Control - the first game to get me to turn on cheats in decades

I finished Control last week, likely the best game to marry a creepy funhouse with a sprawling government office that you'll ever play. I was up and down on this one for a few months. There's a fun narrative and plenty of atmosphere, but I wasn't always enjoying the gameplay.

I hadn't played a Remedy game since Max Payne 2. The shift from comic book-style storytelling to something literally cinematic was a change for me, but I was still able to comfortably slip into the narrative right away. I particularly enjoyed what was going on with the meta-narrative. For example, I'd get so damn lost running around even with signs everywhere. Normally, the existence of the signs would feel like a change implemented after tester feedback, but then I would see stuff like "Janitor's Office" and think there's intentional thematic design at play. Constantly questioning that in various elements of the game was part of the fun.

Unfortunately, my tendency to get lost wore my patience thin eventually, and the new gameplay unlocks bored me. It was a blast at first--I haven't had this much fun with telekinesis since Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy forever ago--and the gunplay felt solid. But then, as more of the weapon options showed up, I didn't click with any of them and preferred chucking rocks. It's also a great looking game at times. This is the first game where my system has been able to handle more than basic ray tracing, but I'd get a lot of blurry textures. I even had to rollback my video driver to resolve a problem with the cinematics. It's weird to call a game where I'd get a solid 60 FPS a rough port, but I think this qualifies.

I picked up the game again last month and made some more progress until a certain late-game section completely stonewalled me. I simply didn't have enough health (or damage output, or both) for the encounter, and the choice was to either grind for skill points/mods or start looking at difficulty options. I quickly found a switch to an "Easy" difficulty wasn't possible but there was an Assist Mode. I started with reducing incoming damage, but after a couple more five-minute attempts I was frustrated enough to turn one-hit kills on. I couldn't tell you the last time I did something like that to get through a game. It was either that or likely drop the game permanently (a shame being that close to the ending). Still, I'm glad I kept playing, even if I'm not entirely sure in the end Control kept its end of the bargain. I don't think the story quite stuck the landing.

Any thoughts on Control? I seem to be down on it more than most. I imagine Remedy fans in particular got a kick out of it. Or on a game that pushed you into cheats or breaking another gameplay tradition you have?

33 comments

Control is on my backlog list. Thanks for the writeup. Now I know what to expect.
Using cheats for 1 player offline games is 100% OK in my book. I am an adult with so much responsabilties and little time to game. Sitting for 2 hours frustrated on something and not progressing is just not my idea of fun. Nudging yourself through with the help of cheats, easy mode or anything else is totally valid.
I have done this with a few games. Disgaea games come to mind... I know most of the enjoyment of those games comes from the grind to level up and get stronger to then grind some more... But I just couldn't make myself fight the same level 25 times to earn enough XP to upgrade so I memory edited the values just enough to simulate me grinding for 2 hours in 5 minutes. Not enough to break the game but enough to get me through the grindy parts.
And any offline 1 player game that tries that shit will get memory edited right away.
Of course I will always try to do it the intended way, as long as it's not annoying to me.
- I wonder what percentage of players opt for the “story only” difficulties? Has anyone done this sort of study? One dev found that 70% opt for easy mode. They point out that most people don’t finish most games, and easy modes help increase that number.

I loved it and also found it surprisingly difficult in places. I think the use of mixed media is brilliant, like the various flavors of video clips and music you stumble across. A couple boss battles were very challenging. One in particular, but you can finish the main storyline without beating it.
The section of the Oldest House that opens up into a vast maze of hallways is totally epic, IMO. The soundtrack gets metal in a cinematic way right there (Old Gods of Asgard, I think, from Alan Wake? Plus Porcupine Tree!)
I enjoyed the dark and yet whimsical vibe, if you couldn't tell.
- FYI Old Gods of Asgard are basically Poets of the Fall, a real band that collaborated with Remedy at least since Max Payne 2.
  If I listened to Late Goodbye on tape you couldn't hear it anymore with how I much I abused it.

I got it for free on Epic a year or two ago. I love everything about Control - and I can't stand the game.
Never quite figured out why. I think part of it was the controls feeling a little too "arcadey" for me? I just don't know. Great story that I couldn't stay into. Great level design which I kept losing track of. Fun puzzles that got on my nerves.
I played most of the game in Assist mode because I don't like hard action. I quickly got sick of dying. But that didn't affect my love/hate of the game. Perhaps if it had the "magic action balance" where your'e constantly challenged but never seem to die... but perhaps not, too.
I think in part it got sorta tedius.
- I haven't played yet, and I'm worried I'll have a similar reaction. I have had a lot of trouble getting into other popular games. For example, GTA V (finished out of spite), BioShock, Borderlands, RDR II (loved RDR1, only gave RDR II an hour, so probably deserves another shot), BotW, and several others. It seems that the more popular something is, the less I probably like it.
  I do generally like popular AA and indie games though. I'll give Control a try though, maybe it'll surprise me.
  
