Control (2019) (PC) (Remedy Entertainment)
0I was very much looking forward to playing a new action adventure from the creators of Max Payne and Alan Wake, but Control seems curiously underwhelming (judging by its first hour, at least). Although the game is a lot more humorous - in a deadpan, Lynchian kind of way - than I was expecting, there's a generic and lifeless quality to its third-person combat which somehow makes more of an impression than the gravity-defying Brutalist architecture of The Oldest House. A few annoying puzzle elements early on coupled with an uninterestingly vague map function didn't make things better, and so far Control has not shown more promise in its early parts than the apathetically received Quantum Break did (which at least had the benefit of a less abstract plot and more easily relatable characters).