Im pretty sure that was Jacob Geller in his video on haunted houses? Might be misremembering tho (Edit: I think I was thinking of a different character lol so I might be dead wrong)
I forgot where I heard it, but someone made a good point that most mad scientists in media are just mad engineers. Darling actually feels like a scientist even at the brink because he's constantly trying to find some shred of understanding in the seemingly illogical. Too bad we only got half of the dynamite song.
@@niormal_froggieI don't think Jacob even mentioned characters that much it that video? I mean I def remember him talking about the oldest house but not Darling at all, it was just about the houses conceptually not the games plot
An interesting tidbit: the reason why the Oldest House doesn't like new technology is because objects function based on what they symbolize when in it, not how they actually work. Newer technology hasn't been around long enough to solidify as a symbol, so it becomes volatile when it enters the Oldest House. The stronger a symbol is, the more stable its real life counterpart is. That's why the FBC doesn't just use old technology, but incredibly uniform technology. All the phones, computers and vending machines are identical. Hell the only writing utensil allowed inside is the number two pencil. It's because these items have been determined to be the strongest symbols for the things they need
@@gohunt001-5 The M4 is probably the closest thing to a universal symbol for "gun" in the modern era. If you asked someone to think of a gun, the first thing to come to mind would almost certainly be an M4, an AK or a Glock.
So one thing to clarify with Polaris and Hedron. Polaris is still in the alternate dimension that can be accessed from Slidescape 36; she/it is never actually in the Oldest House. Hedron is basically an amplifier for Polaris, not the actual source. We know this since we know that Jesse has been in contact with Polaris long before the Bureau ever recovered Hedron. Once Hedron gets destroyed, ghe Hiss temporarily overpowers everything because that amplifier is gone, but Jesse has become strong enough to break free and serve as a new amplifier for Polaris. IIRC Emily even explains in the post-game that the HRAs are still functional because they're now keying off of Jesse and her connection to Polaris.
exactly this. think of it as polaris being a radio signal and hedron a radio broadcast tower. tower goes down, signal goes out. jesse becomes the new tower, regains access to signal.
Okay I haven’t played control in a while but I could’ve sworn Jessie said she would miss Polaris or something of the matter. So I thought she used Polaris to break free. Am I missing something or am I missing remembering?
@@fonkwindy1990if I’m understanding properly, I’m the AWE DLC, Alan eventually reveals that he "wrote" the hiss chant, which included Orange Peel. They SPECIFICALLY reference the "orange peel" section of the chant multiple times in the DLC.
@@SteelTheRobot I don't think it's necessarily Alan that came up with the words themselves. His writing can be influenced by the Dark Presence, both through Jagger in AW1 and the darkness in the DLCs, so it stands to reason that the Hiss might have had some influence over him.
I kind of want to defend Langston. Justice for Phillip and all, but if you listen to his dialogue and finish his sidequests you find out he's actually really good at his job. He wrote the Tennyson Report, basically outlining his theory that treating the items with some respect might be better than treating them as prisoners. Plus he's just kind of a dork.
Langston is a bit of an asshole and suffering from a lot of "foot in mouth" syndrome, but he is actually pretty competent and it's clear he earned his position. Actually thinking about it, pretty much everyone in the Bureau in a high ranking positions is genuinely competent and deserves their position. Maybe the Hiss got all the incompetent high-ranking personnel lol.
Those freestyle poems turned my perception of him around. I didn't really like his whole demeanor at first, but those freestyles pretty much confirmed that he's just a dork. And hey, everyone in Control is either a hardass or an open/closet likeable dork. I can also appreciate that he's basically an overworked corporate middle-manager in a world of SCPs and Lovecraftian entities. Awkward to get along with, but good at his job.
@@jacobchandler7642 Dude's just happy to have someone to talk to and wants to get home to his cats. He wasn't even really in charge of the Panopticon, he was waiting for Salvatore and his team to come back.
I've heard Sam Lake (that hack) discribed as the Finnish version of Hideo Kojima. They're both not afraid to let us know exactly what inspires their projects and make effective use of music, mixed mediums and wild character writing. (Also a real shame because James mccaffrey was definitely supposed to have a major role in the universe). You're probably going to need an entire sound board of "Sam Lake... YOU HACK" for Alan Wake 2.
