selenicseas | Entries tagged with control

There are spoilers for Control as well as the trailer for Control Resonant. Read at your own risk if you haven't played the game.

<< Replaying Control, part 9: The Face of the Enemy (2)

Finnish Tango

The Entrance to Dimensional Research is in Central Research right by Dr. Darling's office. It's a place you'll probably run past multiple times when you're in Central Research, but I never thought about checking it out until getting to this part of the game.

I've found that enemies really like to spawn when Jesse is running up and down the staircase. Great if you're trying to do a Board Countermeasure that requires killing enemies in the Research Sector; annoying if you're just trying to mind your own business.

Entering the Firebreak triggers another Hotline message from Trench. Past it is the Ashtray Maze. Jesse receives a message from Ahti (not a Hotline message, just his voice reaching out to her somehow) telling her to get in touch so she'll be able to navigate the Ashtray Maze.

There's a Control Point right there, so it's super easy to teleport to Ventilation in the Maintenance Sector and head to the Janitor's Office. Ahti, however, is not there – he's on vacation. Interacting with the painting on the wall opens up a door to some tunnels (with Hiss in them) that lead to a Firebreak.

Jesse floats high above the Firebreak.

Ahti's voice, along with an overlay of some waves, leads Jesse to the upper part of the NSC Coolant Pumps, which is completely infested with the mold and Mold Hosts. A light switch cord leading to the Oceanview Motel and Casino. In the lobby of the Oceanview is a radio with Ahti reading something in Finnish. After solving the puzzle, Jesse gets the keys to the Janitor's Closet – not for the door with the inverted black pyramid. That was something I ran past multiple times before realizing where my mistake was.

After pulling the light switch in the Janitor's closet, Jesse is in the upper levels of the Quarry. From this high up, you can see all of the Quarry – and sometimes, you'll see the Hiss and Astral Spikes fighting each other. Ahti's voice is still present here, and he leads Jesse toward a non-functioning elevator shaft that's labeled with a "Restricted Area" sign.

In the Restricted Area, Jesse calls for a cable car to cross the gap to a lower part of the House. Naturally, Hiss show up while she waits for the car to get there.

A vision of water with Ahti's words overlaid over the Restricted Area.

A vision of water with Ahti's words overlaid over the Restricted Area.

There are pillars extending far up into the ceiling in what looks like the lowest part of the House. Ahti's voice lead Jesse past a pillar with a carving of a tree on it. At this point, there is a vision of Ahti giving Jesse a cassette player that will get her through the Ashtray Maze.

Jesse questions whether that happened at all – Ahti isn't physically in the House. But she has the cassette player, so it's time to go back to Dimensional Research.

Polaris

Jesse runs through a hallway in the Ashtray Maze.

Jesse runs through a hallway in the Ashtray Maze.

There's a Control Point conveniently right there, so traveling back to Dimensional Research only takes a few seconds. After entering the maze, Jesse puts the headphones on and Take Control by Old Gods of Asgard starts playing.

The Ashtray Maze is a shifting, changing maze with Hiss as enemies, and Take Control appropriately shifts and changes with it. You won't hear the studio version of the song in the game. Different parts of it loop depending on what part of the maze Jesse is in, and I think there are also different stanzas depending on how well you're doing in combat.

That was my first experience with Remedy setting fights to music, and I was totally hooked.

As Jesse progresses further in the maze, the maze itself starts blocking off the Hiss and making it easier for her to get through. At the end of the maze is another Firebreak with another Hotline message from Trench.

Now we're finally in Dimensional Research.

Jesse stands in front of a vision of Slidescape-36.

Jesse stands in front of a vision of Slidescape-36.

There's some strange-looking red sand on the staircase leading upward. The upper room is filled with sand at one end, and approaching it gives Jesse a vision of Slidescape-36. That's the world created by the Slide Projector – the one she and Dylan went through as children. The world where they met Polaris.

And, unfortunately, the Slide Projector isn’t here. Darling moved it, because of course he did. Speaking of Darling, there's a video from him describing Slidescape-36. An expedition led by Trench went in, and Trench heard something the others didn't. That something made his ears bleed.

Next up is the Hedron Research Lab. There is another video from Darling, where he talks about Hedron, a being they met in Slidescape-36. They brought it back to the House. It's been here the whole time. And not only is it here, it's what Jesse has been calling Polaris this entire time.

Jesse looks at Hedron from Darling's lab.

Jesse looks at Hedron from Darling's lab.

The Hedron Chamber is barred by a very large HRA, which Jesse removes in order to get to the Hedron Chamber. Remember what the HRAs are used for? Preventing the Hiss? Yeah, removing that HRA allows the Hiss into the Hedron Chamber.

What follows is a multi-stage fight against the Hiss. It can take quite a while, since there is a primary goal of cleansing the siphons (which are currently firing lasers at Hedron) while the Hiss attack at the same time. Also, Hedron floats higher and higher into the room as each siphon is cleansed, so there's platforming involved.

Once the final siphon is cleansed, Jesse attempts to reach Polaris. It seems like the attack by the Hiss was too much, and Polaris is seemingly destroyed.

And with that, there's nothing protecting Jesse from the Hiss any longer.

Jesse is possessed by the Hiss.

Game over. Roll credits. No music, which is kind of strange.

Credits, including the Narrative Lead named 'Leave your insides by the door'.

Wait...Leave? Lave your insides by the door? What is this?

Credits warped by the Hiss chant.

As it turns out, this is isn't the end of the game! We'll be going over the final mission, Take Control, in the next part.

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There are spoilers for Control as well as the trailer for Control Resonant. Read at your own risk if you haven't played the game.

<< Replaying Control, part 8: The Face of the Enemy (1)

The Face of the Enemy

Jesse stands in front of the Wall of Honor.

Jesse stands in front of the Wall of Honor.

The Prime Candidate Program is located up the stairs from Security. Instead of taking a massive detour through the sector like she did before, Jesse can simply unlock the door and walk through, with only a tiny bit of detouring to get around one locked door.

The twisting hall Jesse ends up in is full of Hiss, which must be defeated before progressing onward. Once that's done, she heads to the right and finds three doors marked Closed Cases, P6, and P7. Closed Cases contains a document about the Bright Falls AWE in 2010 (the events of Alan Wake). It also contains a Threshold Kids video.

P6 has a video from Dr. Darling, where he talks about the Slide Projector and Dylan. Dylan killed an FBC agent when he was still a kid (and there is a report listing all of the injuries in detail), but for some reason that didn't dissuade Darling from trying to turn him into the new director.

In that same room, there is a document (Dylan Faden Transcript) you can pick up that seems to imply that Polaris was actually trying to communicate with Dylan, but he kept rejecting her.

Now to P7 – the room that contains all the FBC surveillance on Jesse.

A whiteboard with photographs of Jesse stuck to it.

A whiteboard with photographs of Jesse stuck to it.

The FBC has dozens of pictures of Jesse, transcripts of conversations she had with therapists, and even recent records of her movements as she got closer to New York.

After exiting the P7 room, it's time to head toward the Transit Corridor. There is an elevator that leads there, which contains one of the exploding, floating Hiss. The Transit Corridor contains, unsurprisingly, more Hiss, and Jesse must defeat them before cleansing the nearby Control Point and returning the area back to normal.

