Test: more than a redemption, Control is a real strength of Remedy

House lynch

If Remedy likes to talk about "Metroidvania" by describing the control structure, it is public notoriety that the term has skilfully overused over the years.It will actually be a question of navigating through five or six semi-open zones to kill enemies there and carry out various missions from the main frame or the annexed quests entrusted by the characters crossed in play.In fact, the progression within the universe (by taking the main elevator or by abusing fast travel) is closer to a Darksiders than by Hollow Knight or Metroid.We are quite often led to iron by areas already visited to carry out a new mission or try a new capacity, but the narration takes us by the hand to segment the progression and guide the player through the different departments of the building: theexecutive, parapsychology, supernatural research, maintenance...In other words, many back and forth.Fortunately for him, Control offers one of the most intriguing executives we have been given to see in a shooting game.And even in a game quite short.

We will indeed come across some protagonists during our exploration of The Oldest House, from the pretty classic quests to the conventional Trogrus to the concierge Ahti and his wonderful accent, who makes it the only striking human character in history.However, the best character in the game has not set up on two legs.He is not human, is not possessed and will never find himself in a cinematics of dialogue: the best character of Control is his building.A skyscraper oozing with brutalism, almost entirely dressed in concrete and full of ideas in terms of artistic direction and architecture.The visual atmospheres, the choice of colors, the photography, the arrangement of the rooms - there is a good idea of artistic direction behind each door or almost and obviously, at the beginning of the adventure, no one knows what those of the office hide.It is not uncommon, between the kilometers of furniture and the toilets for men, to find some monolithic strangeness which has nothing to do there and which however, seems perfectly in its place.The ease with which Remedy mixes outrageous corporate, brutalist architecture and shameless minimalism borders on indecency, to degrees that will sometimes recall the artistic direction of a certain Mirror's Edge.A game that had made a vacuum a codified graphic element serving the gameplay proposal.

Control is crazy elegance.Not necessarily in a race for photorealism, but more in his way of showing what he has to show.It goes to the essentials and yet, is full of details and artistic ideas, effects of particles managed with a master's hand, reflections to break the retina and graphic sketches that one would think of extirpated from theSpirit of a David Lynch in full sugar climb.The graphic charter of the game is an ode to minimalism and refined typography, when for example comes in the middle of the screen the name of a new region in which we put the foot for the first time, or when'You have to find your way through a site sketch whose hidden areas are scribbled to the black marker.We could spend long minutes to contemplate the offices of The Oldest House by identifying with precision which makes each of its unique regions or by linger on the arrangement of the stairs, furniture or this gigantic thing on the ceiling that had been underthe nose.We undoubtedly hold one of the most beautiful games of the year, which distills with panache spikes of surrealism in a clinical work environment.Control knows that it is beautiful but yet he does not need to shout him in the ears every five minutes.

The corpo and the fox

At the end of a quantum break which was sinking (among others) by unparalleled softness fights, we were entitled to worry about the control phases of Control, which also intends to play in the courtyard of TPS tofire arms.This is however one of the good news: Control is not just a game with artistic steering, it is also a good shooter.We recover during the first minutes of the adventure a service weapon on the corpse of the previous director and we immediately realize that this gun is not completely normal.He has a bizarre form and seems to move between our fingers, as if he were alive.That's it, her thing.There is only one firearm throughout the game, which can however change shape on a pressure of the F touch, going from a semi-automatic dispersion diagram to a pump rifleor a machine gun.The R key allows you to change the shoulder camera.The basic combat mechanics are rather summary (shooting an enemy will lower its life bar, and some have shields) but it is the combat philosophy which breathes a slight wind of freshness into the Remedy recipe, in S 'Put in particular on the idea of the Push Forward Combat of the Last Doom.No coverage system and no health regeneration, it is imperative to learn to move and use your environment to move effectively in a room and eliminate our opponents by prioritizing them.By forcing ourselves to go in contact with enemies to recover health and by offering us endless ammunition that recharges when the weapon is inactive, Control moves much more than its elder.

Strangely, it is not the enemies that have a hard life in the last game of Remedy.I killed a lot more chairs, tables and wooden crates than humans in control, and it is probably where I took the most foot.After a few hours of play, we visit the astral plane for the first time, a parallel dimension filled with black monoliths in which a powerful entity distributes us more and more powerful capabilities.This is the reason why we see all these gifs of the game running for months: Jesse has telekinetic powers allowing him to manipulate objects in the air to project them on his enemies.A touch of touch, and we find ourselves levit a chair, swing a library with a boss's face or to tear a concrete block from a pillar to send it waltz several meters in front.The feeling of power that emerges from the powers of telekinesis is undeniable.There is always something to swing and even if we would not target a specific object, the game will manage to put a piece of pebble between our fingers in a very organic and natural way, destroying the environment over thefight.

