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Finally started playing Control and I'm blown away (hexbear.net)

submitted 3 months ago by joaomarrom@hexbear.net to c/games@hexbear.net

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I originally pirated this game on release, but my PC back then couldn't run it reliably. I played it a couple hours and for some reason I can't remember, I just dropped it and never came back.

Picked it up for really cheap recently on Steam because I wanted to give it a second chance with better hardware, and holy fucking shit, how is this game six years old?

Playing in 2025 a game originally released in 2019 really shows me that there's a certain degree of diminishing returns in the games industry, not necessarily in a bad way, but in the sense that I think we've pretty much reached kind of a peak in game development, in terms of tech. As long as you can provide a solid experience, games will still feel great for much longer than they used to.

I might be mistaken and I don't have any handy examples to back this argument, but I feel like ten years ago, a six-year-old game would definitely feel much more dated than this does. Does that make sense? I don't think games used to age this gracefully 10+ years ago.

I can't think of any modern game that just feels this good. Everything is incredibly responsive, the graphics and art style are stunning, the sound design is top notch, the lore is really captivating and it just overall feels like an incredibly polished experience that's leagues ahead of most recent games.

If it were not for the Hiss and all the nightmarish SCP shit going on in The Oldest House, I'd want to live there. I want to touch these gorgeous brutalist slabs of concrete.

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[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

After liking CONTROL a lot I've started to play the catalogue of Remedy that I've missed out on so far and what's interesting to me is CONTROL now feels like it was in the making for 18 years, starting from Max Payne 1, and also probably the reason there isn't a lot like it.

You get the time slowing powers at Max Payne 1 set against a backdrop of slightly pointing at the supernatural. Alan Wake modifies the time slowing powers slightly to be reactive instead of proactive and also picks up all the real otherworldly and other dimension stuff as well as great big honking set pieces and the enviroment throwing huge objects at you. American Nightmare then uses that to put it into a more action focused setting. Quantum Break carries that over more scientififically and gives you superpowers that are strikingly similar to what you have in CONTROL where they go full hog and unite the otherworldly paranatural powers with a more scientific approach á la SCP and it just really fucking clicks.

I've noticed this with a lot. Graphics are the obvious one, but the sound design gets better, too. It's not like Max Payne was bad but they really nailed it in American Nightmare and just carry over from there, the Service Weapon as a pistol in CONTROL is just the sound of the 9mm Pistol from there. The superpowers in Quantum Break feel kind of clunky if you come back at it from CONTROL, this is really obvious in the dodge mechanic which is a 1:1 copy but for some reason it feels like 30% worse in Quantum Break, couldn't even tell you why, probably reactiveness, sound and level design?

CONTROL is really polished to a mirror sheen. The Max Paynes had some gameplay clunkyness and some bullshit hard, Alan Wake 1 is really a fucking slog to play for the first two chapters before it picks up, American Nightmare definitely includes too much pointless walking despite their efforts to streamline it. Quantum Break tends to be too heavy on the story, lacking interactions and the guns feel about 20% too weak. They're all good games, despite Quantum Break being the obvious stinker. And then in CONTROL they just nailed it 100%, start to finish

[–] axont@hexbear.net 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

My understanding is that Microsoft was breathing down Remedy's neck for Quantum Break, since they wanted a flagship title for the Xbox One. They might have been a little stretched for cash too.

[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 5 points 3 months ago

Yeah one gets why it's the overshadowed one even disregarding the IP ownership but the worst Remedy SP game still easily lands you at like a 8/10