The main difference is that Kojima fans are rabid weirdos that think that his writing is "brilliant" and "misunderstood" and that if you dont like it then you "just don't get it"
It's not really on thw worthy and more "who the hell can hanlde this" hence the giants... More accurately a king of giants or a leader of them gets their hands on it.@@steelbear2063
The big issue with Control is that I just want more of it. More depth and choice in builds and powers, more interesting Altered Item interactions and side quests like the camera chase, more explanation for what the hell everything is, more interesting locations, more interesting character stuffs, more enemy types and bosses, etc. It's a shame, but at least I'd rather my issues with a game be "I want more because what's here is good" rather than "I want less because it's bad" Also I want more Dr. Darling singalongs
I, more than anything, want more of the universe, in any form they wanna get it out there. I've always had a thing for big bureaus and offices, governmental or not, that do important work to keep the world together, so the fantasy of being a mere office worker of the FBC really intrigues me. In reality, I know that offical government office workers hate their fucking lives, but as an outsider to that world (of working specifically for a really integral organization, like the FBI or something), I find it really endeering to think about being a cog in a huge machine that has such an important job. Bringing that over to this game, I just think it's so fucking cool to be working even as a low lever worker in a bureau who is tasked with keeping paranormal phenomena at bay, or the world will go to shit. And beyond that, I really like that it's set up with more secrecy than an actual real life bureau like that. There are things about the bureau's history and existence that very few people know, like the Nail. I'd love a TV show where a new crisis arises, but it's handled by the book, with no violence (well maybe a little), but with hard work from those low level workers, with the help of the higher ups in the management team. Something that would also be cool, although extemely ambitious, admittedly, is an SCP style website, where it's just the bureau's internal database they use everyday, listing all kinds of official documents. I love that shit so much.
Solution to your issue with Jesse: She isn't funny. She's ground to the bone personality wise because she had to be growing up. She wants to be funny, so tries to crack jokes in her head, it's also a coping mechanism. It all fits in rather well with someone who went through *buckets* of trauma and has a lot buried away simply to survive. And she is a survivor, as we all know.
Also, those quips are not spoken out loud, so she realizes that they're kindof bad. It's a bit of characterization that she still comes up with them though, even though she only thinks them so only the voice in her head can hear it.
It makes sense because we find evidence that Ahti being weird and spooky is a known quantity with FBC agents so if someone hears that the janitor let the new director in they're not going to question that persons motives beyond having a strange connection to the oldest house.
Ahti is apparently the Finnish Sea God which makes sense on why he is the Janitor of the entire building. He is also the only person besides the Director to travel through all floors and areas without getting hurt or needing anyone's approval/access to any room in the building. Apparently Ahti has also talked to Alan Wake in one of the games as well. This all makes sense once you understand that Remedy created their games with certain Gods or entities that interact with the cast in one way or another. In Max Payne, its Odin(Alfred Woden/Alfodr Odin/All-father Oden). In Alan Wake its Thor and Odin(Tor and Odin Anderson). In Quantum Break its Chronos. In Control its Ahti and it makes sense on why no one questions Ahti or knows how he ends up in certain places with no agents by his side. The Clog, the toxic plants, the fire trash disposal and other things were all being monitored and controlled by Ahti until the new Director(Jesse) came in.
One thing that I wish you had touched on: The weird chant / poem that the Hiss infected people recite is not always in the same language as the rest. The game checks your region and locale settings and, if those differ from the language you set the game to, plays the chant in the language of that region instead. So basically, even if you play the game in English, you will usually hear the chant in your own native language - which adds A LOT to the supernatural mystic element of it. It's GENIUS and I've never seen any other game to that.
That happened to me, I set the language to English because the Spanish dub sucked but the creepy background voices stayed in Spanish. I just assumed it was a dev oversight, like maybe those audio files were located somewhere else and it messed with the installation process. Never thought it was intentional.