This power system is an ode to physical engines in video games.There is something deeply satisfactory in the manipulation of gravity, and the satisfaction of a primary pleasure at the sight of an object which flies from one end of the room.Like a kid content to crush a sand castle by allowing himself his best Machiavellian laugh, each of the bag control rooms are put in a few mouse pressure and without great concerns of aiming or transitions between powers and firearms.We quickly understand the interest of alternating between Jesse's different abilities to fly over his enemies, exploding an explosive device, recovering one of the debris from the explosion on the fly and finally send it toFace of a gus who will have had the misfortune of looking at us.All while waving his head and tightening the teeth at the time of impact because it is damn, it's still damn enjoyable.

A Support and DALI

The rise of Jesse and this feeling of control (Bah-Dum-TSS) on our actions go through a whole bunch of things, from sound design to the effects of particles or to the engine of destruction of the environment.The slightest impact will gener a real salad made up of effects, colors, shapes and animations.Tighten your ear and you can hear small pebbles fall to the ground when a levite object next to your head.These strident synth layers that activate when an object arrives towards us, this reddish smoke similar to watercolor that bursts from the corpse of enemies, these steep leaves, these tables which turn around or these explosions...Whatever we do, we systematically appreciate what is happening on the screen because, fundamentally, it is very pleasant to watch.Control is a game that bathes in a joyful chaos which, sometimes, exceeds us.There is nothing more beautiful than to see an enemy being pulverized inadvertently, because we just wanted to take an object behind him and that he had the misfortune to be on the way.Jesse's powers send us back to the best hours of the Gravity Gun of Half-Life 2 and make Remedy shoot a fabulous toy chest for which has a penchant for destruction.

LED by @jasminnemendez, we'll read persona poems and poems as monologues, and discuss Ways to consider How to Outli… https: // t.CO/DPXZJOLTIY

— Paloma Sierra Sat Nov 28 23:08:18 +0000 2020

A little later in the adventure, other enemies and abilities will join the party: large titans in armor, corrupt bureaucrats levating on their office chair and avoiding most of the objects that arrive on them, invisible monstrosities that'We can only identify that by listening to their piercing cries or following the colored drags they leave behind...Jesse will then have to use his panel of powers with more intelligence, for example to protect himself using a debris shield, rally the weak enemies to his cause or make plunging attacks thanks to the mixed combo + flight.Not everything is perfect, be careful.Although overall reactive, it arrives at the enemy AI of having some moments of absence, and the air gameplay is clearly not the most pleasant part to handle, the fault of somewhat rigid controls, transitions toomarked and a certain slowness in execution.But from all recent Remedy Games (Max Payne aside), Control offers the best combat system far.Powers alone are enough to make everything extremely pleasant, even in the most repetitive sections of the game.Weapon modules and modifiers obtained in certain secondary quests can be grafted on the weapon or directly on Jesse to improve precise capacities, thus leaving a little room for dynamic specialization to overcome a more difficult fight.

Through its fights, its architecture, its posters stuck to the walls, its scientific propaganda videos or the plagiarism of the horrifying show visible on certain televisions, Control tells a lot of things.As a rule, it is also very well done.The themes covered range from conspiracy to conformism, up to the weight of corporations or mental health, the latter remaining one of the strong themes of the game.Remedy manages to stroll from one theme to another and set up his story (phone but well executed) when he moves, but it is when he does not move that he can start to show some signsweakness: the dialogues are not always very well written and when they have the misfortune to be staged during cutscenes, certain facial expressions flirt with the Uncanny Valley.Add to that labial synchronization to absent subscribers and it is not excluded that certain conversations break both the immersion and the atmosphere.Oh, and you can without much regret say goodbye to the VF and browse the entire game in VOST, otherwise you would miss a lot of nuances in the development of the characters.If the pre-recorded video sequences are splendid, in-game cutscenes are not part of the strengths of the game.