  I'm with you on RDR2. I can't stand it. I don't know why. Even BotW I get bored a lot. I really enjoyed Bioshock and Borderlands, though I've never finished either. ADHD is a hell of a thing, and only the games that should be the hardest to stick to (like JRPGS or Bethesda games) stick for me.

I'm not a fan of Control overall, the story is pretty weak and the combat is alright at best.
I really wanted to see more of the building shifting around like it does in the intro and the maze, they had such a cool idea going and then barely used it in favor of a pointless semi-open world design.
- Yeah the game's atmosphere is its biggest asset, but until the 2 DLC parts it tapes off hard in the later stages of the game, tbh.

Control pushed me to turn on the one hit kill cheat. After hitting a certain point in the game, it seemed as though enemies would spawn more frequently in areas already visited. I noticed it most in the research sector. Some of the random encounters of hiss dragged on far too long to be fun.
With a map that is easy to get lost in and (side) missions which require you to visit or find several locations all around the map, the random encounters got quite tedious. The random encounters seemed to become less frequent again close to the end of the base game.

I had a lot of fun with Control but the narrative fell flat for me. It got to the point where I didn’t really care why I was running around and killing things anymore, I was just having fun doing it. Same for Alan Wake 1 for that matter. Was definitely invested in Max Payne 1-3 however.
For a game that made me break my own rules? I have been getting into more difficult games for a while, and Elden Ring was the one that started that a few years back. The deaths less frustrating as I learned not to just swing wildly as actually learn enemy moves and use dodge and parry effectively. After beating Elden Ring, making my way through most of Returnal, Bloodborne, beating a handful of other difficult games and rising to the challenge I was starting to “get it”.
Until Dead Cells. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t translate that same strategy to 2D. I got far but found myself really spinning my tires after a while, then had to use assist after I got stuck, and my prior strategy of “leave it, come back later when you’re less frustrated” didn’t work several times in a row, but I really enjoyed the gameplay. I too had to use the assist mode for this one. It was just too difficult and I couldn’t get my head around it in 2D.
I think I blame my lack of experience with Metroidvanias. I never took to them, and though I played a lot of side scrollers, it’s a different, but similar, set of skills.
- I have plenty of experience with Metroidvanias and I love roguelites, but I quickly bounced off of Dead Cells. It made me feel like I wasn't progressing at all. Hades was the same way, but it weirdly avoided that problem with how it handles the story (Hades was also better at making runs feel different early on).
  Maybe I should try Dead Cells again with assist mode. It looks like the game has piles of content.

I made it to the mezzanine fight an hour or two in and realized that the NPC-s are just dumb high DPS bullet sponges and the PC is a low DPS squishy. The worst way to ramp up difficulty. Trying to fight tactically from the cover didn't work and I lost interest. Too bad, I liked the atmosphere and even forgave the 3rd person only camera (normally I disqualify a game instantly if it doesn't allow 1st person view).
- Disqualifying a game because it's 3rd person seems like a very stupid and nitpicky policy.
  
  I just find 3rd person view clumsy and disorienting. Especially in CQC. 1st person gives me much better SA and feels way more responsive.
  1st person view is also way more immersive—I want to be the main character, not a puppeteer pulling the strings on them.

Honestly felt it was pretty doable so long as you suited your tactics to the situation. This means you also have to build the skill of sizing up an encounter and selecting the right tool for it.
My problem with it was the thing that spit clocks. Took me forever to troubleshoot that issue and it was a hard crash to desktop type situation. Why that would be allowed to persist years after release is beyond me.

I started playing Control a couple of weeks ago and I've found it to be a lot of fun so far. I'm currently at the power plant so I may not be to the frustrating point yet. I definitely see your point about getting lost. Even with all the signs and the map it can be difficult to navigate at times, though it is becoming a bit easier as I am more familiar with navigating the game.
I am about to reach that point with Resident Evil 4 (2023). I'm at one of the first levels in the village and I've spent probably two hours trying to get past this one level, only to die every attempt so far. I think I'm up to at least ten attempts now and it's driving me nuts.

I played it. Gun play's fun. Ran into adifficulty wall. Read in a wiki that I was missing a certain ability. Got that ability. Continued easily until I came to a point where I had to git good. Game felt grindy. Turned on cheats. Flew through the rest of the game and kept thinking: this would have sucked hard without cheats and the story would not have been worth it, for me.
This was however the first shooter I played with a controller instead of mouse and keyboard.
Tldr: had some fun, used cheats, deprived myself of half of the game, no regrets.

