Control was one of the most technically advanced games when it was released last year on PC, Xbox One and PS4.

In particular, on PC it’s innovative use of lighting, physics and ray-tracing was a true showcase of next-generation effects. And the story was no slouch either, written with clear inspiration from David Lynch and heavily influenced by the lore of the SCP foundation. It was a game where every audio log, every report, every overheard conversation was fundamental to understanding what was going on. It was engrossing in a way that most game worlds don’t ever quite achieve.

And now the first major single-player DLC is out, called Foundation. (Spoilers for the base game follow). After firmly closing off more Hiss from entering the world, putting her brother back in containment and care, and establishing herself more fully as the director, protagonist Jesse is ready to take on the next task. That comes knocking when the Bureau calls her to find out what’s going on in one of the oldest and most mysterious parts of the Oldest House, the eponymous Foundation.

At the Foundation Jesse finds a broken pillar, and the Astral Plane leaking into the Oldest House. The Bureau first task her with finding four locks / keys to resurrect the pillar (called the “nail”). But there’s an interloper, the Former, who may have something more to do with what’s going on. What this practically means is four short sidequests to access each key.

What surprised me was how much the Foundation DLC focused on third-person platforming. While by the end of the base game Jesse had all sort of dashes, levitation and shields, the side quests heavily focus on using these to get from point A to point B. And while the platforming didn’t feel bad in and of itself, with the controls working better than I expected, the heavy use of the “Astral Plane”, a blocky, relatively empty world was beautiful with some elements of the interesting environmental design the game is known for, but ultimately it felt overly linear and overall uninteresting. This is in comparison to the base game, where the interesting bureaucratic setting of the Oldest House and the Federal Bureau of Control that inhabited it was what drew me in just as much as the story being told or the gameplay. And while the Foundation area can be interesting, with remnants of old Bureau staff’s belongings and equipment scattered around, it is full of elevators and empty corridors that feel like hidden loading screens more than fundamental parts of the environment.

And I do have to call out one of the key unlock sequences, a train chase trying to catch an altered object. Despite the exciting premise, it’s simply boring, with a lengthy walk to the beginning of the chase, long stretches where nothing is happening, barely any health regeneration, and no checkpoints, so if you fall off or take too much damage, it’s all over. To me, it was simply not fun or interesting enough to make it feel worth it to try again, and the boss fight at the end of it feels annoying and frustrating to take down rather than challenging. I see what they were going for, and in another iteration it could have been a thrilling experience, but as it stands this sequence, too long by half, drags the whole DLC down.

In some instances combat does get a little more complex, and the two new abilities that Jesse gets are integrated nicely into the combat arenas. Despite my admittedly rusty skills, levitating, shooting and launching still remain key to getting through some tough enemies, and I did find that I had to be more aware of enemies sneaking up on me from behind, particularly the powerful pickaxe wielding Hiss.

Alongside the story DLC itself comes a whole range of updates to the base game that serve to improve the entire package. First and foremost, for PC games, specifically, RTX graphics cards owners, DLSS (a smart, AI upscaling technique) has received a huge overhaul, and is now even better than it was before. It should now be a no-brainer to enable DLSS almost regardless of the resolution that you play at. Even at the “quality” preset, the boost in frame-rate is significant, and works to offset the huge performance cost of enabling ray-tracing, even on my RTX 2080 Ti. There are also upgrades to map readability, the ability to respec your character, a new shield bash technique and other quality of life improvements. These are all welcome and make it a more flexible game that can be tuned to your play style.

If, like many, Control was one of your favourite games last year, and you want to go back to the intriguing world of the Federal Bureau of Control, then the Foundation DLC will spark your interest, and answer some of the lore questions left hanging from the base game. Certainly for players just finishing the base game, rolling onto the Foundation DLC will feel nature. But as a standalone package, for players coming back to the game, it could have done more to justify itself. While I’m always fascinated by the deep, complex, interwoven lore, and astounded by the technical achievement of the game’s presentation, unfortunately the gameplay simply isn’t there in enough convincing execution in this DLC. The updates to the core mechanics are welcome, and all new and old players will appreciate the upgrades in this department. In the end this DLC isn’t foundational to the game (pun intended), and its simplistic gameplay, running from point A to B, solving simple puzzles and taking out small groups of enemies didn’t hold up on my revisit to the game.