I dont really remember that detail, of them even speaking, because I didnt like the game so I didnt finish it but it would definitely be more satisfying to hear them swear at me in Croatian lol
Which is extra weird knowing it suggests (at least from Ahti) that the Director works for the Janitor in the Oldest House Which even MORE weird knowing Ahti may or may not be (definitely is) a Finnish god
I can confirm that at launch, that ending for the AWE expansion hit super fucking hard. 10 years of nothing and finally bam, here it comes. I started to feel a little bit of doom and gloom playing AWE because I figured we were never getting an Alan Wake 2 and that the expansion was basically giving closure to fans, maybe to wrap up whatever threads they could. But it slowly dawned on me that it's not a eulogy, it's a tease. "We're getting a signal from Bright Falls. Weird, it's several years in the future..." Every day after that felt like actively waiting for Alan Wake news. And then that tease at the game awards, man it felt like the manuscript pages we'd read years ago was finally changing reality. Control was the game that really cemented Remedy's place in history. Before they were just those wacky Finns that made Max Payne. But with Alan Wake 2 and Control they're a real force to be reckoned with in the games industry for their confident and bold creative voice and artistic integrity.
Sam Lake is one of the few (counting Miyazaki and Kojima here) game developers that can make me go "Goddammit this is stupid, the controls are hard to manage and I can't understand a bloody thing of what's happening" Cut to me finishing the game, staring at the screen absolutely baffled and then reconsider my previous statement, saying "Goddammit this is stupid, the controls are hard to manage or weird as hell and I can't understand what's happening.... *I want ten more games of whatever this is thank you* "
The more I think of Jesse's character, the more the cold front she puts on and the awkward quips she says feel more intentional. Her and Dylan experienced traumatic events while messing with the projector in Ordinary, and afterwards they both experienced their own personal traumas after that event. I.e. Jesse "shares" her mind with Polaris, and Dylan is taken and placed in a lab by the FBC. It's clear to say that Jesse didn't have a normal childhood by any means considering every adult in Ordinary vanished, and her only sibling was taken away from her. Her only "friend" in a sense was Polaris. Trauma can alter your brain's chemical balances permanently and change your behavior and even how you speak. I imagine what she experienced as child altered her brain in that way. Polaris latching onto Jesse in it's own way can be considered a traumatic event, because how, as a kid, can you comprehend that? I like to think that Jesse's cold exterior and awkward quips are just mannerisms she's learned to utilize to come off as a normal functioning person in society. Many people who've experienced traumatic events as children use humor to come off as normal and find it's the best way to "fit in".
jesse's trauma was probably made even worse by fbc gaslighting her through therapists that tried to convince her that the events she went through in her childhood were just delusions
It's weird Alan Wake always just says he is a writer. Not author, not novelist, not some hyphenated combo. Just writer. Almost like he is not... in Control of the story.
I love how the entire story about the Ordinary AWE, where Jesse and Dylan had to deal with "The Not-Mother," is explained as a one-off thing and basically never mentioned again. Really goes towards building up the idea of the world being much, much bigger than even the Bureau understands, and despite all the weirdness we only ever see a tiny part of it.
@@Blue-hx8qu Coraline's Other Mother is scary but more or less comprehensible- she replaces your real parents and turns you into a doll. The Not-Mother is an extradimensional *thing* whose milk turns people into something bestial and not of this world. And we still have no idea what happened to all the adults of Ordinary.
One of the things that made Control so fun for me was when i eventually learned you could control the big sphere enemies to make them heal you. It truly opened up the game in one of the funniest way possible, being able to tank miniguns to the face because i have a big health orb and they don't. If you still go back and play this, I do recommend you try this. The spheres will also follow you to help you.
“Quantum Break doesn’t contribute to the Remedy verse”- Bricky Wonder if he’ll realize that Mr. Hatch played by Lance Riddack was supposed to be Mr. Door.
The characters definitely have strong parallels, but it's sort of up in the air how much of QB's story is actually "canon" to the extended universe. It's kind of like how Alex Casey is a very intentional copy of Max Payne, but the actual story of the Max Payne games does not bind him in any way.
@BackwardsPancake QB isn't exactly canon but I'm pretty sure that it might be explained away as one of Tim Breakers dreams of Mr Door that he mentions in AW2
I agree it's my autistic obsession but honestly the confusing Parts make it a little more interesting and keep me more latched on adhd brain go brrffrfrrrrrrrrrrrr
The best thing about this game imo besides the gameplay is the sound design. Literally every sound effect is perfect. The VA's, the service weapon shots, the launch effects, the hotline phone ring, the chimes that play when you get a new fast travel point, the health pickup noises. EVEN THE MENU PAUSE AND SELECTING NOISE IS GOATED. All of it is so beefy and fits the game perfectly.
Whenever the Board speaks i get all wierded out - It's strange, I can't get enough of the spoken dialogue from the Board but its hard to listen to it while it's playing.