Jesse hovers in front of an NYC Subway sign.

Jesse hovers in front of an NYC Subway sign.

Later on in the game, we learn that the Oldest House was first entered from the NYC Subway. Perhaps this is that entrance.

And, perhaps, this is how Dylan gets out of the Oldest House in Control Resonant. The trailer does show him walking out of a subway exit.

Turing around from the NYC Subway sign gets Jesse to a turntable, which must be rotated at a nearby control panel. After a walk through another corridor and restoring power to an elevator, she's now at the entrance to the Ordinary AWE.

The Ordinary AWE contains a replica of the town of Ordinary and a fight against the Hiss. If you use Launch as much as I do, then you'll be launching parts of the Ordinary replica all over the place. I just know some FBC agents took a lot of time putting things in the right place, and it only took a few minutes to turn it into a giant mess.

To the left is a staircase leading to a couple of offices. There is a recording of Jesse talking to a therapist, where she mentions a poem by Thomas Zane. The therapist couldn't find a poet by the name of Tom Zane, only a European filmmaker. In that same recording, Jesse says that Polaris needs her to go to New York – that she needs to be there at a certain time. That makes it seem like Polaris knew the Hiss invasion was going to happen.

At the end of all those offices is the entire Ordinary dump. Somehow, the FBC managed to move the whole thing from Maine to New York. Just like with the town replica, there's a fight against the Hiss here. The Slide Projector isn't here like Jesse thought it might be, but Dr. Darling has a lab nearby that might give hints as to its location.

And it does – Darling set up a new department to contain the Slide Projector: Dimensional Research. That's the end of this mission.

But I didn't head to Dimensional Research immediately. I took the time to do some sidequests and talk to a couple of NPCs.

Langston's Runaways

There are two parts to this quest. In the first, you contain four escaped Altered Items. Then, after returning to Langston, he gives you three more Altered Items to find. One of those is the Rubber Duck I mentioned in part 4 of this let's play.

Another of those Altered Items is a Flamingo.

The Flamingo Altered Item peeks out from behind a partially-open door.

The Flamingo Altered Item peeks out from behind a partially-open door.

Attempting to cleanse the Flamingo takes Jesse to Former's version of the Astral Plane. This is another boss fight against Former, and one that I thought was much easier due to being further along in the game.

Former doesn't say anything to Jesse. It just attacks, for its own unknown reasons.

The last of the Altered Items to cleanse is the Mannequin, which is located in the twisting corridor of the Prime Candidate Program. It isn't possessed by Former or anything – it just makes a ton of duplicates and Jesse has to find the correct one.

Dylan's other dreams

In one of his dreams, Dylan meets a man named Mr. Door.

A conversation with Dylan where he talks about meeting Mr. Door.

A conversation with Dylan where he talks about meeting Mr. Door.

He goes on to say that Mr. Door told him that there are many worlds, and that Door is in all of those worlds at the same time. Dylan wanted to bring the Hiss to all those worlds, but Door didn’t like that idea.

SPOILERS FOR ALAN WAKE 2

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There are spoilers for Control as well as the trailer for Control Resonant. Read at your own risk if you haven't played the game.

<< Replaying Control, part 7: My Brother's Keeper (2)

The Face of the Enemy

A doppelganger of Jesse stands in a room surrounded by monitors. The light is very red.

A doppelganger of Jesse stands in a room surrounded by monitors. The light is very red.

Back in Central Executive, Jesse has a brief conversation with Emily and learns that Dylan is being kept in an HRA containment unit just up the stairs. Dylan has been affected by the Hiss, but not in the same way as the other FBC personnel. That doesn't mean things seem great, though – Dylan spends most of his time floating in the air, chanting the Hiss incantation, and he starts off speaking in the third person.

Dylan recognizes Jesse immediately, says that the Hiss made him better, and responds very poorly to Polaris when Jesse calls on her for help. Though both of them met Polaris when they went into the world created by the Slide Projector in Ordinary, Dylan claims that Polaris did nothing to protect him from the FBC. So after the Hiss invaded the Oldest House, Dylan accepted the Hiss in order to get rid of Polaris.

That Slide Projector, by the way, was taken back to the Oldest House at the same time Dylan was, and it's what let the Hiss into the House.

But we aren't going to the turn off the Slide Projector just yet. Dylan tells Jesse to go to the Prime Candidate Program in the Containment Sector, and gives her a level 6 clearance keycard, which he apparently got from Salvador.

After that conversation, Dylan goes back to floating while chanting the Hiss incantation. You can talk to him (I didn't in my first playthrough, so all of this is actually new to me), but all he tells you about are his dreams.

A conversation with Dylan where he says 'My name was Jesse Dylan Faden.'

A conversation with Dylan where he says 'My name was Jesse Dylan Faden.'

In his first dream, he says he was an only child, a girl named Jesse Dylan Faden. The FBC caught him and brought him back to the Oldest House. He then wonders if it's strange that both of their names are gender-neutral.

This dream in particular seems related to part of the Hiss incantation:

You have always been there, the only child.
A copy of a copy of a copy.

THEORIES ABOUT WHAT THIS COULD MEAN, WITH SOME SPOILERS FOR ALAN WAKE AND ALAN WAKE 2

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In Alan Wake 2, an Altered World Event occurs that affects the memories of all the characters except for Saga Anderson. In the "old" world, Saga had a living daughter and had never been to Bright Falls or Water; in the "new" world created by the AWE, Saga's daughter drowned a few years prior while she had been living in Watery. Saga is the only one to remember the old version of events.

As we learn a bit later in this mission, there is a recording of Jesse talking with a therapist. She mentions a poet named Tom Zane, who the therapist doesn't recognize – instead, she's heard of a filmmaker named Tom Zane. Tom the Poet doesn't seem to exist.

We know Tom the Poet existed previously, because he shows up the first Alan Wake game as the Bright Presence. He hasn't been seen since because he was (if my memory serves me correctly) retconned out of existence by an AWE of his own creation. Only a few people remember him: Alan, Cynthia Weaver, and Jesse, though she does correct her thoughts of him to "filmmaker" rather than "poet" later on.

What this proves is that AWEs can alter reality, with very few people remembering what the "correct" version of the world is supposed to be. After all, there's nothing left of that old reality other than a few memories.

I think that Jesse and Dylan may have been one person who was split into two by the Ordinary AWE. Jesse Dylan Faden was an only child who became two children. Jesse was an only child, and turning on the Slide Projector pulled her equivalent, Dylan, from another world into this one, or vice versa. Jesse turned on the Slide Projector, and it made a copy of a copy of a copy, and that copy was Dylan. Something like that.

I sure hope this question gets answered in Resonant.

We should be heading to the Prime Candidate Program, but I'm taking a little detour

Now that Jesse has level 6 clearance, there's one place in the Research sector she can go that wasn't available before: Mirror Testing in the Synchronicity Lab.

There is an Altered Item in a containment cell, and Jesse must solve a puzzle to get in. I have to admit, I always look up the solution to this puzzle as I've never been able to solve it myself.