There’s still so much potential to this game, and I hope with the second upcoming DLC pack, AWE, that developer Remedy Entertainment pushes a bit further to get back to the quality of the fascinating base game experience.

The post Control: Foundation DLC Review (PC) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Control, from Remedy, is a technical masterpiece.

On PC, it’s unprecedented use of advanced technologies, including ray-tracing, makes this one of the most visually stunning games to date. And while it’s average combat and meandering story don’t push it as far as it could theoretically go, Control remains an engaging experience and one of the highlights, if not must-plays, of 2019.

You start the game as Jesse Faden, a sister looking for her long lost brother. Finally discovering the true location of the secretive Federal Bureau of Control, she enters the shifting, brutalist concrete structure to final all is now well. A hostile force, which she quickly dubs the Hiss, has invaded and all but wiped out the federal agents contained within. As she explores the building, she encounters and gains strange powers in her search for answers. Control isn’t great at giving you lots of this information up front, and it was only by thoroughly reading the collectibles strewn throughout the facilities and talking to every single NPC that I was able to piece together the story properly. There’s a lot of proper nouns here, “Object of Power”, “Hadron Resonance Amplifier”, ‘The Board” and so on, but in the end it’s really about a sister who gains magic powers to help her defeat a Big Evil, so don’t worry about it too much.

The story does however, give you great opportunity to explore the sprawling home of the Federal Bureau of Control. Up against you is the Hiss, who has taken over and mutated into strong, empowered foes. While the enemy AI wasn’t the best, it did show some spark in not simply rushing towards me.

At my disposal was the Service Weapon, a shapeshifting gun that can turn into a sniper rifle, shotgun, pistol and more. Each of these modes can be upgraded and outfitted with mods that you find around the facility. You yourself also have personal mods, that can grant significant extra health or reduce the cost of energy. I never really felt these systems were that important, and while I did have to make choices about what mods to use and what play style I’d therefore go for, I could have just been happy with a choice of five or six great weapons with no upgrades. 

Instead you can only swap between two modes on the fly, though you can simply pause and select another mode if the situation calls for it. It is a strange decision, on the one hand limiting your gun choices, while allowing you to pause and swap them instantly anyway.

Alongside your Service Weapon are your powers – essentially magical abilities that can turn the tide of battle. You main power “launch” lets you shoot objects lying around at enemies, for significant damage. You can also dash around and seize controls of enemies on low health, among other abilities. They also can be upgraded to be more effective, and you will have to make tough choices about where to spend your ability points. You have an energy bar that does refill, and slinging random debris at enemies never really got old. There’s no automatically regenerating health in Control, so in particularly difficult areas picking up health gems is an all-important task.

And you’ll want to explore all of Control, even the tough parts, as the game is one of the most gorgeous games that I’ve played this year. Both in terms of the aesthetic and art design, and technical prowess, developer Remedy have outdone themselves. There’s a fantastic use of light, and environments really feel dark and gloomy while safe areas have a familiar fluorescent white saturation to them.

Now Control is one of the few games to feature ray-tracing for compatible graphics cards on PC. And the game looks absolutely gorgeous with it turned on. While the overall image is quite soft, the inclusion of reflections across so many of the game’s surfaces was a real treat. With ray-tracing turned on, the game just looked “right” and more natural to my eyes.

However, this level of graphical fidelity comes at a significant cost.

Even with a top-of-the-line RTX 2080 Ti, an Intel Core i7 8700K, and 32GB of DDR4 3200MHz RAM, I was only able to push out around 40FPS with all the settings turned up at 1440p. Even worse, there is no 30FPS cap in-game, for those of us who dislike swinging frame rates. Playing on a G-Sync monitor made this bearable, but with that hit to performance I can imagine most people wouldn’t consider it a trade-off worth making on current hardware. For without ray-tracing enabled, I was able to roughly double my frame rate.