These minor defects are still forgotten in the whole of the game, as the rest is of quasi-irreprochable quality.We will prefer not to reveal anything here to keep the pleasure of discovery intact, but the final sequence and the twist surrounding the credits alone deserve that we look at the game.Understand that the tower lives before our eyes, that it laughs at us and that the walls of The Oldest House ultimately do not mean much are some of the most pleasant stages of this curious journey.There are real moments of stupor, surprise and wonder hidden in control, and a lot of pleasure in taking if we decide to immerse ourselves in her strange universe.It was unclear that it was possible to make X-Files, Friging and David Lynch in a third-person shooter and Daviles without ever appearing rude and yet, Remedy did it.

Be careful, on the other hand: Ray Tracing will not transform each scene by magic, there are completely plans on which the difference is quite light.The management of lighting and reflections is already very good in the basic game, but the RTX version sublimates certain visual effects by reducing or accentuating the lights in some cases.The darkest pieces and glass surfaces (tiles, tiles, frames...) are clearly the strengths of Control Ray-Tracing.

However, it will be necessary to launch the game in DirectX 12 version to take advantage of it, and not be afraid of framerate falls if the smoke effects accumulate on the screen.This is where DLSS technology (causing an image upscale from lower resolution textures, thanks to Deep Learning) takes all its interest.From 1080+DLSS, for example, will actually be an extensive 720p image to consume less video memory.We can identify the limits of such technology during the action phases and rapid camera movement.With DLSS very well executed in Control, we can get away with a stable framerate around 50/60 images per second from a RTX 2060.

On the side of the PS4 and Xbox One

However, it is on consoles that it spoils.Without being perfectly stable, performance on PS4 Pro and Xbox One X remains suitable to enjoy the experience.The framerate is relatively stable at 30FPS despite some probable falls when handling objects and particle movements on the screen.PlayStation 4 and Xbox One Classics are getting much less well: reduced display distance, slower textures, particularly marked movement and anti-aliasing with strawberries...Control is clearly not as beautiful on PS4/Xone as it is on PS4 Pro and Xbox One X.Microsoft consoles offer that said a slightly finer at medium and long distance rendering and slightly shorter loading times.

The major problem of console versions is however their framerate.Control is undoubtedly one of those games that makes us say that we are coming to the end of the generation.In the absence of an optimization of absent subscribers, the FAT versions of PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One have a lot of trouble maintaining a stable image rate.On a maximum threshold fixed at 30FPS, it is not uncommon to see the game fall under 20 or 15 images per second, especially during fights which however represent a significant part of the game.Difficult to take full advantage of the game in these conditions, and we will prefer to orient ourselves towards the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X dirts where the framerate stabilizes around 25/30 images per second.In any case, the control console versions still suffer from too much fluctuations to be advised as it is, and we cross our fingers to see a patch arriving in the coming days or weeks.

Our colleagues from Eurogamer have published a detailed comparison of the game on all its console versions.

The loading times oscillate between 10 and 15 seconds on pro consoles, while the first generation consoles can see their loading times exceed twenty seconds.In a game where it is fast and death frequently cause loading times, this can be disturbing.

A saving PS5 version

Arriving on the PS Plus when it was released at the start of February, the Ultimate Edition of Control rectifies the shooting of particularly technically limited consoles versions, in particular on Sony machines.In addition to offering the three big DLCs released since the initial marketing of Remedy's game, this PS5 version incorporates the various amendments and options that have been added to consoles in recent months.Combined with a surplus power available, they make this ultimate edition the missing link, probably the best way to take advantage of control outside a strong PC.

Structured, as is often the case, around a performance mode and a graphics mode, this version asks you roughly to choose between playing without ray-tracing at 60 frames per second or with 30 frames per second.From what we could see, the two framerates stand completely correctly, even in the moments when the game embarks on particles and lighting debauchery.All in 1440p, according to our colleagues from Digital Foundry, without dynamic adjustment.We would tend to choose the first solution, as the control gameplay has been able to suffer on the console until then, especially since the performance mode already offers effective reflections management.In any case, the passage between one and the other of the two modes is made of a simple passage in the menus, on the fly, without having to recharge its part.Ditto for the activation of kinetic or grain blur.

On the comfort of the game comfort, the SSD further reduces the loading times already well started by the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, even if we are still far enough from the immediacy: count about ten seconds for a quick trip or arespawn.On the dualsense side, the haptic return knows how to remain discreet, with the exception of the slight vibrations that are felt with every new Jesse step.Return to force triggers, however, try the bet to simulate a marked resistance in the trigger of the service weapon, the director of the director.Difficult to decide: the effect will be able to tire some players after a few minutes while others will be able to find interesting stability in the Gunfights.