@@richardwinder5216 yeah its great how otherwordly it is. The vague noises that sound just off from an actual language. The static thats filtered over them talking. It makes it sound like pyramid is more of a medium for the board to communicate rather than it actually being them
That last level in the nostalgia department, when you cross into the Astral plane, the board tells you they're juicing you up for this fight. It's normal for you to one shot everyone. Sorry Bricky, it wasn't just you
The explanation is pretty good. There’s some small discrepancies that I can’t really be upset about, it’s very confusing. OOPs specifically are a type of Altered item. Altered items are paranatural objects, but OOPs can be bound to a person and have their effects controlled. Altered items and OOPs are also not necessarily the causes of AWE, one can cause the other. An altered item can be left in the wake of an AWE, and an Altered item/OOP can cause an AWE like in the Ordinary AWE. AWEs can be caused by other dimensions kind of unpredictability rubbing up to ours and causing reality to get warbled up. Thank you for listening to my Ted talk.
Much like how the collectible coffee thermos' in Alan Wake are considered Altered Items because they multiplied all across Bright Falls and had no idea why Alan was collecting them.
It actually is pretty common practice in game dev to do the ending last simply because, statistically, it's something the majority of players will never see. Look at the achievements for pretty much any game; most players just don't finish them. So rather than put a lot of time and money into something most players won't get to, a lot of devs (especially those with limited budget) will focus their efforts on polishing the _hell_ out of those first few hours so they can grab as many people as possible with a strong opening. This is why games like Half-Life and Dark Souls have super strong starts and mediocre-to-awful endgames; the devs chose to focus on the beginnings and the endings suffered for it. I'd imagine it's the same here
I was one of the people who really got into Control when it was released, knowing nothing of AW at the time, and one of the major things that sold me was the scp-esque nature of it, yet for the first time in flipping forever they went with "but what if it was fun?" instead of making another horror story, like the scp community loves to do.
Yeah, this is a good articulation of my thoughts as well. SCP is great, but it has serious issues with what I'd call "doomsday wank", where everything notable is often defined by (and in relation to) serially-escalating horror and disasters.
@@BackwardsPancake I feel like that is only true if you scratch the surface there is loads (if not most of them) good articles that are just plain bizarre or interesting.
@@BackwardsPancake I have to agree with the other comments, though I do feel the doomsday wank is more relevant a point with the newer entries. But as a whole the SCP has a lot of variety in stories that don't focus on any escalation of threats but on a much more small scale tale.
Control worldbuilding was incredibly enjoyable but everytime i got to a conversation it felt kinda off. I am not talking about the ending because there was no ending, there was only the ashtray maze. Spoiler: Also, did you visit Northmoors eternally burning body inside the NSC-Reactor? Well you cant see him directly but he is on several monitors.
Dude! It's perfectly sensible. She rolled willsave vs. possession and then against insta-death a couple of times and didn't fumble the rolls, unlike Tranch and most of the rest of the Bureau. Iron will is such an underappreciated perk
From my understanding, the reason Jesse is able to push out the Hiss is because Polaris is still inside her. The Hiss isn't a singular entity per se, but each person infected is another instance of the same entity. So it's part hive-mind, part clone. They're all multiple "entities" resonating with each other to become one, while simultaneously being one singular resonance. Imagine the Hiss as a song, and each person infected as being a musician. Even when the song is over, the musician can still replay the song on their own. But the Hiss is an earworm that won't leave and keeps looping. Which is even referenced in the chant the infected repeat over and over. Hedron is the same with Polaris. Polaris was protecting Jesse on its own, without an HRA, which is why she wasn't taken over by the Hiss immediately upon entry of The Oldest House. By "possessing" Jesse, Jesse herself was resonating with the piece of Hedron inside her. But when Hedron's physical body was destroyed, it lost much of it's power. So even though Hedron's "physical body" is destroyed, it can still exist and give power to Jesse, albeit at a much reduced degree. Jesse "pushed out" the Hiss by replaying Polari's "song" louder than the Hiss and breaking its resonance in her, and she could do that because she could "remember the song" so to speak. The analogy breaks down but hopefully that makes sense. It's difficult to wrap our minds around because The Hiss and Hedron are life existing physically, meta-physically, and paranaturally in ways alien to anything we know. So we can kind of see the shadows of the shape of the concept, but the exact details get fuzzy and hard to hold on to. It takes a lot of thinking about the concepts and taking the examples the game gives us to start pulling those details into focus.