Touching the mirror transports Jesse to a world where everything is mirrored, including the words she says out loud. She sees a doppelganger through the windows in several areas (see the first screenshot in this post), who at first mirrors her own actions before breaking out and attacking her.

esseJ has access to all of Jesse's powers and weapon forms, and because she's controlled by a computer, she does a better job at using them than the player ever will. This is a difficult fight, and I would have died so many times if I hadn't had immortality turned on.

The reward for defeating esseJ is the Asynchronous Suit she wears, which is probably the best outfit in the game. I had Jesse wearing it for the rest of the main missions.

Jesse wearing the Asynchronous Suit.

THEORIZING ABOUT CONTROL RESONANT WITH SOME ALAN WAKE REFERENCES

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There are spoilers for Control as well as the trailer for Control Resonant. Read at your own risk if you haven't played the game.

<< Replaying Control, part 6: My Brother's Keeper (1)

My Brother's Keeper

Jesse stands at the entrance of the Panopticon.

Jesse stands at the entrance of the Panopticon.

The humming person turns out to be Fredrick Langston, the Panopticon Supervisor. There's a lot going on in the Panopticon, and Langston starts rambling about it – the Hiss got in, some Altered Items got out, lots of things aren't working. Jesse doesn't care about any of that; she just wants to find Dylan.

Langston tells Jesse where Dylan is (upper Panopticon), but there is a loose Object of Power (the Benicoff TV) that's causing chaos that Jesse needs to deal with first. Salvador, Head of Security, went in to deal with it but no one has heard from his team for hours.

Langston ends the conversation by telling Jesse to refer to him as Fred. Jesse immediately calls him Langston.

If you stand around to listen to Langston's idle dialogue, he talks about being disappointed that he has to miss The Sudden Stop, an Alex Casey movie. This, I think, is the first Alan Wake reference in Control – Alan is the writer of the Alex Casey series.

Philip sits in front of a refrigerator.

The Benicoff TV is on the 4th floor, which Jesse can thankfully reach via elevator instead of platforming. Before Jesse gets to the TV, she finds an FBC agent named Phillip staring at a refrigerator. He can't stop staring at it, and asks Jesse for help. She can't do that right now, so leaves him for the time being.

I didn't take a screenshot of this situation during this playthrough for some reason, so above is a screenshot from 2023.

The spiraling hallway created by the Benicoff TV.

The spiraling hallway created by the Benicoff TV.

The Benicoff TV alters the area around it when Jesse gets too close, creating a spiraling hallway that leads to a large chamber. In that room are some hiss guards. Remember Salvador and his team? They got turned into Hiss, and Jesse has to defeat them.

The TV grants the Levitate ability, which Jesse gets to test out in the Astral Plane. Aside from Launch, it's the best power in the game – and what's even better is you get to combine them. Jesse is now able to fly around and throw forklifts at enemies while in the air.

Upon exiting the Astral Plane, the Board attempts to send a message, which is cut off by the Hiss. Quite concerning, but Jesse doesn't comment on it.

Dylan's cell in the Panopticon is on the 5th floor. There is no elevator up to the 5th floor; instead, it's necessary to do some platforming. Since Jesse just obtained Levitate, this is much easier than it otherwise would be.

There are alarms blaring once Jesse gets close to Dylan's cell, as well as dead FBC agents and a lot of destruction, like someone broke out of the cell. In fact, it looks like Dylan broke out, since he isn't there. By the way, the cell has some incredibly ominous red lights pointed at it. I don't think we see these lights anywhere else in the Oldest House.

A voice sounds out over the intercom: it's Emily, telling Jesse that Dylan just walked right in to Central Executive. Jesse immediately heads back to Central Executive.

Remember the fridge guy?

We can now go back and help Phillip – after first talking to Langston, who admits he completely forgot about Phillip with all that's going on at the moment. Phillip has been staring at a refrigerator for over a day. Langston unlocks the door to that cell, but is worried about what will happen if no one's there to watch the fridge. Jesse decides she'll figure out something on the fly.

Before Jesse can get into the cell with the fridge, it does something and Phillip disappears. When Jesse touches it, she's taken to a weird, dark version of the Astral Plane with a very large creature named Former that, for some reason, starts attacking. Surprise! It's a bossfight.

Boss fight against Former.

Former sounds a bit like the Board. Also, I lost this fight the first time by falling through the ground right at the very end.

The fridge is completely normal afterward. Jesse reports back to Langston, who's heard reports from Astralnauts of a large creature in the Astral Plane.

A video projector showing a large creature in the Astral Plane.

A video projector showing a large creature in the Astral Plane.

Remember this projector video from earlier in the game? I'm pretty sure this is Former.

Langston then gives Jesse a sidequest to find some escaped Altered Items, which I put off for a little while. I had some other things to do, like finally visiting the Mold Dimension.

CONTROL RESONANT THEORIZING

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Old Growth

Jesse stands near the elevator to the Active Threshold in Central Research.

Jesse stands near the elevator to the Active Threshold in Central Research.

Near the cafeteria at the bottom of Central Research is a non-functioning elevator surrounded by some plant growth. The elevator shaft leads down to the Active Threshold, a place that's filled with mold and mold hosts (essentially mold zombies). There are a few rangers and a scientist, Raya Underhill, down there. Underhill doesn't care about the Hiss, the lockdown, or the new director. She just wants to study the mold.

A conversation with Underhill.

The mold, apparently, smells appetizing and some people have eaten it – thus the mold hosts. Before Jesse can go any deeper into the Threshold, Underhill has Jesse gather a few mold samples to synthesize a pill that immunizes her to the effects of the mold. It also makes the mold smell disgusting.

Now Jesse can go down a pit to find out what's causing problems in the Threshold (well, more than usual). It turns out to be Mold-1, a large mold creature that Jesse has to defeat, much to Underhill's dismay – because Underhill is just as much a mad scientist as the other two Bureau scientists we've seen.

CONTROL RESONANT THEORIZING

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There are spoilers for Control as well as the trailer for Control Resonant. Read at your own risk if you haven't played the game.

<< Replaying Control, part 5: Threshold

Before we go on to the main mission, an aside

At this point, there were a few side quests available, including Dr. Yoshimi Tokui's Guided Imagery Experience. This mission was formerly a PS4 exclusive, but was added to the Ultimate Edition version of the game in 2025.

The most interesting part of this quest (aside from Dr. Tokui being voiced by Hideo Kojima) is that Tokui was apparently considered for the Prime Candidate Program, which is used by the FBC to choose potential Directors. This is the same Prime Candidate Program that Dylan (labeled P6) was part of.

FBC agents stare at an X-ray lightbox.

In the Hypnosis lab is an X-ray lightbox that's causing some FBC agents to do nothing but stare at it. It's an Object of Power which grants the Seize power once Jesse binds it. This isn't a power I used very much in my first playthrough, and I've made an effort to actually use it in this one. Honestly, I can't tell how much of a help the allied Hiss are.

The last bit of side content isn't a quest. The Luck and Probability lab contains a hidden puzzle that, when solved, rewards an outfit. This whiteboard shows what you need to do in order to solve the puzzle. Naturally, I had issues and needed to repeat some steps a few times in order for it to work. This wasn't an issue with the game – it was an issue with me and my lack of ability to remember what I just did.

