I HATE game in which you can't manually save. This ain't the 90's anymore and the cartridges have very limited storage. In some games it works, but generally the very concept of not being able to save manually is absolutely abhorrent. And this ties in nicely with this:
That game could have been pretty great. I've only played like six hours or so, but I really, really don't like the waypoint system. It doesn't make sense. It's like it's trying to be a big, sprawling open world game as well as an intense, claustrophobic paranormal story. It would have been so much better had it been a linear game, IMO.
Totally agree on saves. I don't understand why they do that in single player games. Simple situation: you are balls deep between save points when you just need to stop. You give up your progress. In a single player game where it's always kinda at your pace, that's an issue. Right then and there it becomes a downer. Plenty of other situations manual saves help with. Crashes and instability being a big one. If the game crashes say, once a day... so maybe it's mostly stable. Manual saving keeps that crash from being plopped 30 minutes of stuff-you-don't-wanna-do-again away from the nearest save.
Now, Control's world... I love the design, the aesthetic, the layout. I like how it makes you feel sort of lost and trapped. I think they put a lot of work into conveying that. I spent more time wandering the halls and just looking at the different features than doing anything, thinking about what all the stuff might be for, what it means. At the same time the stuff I am learning and figuring out is going through my head. It all kind of comes to life for me. I feel like they give you a lot to read into just in the world. But I can also see how it takes you away from the story while not really giving you much for it, from a gameplay standpoint. I mean, the mechanics are fully arcade-style. There's not much emergent stuff going on as you explore, just random enemy spawns.
I guess that's the issue. It IS linear. The whole thing is on rails from start to finish, even though you can do a few things in a different order. The whole map is just levels stitched together with no actual overworld. So the levels pull double duty by posing as both. Metroid style. But Metroid does it way better, especially when it comes to finding your way into convoluted nooks and crannies you wouldn't have even guessed you COULD pass. In Control it sometimes feels like you're just going back through empty levels. Yeah, I think I can agree with you on that to an extent. The exploring you can do is cool though. I found a lot of secrets on subsequent playthroughs. It took a while to find them all.
I disliked the waypoints a lot too. I learned to just hit them when I pass them, as it saves every time you do. You usually want to tether to the closest one anyway. It also saves every time you pick up a new mod. The game is saving constantly, but it can't let you choose where it puts you. And the thing is, most of the time nothing happens between the waypoint it tosses you back to and getting back to where you died. You just run for a while. Maybe you get into a little scrap. But that's not even a punishment, if you're on it. You're just getting source, maybe a mod or two and some materials.
Rockstar really takes the cake with that sort of thing. I think it's outdated. That kind of rigidity often isn't needed. There are other, more selective ways of addressing 'passages'.
Control is a really fun game, imo. The difficulty is a bit meh, but nothing concerning. I also don't enjoy overly difficult games, but I found Control to be okay, except for a few boss fights that can be a little off-putting. The most annoying thing though, is getting ambushed all the F-ing time. It's not hard, just annoying.
Duuude... not gonna lie, the sound of them teleporting in haunts my dreams. It's crazy, after a while I swear I knew when one was about to happen. I started to actually believe there was a pattern for when they would trigger. Of course that wasn't true. I just subconsciously absorbed where the 'spawnable' locations were and after enough time had passed I would know one would be soon. But I didn't truly know it. It was an inference. Call it well-developed sense of paranoia.
You know? Wait. Is that the game messing with me? They put so many things in to try to confuse you, I feel like I don't know what's real in that game anymore.
That's kinda what I dig about it, though. It really is clever. It's got that cheeky, edgy quality, where the weirdness of the narrative intentionally rubs off on the actual game experience you are having. It's mildly psychotic. With Remedy I tend not to doubt the commitment to the meta
I think it gives their games a certain personality. Invariably that ends up compromising accessibility. They're artist's artists, for video games.
