Control

[The Bumlord]

Played this a while ago with super snazzy ray tracing and found it a little dull, plus Remedy's writing is nonsense.

All worth it for what happens in the final act though, when a combo of Scandi prog rock and some eye-boggling visuals caused me to utter an impressed 'ooh'.

[Bazooka]

I really liked the clinical look of it all, and thought the mechanics were very tight in all.

[drummersaredeaf]

I've downloaded this from gamepass and found it enjoyable, but it crashed for me around the beginning of the power plant bit (about 90 mins in maybe)

BGMTS, have you found that gamepass games overheat your machine too? DBD overheats it to the point of powering down every time.

[bgmnts]

BGMTS, have you found that gamepass games overheat your machine too? DBD overheats it to the point of powering down every time.

I've noticed that deffo, even games I own that are also on gamepass seem to open as gamepass game. I haven't had a full crash in the past two days though thankfully.

I've read it's because older games aren't that compatible or optimised for the new console, which is a bit of a pisstake as that's the only reason I bought it, along with gamepass!

[Blue Jam]

Have you got the original Xbone? I've got the 1Tb One S and have only ever had that problem with Ori And The Will Of The Wisps. Which wasn't too much of a hassle because I hadn't been enjoying it.

I really liked the clinical look of it all, and thought the mechanics were very tight in all.

I love the Brutalist stylings of The Federal Bureau Of Control (and I do love a made-up government department) building, yes. It makes a refreshing change from Art Deco and utilitarian surroundings in games. Makes sense really when the combat allows you to rip chunks of concrete out of the walls and throw them at enemies.

[bgmnts]

Have you got the original Xbone? I've got the 1Tb One S.

The new Series S.

[Blue Jam]

Have you been diddled? Fuck's sake, I'd be pissed off at that.

[drummersaredeaf]

Mine is a 500gb S.

I did worry the fan or heat gel had gone, but Google suggests lots of people have the heat shut down with DBD. It gets very obviously hot too.

[drummersaredeaf]

I've raced through this. I'm currently stuck on the bit where you cleanse those things and one of the sections is notoriously impossible.

Good job really, as when I saw a youtube guide it suggests that finishing that bit is a one way street to the end game so I'm going back to hammer all the side quests that I've mostly swerved and to do a load of exploring. Xbox occasionally struggles with it though. Pretty good game all things considered.

[Timothy]

The new Series S.

Seems like it has a defect. I would return it if I were you. It's too expensive to be broken after a few weeks.

[Blue Jam]

I've raced through this. I'm currently stuck on the bit where you cleanse those things and one of the sections is notoriously impossible.

Good job really, as when I saw a youtube guide it suggests that finishing that bit is a one way street to the end game so I'm going back to hammer all the side quests that I've mostly swerved and to do a load of exploring. Xbox occasionally struggles with it though. Pretty good game all things considered.

"The bit where you cleanse those things" is every big fight... ;)

I guessing you mean The Hedron Chamber though, I found that one a bugger before I went back and ground my way through some more side quests to pick up some ability points, then it was fine. Upgrading your abilities in this game makes a huge difference to the difficulty but at the same time you never become boringly OP. As others have said, the difficulty feels nicely balanced and fair.

The hardest battle for me was probably a side quest,

Spoiler alert

"The Source" in that secret bit under the research sector

[close]

. Went back and completed that one after completing the game!

[drummersaredeaf]

I was trying to be cryptic!

Every video online about the mission (you are right about it being the Hedron thing) suggests it's an absolute pig and all offer work around solutions rather than working on building up the character. I fancy going back to max out as much as I can, but that particular section was a real leap in difficulty. There's no cover to speak of, and the baddies are the right blend to mean you have no chance. I found all the other bosses an absolute piece of piss too. Salvador or whatever his name was took just three goes.

[wooders1978]

So the "ultimate edition" is a ps+ game in February?

Correct me if I am wrong but didn't they relaunch the UE last year about November stating that you won't be able to play the current version on ps5? Surely this is going to upset a good few folk?

[Bazooka]

They said it wouldn't be ready until early 2021, I guess they planned to do it this way.  I completed on Ps Now, but will grab it again to play through with the DLC. Not played Concrete Genie, so a pretty good month.

[Ham Bap]

I'm delighted that this is coming with PS Plus.
With this, Destruction Allstars and The Division 2 getting a PS5 upgrade on the same day it feels like I'm getting 3 new PS5 games for free on Tuesday.