A whiteboard with some clues.

My Brother's Keeper

Finally, it's time to find Dylan. So, Jesse takes the Sector Elevator to the Containment Sector and-

Actually, no, there's one more detour I took before I went off to Containment. I went into the Board Room to talk to Emily Pope. Emily and Arish have new things to say from time to time, so you may want to check in with them after finishing a few main missions.

A conversation with Emily, where she says she's been trying to convince Darling to explore the combat applications of Black Rock.

A conversation with Emily, where she says she's been trying to convince Darling to explore the combat applications of Black Rock.

Emily's most interesting conversation is about Black Rock. The FBC uses it mostly for containment, but she thinks it could have potentially useful combat applications. I believe she specifically wants a knife. Jesse's inner monologue during this scene mentions "mad scientists" by name.

Unsurprisingly, the Hiss have made it into Containment. There are plenty to deal with until Jesse cleanses the control point in Logistics. There is also a strange, bright yellow light above the emergency shelter in the entrance of the sector; we see that same color of light in other parts of the building. Like a lot of things, it's never explained. It's just there.

Wait, it's another detour

In Logistics is a person calling for help: Horowitz, an injured ranger. He and his squadmate, Wells, were chasing a runaway Altered Item in a nearby threshold (which he refers to as "The Clocks"), but only he made it out of the Oceanview Motel and back into the Oldest House. This starts a sidequest, A Matter of Time, which I usually do immediately as it opens up a large part of the sector.

The puzzle in the Oceanview Motel has to do with clocks; there is a clock in the lobby that shows a time that the clock in currently open room must match. The hard part of this is getting the clock hands to stop at the correct time, as there's a tiny bit of delay between you pressing the button to stop the clock and the clock hands actually stopping.

There are plenty of clocks in the threshold. In fact, there's one room and a hallway that are entirely filled with clocks. For some reason, I never took a screenshot of it (and I can't seem to find good images of it anywhere on the internet), so you'll have to take my word for it.

Wells is alive, and leads Jesse out of the threshold. He somehow has level 9 clearance, which no one else in the game does – not even Jesse by the end of the game. There are two level 9 doors in the game, and both are in this mission, presumably to stop the player from breaking the game by jumping into places they shouldn't be.

Jesse and Wells fight through some Hiss, climb over a bunch of clocks, and make it back into Logistics. Unfortunately, Horowitz's HRA was damaged when he was injured, and now he's possessed by the Hiss. After defeating Hiss-possessed Horowitz, Jesse directs Wells to Central Executive. I don't actually know if he shows up there as a unique NPC.

The Altered Item that was causing issues in the threshold is still at large, and we receive a sidequest, The Enemy Within, to deal with it. It isn't possible to complete this sidequest until Jesse gets the Levitate power, so I went back to the main mission.

My Brother's Keeper

From Logistics, Jesse heads to Security. There is a Wall of Honor listing names of fallen FBC agents (actually Remedy developers).

The Wall of Honor, listing fallen FBC agents.

The Wall of Honor, listing fallen FBC agents.

We can't take the straightforward way to the Panopticon, so Jesse goes into the Medical Wing, which, oddly enough, has mold growing on the walls (and floors, and ceilings) in some places. Some of it will explode if you shoot it. There are also mold zombies, which I will admit severely startled me the first time I saw them. I was not expecting mold zombies in this game.

There is a document labeled "Mold Autopsy" that explains a little, but we won't discover what's going on until we enter what I like to think of as the Mold Dimension.

Back in Security, Jesse finds a monitor that shows that Dylan's cell has been breached. She's worried (with good reason) that the Hiss has gotten to him and hopes that Polaris can somehow protect him.

Jesse looking at a couple of monitors. One reads 'P6 cell breached'.

Jesse looking at a couple of monitors. One reads 'P6 cell breached'.

There is a light switch cord in Security. Pulling it the first time shows a brief vision of Dylan's face. According to something I read years back, this was a bug, not something intentional by the developers! If that's true, it's one of the most appropriate bugs to ever exist.

This time, screaming can be heard in the Oceanview Motel and Casino. There is also blood coming out from under door 223, which seems to be where the screaming is coming from. Who's screaming? Why is he screaming? How did he get here in the first place? I suspect those questions will never be answered.

After solving the puzzle in the Oceanview, Jesse ends up in front of a Firebreak that leads to the Panopticon. She enters and hears…some humming? There are some people alive here, too.

That's something we'll get to in the next part. This mission is one of the longer ones. I had to split it in half!

Tags:

There are spoilers for Control as well as the trailer for Control Resonant. Read at your own risk if you haven't played the game.

<< Replaying Control, part 4: Old Boys' Club

Threshold

The sky in the Quarry Threshold.

Black Rock Processing, where Jesse needs to go next, is in the Maintenance Sector. There's a door conveniently labeled "Black Rock Processing" in Central Maintenance, and through that door, some Hiss, a warning about the Tennyson Report (potentially written by Arish), and then some platforming, which has to be one of my least favorite things about video games.

That platforming is followed by another trip to the Oceanview Motel. This time, you can hear some people talking outside the entrance to the Motel. Somehow they've managed to find the location, which the FBC has never been able to do.

It's now possible to cross the Firebreak into the Atlas Chamber.

The Firebreak.

The Atlas, which I somehow don't recall seeing at all because the fight against the Hiss took up too much of my attention, is a geometric "sculpture" created by the Oldest House. It changes form when it isn't observed, and seems to be made of the same of the same stuff as the House. What is its purpose? What does it represent? The FBC doesn’t know, and I have no clue, either.

There's a control point in the Atlas Chamber, a Dr. Darling video, and some rangers (who assist Jesse in the fight against the Hiss) and Arish. Arish has news: Black Rock Processing is nearby, but there are Hiss in there, just like everywhere else in the Oldest House. Jesse tells Arish to take his rangers to Central Executive, and she'll handle the Hiss.

A note from Marshall about Trench and Darling's recent behavior.

A note from Marshall about Trench and Darling's recent behavior.

In that same room with Arish is a document authored by Marshall about Trench's recent behavior. He and Darling were both acting strangely, with Trench suddenly hostile to Darling about the Hedron project – a project he personally approved.

Down the hall, a Hiss "monster", as Arish called it, appears. It's a new kind of Hiss – one that can turn invisible and suddenly appear right before it attacks. They're pretty annoying the first few times you deal with them, but once you know what to look for (they do leave a slight disturbance in the air when they're invisible), you don't have to wait until they appear before you can attack them.

Inside Dr. Darling's lab, there is a video about the Quarry Threshold, which is where Black Rock comes from. That’s where Jesse heads next.

Actually getting to the Quarry Threshold requires crossing back into the upper levels of the NSC, where you get to see what "NSC" stands for and what it's powered by: Northmoor, one of the previous directors of the FBC.

The Northmoor Sarcophagus Container.

Yes, the FBC is using their old director as a power supply because he produces too much heat. I'm sure there are no ethical issues with that whatsoever, and that Jesse herself wouldn't be worried that something like this could happen to her.

