Control – Game Diary

Control – PS4 – Game Diary

Firstly Control has boss sound – not a game to be played with crappy tinny tiny headphones – if you can risk the wrath of thy neighbour go the full subwoofer – you won’t regret it. Aternatively a really good headset will suffice. It’s not just Big Bass its all the layers of sound that swirl and twist in perfect support of the wonderful visual elements of this game.

Secondly, apart from the creative use of layered FMV one of the most striking elements of Control is the wonderful burts of rainbow dust into which one’s antagonists explode when vanquished. Sure a cloud of pink mist might be satisfying to some, but these puffs of chromatic dramatics are something to behold indeed.

The video-logs brought to mind those deeper levels of The Witness or the tremendous Allan Watts lectures in Everything – to say nothing of the Lost TV show’s Dharma Initiative.

Obviously there’s no RTX on PS4 – rumours of inclusion in PS5 – but the graphics here are still pretty nice beyond the aforementioned Rainbow Dust. I watched through Digital Foundary’s loving explanation of how different levels of reflection work and I guess I can trick myself on my feeble 4K HDR TV that what I’m looking at still looks good in upscaled cheaty PS4 4K.

It’s worth noting how good the environmental destruction is – its amazing – office glass shatters and stays shattered. The downside of this is that you sometimes feel like an elephant in a china shop as walking in the nearest vicinity to a desk can send its contents flying wildly but hey.

December 6th

Does the The House’s brutalism remind me of the PS4 a bit? Yes, yes it does.