Just an aside, former director Northmore is still alive in that reactor, powering the Bureau. They have a thermal camera set up in there where they can monitor him and you can peek at him at one point IIRC.
100%. The jedi flying around and throwing stuff at enemies feels fantastic. it just starts to get frustrating by the end where chucking rocks is practically the only thing that actually keeps pace with the enemy health scaling
@@burnin8ableunless you get lucky with the jukebox mod rewards, or find the secret mods. Then the service weapon absolutely annihilates enemies. Bricky got pretty lucky with the straight damage boost mods he got, but there are even more powerful ones that turn almost all the gun variants into one-shots.
@@voltus20 Maybe they reworked the mods with the expansions but the ones I got during the main game's runtime were all a complete joke, topping out at barely a 15% damage increase if that, making the service weapon do effectively less damage at the end of the game compared to the start of the game since the enemies don't actually change beyond more health/damage
@@burnin8able i'm pretty sure they revamped them then, because a tier 5 damage buff mod gives you a 90% damage increase, and a headshot damage amplifier for the sniper mode gives you about 200% damage increase for headshots. The expansions also introduced unique mods that are well hidden, or require secret puzzles that the game doesn't tell you about. For example, one of those unique mods removes the spread of the pellets of the shotgun variant of the service weapon, essentially turning it into a slug shotgun with 100% precision that, when stacked with extra pellet mods, one shots everything outside of bosses.
@@voltus20 yeah that is dramatically different from how it was when I played through it. On the one hand I'm glad they revamped the mods to make them actually meaningful and add more viable alternatives to spice up the combat options available to the player. On the other hand I really feel like the majority of the mods, and the underlying systems that govern them being very obviously an aspect borrowed from a more live service-y grindy long form "grind enemies for materials to craft random mod drops" absolutely sucks ass and should have been done away with entirely. Having a few fixed upgrades that don't have randomly generated flat % stat bonuses instead would have been much cleaner and more satisfying imo.
4:00 ITS NOT ABOUT FIRST TIME DOGING! they can see you throwing ! if you throw an object thats behind them at them, you can hit them first time ! ye, that took me a while to figure out...
As someone who played and enjoyed Alan Wake a decade ago, forgot all about it (except the music), and bought Control Ultimate Edition without realizing it was made by the same developers... the drip feed of references culminating in Alan Wake straight up appearing in the game had me FUCKED UP. What a way to play a game about a bureau dedicated to gaslighting the public about the existence of supernatural coincidences! Great review! I agree with you about mostly everything. The art direction and the setting are sick. The combat is great although it occasionally drags. The facial animation isn't good and the plot is a bit stop and go, but the game is overall great even if the falling action being "now go complete all those side missions and maybe some DLC" is a bit disappointing.
41:58 Hang on… did Bricky not figure out that you can already do that? The multiple target lock for the Throw ability is the final upgrade in the skill tree.
Look, the ending might have been bad But the game delivering the punchline to a joke set up in the opening cutscene right after the credits, and completely out of nowhere, was such a fantastic move
Clarification: Polaris is the main entity, not a shard. Hedron was simply and amplifier/catalyst. Think EDI in the Normandy or her body. You can destroy bother her body and the ship but as long as her CPU is still intact then so is she.
"I was a blue powerade girl in a red Gatorade dimension. Nothing really stood a chance." -Bricky (Control review 2024) Damn that's good If you could put that on Orchid8 I would buy it immediately.
Hey Bricky, something I think you missed lore wise, is that it's not Hedron that is the source of the resonance but Polaris. Hedron amplified Polaris' natural resonance while Jesse wasn't in the Oldest House. Now she is, even though Hedron is destroyed, she's close enough as the source of the calming frequency to counteract the hiss
I can live with the marvel-esque quips because at the end of the day they're just in Jesse's head (and I guess Ahti can hear them too but that doesn't count). Like they make sense as something you would think to yourself but not say out loud.
There was an old gods of Asgard song (in Alan wake I believe) that had some backwards speaking that said something like "it will happen again. In a town called ordinary"
The Ashtray Maze is the single best set piece in gaming in the past decade and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. Saying "everything comes together" is an UNDERSTATEMENT. If you play control, but get burned out, at the very least get through the maze. If you don't wanna finish, that's fine. But don't miss out on the maze.
