Glad I was sitting down before I read this nuclear take
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I think itâs pretty easy to come away from Control with a poor impression which is funny because itâs also obviously the least compromised thing that Remedy shipped in a decade, in part because it bears so many marks of being âshippable.â itâs not quite on Deathloopâs level of like, visibly rationalizing every creative decision, but the contextual overlap between the various powers, the tendency for the lore and the levels to seem almost copy-and-pasted, and the unusually tight combat loops are all very clearly revisions of Quantum Break.
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Oh, @vodselbt I threw on the assist modes pretty quickly because I just wanted to [read memos/eat mold] and it never felt like I was missing something for not engaging the combat.
Which is just to say, I probably agree were I not actively tuning the difficulty for myself.
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When it comes to Control, I always take this shot. @doolittle that sounds like the best way to play the game. I would like it a lot more if I had that experience.
I like wandering around in the woods in the beginning in alan wake but it always get too tedious by the end. my least favorite remedy game. didnât end up getting into the character and world until the american nightmare spin off which I liked a lot more
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I hate the camera angle in alan wake so I never go past a couple chapters before putting it down and uninstalling it.
I donât know why, it just feels bad to me.
Quantum break and control both had much better combat for my tastes, even if control hobbled itself with looter shooter mechanics
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I found it very funny that Control tuned its gear mods to be pointless, almost like they were done in protest
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I feel like I had the exact opposite complaint. The physics weapon just grabs some concrete from hammerspace if there is nothing to pick up, at no penalty. Itâs functionally identical to an infinite-ammo rocket launcher that you load a rocket into, then fire.
As in Doom Eternal, the game winds up being entirely about cooldown management and hardly at all about the environment
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I also didnât gel with Alan the character until Mr Scratch
Youâve got it all wrong, thereâs this guy named Mr Scratch, he looks and sounds like me. Heâs in the TV when he talks to me. Whatever I write he does. Youâve got the wrong guy!
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Interesting comparison, but it works in my experience too. The thing I liked about Eternal was that all the actions could be reliably executed, I knew how to trigger them or when they would become available and what affects theyâd have. But I could never select an object with the Throw ability in Control. I felt liked Iâd hit the ability button and anything could happen, and when I landed the throw I would never know if the enemy would actually be killed or not. Every fight was like just messy panic. I could unload Spin into the face of any enemy and Iâd still need to reload just to use a 8th of a magazine to finish them off. Eternal is not my ideal combat in any sense but I did think it was satisfying to have mastery over it, and that it was easy to obtain that mastery.
And I put like probably around 20 hours into Control! I even came back to it after half a year. I tried to learn and be reflexive but nothing ever worked for me. I have no idea how things ended up this way, but itâs by far the most frustrating and disappointing experience Iâve had with a videogame in maybe my whole adult life. And I love Remedy 
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Right, I remember being mildly annoyed by those messy inconveniences, now that you mention it.
I also used mostly Spin (with occasional Pierce to deal with fliers) so Iâm not too sure what we did different there. Possibly our efficiency was actually similar but our perception of the flow of the combat was different.
None of this contradicts what I think is the essence of your critique though which is that the combat has no drama. I for one didnât usually experience frustration or panic when something went mildly wrong, I just patiently waited out the situation feeling dead inside
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damn thatâs a vibe
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Yeah it rules
The essential DNA of all Remedy combat is the Hong Kong Blood Opera and if you try to play it like a precision shooter where you know exactly how many shotgun blasts it takes to kill an imp youâll never enjoy it. Gotta cause some fuckin property damage
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The scene in Quantum Break where youâre fighting in the campus cafeteria kitchen and the trays/plates/etc. are getting kicked up by gunfire rules. Such a great show of their tech.
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The thing I liked about the weapons in Alan Wake was that they were all guns with slow rates of fire/low ammo capacities. Revolvers, bolt action rifles, etc. Really enforced a unique rhythm on the combat.
I actually dropped American Nightmare immediately when it handed me a 9mm pistol
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nobody owns pistols in games like Remedy does
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In the sense that theyâre unique, sure, but somebody owns pistols in games and it ainât Remedy. 
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oh ho ho
I like those guns too
maybe we restrict their influence to 3rd-person shooters