Control is an interesting game. Everything in it is done more than competently, but it nevertheless feels hard to recommend as a must play. If you’re looking for more Remedy-style bananas plotline, full motion video cameos and solid third person shooting, Control will make you feel very happy.

It’s a great, schlocky action game, that may just go under the radar for many.

Apart from it’s expensive ray-tracing option, it doesn’t do anything particularly spectacularly, but I had a great time with it, and you may too.

The post Control (PC) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Lauded as the next big thing at the Xbox One launch way back in May 2013, Remedy’s twice delayed wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey sci-fi game/TV show hybrid, Quantum Break, is finally here.

I’m a huge fan of Remedy, going all the way back to the original Max Payne. Their Alan Wake is one of my favourite games, dripping with the kind of immersive storytelling that is the Finnish developer’s hallmark.

With Remedy being no strangers to including live-action footage and TV-style episodic structures in their games, I wasn’t surprise way back in 2013 when Microsoft announced that the Windows 10 and Xbox One exclusive, Quantum Break, would merge an interactive game with a live-action TV show.

The game follows Jack Joyce, estranged brother of physicist William Joyce, and friend of entrepreneur and university director, Paul Serene, who happens to be in possession of a time machine. When an accident during an unauthorised time travel demonstration grants him the ability to manipulate time, Jack Joyce is forced into a decade-old chain of events, and into the crosshairs of the clandestine technology corporation, Monarch Solutions.

The game’s linear narrative makes it difficult to go into too much detail without spoiling the story. Personally, I enjoyed the plot – even if the main McGuffin is pretty obvious from the start. The game has some interesting characters and a rather believable take on time manipulation and its ramifications. Remedy have also deftly negotiated their way through the time paradox conundrum that often leads to clunky resolutions that break the suspension of disbelief.

Whilst the narrative structure and the game’s whole TV show stylings reminded me a lot of Alan Wake, the combat took me all the way back to the first Max Payne. The game’s explosions and hails of bullets, frozen in time, takes Remedy’s Max Payne bullet-time effect and turns it all the way up to eleven.

At its heart, Quantum Break is a first-person shooter very much in the same veil and Remedy’s other games. The gunplay and automatic cover system are competent, but it is the time effects that make the game unique and rather good fun.

Jacks abilities to manipulate time make for some pretty exhilarating combat situations. Opponents can be frozen in a bubble, allowing you to stack up a hail of bullets that, when the effect passes, tears up the luckless attacker. Jack can also, in short bursts, move quickly, allowing unsuspecting enemies to be taken down with melee attacks or focused gunfire. A variation of the same ability has Jack dodging attacks, whilst a charged version of the time blast can take down multiple attackers.

Jacks abilities can be ungraded using chronon sources- glowing collectables tucked out of the way, detected by Jack’s “Time Vision” ability. Yes, all the abilities are prefixed with “time”, giving us“Time Vision”, “Time Stop”, “Time Dodge”, “Time Shield”, “Time Blast” and “Time Rush”. They all do pretty much what is written on the tin and increase in intensity/duration as you progress and upgrade them in the game.

Stringing the abilities together in the most creative ways during combat is great fun. The levels are full of explosive barrels and gas bottles which can be carefully engineered to blow up on cue using Jack’s time-warping abilities.

At regular points in the game time stops. During these stutters the player can still move Jack about, but everyone else is frozen. Some enemies wear contraptions enabling them to move about like Jack, resulting in some interesting gameplay that ultimately leaves the antagonists locked motionless in their dead throws and explosions suspended in time.

Combat segments are punctuated by short puzzle sections that involve climbing (the increasingly common yellow-means-climb identifier is used in the game) and set pieces that involve manipulating time.