There are Hiss to deal with at the entrance to the Black Rock Quarry, and an Astral Spike that is thankfully very easy to avoid. In order for Jesse to get a prism, she needs to set off a couple of explosives – after defeating some Hiss, of course. After that, it's back to Marshall to get HRA production back online. Getting out of the Quarry is actually more annoying than getting in, since there are now a few more Astral Spikes to deal with.

Now that Jesse's given Marshall the Black Rock her team needs, she's willing to talk about Dylan. Dylan was brought to the FBC and groomed to be the future Director, but his powers (who Jesse supposes were given to him by Polaris) "changed" him and the FBC abandoned that plan. Dylan is in the Panopticon in the Containment Sector.

Marshall then leaves to check on something she can't let the Hiss find. This is the last we see of her in the main game.

Jesse is now free to prioritize finding Dylan, so it's time to head off to the Containment Sector.

Glass backlit by red light. Jesse's name is written on it.

Glass backlit by red light. Jesse's name is written on it.

Tags:

There are spoilers for Control as well as the trailer for Control Resonant. Read at your own risk if you haven't played the game.

<< Replaying Control, part 3: Directorial Override

Old Boys' Club

Entering Central Research from the Sector Elevator.

Entering Central Research from the Sector Elevator.

The Sector Elevator now leads to the Research Sector. Jesse steps out into Central Research and is greeted by a video of Dr. Darling welcoming visitors from other parts of the Oldest House.

This is one of the areas of the game where ray tracing makes a huge difference. There are a massive number of reflective surfaces in Central Research, which actually made reading some signs (and the map) a little difficult.

An incredibly reflective map of the Research Sector.

An incredibly reflective map of the Research Sector.

As pretty and impressive as it is, I feel like the ray tracing gets a little too distracting sometimes. The text on this map is barely readable at certain angles.

After fighting off some Hiss and destroying some Hiss clusters (red cube-like things that block off areas), Jesse can now proceed to Parapsychology to find Marshall. But before that, I did some exploring in Central Research. There are plenty of documents to find, another video by Dr. Darling, and at the very bottom of Central Research, an acoustic room where you can listen to My Dark Disquiet by Poets of the Fall. The lyrics are on a chalkboard right outside.

Jesse stands in front of a chalkboard with song lyrics written on it.

Jesse stands in front of a chalkboard with song lyrics written on it.

Poets of the Fall are the real-life band that perform all of Old Gods of Asgard's songs in the Remedyverse. This particular song isn't an Old Gods song, but we will hear an Old Gods song later in the game.

Though, that does raise the question: if the Old Gods didn't perform this song in-universe, then who did?

After going through the doors to Parapsychology, we get a message from Marshall, who's in trouble. The straightforward path to Marshall is blocked by the Hiss, so Jesse has to take a different route through the Sector. As you may have guessed, there are plenty of Hiss in the way.

This route takes Jesse through the Astral Exhibition, which contains multiple videos by Dr. Darling explaining the Astral Plane, a diorama of part of the Astral Plane, and behind that diorama, a video projection of…something, presumably in the Astral Plane.

A video projector showing a large creature in the Astral Plane.

One of those Darling videos explains that an Astral Spike came back from the Astral Plane with an FBC agent, and now they keep it in the Astral Exhibition. Except with the Hiss and the lockdown, it's gotten out of containment and Jesse needs to put it back in.

Astral Spikes can't be harmed, so Jesse has to lure it in and wait until it's in the right place before closing doors quickly enough that it can't follow her. This can be difficult to time properly if you aren't properly making use of Evade.

Outside of the Astral Exhibition is a loudspeaker that Jesse tries to use to communicate (unsuccessfully) with Marshall. After going through Parapsychology, fighting off some Hiss, and cleansing a Control Point, the area returns to relatively normal, and Jesse can use an intercom near the elevators to finally, properly talk to Marshall.

It's a very brief conversation where Marshall says she'll send the elevator, and then more Hiss appear. Even Jesse is annoyed by this. The elevator (if you look closely, it says PAINE ELEVATORS) takes Jesse to a part of Central Research that can't be reached without Levitate. One you get that power, there is no reason to use the elevator anymore.

Marshall and her people are currently holed up in Luck and Probability. Marshall isn't at all surprised to see Jesse, or that Trench is dead, or that Jesse is now the Director. She gets right to the point: they need to make more HRAs, but the lab isn't secure and they need Jesse's help.

Jesse's sent in to the Ritual Division, where there are rangers fighting off Hiss. It's a very red area and remains red until all the Hiss are defeated and Jesse cleanses the control point. Keeping the rangers alive tends to be pretty difficult – not just here, but in other parts of the game where rangers show up – and I think I've ended this fight with one alive at most. That’s because there are two phases to this fight. The first phase has Jesse fighting regular Hiss, and the second has a named Hiss (a miniboss) with some regular Hiss.

Jesse can now proceed to Protective Studies. There is a rubber duck Altered Item stored here. Remember the duck. It doesn't have any plot significance whatsoever, but it does show up later.

Documentation on the Rubber Duck altered item.

Documentation on the Rubber Duck altered item.

The HRA Lab is past a hallway. Jesse needs to solve a very simple puzzle to get in (the answer is right there) and then activate the HRA machine. Naturally, the machine isn't working and Jesse needs to fix that by completing another puzzle: putting the correct punch cards in the correct terminals. The symbols on the whiteboards, as well as the notes in red marker, show the correct sequence.

Marshall and her people arrive at this point. Marshall also does this thing that's common in modern video games where she comments on what the player needs to do to solve the puzzle without actually giving the player any time to figure things out. Bit annoying, really.

Jesse turns on the HRA machine and it destroys the Black Rock prism sample they have. Now they need more; Darling's got another lab in the Maintenance Sector where he keeps the prisms.

Before Jesse heads off to Maintenance, she asks Marshall about Dylan. Marshall won't give Jesse any answers until the HRA machine is fixed, which Jesse reluctantly admits is the right thing to do. Once Jesse has a new Black Rock prism, she'll meet up with Marshall in Central Executive.

When the mission ends, we're treated to a vision – perhaps – of Trench watching a video of Darling, where he seems to have predicted the Hiss invasion, and created the HRAs to counter it.

After that, Marshall opens up a door that leads directly back to Central Research. No more taking the long away around now!

Tags:

There are spoilers for Control as well as the trailer for Control Resonant. Read at your own risk if you haven't played the game.

<< Replaying Control, part 2: Unknown Caller

Directorial Override

A map of the Maintenance Sector.

Upon entering the Sector Elevator, Jesse hears Ahti's voice telling her to meet him in Maintenance. Since the internal lockdown is still going on, the only place available for the elevator to go is the Maintenance Access Corridor.

Ahti has his own office, with signs pointing helpfully toward it. There is a break room with flashing red lights across the hall from the Janitor's office, and in that room is another Object of Power: The Merry-Go-Round Horse, which grants Jesse the Evade power once she binds it.

After that's done, Jesse heads to the Janitor's Office and meets up with Ahti, who points Jesse in the proper direction to get the internal lockdown lifted. But first, Jesse needs to fix the NSC Power Plant as it's malfunctioning due to the Hiss.

Ahti gives Jesse level 2 clearance and also points out the board in the Janitor's Office, where sidequests will show up from time to time as you progress through the game.

