Looks like this is the game I will be playing once I beat Horizon Zero Dawn, which should be in the next few days.
I am hoping my “ultimate edition” I am going to get has that difficulty slider so I can adjust it when I hit a wall. I presume that is the version with the new “assist mode” I heard about?
I just started Control to day, have done almost nothing yet. Just entered the Control Bureau and reached a “control point”.
I’m going in fully unspoiled, so hoping it is fun to experience.
I know you said in the HZD thread that you were reading the media files and lore in-game. I strongly encourage that here. I read every little file and watched every video, because they told a pretty fascinating story. There was a lot of great humor too. It’s a real strength in Control.
I have heard that and I am going to try to. I am reading all the bulletin boards as well. Some funny notes and postings. It’s not Portal-style humor yet, but I am trying to collect everything in the side-rooms while I go.
I have high hopes for this. I did turn on “Assist Mode” and will adjust the little slider on damage, etc. as I go.
In fact, there is so much to read, I have started collecting multiple items and then binging the reading instead of reading each item once I get it.
That’s how I played. Every now and then I’d take a break from the action to catch up on the unread items. Sometimes I’d read things as I found them but most often I’d save them.
I like that even things like radio programs get stored for you to replay later, so you don’t have to stick around a boombox or whatever listening to it.
My favorite is “Threshold Kids”, a series of training videos. Soooo creepy. If you haven’t run into any of them yet I won’t describe them (no spoilers) but they are great if you like mild nightmare fuel.
I saw one of those. I do agree that it is great that it saves recordings when you walk away.
Threshold Kids is N U T S.
I have one major complaint with this game. The paintings/whiteboards/posters are not always readable on the PC. In fact, there is one puzzle that requires them to be. I couldn’t figure the puzzle out because I didn’t know what the clues were. Because I couldn’t see them. There is a graphics setting that you toggle, and toggling it seems to force the details on whiteboards and posters to reload. The setting itself doesn’t matter if it’s on or off, it’s the act of forcing the graphics refresh from the setting that makes the pictures resolve into actual readable things. (They go fuzzy again when they re-render after the trick that makes them clear. And it doesn’t matter what the setting is, just that you forced your own re-render.)
I discovered this when I looked up how I was supposed to solve the puzzle, and the thing that told me to look at the environment made no sense. I then googled around and discovered this bug has flummoxed others as well.
Another bug, which is less annoying because I turned the feature off (I didn’t like it anyway because it made me feel a bit sick) is that motion blur made my graphics card cause the sound to stutter, which is usually an indication of inevitable GPU crash. Turning off motion blur fixed that problem. And made the game less nausea-inducing.
Apparently the game originally forced motion blur but enough people complained that they made it into an option. (Though, it’s on by default.)
Would you mind looking it up and telling me the name of the quest so if I get that one, I’ll know to be aware of the potential error?
I am continuing to play through and I am doing ok, but the map should be easier to read and navigate. I don’t totally need waypoints along the way, but at this point, I kind of almost wish they had them.
The signs around the building are helpful, but the map itself is hard to read. I understand that shades of color indicate elevation, but I have been on the same elevation as a room and seen a path to it only to find that there is no path(it was down some stairs or something).
Labeling doors would be great, especially indicating locked, unlocked, and clearance level required or something.
The map is the weakest point so far.
There’s more than one honestly; well, there is a puzzle that’s not a mission but sort of an Easter egg; you have to look at a whiteboard and interpret what is written on it, and then do what it says. I assume that might be a problem if you can’t render those images on your PC. It’s in the “Luck & Probability” area, I won’t say more to avoid spoilers.
There is also the puzzle with the terminals, which is part of the main quest, and you have to look at drawings on the whiteboards and replicate them properly to figure it out. (If you look up “Control Terminals Puzzle” it’ll explain it.)
But you’ve previously indicated that you have been looking at and reading stuff on the bulletin boards, so I assume that whatever problem @Hoopy_Frood was having with graphics might be one not happening on your PC, or you’d already be experiencing it. (I played Control on the Xbox where this isn’t an issue.)