It baffles me that they create a great setting with a compelling story and then go "Nah, too easy, let's push the difficulty to eleven, leet players only amirite?"
People who play for fun, to enjoy a moderate challenge and a good plot are prevented from doing so. I know about the "assist", but the point is I should not have to google "why is Control so damn hard" to find out about it, nor should I have to dig in the menu system for help.
Games have been using difficulty settings since before Wolfenstein 3D, where "normal" is a balanced difficulty that an average gamer can handle. Experienced gamer can go for "Difficult" or "Nightmare". What is gained by overpowering the player and preventing from enjoying the rest of the game?
I know this is nothing new, a lot of 80's games were vicious, but when your game was 10 levels long and had to fit in 16KB, you had to make it challenging to keep the player playing. But in the mean time technology evolved and developers learned new ways to make engaging games that don't rely on simple dificulty++ gimmicks. Or at least I they should have learned.
Maybe I'm simply bad at shooters? I don't think I am, I've been playing for ages and I'm still quite good at it.
Ok, rant over. I'd love to love Control, but I can't because it is not for me.
- I like when games are difficult. I don't think every game needs to be so easy every gamer can beat it.
  
  Good for you. That's why I wrote:
  Experienced gamer can go for “Difficult” or “Nightmare”.
  Do you agree that gamers with below average skills should be able to enjoy the game they payed for?

Fwiw I share your comments pretty closely, just finished it myself a few weeks ago. Navigating the map was unbelievably tedious especially with random trash mob spawns whenever you took a wrong turn. I also found myself totally apathetic about the side missions or random task missions and just focused main story the whole time. It took me a long time to finish for those reasons but did really enjoy the plot. Gameplay I just built myself into a rock chucker like you and ignored all guns. Certainly a very neat concept, just wanted waaaaay more map help. Hardest part for me was the theme song bit through the shifting map thing (maybe that's what you were referring to?) But enjoyed the music there so was alright with all my deaths. Rest was easier by comparison

These days I play games after work to relax. I found it difficult to relax while playing Control, so it took me a few months to complete. But I did overall enjoy going into it blind after picking it up on sale due to people’s recommendations.

Nah, Control was gameplay wise jank. I see in fact more and more modern games with terrible takes on encounter design. I grew up with frame tight games. They were at times brutally hard and speed runs do end there with deaths to normal mechanics. However you could systematically learn the timings, patterns in a pleasant way until you got it right. You might fail at them crushingly, but you know quickly a no-hit run would be possible and truly unfair situations are quite rare even on the highest difficulties.
Not so the past few years it seems. The gamer press lets many games get away with actually terrible game design. Off camera attacks, bad tells, awfully tight frame windows, multiple enemies which can on a dice roll attack unfairly together into undodgeable situations and so on. And while I do think the extremely tightened game design I prefer limits creativity, I do expect from those games who make it a bit wonky at times that they know their place about it and loosen the demand on the player.
Quickly the criticism on this gets drown out by the hardcore "git gud" crowd which probably never went past half the game. And then there is another fraction of players, who learn to cheese the systems as in exploiting high DPS outputs to reduce the interaction with the encounter design.
Back to Control, yes, I was similarly very frustrated by some gameplay sections and the story doesn't pass a basic writing course test. It sets up this wonderful intrigue in the beginning and then forgets that a story needs something like stakes and tension. And towards the end it just drips along until it ends.
- What specifically did you find janky? Except for the one CTD bug I encountered (and spent hours fixing) everything seemed pretty fair. I completed all ten main story missions with no major issues with difficulty. I died some, but was always able to figure out a way to approach each encounter that made sense and didn't require exploits.
  I'm not some elite gamer either; I'm a 41 year old dad.
  
  There were bosses with camera problems (off camera tells).
  As Whitelight explains enemies with bad tells doing 90% damage. Enemy design is overall bad, because it is the same approach https://youtu.be/hUGi07a0Mi0?si=37k8ldzolqPvt08_
  Quote from Darkhack on the negative Steam review:
  " Sadly, there are too many minor faults that manage to interrupt the fun. The launch ability that lets you throw objects can be unpredictable. Most of the time, Jesse will grab a nearby object or even pull rubble from the floor if nothing is available to throw at enemies. However, it's not uncommon for the ability to glitch. At random moments, Jesse will inexplicably grab an object all the way across the room and wait for it to be pulled in and arrive at her side before throwing it. These objects can even get stuck on random geometry. I died more than once because Jesse decided that the desk located a mile away was the only suitable object to throw and she would wait for it to arrive while under heavy fire. That's assuming it arrives at all and doesn't get stuck along its path."
  I think high damage mechanics are always a terrible idea in a physics based combat rule set instead of a restricted, openly telling system like in Mega Man or Final Fantasy XIV.

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