5:55 go fuck yourself RU-vid. This is an unfortunate and grim part of real life, and forcing people to censor discussion about it, even in the context of a video game, is despicable.
Eh. no. Death itself is a natural thing, but suicide isn't. By your logic a lot of fucked up shit should be allowed on RU-vid because it's 'a grim part of real life'
@@johnjason1472 it's capitalism bc the people who allow their ads to be displayed on RU-vid don't want their brand to be "associated" with those topics (I know, sounds incredibly stupid), which means RU-vid would lose money if they pulled back on their financial deals. It's all about money and, consequently, capitalism
The Hotline does not let you speak with the dead, although it's really easy to see it that way. The thing is that the three people that you speak with are related to extra dimensional resonances. Darling is certainly not dead and he speaks to you through Polaris. Trench and Marshall were absorbed by the Hiss, and the chief ranger is not even dead at the time of the calls.
Darling is almost certainly dead by our "grounded reality" version of death. The hint it that he has, to some degree or another, done one of the following - merged with Polaris - became another resonance based lifeform - went through the slide projector - some other sort of ascension. Either way, the Darling we know and loved is no longer with us. I do feel like we haven't seen the last of the Darling Doctor, but it won't be anything close to what we know or understand
Despite Quantum Break not being official part of remedyverse, ala wake 2 HEAVILY uses 2 big characters from that game. So at least watch some story summary about mr Door and mr Main Character (i forgor his name) . Sam Lake is indeed a hack
You don't really need to know the story of QB to understand the characters in AW2. It's not like you need to play Max Payne 1 and 2 just because Alex Casey is in the game (although you should because those games are fucking awesome)
@@aussieseal9979 it's probably just a small nod, but there is the line where sheriff Breaker says he has dreams of himself in different worlds, but Mr Door is always there
Also, Bricky, bit of missed terminology Objects of Power are specifically bindable objects like the disk and the safe, while objects like the Fridge are called Altered Objects or something. They have more of a life on their own and have rituals of some kind in order to placate their nature, like with the fridge requiring constant surveillance.
Bricky, keep in mind when you play Alan wake 2, you only get the true ending after finishing new game + It's literally a part of the story itself in a mata way the fact that you play it twice
The relationship between OOPs and AWEs are actually a core part of the Remedy worse and is kind of a chicken and the egg thing. Most people view it like dimensions crashing, which creates and event, and this in turn could create Altered Items and OOPs. But the reverse also seem to be possible. (Or is always happening?) It is intentionally vague and grows even more complex when you listen to the Board and other stuff and realize that maybe they chose the powers of the OOPs. Basically it seems like items get traits due to the Collective Unconsiousness and the Board maybe chooses which one of these traits the item get. And the Former seems to have a different perspective and give other powers to them?
To be fair, even in 2019 you could figure out that it's a part of the remedyverse. If you were to take the time to read the in game collectibles they bring up events from Alan Wake.
Quantum Break has a ton of Alan Wake easter eggs in it though. Jack's phone jingle is the Alan Wake theme. Paul's shirt shows locations a tribute band to the Old gods of Asgard are performing at, with one of them being Bright falls. A TV in chapter 1 can be turned on to show what is basically a teaser of Alan Wake 2. The Sudden Stop By Alan Wake is a intel item in chapter 2. Jack himself likes Alan Wakes work. I can go on with the amount of Alan Wake in Quantum Break.
Which is both strange and sort of a shame. Quantum Break has a lot of problems just like Control, but is still a fun game with an enjoyable if sometimes messy/overly slow story. But while I'm sure Remedy might have been happy to have Quantum Break be part of the Remedy-verse, that specific IP is legally owned by Microsoft just like Alan Wake was. As a result, Remedy literally CAN'T make Quantum Break part of the Remedy-verse unless they pull an Alan Wake again and buy the rights to the IP. And with the fact that I'm pretty sure Quantum Break is the least well regarded game Remedy has made, I doubt they would consider it worth the money or trouble.
Which is a shame. Because Quantum Break is still a real fun time. It was even the building blocks of Remedy doing the connected universe, even if it was a bunch of easter eggs at the time.
I think Athi arrived in "New York" alongside his fellow norsemen ages ago when the Vikings sailed to the "New World" back then the Oldest House was a Tree, neatly connecting to Yggdrasil, the World Tree and its roots where Athi returned "Home" for his vacation, after countless decades he deserves his vacation i guess.