Most stuff on bulletin boards is clear and I do see an option to up the graphical quality. I guess if that is the case at the time, I’ll up things.
I also had trouble navigating with the map at first, though it’s worth also noting that building shifts a few times early on, making the map (temporarily) unreliable. I got used to it, though. You probably will as well.
My issue with the map is more like this. I’ll give a non-spoiler example:
I am supposed to reach a location named Black Rock Processing. OK, that is manageable. It is marked on my map since it is my active mission. I headed that way and found that it…was not accessible. In fact, I ended up in a room called the Turbine Room instead.
Now, I have looked it up. I’m supposed to be in the Turbine room and deal with a situation there. OK, I’ll go do that. But what I need the game to do is indicate to me that I am in the right spot when it is not obvious. Whatever I do in the Turbine room will ultimately lead me to being able to access the Black Rock Processing area.
So, I don’t really need constant waypoint reminders. But I do wish it would tell me when the area I am in is correct. It does not help that bad guys re-spawn in old or incorrect areas; I can’t even use “bad guys are here” as an indicator I am on the right track.
Obviously, guides exist on the internet or I would almost be lost.
Oh yeah the maps drove me nuts at times too. I forgot how frustrating it could be. It wasn’t too bad, it wasn’t even the worse I’ve seen in this kind of game, but at times it was almost maddening. Even with guides I sometimes had a lot of trouble figuring out how to get to places.
Yeah, that one. And it’s not much of a spoiler to say you need those boards to be readable in order to solve it. Because it’s pretty obvious if you can see them that they’re the key to the puzzle. However, if they’re just fuzzy, it’s not obvious at all. In fact, I actually figured they were the clue, but the images were so abstract due to the rendering that I wasn’t able to solve it. (It’s really weird, they partially render, enough for you to realize they’re important, but not enough to actually know what they’re doing. I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out what I was missing. This was really bad on the playtesters’ parts.)
To complicate it even more, this weird rendering isn’t consistent across the board. Some paintings/whiteboards render just fine. So unless you are externally aware this issue exists, the problem won’t even occur to you.
Granted, I’m also using DirectX 12. It might not be a problem with DirectX 11. (Either DirectX version can be used with the game.) I’ve heard that Direct X 12 can do some weird things on some games because developers haven’t fully figured it out yet. So maybe this problem doesn’t exist in DirectX 11. Or maybe it’s the GPU. Or maybe it’s both.
Still, this should have been something found in playtesting.
Oh, and yeah, the map’s suck.
But, I still love the game. Even if many of the boss fights seem to be just as much luck as skill.
And I love the launch skill, but when I try to grab that homing missile shot at me, the game should really have me grab the missile shot at me, not some random piece of rock that the game conjured out of nowhere as the missile slams into me and takes away a significant portion of my life.
(Also, the energy orbs from that certain thing. Why do I keep grabbing things that aren’t the orbs?)
Some thoughts further in the game. I entered the restricted area and got a pair of headphones to do the Ashtray Maze.
Flying has really elevated this game to a new level. I just fought while flying around to various points. It was honestly breathtaking. I actually paused and said, “This is incredible.” I’ve never had such great flying in a game.
I can now launch 3 items using my power and it has made me very formidable. I put almost all points into launching and I am pretty strong.
I navigate the map better, but it does not zoom and I wish it did. I wish I could tilt it slightly for a better view.
Twice I have accidentally cashed in my “points” to reset my powers. Ludicrous because resetting is the same button as interact.
Flying, launching, and shooting make for some superhero level fun. It’s kind of amazing at times.
I just went through the area called “Ashtray Maze” and it was…
an ALL TIME GREAT sequence in video games. I was flying, shooting, launching. Repeat.
I kept saying, “This is amazing. This is awesome. This…is amazing.”
After you exit it, Jesse says, “That…was awesome.”
I laughed and would have clapped if I was not alone.