totally agree with your end thoughts, as someone who still hasn't played Alan Wake (but I will!) I really don't want Control and Jessie's world playing second fiddle to AW, nor do I want it to be literally "it was just a book written by Alan" which has as much intrigue as "it was just a dream" story telling, tbh. Sorry for writing a wall of text here, but one thing I wanted to ask: how do you think Remedy could've improved on the Motel sections of Control? Cos I found them to be really underwhelming (aside from some notable mentions, Darling's music video) but other than that they felt really lacking.
@@mimismomos Don't apologize, I enjoyed reading your thoughts. Having played Alan Wake 2, it does feel like they connect them well in my mind. It doesn't feel like either is behind the other's shadow, which is good. As for the motel segments I'm not quite sure. Maybe more indepth puzzles. Or for visuals maybe seeing it represented with different seasonal variety or things going on around it. The visit with the person outside talking stands out to me as the most memorable. Or previews of what thresholds are behind the other doors like we get in the AWE themed expansion.
Great critique, you basically said all the frustrations I had with the game myself! The ending was so disappointing, and I actually really enjoyed the gameplay but it didn't feel cohesive with the narrative at all lol.
Thanks for watching! If you're interested in Remedy, my upcoming video is another longform critique on Alan Wake 2! It has many of the same highs and lows as Control unfortunately.
Unfortunately I just find the story needlessly confusing to point I can’t get in the game. Which is weird since I love stories like X-files and an game that was kinda like this which was The Secret Worlds.
Very good video. This is a game I tried to play twice but it really wasn't for me. Of course there are good things about it but I just could not overlook its shortcomings.
I would definitely be interested in doing a video on the original bioshock or infinite - the problem is that I'm not confident that I could add anything new to the conversation since they have been discussed to death. While I won't say no, they'd definitely be lower on my list. This is actually one of the many reasons I decided against doing a video on the Last of Us. I'm currently working on a video for the indie game Lacuna and then will most likely be following it up with a video on the game Vampyr.
Control was a strange one for me, I loved the gameplay and all the abilities jessie has. The story is just confusing though, maybe its because I never played Alan Wake or other Remedy games, I could let that slide if they just told us what happened to Darling. Theres plenty of speculation on that but I need facts lol
The combat encounters, and the combat itself, feel like they were meant for a completely different game, but were shoe-horned into this. They felt so arbitrary and out of place, from the very first one.
The ashtray maze rocks, my dude. I understand disliking it but I had the same experience as you, found it early on, got "lost" and was like "ok, I can't go through it now, I gotta find a way to do it later" and went on with my life until it was time to... TAKE... CONTROL...
![DEAD SPACE 3 Gameplay Walkthrough FULL GAME [4K 60FPS PC ULTRA] - No Commentary](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cZ3mad7SOBg/mqdefault.jpg)
This game has some very heavy inspiration from the community driven writing site SCP, so some of the criticisms of control's story seem shared. For example there are multiple competing versions of the #1 most important anomaly, it is in part explained that the real one is intentionally obfuscated because you interact with the SCP world as if it were real thus characters in the world could too. But I believe the biggest reason is different writers have created branches of stories that kind of contradict and that is a compromise where the writers differing SCP worlds are valid but I believe Control as it is a game should be more structured. Overall Control seems to have inherited the lack of clarity from SCP.
This video does what my favourite long-form content does: someone better at media analysis than I am helps me figure out the things I couldn't put my finger on. I had the same general pain points playing the game, but was too compelled by the world for them to make me stop playing.
I feel like a better way they could have handled the ashtray maze was to make it an area you return to multiple times and gain the ability to go deeper each time so that it at least feels like more of a maze you can actually explore, instead of just a single (admittedly cool) setpiece.
PS: It upsets me deeply that you don't get more views.
My friend just sent me a bunch of your videos and this really is great stuff. I love how genuinely constructive you try to be and your suggestions for fixes always seem well considered (they really make me think about the games differently beyond just feeling like something is off - what could they have done differently?). I also appreciate how focused your scripts are - clear throughlines, not a lot of repetition or fluff. Going to be an avid watcher going forward!
This is a great channel. The next mathewmatosis in my opinion
Great video!
Control is one of my favorite games, but you nailed its problems. I was just able to move past those issues more easily, I guess.
I'm a sucker for Remedy's larger lore/world building and I liked the characters a lot, so I was able to ignore a lot of the clumsier parts of the narrative. I loved the combat, but the lack of development made the late game a bit of a slog. I started running through old areas without fighting around midgame because it just got tiring. I'm real excited for Alan Wake 2 and more Control somewhere down the line.
I will absolutely be here for more, loving the long videos. Keep it up!
Edit: I'm quite interested in the coming Vampyr video as well. The game was mid but super interesting, lots of discussion to be had with its good ideas and shortcomings.