When I played Control in 2019 there were no “difficulty-level setting” at all. I defeated that “mold flower” in 20-30 tries. Defeating Tomassi took dozens of tries. I skipped Marshal after an eternity of tries, just went to the DLCs. Final task 55:18 with slide projector was not so challenging but difficult to succeed indeed. I had veeeeryyy lots of tries. Despite the fact I had some very cool mods for armor and for Jesse.
For more info on Jessie and Dylan’s adventure in Ordinary check out Lady Lore. It’s like Coraline where they meet an entity called the “not mother” or something like that. And one of their friends turned into a dog.
I have to contest that navigation isn't bad in this game. I do agree yhat the map is bad and unhelpful for when you trying to figure out where to go but i would argue that the map isn't meant to be your main mode of navigation. The oldest house being a government building it is plastered with signs, arrows and writing that lead you to the location of you objective. It compliments the good art style and atmosphere of the game by having you look out for waypoints and signs and familiarizing yourself with the oldest house.
When I played control back in the day, I had the game language switched to german and Jesse makes SO MUCH SENSE as a german character. many of the other characters too.. this dry a$$ sense of humor coupled with the extreme work output focused mentality just made the game feel so natural. also the ZISCHEN as the main antagonist was metal as heck.
On the topic of Jesse’s odd lip thing, apparently that is partially just a thing the actor just does a little bit. It’s definitely amplified by the janky faces, but it is a thing they apparently sometimes do as I’ve seen from the promotional live action things.
bricky, if you havent heard it already, stupendium has a BANGER control song with camicat, "slide into the void". not only does it slap, its genuinely better if youve played the game.
control REALLY makes me want a new infamous game. they did such a great job (most of the time) with giving the kind of power fantasy I want out of control, even with limited enemy types, things felt good and balance well against your sick ass powers
Was a kick in the back of the head to suddenly start hearing Finnish music straight after a gamer supps ad, my brain got stunlocked as I tried to figure out if I left a radio on in my half asleep delirium.
24:41 If American Nightmare did anything positive at all, at least they hid a mention of Ordinary as a reversed part in the song "Balance Slays The Demon", if you want more Sam Lake you hack moments.
In that same vein, "Take Control" also has reversed messages that call forward to Alan Wake 2 (If you listen to the full song - The one that plays in the maze is heavily cut up).
Control feels weird to me because I've written articles for the SCP Foundation and been immersed in the lore for so long that the Bureau of Control just feels like another Group of Interest to me. Like I look at the Board and my little GOC-fangirl brain goes "parathreat entity, Response Level 1". I look at the Service Weapon and I instinctively classify it as a two-part SCP, involving SCP-XXXX-1 (the gun) and SCP-XXXX-2 (the wielder). Hell, I walk into the fucking Bureau of Control and my first reaction is "Ah. I'm home."
May I ask what articles you've written? I tried getting into SCP lore a while ago, and while I do believe I got a good chunk of it understood, I felt short. Maybe this can help me get back into it.
Hey man, great video. You just gained a new sub. A few clarifications 7:50, so AWE are not always caused by objects of power; they can be, but AWE are actually any paranatural occurrence. Also, objects of power are not the only type of paranatural object there is; we also have altered items. The difference between the two is that objects of power are affected by the astral plane, which is why parautilitarians can bound to them and use their power. Altered items, on the other hand, are also affected by paranatural forces, but these are different from the astral plane; they are more unpredictable and cannot be controlled. 1:03:18 In the case of the Bright Falls AWE, Cauldron Lake is actually a threshold (basically a portal to another dimension), we can read this in the Bright Falls file (AWE-35).
Played this game with zero context because it was free with PS Plus. Took an edible and got absolutely zooted beforehand. Best gaming experience of my life.
Holding up several objects at once and locking onto multiple targets is the last step on that powers upgrade tree. you can hold 3 objects at a time, and your energy will still regenerate while you are holding up said objects.
Bricky you hack, she did not willed Polaris into existence, the Hedron was a frequency amplifier not polaris itself what she did was to become the amplifier and that is why every body returned to normal after experience the hiss at least that is what Dr.Darling says to Jessy in his last communicate. Also her inner dialogue is a way to contrast what she is force to show the world in order to survive and the normal person inside trying to express herself. Great character great story.
