Control
Control is a rather difficult shooter that challenges both dexterity and orientation in the three-dimensional space of an office building maze with relatively few distinctive landmarks. It’s a game that, with each character’s respawn, brings them back to the last checkpoint, forcing them to traverse the same distance to the point of eg. a bossfight. It is also a game that certainly does not relax – it keeps you on edge like a mix of thriller and horror (though without the jump scares, and without intrusive string music – it’s not that type of horror), and its linearity ensures that you will definitely encounter most of the obstacles that the developers have prepared for us. Those same developers, who in the options menu wrote literally that Control is a difficult game and was designed to be hard. Then why, for a thousand demonic federal zombie-agents’ sake did such a game receive an Izzy Mode Certificate?
Even though Control is very far from “Izzy”, it receives a “Normal” difficulty rating from us. And a certificate. Because the creators made sure that everyone would be able to complete the game, and such an attitude deserves all praise.
The whole magic happens in the options menu (the same one that warns that the game is and should be difficult): there we can enable scalable aim assist, faster weapon reloading, and even eliminating enemies with one hit or… that they won’t be able to kill our character! Yes! Godmode enabled in the options. Even more boosted than in Hades! And this godmode fits into the reality of the game – the main character is, after all, a powerful telekinetic with an equally powerful and no less paranormal weapon. No wonder she can survive any attack and annihilate interdimensional monsters with one shot. This is what Control gets a certificate for. For caring about accessibility and allowing everyone to experience the story within the game, instead of learning it from summaries, solutions, or from a streamer on YouTube.
However, let’s remember: the gameplay is still not easy and can overwhelm a n00b and stress out a casual. If you have never played a shooter before or it would be the first game you want to go through on a pad instead of a keyboard and mouse, then I do not recommend it. You will get lost in the labyrinth of corridors, the map will not be particularly helpful as it represents many floors on one plane, and sudden attacks of enemy hordes from everywhere will make controlling the camera a nuisance. As a casual, however, you will lose track between games, the flow of battles will be interrupted by a ton of reading material, additionally unnecessarily chopped up under the guise of “document secrecy”, and moreover, the lack of markers and a GPS-like path on the map, known from open-world games, will force you after, say, a month’s break to re-learn the complex layout of the rooms. This game balances on the border of the “Hard” category even despite all optional facilitations. However, it’s hard to imagine a more friendly invitation to a category so unfriendly to challenge-averse players.
The task is almost internally contradictory – a narrative shooter, in order to not simply becoming a visual novel, must focus on the aspect of dexterity and encourage overcoming obstacles. And for us, players unmotivated to put a lot of effort into the game, unconvinced novices and casual players, this is a potential deal breaker. Control has found a recipe for reconciling these worlds by putting in our hands the decision about how difficult a game we want play: those seeking challenges will have something to prove themselves, and those looking for compelling stories from the world of paranormal phenomena with low effort on their side, will not abandon the game halfway in a fit of frustration. And although the ideal situation is where the game manages to convince us that it’s not that easy – it’s we who are that good (ahem! ahemspiritfarer khe! cough! – sorry for the spontaneous, sudden coughing attack 😉 I keep my fingers crossed for more solutions like those proposed in Control!
Final Izzy Mode Score for Control
Casual score: how suitable the game is for casual players – casual players who like a challenge from time to time, but generally just wanna’ have fu-u-n🎵 a few hours a week without stress and just for the fun of playing. The higher the score the more casual-friendly the game.
n00b-o-meter: how suitable the game is for n00b players – new players whose gaming career started and ended with Candy Crush, Tetris or browser games or even never played a game and would like to start. The higher the score the more n00b-friendly the game.
General Izzyness Level: between Izzy Mode, Normal, Hard and Nightmare – how would the title score in the difficulty scale known from games?