Agree 💯%
1:11:03 OH MY GOSH THANK YOU!! I’ve thought this ever since first watched a Control gameplay! The lockdown process makes no sense in-world 😂
Great video! Thanks for the content.
Thanks for watching and then commenting! I appreciate it. Glad you enjoyed it :)
I think fascinating yet frustrating is a good description of basically all of Remedys games.
Max Payne with the absolutely ridiculous difficulty curve, Alan Wake with its dodge that never felt right, Quantum Break with the 45 minute live action cutscenes, etc etc.
I absolutely adore everything they make but on a very base gameplay level, they always have these frustrating quirks.
I can only speak from the perspective of a relative newcomer to their games (I've only played Alan Wake and Control) but I also think the acting in both feels off. It's not straight up bad, but the dialog delivery in particular often feels unnatural and stilted. This isn't something I talked about outside of a passing line in this video, but it was noticeable in both games.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
This is something akin to an in-house style for Remedy. They have a particular fixation on network television as a source of inspiration, typically a variety with somewhat wooden acting. Alan Wake is heavily indebted to Twin Peaks (and David Lynch in general,) Quantum Break has something to do with Sci-Fi Channel shows, etc. It gives them a unique style but also causes problems when they're a little too dedicated to the limitations of that format.@@kaldini
Max Payne 1 feels difficult until you realize how broken the roll is. You can dodge any enemy attack, turn on bullet time as you exit the roll animation and annihilate whatever threat is in front of you before they have a chance to do anything. And Max Payne 2 is a much easier game in general, you are insanely powerful in that game. But MP 1-2 are great because they are short. Remedy's gameplay was always very basic, it never evolves through enemy or level design. That type of gameplay is not bad, but it cannot keep you engaged for too long. But MP games are short. You can beat them in 2,5-3 hours. 4 at most. And that is their strength. Starting with Alan Wake, Remedy games started to become longer and longer, but the gameplay loop cannot sustain that length. AW is like 10 hours long if you take your time exploring, and 90% of the chapters are drawn out. Chapter 3 is the worst, the pacing there is awful.
Control is 30+ hours long with all of expansions. And AW2 is like 20+ hours, which is a cardinal sin for a survival horror game. Survival horror game akin to Resident Evil 2-3 remakes are meant to be short, 5-8 hours for the first playthrough, because if you drag them out, they become tedious.
To sum it up, Remedy really suck at pacing their games.
I am so glad someone else saw its flaws. Felt like I was taking crazy pills (or everyone else was and I tongued them) I finished the game and DLC, but turned on invulnerability towards the end of my time with it, only to find that the combat STILL was a bore. I appreciate your critique as this game was set to be something truly special but now it's become a world I will never explore again because its shortcomings outweigh its wonderful ideas.
I really like your writing and narration. Some creators, I wouldn't name names, can sound condescending towards a game and the people if there's supposedly the side arguing against them, paired with extremely pretentious language, so even if their critiques are fair, it can sound really off putting. However, your writing is good and actually fair, plus you're not pretentious with your language, or condescending with your tone, I'll be watching the rest of your vids.
Nice critique. Someone had to say it. You had a lot more patience than me. I finished the main story and some of the side content and uninstalled.
Control's my favourite game next to Re4r. Flaws and all. This is a very interesting video and I love "collecting" different opinions :)
Hello!! Man your videos are so good!! Even with the extended runtime, everything you say is necessary and concise.
Even though I don't always agree with your gripes with a game, you always criticize in a fair way.
About control: even though I love the aesthetic, worldbuilding, music etc... Two things that took me out of the experience completely was the acting that feels weirdly off, its not horrible but it's not satisfying either.
And the other aspect of the game that I hate, is how the game runs, i originally played on a ps4 and the game was full of fps drops, freezing, glitches, bugs etc... I have a ps5 now but I haven't been able to play it yet.
Thanks for the video!
Excited about the next one!
Thanks for watching!
I definitely agree about the acting and debated talking about it in more detail. Darling and Trench are the only two that don't feel awkward or stilted, or at least when they do (Darling) it's there on purpose. I just felt unequipped to talk about it fully having only played this and Alan Wake but not Quantum Break or the Max Paynes. It's hard to tell if it's bad acting *or* if it's Remedy's style.
For reference too the game runs very well on ps5.
I’m so glad somebody finally shit on the ashtray maze - fuck that intro, it made me so much less exited once I finally reached it. I didn’t get stuck quite like you, only stuck around for around 5 minutes, but yeah, still made the 8 ish minutes of shooting just… shooting.
I had the opportunity to play this game when it was on game pass but ultimately never bothered. Certainly the level design was impressive but what was concerning was watching the game play. I watched hours of it and saw the same enemies, the same weapons, the same basic moves. The lack of variety made the combat seem like it could sustain interest for about 6 or 7 hours, maybe not even that long.
