CONTROL | The Worst 8/10 Game. I Love It.

You have no idea the pain I felt that "Dynamite" is a YT copywritten song I want to CRY

Someone described Dr. Darling as a mad scientist where the emphasis is put on the SCIENTIST instead of the MAD part.

Solution to your issue with Jesse: She isn't funny. She's ground to the bone personality wise because she had to be growing up. She wants to be funny, so tries to crack jokes in her head, it's also a coping mechanism. It all fits in rather well with someone who went through buckets of trauma and has a lot buried away simply to survive. And she is a survivor, as we all know.

An interesting tidbit: the reason why the Oldest House doesn't like new technology is because objects function based on what they symbolize when in it, not how they actually work. Newer technology hasn't been around long enough to solidify as a symbol, so it becomes volatile when it enters the Oldest House. The stronger a symbol is, the more stable its real life counterpart is. That's why the FBC doesn't just use old technology, but incredibly uniform technology. All the phones, computers and vending machines are identical. Hell the only writing utensil allowed inside is the number two pencil. It's because these items have been determined to be the strongest symbols for the things they need

I adore that bit with Shawshank, her remembering it at the very end. It is so perfectly stupid.

It's insane how they made the 'ORANGE PEEL' joke into a legitimate plot point in the Alan Wake DLC. Sam Lake, you hack!

"This is a Thor's hammer situation." BRICKY IN THE GAME THEY SAY THAT IT IS LITERALLY EXCALIBUR. THE SWORD IN THE STONE.

So one thing to clarify with Polaris and Hedron. Polaris is still in the alternate dimension that can be accessed from Slidescape 36; she/it is never actually in the Oldest House. Hedron is basically an amplifier for Polaris, not the actual source. We know this since we know that Jesse has been in contact with Polaris long before the Bureau ever recovered Hedron. Once Hedron gets destroyed, ghe Hiss temporarily overpowers everything because that amplifier is gone, but Jesse has become strong enough to break free and serve as a new amplifier for Polaris. IIRC Emily even explains in the post-game that the HRAs are still functional because they're now keying off of Jesse and her connection to Polaris.

It’s not Bricky, it’s an ocean.

Pat's "dragons dogma is the best 7/10 game" vs Bricky's "control is the worst 8/10" fight

One thing that I wish you had touched on: The weird chant / poem that the Hiss infected people recite is not always in the same language as the rest. The game checks your region and locale settings and, if those differ from the language you set the game to, plays the chant in the language of that region instead. So basically, even if you play the game in English, you will usually hear the chant in your own native language - which adds A LOT to the supernatural mystic element of it. It's GENIUS and I've never seen any other game to that.

“She’s still panting my guy, you didn’t even get her a towel” is the funniest analogy I’ve heard for the ending.

I do like that it’s never said but basically screamed to you that the titles of “Janitor’s assistant” and “Director” are the same damn job lmao

I kind of want to defend Langston. Justice for Phillip and all, but if you listen to his dialogue and finish his sidequests you find out he's actually really good at his job. He wrote the Tennyson Report, basically outlining his theory that treating the items with some respect might be better than treating them as prisoners. Plus he's just kind of a dork.

The big issue with Control is that I just want more of it. More depth and choice in builds and powers, more interesting Altered Item interactions and side quests like the camera chase, more explanation for what the hell everything is, more interesting locations, more interesting character stuffs, more enemy types and bosses, etc. It's a shame, but at least I'd rather my issues with a game be "I want more because what's here is good" rather than "I want less because it's bad" Also I want more Dr. Darling singalongs

It's weird Alan Wake always just says he is a writer. Not author, not novelist, not some hyphenated combo. Just writer. Almost like he is not... in Control of the story.

I've heard Sam Lake (that hack) discribed as the Finnish version of Hideo Kojima. They're both not afraid to let us know exactly what inspires their projects and make effective use of music, mixed mediums and wild character writing. (Also a real shame because James mccaffrey was definitely supposed to have a major role in the universe). You're probably going to need an entire sound board of "Sam Lake... YOU HACK" for Alan Wake 2.

Sam Lake is one of the few (counting Miyazaki and Kojima here) game developers that can make me go "Goddammit this is stupid, the controls are hard to manage and I can't understand a bloody thing of what's happening" Cut to me finishing the game, staring at the screen absolutely baffled and then reconsider my previous statement, saying "Goddammit this is stupid, the controls are hard to manage or weird as hell and I can't understand what's happening.... I want ten more games of whatever this is thank you "

I can confirm that at launch, that ending for the AWE expansion hit super fucking hard. 10 years of nothing and finally bam, here it comes. I started to feel a little bit of doom and gloom playing AWE because I figured we were never getting an Alan Wake 2 and that the expansion was basically giving closure to fans, maybe to wrap up whatever threads they could. But it slowly dawned on me that it's not a eulogy, it's a tease. "We're getting a signal from Bright Falls. Weird, it's several years in the future..." Every day after that felt like actively waiting for Alan Wake news. And then that tease at the game awards, man it felt like the manuscript pages we'd read years ago was finally changing reality. Control was the game that really cemented Remedy's place in history. Before they were just those wacky Finns that made Max Payne. But with Alan Wake 2 and Control they're a real force to be reckoned with in the games industry for their confident and bold creative voice and artistic integrity.

I love how the entire story about the Ordinary AWE, where Jesse and Dylan had to deal with "The Not-Mother," is explained as a one-off thing and basically never mentioned again. Really goes towards building up the idea of the world being much, much bigger than even the Bureau understands, and despite all the weirdness we only ever see a tiny part of it.