One of the best small details in the game, for me, is that the control point next to where Ahti gives you his Walkman is "controlled" by equipment that only looks like the normal control point equipment from a distance. From up close it's all janitor gear rigged up to look that way. I loved it.
54:35 the way I understand it is that at a young age, Jesse was "infected" with polaris/hedron. Living with it in her head basically made it apart of her, like how the hiss burrow too deep into the fbc soldiers and can't be pushed out. When Jesse reaches the fbc/gets closer to hedron, it started relying on the source instead of itself, so when hedron was destroyed, the hiss took advantage and infected Jesse. The core was still polaris but it was basically being held down cause the majority was hiss. Jesse was able to push the hiss out by tapping back into the source that had developed in her head. Cause of this, I also assumed that's how the hra's were still working. Jesse became the source
All I'll say is Quantum Break is not as 'Irrelevant' as some may claim. There is stuff in Remedy Connected Universe games that you will only understand if you play it.
I love the iconography and connectedness for the Objects of Power that give you abilities in this game. The floppy with nuclear launch codes gives you Launch. The safe gives you a shield. The TV lets you mind-control...
With the AWE DLC, I didn't even know it was a DLC when I was playing. I just stumbled across it and was like, "Holy shit that's Alan Wake what the fuck?" and it consumed my time when playing the game which tbh, is really cool
On the topic of navigation, the map is definitely not great but it's also not meant to be the primary way of navigating. That would be the environment. They built the Oldest House like an actual building people work at, and using the environment and following signs is not only the easiest way to navigate, but also adds a whole dimension to the immersion and the Oldest House itself
"The ending of Control was apparently supposed to be a little harder than I experienced." No, I don't believe so. The enemies there are all piss-weak compared to the previous section despite the bigger numbers over their head and the explanation is one line from The Board where they're like "we need help, transferring all power to you." It's supposed to be a power fantasy section, but yeah, compared to Ashtray Maze it fell flat and I was confused.
One of my favorite theories for this game is that the reason for all of the different anomalies and strange objects is that they are Alan’s failed attempts to leave the dark place. Alan states that he sometimes doesn’t remember writing certain stories and how many he’s written
it's not a theory, it's outright stated in the game: "Wake had to escape. Write his escape. He was already out. He wanted to make it true. Wake needed a hero. A hero needed a crisis. For the part in the story about the government agency, Wake needed something special. Something to convey an alien force mimicking human intelligence. Something that can't be translated, translated. Wake channeled Burroughs and Bowie. He cut up sentences and words. "Orange peel." "You are home." "Insane." He put them in a shoebox. He pulled out the words. Wake created a Dadaist poem. He'd try anything once. Or had he tried this before?" = alan created the hiss and the fbc in the hopes of forging a hero with expertise on how to deal with entities like the dark presence so there'd be someone out there who could rescue him
I misread the “8/10” in the title and thought that it said “9/11” so I was REALLY excited about the “worst 9/11 game” really wish we got that video instead because now I realize I don’t even know what the best OR worst 9/11 games even are
23:20 Bro games have GOT to stop doing this. There is nothing worse than having someone IN GAME backseat you. Every major release does this and I wish they would stop. At least make it optional. I can’t stand it when I’m just about to solve something and the NPC tells me the solution. Ugh.
it's a tough balance to find for sure, bc you don't want players who are immersed to feel condescended to, but you do still have to handhold the players who are too busy to properly pay attention or remember what they were last up to. both types of players will get big mad if they dont get their way. not saying its impossible to find ways to gratify both tho; i think AW2 has mechanics that do this relatively well
if I remember right the "forspoken dialogue" has an actual term attached to it, "Whedonesque dialogue." Which basically means "dialogue trying to emulate Joss Whedon" which is one of the marvel writers iirc.
I’m old enough to remember the older term “Buffyspeak”. It actually worked in Buffy, too. But when Whedon brought it over to Marvel, it got old pretty fast.
Im always was sure that Ahti is object of power kinda... manifestaition of bureau, silent and invisible service thanks to which the "office" is what you see it, without even thinking about what it could be like if you don’t clean it. And also Polaris not Hedron, its resonance creature like you said, Hedron (whatever it was) was a kind of transmitter, but Jessie became it.
Bricky talking about SCP's in any capacity is a joy, I wish he'd do videos on the SCP foundation in his video format, easily a series id watch as much as adeptus ridiculous
