Dude, that first screenshot you took is iconic for the game. Nice one!
I've been playing more Control with my new GPU - I really had to start a new playthrough. I never, ever use the shatter... not in what must be like 15 playthroughs of the game. I started to towards the end of the last one. It's pretty quick to get through, I play it efficiently and rack up style points. I just find that the levels themselves are fun to complete and the combat, skills, and weapons systems are great. There's an arcadey DLC you can use to get stuff and take on borderline ridiculous challenges, and then in another DLC are these repeatable arcade style endurance runs with dense waves of high-level, tough enemies set in different areas of the game. The combat can get extremely challenging.
There is a point where spamming launch, even with multi-launch is never going to work. One optional post-game boss makes sure of it. You use the skills a ton more. Seize can actually be OP - take a couple of tough baddies and then claim one of those health orbs. He'll come back as his old tanky self, but now he heals your seized captives instead of your foes. Melee is killer, you combo a beefed up melee skill with the levitate + ground slam aoe attack to slap the shit out of these otherwise extremely problematic DLC guys. The shield is a lifesaver when progressed, you can recharge with it up if you max the skill. There are a couple of boss fights where it is easy to get overwhelmed with no energy because there just is so much that you have exhausted every possible option. Once charged, you can shield dash through and finish with the shield blast to disperse before levitating in that same direction - charge energy on your way, position for launch offensive. The grenade launcher also is great from the air - you can keep a lot of things under control with a huge blast radius and damage mod for it, just alternating between that and launch so they never deplete. I lean on the nade to preserve energy for dashing. The spin is sick in the air, too. Just need at least a prime rate of fire, ammo efficiency or recovery-on-hit (the levitate recovery version is the most rewarded,) and then a good grouping mod. It becomes a flying dps monster on crowds. Fly and shoot, dash to dodge.
The shatter ends up being really good with absolute projectile, ammo recovery on hit, and grouping mods. It's more like a short range, high caliber revolver. And because of the high projectile count, each rolling on a 40% chance to return a round when they hit something, it kinda just keeps going and going lol.
I gotta say, it looks fantastic at the highest quality DLSS setting, with every setting maxed, including RT. Save for a handful of wierdly heavy areas where it hits the 80s, it's upper 90s to 120. A bit under 110 on average. Big jump from where I was at with lower quality settings and I gotta say that combat feels great. This card has better frame pacing in this game for sure. I find myself making moves I wouldn't have gone for before. It just feels easier to make sense of all of the chaos. I also set the gamma down where it actually wants and geez, it really looks crazy in some places. The Archives are awesome.
Hint-I got it free on Prime Day.
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