Control (PS4)

Searching for her missing brother, Jesse walks in to the Federal Bureau of Control. An old building in the center of New York. At this point she is quite clueless what the bureau is and what goes on there, as are you, the player. But as soon as you enter it is pretty obvious that something is not quite right. The whole building seems to be completely empty except for the mysterious janitor, Ahti. In his broken English he directs to you the manager's office.

It turns out nothing is under control in the bureau. A paranatural entity has entered the building turning people into mindless husks who only wants to obliterate you. Through documents and videos you get a glimpse into what is going on in the Bureau of Control and even find some people that have still avoided getting corrupted by the paranormal entity, now called the hiss. Together with this group of people you fight this entity and along the way try to find out more about yourself and your missing brother.

I'm not even gonna try to pretend to understand half of what goes on in the game Control and the FBC, but it's intriguing, mysterious and weird. The whole style of the game is really cool and the organization is this highly hierarchical, bureaucratic institution seemingly stuck in the 50's or 60's. Some of it reminds me of the Dharma Initiative from the TV-series Lost.

Control looks good but is not the best looking game out there. As part of the art style, I guess, it has a kind of grain filter that makes it more cinema like so the image is not that crisp. I like the color scheme and the physics in the game are insane. You can literally take apart a desk into individual pieces of wood. As seen in the video below. This comes with a price, though. A performance price. The game has serious frame rate drops during intense fights, at least on a regular PS4. It might be better on a PS4 Pro. It wasn't game breaking for me but it is not something you would expect from a game like this.

The game play is really fun and once you gain different abilities you can approach fights in several ways. You can use telekinesis, shields, guns and even levitate above your enemies. This is also where the insane physics of objects comes into play. You can throw and shoot almost anything and the destruction is simply glorious.

Exploration is encouraged but it's easy to get lost. Navigating the building is a bit tricky and the map sometimes make it even harder. It's hard to distinguish between different levels and which elevator goes where. Fortunately it gets easier when you have found all quick travels points in the building. Besides the main missions there are also some tricky boss fights and several side missions to be found scattered around the building if only you manage to find them. 

From some documents I found references to Alan Wake and Bright Falls so it seems that these games belong to the same universe. It also seems that Ahti, the Finnish janitor might be more than meets the eye. Keep that in mind when you first play the game, that's all I'm going to say.

I got this game for my birthday so I don't know how much was paid for it but I have seen the game on sale already for 20 euros and it is definitely worth 20 euros or more. Even after you have finished the main game there are still things to do if you want to hone your skills battling enemies.