Often, during the stutters Jack can adjust events with time triggers, for instance, momentarily reversing the destruction of a walkway just long enough to cross it. Time often freezes right in the middle of catastrophic events and the player tasked with making their way through some scenes of epic destruction, locked in a moment. It all looks pretty amazing as explosions and debris just hang there suspended.

Remedy have always been at the forefront of graphical fidelity, all the way back to their 3D Mark demos. In Quantum Break, whilst Xbox One owners are suffering a reduced resolution, the visuals are detailed enough for this to not be a real issue.

The game is pushing a lot of pixels with multiple enemies and all sorts of explosions and time manipulation effects going on. The physics simulation is excellent if a little over the top. The rag-dolling has bodies sliding along the floor like hockey pucks with just the slightest nudge. But, for the most part watching all the destruction is an absolute joy.

The game also plays a decent bit of fan-service. I discovered a nice hint at a possible Alan Wake Sequel “Return”- what lies beneath the surface, indeed. There’s also a copy of an Alan Wake book clearly visible in one of the TV episodes, suggesting a shared universe.

The game and TV episodes feature an impressive and very genre-friendly cast. Shawn Ashmore (X-Men’s Iceman) plays Jack Joyce, Aidan Gillen (Game of Thrones’ Littlefinger) is Paul Serene, Lance Reddick (Fringe) is the enigmatic Martin Hatch and Dominic Monaghan (Lord of the Rings’ Merry Brandybuck) plays Jack’s physicist brother, William Joyce.

Whilst it’s an intriguing idea – the game’s mixed-media presentation – the reality ofit is, however, slightly more muted. Whist Microsoft says otherwise; I can’t help but think that the scope of the project was effected by the premature shuttering of Xbox Entertainment Studios. Instead of the promised TV series we get four half-hour episodes barely related to the action in the game that actually feels more like the full motion video segments from games gone by.

The party line is that the TV show focuses on the bad guys whilst the game focuses on the good guys. The TV show, for the most part concentrates on the secondary characters of conflicted Monarch enforcer Liam Burke, cowardly IT guy Charlie Wincott and inside women Fiona Millar andBeth Wilder.

The TV show acting seems a little forced, but a lot more polished than Microsoft’s other attempts at live-action tie-ins, namely the iffy Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn and the excruciating Halo: Nightfall. There’s a lot more action and effects in the Quantum Break TV episodes, but it still lacks the class of SyFy’s short-lived videogame tie-in, Defiance.

The TV episodes are NOT included on the disk or in the digital download package. The show is streamed, a la Netflix.  During my review the TV show was pretty much continuously interrupted by a “content buffering” message. Even with my 36mbps cable internet speed, it would seem that Microsoft has much to learn from Netflix. Maybe this will be fixed at launch with content streaming from more localised locations. In any case, players with less than stellar internet streaming capabilities can download all the TV show content in an optional whopping-great 75GB download.

Considering how much of a big deal Microsoft Studios have made about Quantum Break being a Game/TV show hybrid, you’d have thought that they’d have had the streaming sorted out.Some of my buffering issues could, however, have been attributed by the dynamic nature of the show- which is edited to reflect decisions and outcomes from the game sections.

Finding optional collectable emails and other information alters some of the content in the TV show. At the end of each act and before each TV episode there are short sequences called Junctions, featuring Paul Serene. These give the player a choice of two options which also influence the direction of the TV show as well as the events in the game. Remedy actively encourages players replay the game to experience all these different outcomes.

Whilst videogames, movies and TV show share many of the same attributes, they are not the same and don’t really mix. Going from an interactive participant in the Quantum Break story to a TV show viewer was a bit jarring. Whist I like the idea of a game splitting itself up if it was a TV show (like Remedy did with Alan Wake) or a separate tie-in like Defiance, directly combining the two kind of defeats the point of playing a game.

Thankfully for Quantum Break the same compelling story that propels the very capable, if not exactly original gameplay also serves keeps the TV episodes interesting. Viewed as a whole the Quantum Break is a very worthwhile experience and one that I’d certainly recommend to Xbox One fans that enjoy intelligent and interesting science fiction.