It’s been far too long since I’ve written a text talking about a game… But, some games deserve to be talked about and “Remedy’s Control” is one of those games. However, I must warn you, this one will be different. Usually, I write about the games I’ve finished but I haven’t finished this one yet. I will focus on 3 photos and how they relate to the game and why they are so special to me.
Let’s take a small peek behind the painting.
I would like to start by talking about the picture I like to call “Going into the rabbit hole”.
The premise of Control is a simple one: Jesse Faden enters the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control, a government agency that takes care of paranormal activities, looking for her brother. The premise might be simple but what happens there isn’t.
Just like Alice falls down a rabbit's hole to Wonderland and things get weirder and weirder, Jesse traverses into the sector elevator to find an abundance of madness.
There are so many parallels between “Alice in Wonderland” and “Remedy’s Control” but one that was very noticeable to me is the role of Ahti, the janitor, and The White Rabbit. Both muttering non-sense when they meet the character and confusing the character’s role in the story just to end up being the cause of why they are stuck in a bizarre situation.
This is picture was captured between meeting Ahti and before entering the vortex of weirdness that is The Oldest House (the name of the building the game takes place)
The first time you hear Jesse’s voice she says: “Fair warning: this is gonna be weirder than usual.”
The first thirty minutes alone are weirder than any other game I played in a long long time. Courtney Hope, the actress that gives Jesse her looks and voice, provides a solid performance as someone who mysterious nature is as interesting as the questions surrounding everything that is happening. When I’m as curious about Jesse’s past as I’m about the floating bodies in the ceiling, you know the character is written in an incredible way. Courtney’s performance really elevates it in a way that I only saw in a handful of games.
The stern nature of Jesse is better transmitted to us, the player, when she’s faced with the bizarre events like shifting walls, mangled bodies on the floor and floating people in the ceiling and her expression keeps unchanged from her stoic self.
In this portrait, which I call “Unbent”, I tried to capture all of the things I mention above. A moment when most humans would be in shock with what they are seeing she remains unshaken despite what’s happening in front of her and that, well, that remains a mystery.
While you have other means of dealing damage, the service weapon will be your main one. However, seeing the object as only a way to deal damage in combat will be a mistake. I feel everything that happens in the opening thirty minutes of the game finds a way to connect with it. The first time you get in contact with the gun itself it’s astonishing! Before you enter the room you hear a gunshot and as soon as you open the doors a weird, terrifying sensation takes over the whole game and by consequence your body.
You pick up the gun and you are transported to the Astral Plane, a testing ground, survive it and you are now the proud owner of the service weapon. The test itself is the tutorial for the basic controls of the game and how the combat will work. But there’s more to the Astral Plane than meets the eye, the giant pyramid in the horizon, the awkward architecture, the contrast of the black and gold structures against the white and grey background is simply stunning. They are all signs of something special, yes, but the cherry on the cake is the weird voices speaking in a language you can’t understand and giving you orders in code that you need to decipher.
Not much is known about the Astral Plane, at least at this point of the game, but in many cultures, the Astral Plane is referred as a connection between our world and the afterlife, a sort of limbo that people must go through in order to get the rest they deserve.
I see the enemies in here as the spirits of the diseased that are lingering on this realm, waiting to drag anyone who enters to the afterlife. This photo is a representation of the test Jesse must endure to be worthy of the Service Weapon, I call it “Fighting shadows”
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