First Impressions of Control

On a whim, I picked up Control, by Remedy Games, from the Epic Games Store because it was on sale for the holidays. I'm really glad I did, because it's a lot of fun. However, it's also a game where I would strongly recommend that you go in blind, because discovering everything about the setting and story is so enjoyable.

I've put anything even slightly spoiler-ish behind the cut. Here are the non-spoiler important points:

• Control is a third-person shooter.
• The setting is modern-day paranormal. Shades of the X-Files and Half-Life.
• There doesn't appear to be a difficulty setting. However, the game does not seem to be overly difficult. It's possible it will get harder later, or maybe there's some dynamic difficulty going on.

Heh, it's pretty hard to try and convince people to play this game while withholding all information. But the setting and story of the game are just so interesting and well done.

---

There are minor spoilers for Control following this point.

The game revolves around Objects of Power, mundane items that have become imbued with paranormal power. In olden times, this might be a sword like Excalibur. In modern times, it's a gun that is simply called the Service Weapon. It's a really neat way of giving the main character a weapon that doesn't require ammunition, and a reason to be the "hero" when there are trained military personnel running around.

Ostensibly, you play a female character named Jesse Fayden. However, I'm not sure this is exactly correct. Oh, Jesse is the character on-screen doing everything, but I think the player is actually a different entity. It freaked me out when Jesse started talking to me. I haven't seen something like this since Scarlet Blade, which had a similar mechanic (but for very different reasons). I'm very intrigued by this, and look forward to seeing what Remedy does with this conceit.

So far, Control is quite good, and I strongly recommend it.