Ahti speaks cryptically yet again.

Did you think this was one of Ahti's directly translated Finnish-to-English idioms? Well, as we learn later, it isn't.

After leaving the Janitor's Office, there's another vision from Trench, who states that it's the director's duty to keep the lights on.

Now Jesse gets to the NSC Power Plant, which has the ominous red flow of the Hiss. There are no Hiss at the moment, and an FBC guard tells Jesse to talk to Arish, who's chief of security. He explains that the Hiss are messing with the energy converters and the coolant pumps of the NSC, which Jesse needs to fix.

Fun fact: the elevator in the coolant pumps doesn’t play too well with some GPUs. This is how it looked with my old GTX 1650:

A glitch that happens with some GPUs around the elevator in the NSC coolant pumps.

A glitch that happens with some GPUs around the elevator in the NSC coolant pumps.

There are plenty of Hiss to fight at the energy converters and coolant pumps – including the very annoying exploding floating Hiss – but Jesse gets both systems fixed and returns to the Power Plant, were there are, once again, more Hiss.

There is a sidequest reached through the NSC Energy Converters, A Good Defense, that grants the Shield power. It's an obstacle course that can be completed with the abilities Jesse has right then, but I found it much easier to do once I'd obtained Levitate and upgraded Launch a little.

Finally Jesse can lift the internal lockdown, which has to be done in the NSC Control Room. The lockdown is lifted using the Service Weapon and all the other sectors become available. But Jesse wants to go back to Central Executive and tell Emily why she actually came to the Oldest House.

Jesse explains she has a brother, Dylan, and they found a Slide Projector in their hometown, Ordinary, when they were younger. Some things came through that Slide Projector, including Polaris, who's been with Jesse ever since. The FBC came to Ordinary and grabbed Dylan, but Jesse got away.

Emily has never heard of the Slide Projector, but knows that Trench and Darling were both involved in the Ordinary AWE. Information about it is in the Containment Sector. Emily does have some information for Jesse: the test results she obtained earlier matched with P6 (who Jesse assumes is Dylan) and Hedron, which Emily assumes is connected to the Hedron Resonance Amplifiers.

Marshall, Head of Operations, went to the Research Sector to ensure the FBC could create more HRAs. Jesse assumes that this is now her best chance to find Dylan, so heads off to the Research Sector through the Sector Elevator.

There's an ominous message from Ahti when the mission ends, saying he'll come calling when the time is right. He helped Jesse, now she'll need to help him at some point in the future. I really do thinks this refers solely to the sidequests you find in the Janitor's Office and nothing else…unless it's some kind of link to Control Resonant. But that's something none of us will know for months.

Before going off to the Research Sector, I went back to the NSC Power Plant to talk to Arish. He's got things to say about various subjects, including the NSC Power Plant. He doesn't know what it is (it's classified), just that it can never be opened. Also, the Hiss really want to get inside it.

Arish is worried about the Hiss trying to get inside the NSC.

Arish is worried about the Hiss trying to get inside the NSC.

SPOILERS FOR THE LATER GAME BELOW, AS WELL AS SOME CONTROL RESONANT THEORIZING:

( Read more... )

Tags:

There are spoilers for Control as well as the trailer for Control Resonant. Read at your own risk if you haven't played the game.

<< Replaying Control, part 1: Welcome to the Oldest House

Unknown Caller

The path to the Hotline takes Jesse through the Executive Sector – into the Cafeteria (where there are Hiss) and then Dead Letters (which is very ominously red until the Control point is cleansed). Dead Letters is the location of the first Threshold Kids episode you can find, although I didn't find it in this particular playthrough until later on. I wasn't too focused on collectibles at the time. It's also the location of a Dr. Darling video about the Floppy Disk Object of Power.

After going into the next location, the Communications Department, Jesse finds the Floppy Disk in the Pneumatics room, launching objects at Jesse. Once she gets to the Floppy Disk, she's able to cleanse and bind it, which grants her the best ability in the game: Launch.

Launch is probably the best form of telekinesis I have ever encountered in a video game. Of all powers, it has the potential to cause the most damage, especially when upgraded fully. Ever wanted to throw three entire forklifts at the same time? Well, Launch allows you to do just that.

A Hotline message from the Board, referring to the Floppy Disk as a Nuke.

A Hotline message from the Board, referring to the Floppy Disk as a Nuke.

Even the Board refers to it as a Nuke.

Afterward, it's time to practice using Launch against some Hiss. Then there's the first boss fight of the game in the Mail Room.

Usually, in a video game, you receive a power and then use that power to your advantage against the next boss or miniboss. However, the boss faced in the Mail Room, Tommasi, is a floating Hiss, and the floating Hiss are really, really good at dodging things that are launched at them.

Also, floating Hiss (including Tommasi) tend to launch objects at Jesse, which does just as much damage to her as she does launching objects at them. This boss fight actually made me drop the game for almost a year and a half since I could not get through it without dying. It wasn't until I figured I could turn on immortality that I picked up the game again.

After "defeating" Tommasi, he flies up into the ceiling and makes his escape. We’ll see him later on, in another part of the House.

Jesse stands in front of the Oceanview Motel and Casino cord in front of the Hotline Chamber.

Jesse stands in front of the Oceanview Motel and Casino cord in front of the Hotline Chamber.

In the Hotline Chamber, we see another message from Trench, as well as a light cord hanging from the ceiling. Pulling that Cord three times sends Jesse to the Oceanview Motel and Casino, which connects various parts of the Oldest House.

The doors to the east of the Lobby (the area where Jesse starts out every journey through the Oceanview Motel) have different symbols on the doors: a spiral, a black pyramid facing down, a white pyramid facing up, rectangles nested inside each other, two circles overlapping with a dot in the middle, and two broken circles with a line at the bottom.

The symbol for Control 2, seen on a door in the Oceanview Motel.

The symbol for Control 2, seen on a door in the Oceanview Motel.

The spiral represents Alan Wake, while the overlapping circles are for Vanguard, one of Remedy's canceled projects. These two broken circles are the symbol for Control Resonant, which is also seen in Alan Wake 2's Lake House DLC.

I believe the black pyramid represents the Oldest House, or the Board. It's the door Jesse uses to get back into the Oldest House once she solves the Oceanview Motel's puzzle. The white pyramid, on the other hand? I have no idea. It could be Former, or the Blessed Organization (we will learn about both of those things later), or something else.

Back in the House, Jesse picks up the Hotline and receives a message from the Board. She's then sent to an obstacle course in the Astral Plane that introduces (but does not name) the Astral Spikes, which can't be harmed or killed and instead have to be avoided.

At the end of this obstacle course, you find the Hotline. If you actually follow the trail of particles leading upward, you'll see the inverted black pyramid that represents the Board. I didn't do that in my first playthrough. I wonder how many people never actually looked up?

The Hotline sits on a platform in the Astral Plane.

The Hotline sits on a platform in the Astral Plane.

The upside-down black pyramid is seen right above the Hotline.

Another vision of Trench directs Jessie to find the other heads of departments: Darling, Tommasi, Salvador, and Marshall. Darling is missing and Tommasi is possessed by the Hiss, so we already can't account for two of those people.