That was my exact experience playing it. The foundation for combat was solid but it doesn't expand much past the opening hours and when it tries to, the new additions get lost in the chaos of the combat.
This is possibly big spoilers for anyone who cares, so I'll leave a warning right here.
It seems like the universe fundamentally had parallel opposite properties and nature. The altered items are reverting to the properties of the former universe. Altered items just are items just reverted to their former nature. The Hiss being an upright pyramid that removes free will suggests that the universe is now about chaotic individualism. The universe is trying to revert to a fully unified collective controlled state. The altered items only seem so strange because they are what they were before the universe became a chaotic mess and they exists in a universe fundamentally different from them in everyway. Different physics, different fundamental rules of reality.
Dylan was actually the perfect candidate, but it involves the Hiss destroying the board to bring order to the chaotic universe. That's how Dylan was meant to take over all along.
Really great review. I loved Control, but I also had a ton of issues with it. You're the only reviewer I've seen who brings up how underwhelming a lot of the side quests are, like the mannequin side quest (seriously, what were they thinking with that one?!)
Also, I thought I was the only one who spent half an hour trying to get through the initially presented Ashtray Maze 😅
Thanks for watching! So I don't know if you've played Hogwarts Legacy but they have a mannequin quest that is done quite well and is what I think Control should've tried to do. Obviously it came out before HL but still
@kaldini Thank you for making a banger video! I haven't played HL but the mannequin quest in Control can't be hard to top lol. I was like oh God mannequins this is gonna be scary (Little Nightmares 2 mannequins comes to mind) but nope, it's literally just walk around for a minute and find the "right" one. Control feels like an issue of being perhaps too ambitious at times? Like they didn't have time to fully work out all these neat ideas, so a lot of them end up feeling really half baked.
And I totally agree with your end thoughts, as someone who still hasn't played Alan Wake (but I will!) I really don't want Control and Jessie's world playing second fiddle to AW, nor do I want it to be literally "it was just a book written by Alan" which has as much intrigue as "it was just a dream" story telling, tbh. Sorry for writing a wall of text here, but one thing I wanted to ask: how do you think Remedy could've improved on the Motel sections of Control? Cos I found them to be really underwhelming (aside from some notable mentions, Darling's music video) but other than that they felt really lacking.
@@mimismomos Don't apologize, I enjoyed reading your thoughts.
Having played Alan Wake 2, it does feel like they connect them well in my mind. It doesn't feel like either is behind the other's shadow, which is good.
As for the motel segments I'm not quite sure. Maybe more indepth puzzles. Or for visuals maybe seeing it represented with different seasonal variety or things going on around it. The visit with the person outside talking stands out to me as the most memorable. Or previews of what thresholds are behind the other doors like we get in the AWE themed expansion.
Great critique, you basically said all the frustrations I had with the game myself! The ending was so disappointing, and I actually really enjoyed the gameplay but it didn't feel cohesive with the narrative at all lol.
Thanks for watching!
If you're interested in Remedy, my upcoming video is another longform critique on Alan Wake 2! It has many of the same highs and lows as Control unfortunately.
Unfortunately I just find the story needlessly confusing to point I can’t get in the game.
Which is weird since I love stories like X-files and an game that was kinda like this which was The Secret Worlds.
Very good video.
This is a game I tried to play twice but it really wasn't for me. Of course there are good things about it but I just could not overlook its shortcomings.
Ooh i love this game! Will be fun to watch.
Do you have any videos on Omori or the Bioshock series planned 👀
I would definitely be interested in doing a video on the original bioshock or infinite - the problem is that I'm not confident that I could add anything new to the conversation since they have been discussed to death. While I won't say no, they'd definitely be lower on my list. This is actually one of the many reasons I decided against doing a video on the Last of Us.
I'm currently working on a video for the indie game Lacuna and then will most likely be following it up with a video on the game Vampyr.
@@kaldiniah okay! Your content is fantastic, so i will be tuning in regardless 😂❤
Control was a strange one for me, I loved the gameplay and all the abilities jessie has. The story is just confusing though, maybe its because I never played Alan Wake or other Remedy games, I could let that slide if they just told us what happened to Darling. Theres plenty of speculation on that but I need facts lol
The combat encounters, and the combat itself, feel like they were meant for a completely different game, but were shoe-horned into this. They felt so arbitrary and out of place, from the very first one.
1:59:09
Unfortunately Returnal does the same thing
The ashtray maze rocks, my dude. I understand disliking it but I had the same experience as you, found it early on, got "lost" and was like "ok, I can't go through it now, I gotta find a way to do it later" and went on with my life until it was time to... TAKE... CONTROL...
It's LAUNCH not throw and EVADE, not rush.
It's yeet, not launch