I had never played Control so I did not know what I was in for, but I was ready to check it out. Control is based on the SCP Foundation stories which I thought was interesting and piqued my curiosity. Right from the start I was able to make the game more accessible for myself with subtitles, adjusting the audio, and tweaking the controls so the game would be easier for me to play. I always appreciate it when games are accessible for everyone. Control introduces us to the Federal Bureau Of Control (FBC) which investigates supernatural altered world events. The start of the story also introduces us to Jesse Faden who arrives at the FBC building looking for her brother who she hasn't seen for seventeen years led by an entity in her head called Polaris. Control is a slow burn because as you enter the building it seems perfectly normal at first, but then you notice things that are unsettling such as the complete lack of people and rooms that have been destroyed. It causes you to wonder, where did everyone go? Why are rooms destroyed? As the initial introduction to the story progresses Jesse finds the body of the director of the FBC and something dictates to her to pick up the service weapon and become the next director. It is so weird to see Jesse transported to an astral plane where a strange black pyramid called The Board telling her she's in charge. It's surreal how the normal and strange blend together in Control like this, but it works beautifully.
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| Meeting Jesse Faden. |
When Jesse leaves the astral plane she is attacked by agents that have this eerie orange glow surrounding them. It turns out the agents are possessed by something called the Hiss and the FBC has been compromised by them and the building is under an emergency lockdown until they deal with the threat. This is where for me Control becomes a lot of fun because Jesse has abilities like telekinesis which come in handy fighting Hiss enemies. She also has other powers like being able to levitate which helped if a fight got too dicey for me and I could get myself out of there and attack from a distance turning the tide of battle in my favor. Jesse's service weapon helps a lot too because you can modify it with upgrades. I went for a sniper style which worked for me because I did not like to get too close to the Hiss enemies.
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| Jesse levitates and battles some Hiss. |
You can also upgrade Jesse's abilities as she levels up, making them stronger as well as increasing her health meter. This helps a lot with fighting the Hiss standard enemies and quite a few bosses. Telekinesis was my personal favorite ability and I upgraded it a lot along with the other abilities. Exploring the building could be unnerving because I never knew what was going to come out from which room. I love horror movies and games, but I'm a big chicken when it comes to these things. Best jump scare for me was a Hiss coming out of an elevator when I least expected it. The game definitely keeps you on your toes as you explore. I also found the files, videos, and tapes that Jesse found throughout the building during her search fascinating. Each one described supernatural things that couldn't be explained like a light switch that transported people to a hotel in a desert or an x-ray machine that hypnotized people. There were also some interesting videos from an FBC researcher, Casper Darling. Darling would talk about things like how the Oldest House as the building is called works with different dimensions or being excited describing how certain items had abilities that humans couldn't really explain. These things added that extra layer of mystery to Control and it was great.
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| Upgrading abilities. |
The building itself is huge and each area could be confusing at first because it is a paranormal building so there would be dead ends or rooms that had nothing at all. The map helped a bit, but sometimes there were puzzles you had to solve in order to unlock new areas. It took me a little bit of time to figure some of those puzzles out, but once I did I was excited to see where the new area led me. The biggest lifesaver in the game is fast travel. Jesse can find what are known as control areas and from there she can fast travel to other spots like it in different areas in the building. I was grateful for this because there are a few moments in the story and with various side quests where you do a lot of back and forth to areas you've already visited. Fast travel made all of that easier.
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| Fast travel spot found. |
I couldn't write about Control without talking about Ahti. I was fascinated by Ahti who looks like a Finnish man and is the janitor of the building. The first time I met him I wondered where he had come from. He called Jesse his assistant and would swear in Finnish or use Finnish sayings while talking to her. Jesse can help Ahti with various tasks that he asks her to do such as starting coolant pumps to stop a meltdown or talking to plants to cheer them up. Ahti didn't seem threatening. In fact, he seemed quite charming in an odd way, but as I spoke to him more and more I definitely got the impression that he was not human especially since he could do things like talk to Jesse telepathically and sometimes would talk to Polaris also. He could move throughout the building freely and didn't seem vulnerable to the Hiss. It caused me to wonder if it was possible Ahti was a Finnish god. I genuinely liked Ahti and Martti Susosalo did an amazing job portraying him.
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| Ahti the janitor. Or is he a Finnish god? |
While Ahti was my personal favorite, there are a lot of interesting characters in Control that Jesse meets who help her after she helps them and it makes complete sense that they work at the FBC. Emily Pope for one is full of information and is also a researcher. She's very smart and she seems to really want to help Jesse and learn about her as well. She's a little awkward, but she's sincere which shows in a lot of conversations with Jesse. There was also Helena Marshall who was no nonsense, but she was smart and wanted to protect everyone. There are also some side quests with some of the supernatural objects in the FBC like a fridge that has to be constantly watched. With each of these quests Jesse is transported to the astral plane and has to pass a test or a battle for each one. The writing in Control is smartly done with the right mix of mystery, unsettling, and humor. It made the story great because each layer adds depth to the characters, experience, and world building.
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| Watching a supernatural fridge. |
There were a couple issues I had with the game however. One of the biggest issues was the game crashing after a couple hours of playing. I was playing this game on PS4, so I had to look up things regarding the game crashing. I tested other games and no crashes, just this one. Game crashes happen of course, but it got very frustrating to have to redo an entire quest line because of it. There was also a game breaking bug in a main story quest. I had to talk to an NPC and it wouldn't let me and we just stood there staring at each other. The only way to fix it was to quit the game, and select the chapter to play again from the beginning, and then it worked. The game has been out for at least a year or more and frankly there is no excuse to not patch and repair that issue. The good news is that seems to be the only bug I ran into and I was able to keep going forward with the story.
I became invested in the story with Control, wanting to know the answers to every single mystery and wanting to find each secret. The great writing, intriguing premise, and well thought out characters made Control a really fantastic adventure that kept me playing, wanting to know more even when I was tense because of all the spooky fun. I'm so glad I checked it out because of that great storytelling.
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| This was a spooky fun time! |
*Control is available to play on the following platforms: PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch
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