Back in Central Executive, Jesse talks with Emily and is sent off to the Maintenance Sector to lift the internal lockdown so she can reach the other sectors.

Tags:

There are spoilers for Control as well as the trailer for Control Resonant. Read at your own risk if you haven't played the game.

Welcome to the Oldest House.

Outside of the Oldest House

The Oldest House, headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control. 34 Thomas Street, New York City – an address that doesn't exist in reality. Clearly inspired by 33 Thomas Street, the AT&T Long Lines Building: a windowless, brutalist skyscraper that's supposedly used as an NSA surveillance station.

The Oldest House can't be found except by people who are looking for it, and Jesse Faden, our protagonist, definitely is. Her younger brother, Dylan, was taken by FBC agents 17 years prior, and she's been trying to find him ever since. The trail of clues (or, rather, Polaris, a being who's been with Jesse for quite a while) has finally led her here.

When I first played this game, I didn’t bother turning around and looking out onto the street from the lobby. I did that this time, and found something pretty interesting: a poster on the bus stop labeled "THE HOUSE", with what looks like a tall, skinny tower, or a pole and a hand pressed against it.

Looking out from the lobby of the Oldest House at the bus stop.

Looking out from the lobby of the Oldest House at the bus stop.

Jesse enters the House, finds out there's some kind of lockdown going on, and meets a friendly face: the janitor, Ahti, who tells Jesse she's here for an interview to become the janitor's assistant. He points out the location of the elevator. That elevator is in the lobby, where you start the game, and does not exist until Ahti mentions it. Ahti also responds to Jesse's inner monologue, which Jesse doesn't notice.

The elevator takes Jesse into the Executive Sector. She isn't there very long until she hears a gunshot from the Director's Office – Zachariah Trench, director of the Federal Bureau of Control, has shot himself for some reason. Polaris directs Jesse to pick up the gun – the Service Weapon – and Jesse is taken to the Astral Plane, given instructions (and a combat tutorial) by the Board, and becomes the new director of the FBC.

The Service Weapon currently takes the form of a gun, but the Case File Service Weapon (OOP1-KE) mentions that it may have taken other forms in the past: Excalibur, Mjolnir, Varunastra. The Board itself refers to the service weapon as <The Gun/Sword/Intentionally left blank>, which probably confirms that theory.

CONTROL RESONANT THOUGHTS BELOW:

( Read more... )

Jesse stands over dead Trench in the Director's Office.

Jesse stands over dead Trench in the Director's Office.

"I'm happy to be here", says Jesse, standing over the corpse of a dead man whose blood is splattered all over the floor and desk.

Jesse receives a strange message from Trench, telling her that there's something threatening the Oldest House, and she's got to keep the Bureau safe. Upon leaving the Director's Office, we see that that threat is some kind of menacing red light, which Polaris prevents from infecting Jesse. We fight out first real enemies, which Jesse later names the Hiss, and receive another message from Trench, telling Jesse to reach the Hotline.

Shiny reflections in the Executive Sector cafeteria.

Shiny reflections in the Executive Sector cafeteria.

By the way, I'm playing with ray tracing turned on and the game looks amazing.

Jesse fights her way through more Hiss until she reaches Central Executive, removes the Hiss influence from the Control point, and finds out that a couple of people have holed up in a safe room. One of these people is Emily Pope, the assistant of Dr. Darling. We don't know who he is right now, but he becomes a very important person throughout the game.

Emily explains that the Hiss somehow got into the building and have infected everyone who isn't wearing an HRA. Emily's urging, Jesse tries to purge the Hiss from one of the floating FBC employees, but it doesn’t work and the person ends up dead.

Jesse tells Emily that her hometown was the site of an event (an Altered World Event) that the FBC came in and covered up. It's apparently very classified, and Dr. Darling, who created the Hedron Resonance Amplifiers, the HRAs, knew a lot about it – but he's missing. So did Trench – and he's freshly dead, even if he is talking to Jesse somehow.

The next mission is to find the Hotline, an old Bakelite telephone used to communicate directly with the Board.

The Hotline Chamber.

Tags:

I started my replay of Control in the second-to-last week of December – earlier than expected, on a day where I got all my tasks done early and had more free time than usual. Since then, I've been playing for a couple of hours each weekend (and almost daily during the period between Christmas and New Year's Day since I took time off work), reading all the documents I skimmed the first time, looking closely at environments, and taking plenty of screenshots. Dozens of screenshots per day, typically.

I will be making weekly posts until I run out of things to write about. This post in particular will function as a hub for this entire "let's play". I will add links to subsequent posts as they're uploaded to Dreamwidth.

--

Replaying Control, part 1: Welcome to the Oldest House
Replaying Control, part 2: Unknown Caller
Replaying Control, part 3: Directorial Override
Replaying Control, part 4: Old Boys' Club
Replaying Control, part 5: Threshold
Replaying Control, part 6: My Brother's Keeper (1)
Replaying Control, part 7: My Brother's Keeper (2)
Replaying Control, part 8: The Face of the Enemy (1)
Replaying Control, part 9: The Face of the Enemy (2)
Replaying Control, part 10: Finnish Tango/Polaris
Replaying Control, part 11: Take Control
Replaying Control, part 12: A Dark Place
Replaying Control, part 13: The Third Thing
Replaying Control, part 14: It's Happening Again

Tags:

Last week, the trailer for Control Resonant dropped, and it's consumed most of my spare thoughts since. I can't stop thinking about it. The first Control remains my favorite video game of all time, and learning that there's a sequel coming out next year (and not in 2027 like I though it would) has me really wanting to replay the game.

I'm thinking about doing something akin to a text let's play, where I focus on anything that could possibly be relevant to Control Resonant. It would be split up into plenty of parts, updated perhaps weekly.

The only problem with this idea (well, the only problem I can think of at this moment) is that I have no idea when I'd have the time to do this. I'm still trying to get plenty of things done before the end of the year. Maybe I can revisit this idea in January?

Tags:

Posted to Dreamwidth on 24 December 2024, backdated to 13 January 2024. Originally posted to Pillowfort.

A pixel art scene of the Astral Plane from the video game Control.

I've been wanting to draw the Astral Plane from Control for a while. I originally planned to use more colors, but decided on a light/dark contrast to keep it simpler. This took around 1.5 hours.

Tags:

Posted to Dreamwidth on 24 October 2024, backdated to 16 June 2023. Originally posted on Wordpress.

Purchased Through: Epic Games store (base game obtained through the weekly game giveaway, paid for DLC)
Hours Played: 28.5 (entire game complete except for Jukebox missions)

I became aware of this game a couple of years ago after watching a stream play through the beginning on Twitch. I actually closed the stream because I was so interested that I wanted to experience things for myself. I didn’t get to play the game until December 2021, but I didn’t get too far into the game before I set it to the side and moved on to other things. It wasn’t until February 2023 that I had the time to pick up the game fully.

I finished playing the game in late April and decided to wait a couple of weeks to write this blog post. I knew that if I wrote it then, I’d do nothing but gush over the game. I loved Control! I’ve since had some time to actually think over things, so I’m hoping this post will be more subjective and less uncritically positive.

