I fucking love this game.

This game has just the right blend of paranormal nightmare and arcane violence all dressed up in the garb of a grown street kid. And though the game largely takes place within the Oldest House, the imagery is hauntingly beautiful. And it doesn’t hurt that the main character gets to make use of all the arcane weird she comes across in her mission to unveil the past and find her brother.

It also doesn’t hurt that the marketing is all black and red, my two favorite colors.

I generally gravitate toward first person shooters, with Cyberpunk recently showing up at the top of my list of go-to games. And I don’t necessarily have a fuck ton of time to play, so I prefer to drop in to games I can quickly immerse myself in. So it was with a little reticence that I approached Control. A buddy of mine highly recommended it, and on a visit, turned it on and handed me the controller. It took all of ten minutes to get me hooked.

Once I acquired my Xbox Series X, I picked up a copy of the Ultimate Edition. Gotta have those DLCs! And I wasn’t at all disappointed with the gameplay, though the theme with the writer in the AWE expansion was a little underwhelming. The whole meta aspect just wasn’t that interesting.

The bosses, however, are a different story.

And the Ashtray Maze is easily my favorite part of the game, though traversing the maps in Foundation come in at a very close second.

I still have yet to take down Hartman from the AWE expansion. He’s the only element in Control I haven’t conquered or solved. I’d like to say it’s only a matter of time, but I can only get defeated so many times before I get bored and move on to something else.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll beat the bastard this time around.