[Mr Trumpet]

Well i'm enjoying this. Lovely imaginative environments and the silly DHARMA Initiative style videos are good fun. Just got to the Salvador bit, which was a disaster on my first try. Quite often if you know what to expect then it becomes dramatically easier.

And it's great to hear the Max Payne actor delivering some more of his hardbitten nonsense dialogue. It's been a long time.

[Zetetic]

It's on GamePass.

Seems pretty broken on Windows, unfortunately - I can't bring up the pause menu without the game crashing straight away.

[Mr Trumpet]

I have the Steam version on Windows, so far i've had one crash to desktop but otherwise it's been fine?

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

I've had no issues on Windows running through Game Pass. I feel like I should love this game, but something doesn't quite click. The art design and visual style is excellent though.

I do quite enjoy just being a bellend chucking desks and bits paper around. Revenge for any boring office job I've done.

[Zetetic]

Weird. I don't seem to be the only one, but no one seems to have worked out what the issue is. (It runs very happily before I try to pause it...)

[H-O-W-L]

It's on GamePass.

Seems pretty broken on Windows, unfortunately - I can't bring up the pause menu without the game crashing straight away.

Try changing renderer. I think it has Vulkan as an option and Vulkan can be a cock with some chipsets. DX12 is more stable but runs worse.

[Timothy]

Played it last year and didn't really like it.

Tried it again on PS5 with PS Plus this week. I quite enjoy it but find it quite a hassle to find where I need to be and the map is quite confusing. Any tips on how to deal with this?

[Bazooka]

No the map is atrocious, I also have awful short term memory of level layouts so I had to look it up online quite a bit, so can't help sorry.

[C_Larence]

Played and finished (my 60th platinum trophy!) it the other day. Had a lot of good will for it at the start, thought the ~atmosphere~  was achieved really well (especially loved the creepy floating bodies and the pervasive/invasive, barely intelligible hiss dialogue everywhere you went). Unfortunately by the last couple of hours I found myself getting bored. The story started off intriguingly enough, but around the time

Spoiler alert

Jesse's brother

[close]

got introduced I tuned out. It didn't help that I thought the voice acting was surprisingly bad, considering Remedy's whole thing appears to be using proper actors.

The Alan Wake DLC was wasted on me as I've never played the original, but I thought the design of the monster in it was good, but the mission itself was extremely repetitive (go here and turn on lights, now go here and turn on more lights). All in all I'd say that same style over substance imbalance sums up the whole game too.

Oh also I had a bug that meant Jesse didn't sprint properly, and remapping the button didn't 100% solve the issue. The game also crashed a number of times. I can't remember the last time a game did that!

[Blue Jam]

How the eff did I not realise this had not one but TWO DLC expansions out until now? Good thing today is payday innit?

Anyone played "The Foundation" and "AWE" then?

[Proactive]

Still think about Ash Tray maze every so often. That sequence is one of the best things I've ever witnessed in a game. Listen to the music on YouTube quite often.

[oggyraiding]

I played a bit, it's cool and all, but I wish it was more spooky. Like goblins and cthulus. There's all sorts of dimension blending shenanigans, and it seems inspired by SCP shit, there's literally no reason to not have goblins and eldritch horrors.

[Blue Jam]

HUHUHUH

Spoiler alert

Astral Plane toilets

[close]

I think I'm near the end of The Foundation DLC now but who knows, it's bloody massive. Not even started the AWE missions. £12 well spent.

[Blue Jam]

No the map is atrocious, I also have awful short term memory of level layouts so I had to look it up online quite a bit, so can't help sorry.

It's not just you, that map is notoriously atrocious. I like to think I have a good memory for level layouts because I love these immersive open world games (I know Prey's Talos 1 like the back of my hand) but I still found the Control map infuriating.

Apparently there have been some improvements to the map with the DLC and so far it's been a little easier to follow than I remember, but it's still a bit confusing.

The map design is very stylish but utterly impractical:



Multiple levels there and no way to flip between them! Nice typography but just remembering how confusing it was to navigate the Maintenance department is giving me a headache.

[Mr Trumpet]

Ashtray Maze is obviously the highlight, but one of the expansions has a neat synthwave sequence as well (which was too hard so I had to cheat a bit*).

*actually I very much appreciated the granular difficulty options in this. Not one for Soulslike showoffs, but occasionally very helpful if I got stuck on a bit.