Jesse stands in front of a light switch hanging from the ceiling. The hotline is visible in the background.

First things first: this is an incredibly pretty game. It takes place almost entirely in a brutalist building, with a couple of trips to a few other distinct areas (the Astral Plane, the Quarry, and the Oceanview Motel, to name a few). Before playing Control, I thought brutalism was hideous. This game single-handedly changed my opinions on an entire architectural style.

I played through most of the game on low graphics (I genuinely thought I'd had them set to medium until the endgame, where I encountered a blurry texture), getting around 30-40 FPS and with a render latency of 110ms. At the time, I didn't have access to a graphics card that had ray tracing. I even encountered a glitch that happens when your NVIDIA GPU drivers are a couple of months out of date:

GPU glitch.

None of this negatively affected my experience. If anything, the glitches added to it. The Oldest House is, after all, a constantly shifting eldritch location where all kinds of weird things happen - like, for instance, a sticky note deciding to duplicate itself and cover an entire room.

An office room covered in sticky notes.

This has, however, left me wondering just how many glitches and bugs I experienced without even realizing what was happening.

Wait. How have I gotten this far into the review without even explaining what the game is about?

Jesse stands at the entrance to Central Research.

Jesse Faden arrives at the Federal Bureau of Control, an obscure government agency headquartered in New York in a building called the Oldest House. The Bureau contains and studies paranatural phenomena and events while keeping the general public ignorant. She's there to find her brother, Dylan, who was taken by Foundation Agents when the two of them were kids after an event in their hometown, Ordinary. Upon arriving to the Bureau, she finds that it's under lockdown due to an invasion by an extradimensional entity called the Hiss. Very soon after that, Jesse becomes the new Director of the Federal Bureau of Control, gains a shapeshifting gun called the Service Weapon, and sets off to end the Hiss invasion. And find her brother.

Despite finding Dylan being Jesse's entire reason for going to the Bureau, he isn't actually utilized very much. You don't actually get to meet him until over halfway through the main story of the game, and he doesn't do very much after that. You have a couple of conversations with him, cleanse him of Hiss possession, and then he spends the rest of the game in a coma. Dylan is spoken of as a threat, and definitely comes across that way in collectibles you can find, but in the actual game? He doesn't really do anything.

Jesse is predominantly preoccupied with clearing the Oldest House of the Hiss. Aside from a few (all internal, never vocalized) token protests that she wouldn't do a good job as the director of a federal agency and would instead be better off as a janitor, she doesn't seem to be particularly bothered by what's just happened to her. In fact, at one point she realizes that she's happy to be at the Bureau and that she doesn't want to leave.

Later she learns that the Bureau has been tracking her movements (confirming the suspicions that she's had for most of her life) but this doesn't seem to change her opinions much. She's still fine with being the Director, but definitely wants to make changes and reforms so that none of this ever happens again.

A whiteboard with notes on Jesse's life.

I'm not convinced that Jesse wanting to stay in the Oldest House is a want of her own, and not some kind of (subtle?) influence of the Service Weapon, or Board, or Oldest House itself. It just seems strange/suspicious that it happens so quickly, and that she spends more time thinking about how to keep the Bureau safe than her own little brother. You know, the entire reason she's there.

The Merry-Go-Round Horse.

The abilities in this game are obtained through Objects of Power - items like the Merry-Go-Round Horse above. One of those OoPs, the Floppy Disk, gives you "Launch". Launch is probably the best implementation of telekinesis I've ever seen in a video game. It's also the most overpowered of all the abilities, especially when fully upgraded. I'll admit that after obtaining Launch, it was what I primarily used in combat. I rarely bothered using the Service Weapon before running out of energy to use Launch.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum is the Shield power. You can obtain it fairly early in the game, but I found the task annoying enough that I put it off until I'd finished the main game and was doing the Foundation DLC. And then I never used the power, because I had no reason to.

Jesse stands in front of the NSC monitoring station.

There are a couple of areas in Control that are easy to miss - not official Hidden Locations, but places that are simply easy to walk past and never look twice at. One of those is the Mold Threshold. I looked at the hole in the floor of the Research Sector that led to it early in the game and then completely forgot about it because I didn't have any reason to go back to that one part of the building. It wasn't until I was almost done with the main game that I found out there was an entire area with a chain of quests down a broken elevator shaft.

The screenshot above is neither a Hidden Location nor an area that's easy to walk past. In fact, it's a little difficult to get to. I just like the screenshot and think it's appropriate for this section.

The Foundation.

There are two DLC for Control - Altered World Events (AWE) and The Foundation. AWE can be started during the main story, while the Foundation can only be started after you finish the base game.

The Foundation DLC takes place in the Foundation, the lowest levels of the Oldest House. It's a completely new environment, different from anything else in the game - with the exception of the Astral Plane, which is leaking into the Foundation. It's an incredibly aesthetically pleasing area with new, high-level-incredibly frustrating varieties of the Hiss. I never had any trouble with the Hiss (outside of boss fights) until I did the Foundation DLC. They're probably the worst part about the DLC.

The Rangers in the base game had the durability of wet tissue paper for the most part, but this was much better in the Foundation DLC. They were actually useful every time I called one for help clearing an area.

There are two new abilities gained in the Foundation, and they can only be used in the Foundation. What's interesting is how they're obtained - not by binding Objects of Power, but one is given by the Board, and the other is given by Former. Former is heavily implied to be a Former member of the Board, and this isn't the first time you meet it. Those other times, Former was hostile; now, it's much friendlier.

Overall, the Foundation DLC was pretty good. You get to learn quite a bit about the history of the Oldest House, and there's possibly a tiny bit of setup toward Control 2. My main complaints are the new Hiss and the final boss fight. It was way too red - literally, everything about it is red, from the environments to the enemies. That made it genuinely difficult to tell what was happening at times.

Fra's head.

The second DLC is the AWE DLC. It introduces the Investigations Sector, a sector of the Oldest House that was sealed off a couple of years prior. There are no new powers in this DLC, and the environments are more similar to other sections of the Bureau. Along with learning about various Altered World Events and what the Investigations Sector studies, you also learn why the sector was abandoned in the first place.

One of the antagonists in Alan Wake, Dr. Hartman, was brought to the Bureau after the Bright Falls AWE. He escaped confinement and killed a large amount of the staff of the Investigations Sector. This DLC is what confirms that Alan Wake and Control take place in the same universe, after a couple of hints in the base game.

At the end of the AWE DLC, there is a boss fight with Hartman. It's one of the more irritating fights, and I found myself more annoyed by it than any other boss fight in the game, even the 1st Tommasi fight. Not even the Foundation final boss annoyed me this much.

One of the criticisms of this game I've seen is that there wasn't a final boss at the end of the main story. Considering the boss fights in both DLCs were more annoying than enjoyable, perhaps this was a good thing.

A very red Astral Plane.

Overall, this is a good game. The combat does get repetitive and it's got some incredibly annoying enemies, but it's fun enough that I didn't care. The story kept me interested the whole time, but some things weren't quite followed up on or fleshed out as much as I would like. I'll definitely be paying close attention to Control 2's development and I'm sure I'll also review it when it comes out.

Tags: