so i finished control!! it was great for all the reasons people have been saying it's great for the last five years. i think i am officially a remedy fan now
the thing that's kind of surprised me, though, is hearing that the one thing a lot of people didn't care for in the game was the combat - specifically the gunplay. because i really enjoyed it. maybe part of it was that i was coming off of the clunkier, simpler alan wake 1, but i found the way the guns handled satisfying throughout, and it only became more fun as i unlocked my other abilities. i like the way your gun automatically reloads over time, encouraging you to cycle between shooting and using your powers as you wait for your gun to reload, whether that means hurling props at enemies or pulling up your shield or dashing out of the way or trying to possess one of them
the encounter design can get a bit repetitive, sure, but the excellent pacing meant i never got bored of it. where alan wake 1 was a game where every episode felt a bit too long, every mission in control feels just right in length, with a few short bursts of combat interspersed with lots of exploration, the occasional puzzle or platforming segment, and stopping to read documents and watch the optional FMV videos. if anything the game is so chock full of that multimedia worldbuilding stuff that i'd almost suspect i spent more time reading and watching that stuff than actually shooting my gun
maybe part of my fun with the combat was just thanks to the fact that i really liked the gun's pierce mode. i used that as my main weapon for most of the game, especially after finding some good mods that made it a one-hit kill against most common enemies in the base game. i just always thought it was fun to charge up that shot as an enemy runs at you and then BLAM. maybe that's the mega man fan in me talking lol
(admittedly i did eventually end up reducing enemy damage to 50% via assist mode in the postgame because the mold area was frustrating me, and i left it on so i could just get through the dlc stories a little quicker and get to alan wake 2. but i got through basically the entire base game without that, and also with very few health upgrades since i was prioritizing offense on my skill tree)
