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Control – Completed Review

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Control Ultimate Edition was added to PlayStation Plus in February, it was one of the few games I did not get round to enjoying on the PS4. You play as Jesse Faden who arrives at the FBC (Federal Bureau of Control) to find out what happened to her brother. The building is not all that it seems with many hidden secrets to be found and mysteries revealed during the campaign.

I enjoyed the story with its nice selection of characters and the plot slowly peeling back, it felt almost like a season of X-Files with its super-natural themes. The gameplay is action-based and skills will unlock that allow you to get an advantage over the hiss from shield, launch to seize which allows you to take control of enemies. The skills can be upgraded by ability points which are rewarded from missions or going off the beaten path and finding hidden areas.

Control is a metroidvania game where everything on the map is slowly defogged when you unlock new skills or complete main chapter quests. There is a fair bit of revisiting locations but fast travel can be unlocked by taking over control points around the map. Outside of the main campaign there are a few side quests which will purposely take you into unexplored area and randomly generated alert missions which are time limited, these are usually the kill all enemies or protect soldiers challenges that reward you will materials. You will need a fair bit of materials to upgrade weapons or purchase mods, although I just used the various mods I collected throughout the game.

There are some great set pieces/boss fights in the game and one in particular has you dashing around to a thumping soundtrack whilst killing the hiss. Control has been a great game to play coming in at just over 30 hours, I had no issues on the PS5 with fast load times, smooth frame rates and beautiful visuals.

I will leave it to Jessie to give a quick summary of the game “That was awesome”


Xeno Crisis (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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I was immediately impressed with Xeno Crisis. It’s a Mega Drive game (tailored here to fit the Evercade’s controls) with great sound and graphics, and really slick and lots of sprites on screen at once.

It’s a Smash TV sort of shooter, with screen after screen of baddies to shoot (and the odd soldier to rescue), with each level ending with a boss – some of which are bloody huge.

The only issue with the game is it’s so hard. So very, very hard. And then, when I completed it, I got a bad ending with no suggestion as to how I’d managed it. Mr Internet explained that because I’d used some serum which revives you, ultimately that caused my death at the end, and the trick is to Not Ever Die.

So, armed with the button combination to open up a hidden menu where you can make yourself invulnerable and start on the final level, I completed it again. And still got the bad ending despite not using any serum. Tch.

The post Xeno Crisis (Evercade): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Super Double Dragon (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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Or, in some parts of the game, “Return of Double Dragon”.

The thing is, I picked my Evercade up and the Technōs cartridge was still in it from when I played River City Ransom recently and the shelf with all my Evercade games on was easily six feet away and therefore too far to bother with, so I picked something from the cart already inserted and that was Super Double Dragon, which I’d never played before.

It’s very much What if Double Dragon was Final Fight, but it’s not as good as Final Fight. It’s not a bad game, but it was pretty easy and much less impressive both visually and sonically than Final Fight. Or Streets of Rage.

The post Super Double Dragon (Evercade): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Donut County (PS5) – Review

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Sometimes a simple idea can make an enjoyable game, in Donut County you control a hole across many stages swallowing everything you come across. The more you swallow the larger the hole grows until everything is gone.

Mira works in the local donut shop with her friend BK who is engrossed in a mobile app trying to gain enough points to unlock a drone. The story is intially told via flashbacks, all of the town residents are sat round a campfire deep underground having a conversation about what happened and why?

You will get to meet the various residents from a Chef whose restaraunt is infected with Bugs to Salt and Pepper, siblings who constantly fight. Each level will introduce a new gameplay element for you to figure out. There is nothing too complicated in the game but you will need to use the hole for different purposes from filling it with water to putting it on fire.

Accompanying the gameplay is a lovely soundtrack that will have you humming along with some great tracks, I especailly enjoyed the Gecko Park level & would reccommend listening to the soundtrack on Spotify.

I am sure like myself you will enjoy this short indie game in one sitting, coming in at just over an hour, there are some small challenges you can complete during the game but you may want to try these after completing the game and using the level select. Enjoy and have a garbage day!


 

Maquette (PS5): COMPLETED!

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Maquette is a very clever idea married with a nice story but neither has much to do with the other. It’s basic premise is that you’re in a world and in that world is a miniature representation of the same world, and at the same time the world you’re in is a small version of a larger world. It’s turtles all the way down.

But they’re not just models – items that exist in one sized world also exist in the other sizes, and you can pick them up and move them from, say, the smaller world to the “normal” world, and then they become tiny in the small world. Or vice-versa to make them big. Puzzles revolve around this, with you needing to make keys for doors bigger or smaller, or place items on the other side of the small walls so they’re there in the larger world where the wall is too big to jump over.

It’s very clever, but flawed. A number of times the physics thwarted me by bouncing an item out of reach. Or I fell through a floor that had no solidity. A later puzzle involves slotting Tetris-like shapes into a partly populated grid, but the controls and “snapping” of items made dropping them in exactly the right place incredibly frustrating.

Much like what I thought of the game itself once completed.

The final chapter involves the you being able to move the domed structure you’re in (the maquette of the title, presumably) by moving a smaller version of it already inside it. While the brainknots this causes are impressive, it all seems a bit too much for the, uh, feeble PS5 as it carrying the dome around makes the game chug along with sometimes more than one frame per second. And it crashed twice, once taking a saved game with it – thankfully I had a “spare”. Not what I expected from The Most Powerful PlayStation.

The story, which has no real bearing on the game bar the basic tone and the odd object that’s referenced, is actually about the chance meeting of two people, them getting together, moving in together, and the relationship stagnating. It’s not twee, nor is it sad, but it doesn’t fit with the game.

So, Maquette is a clever puzzle game ruined a little by technical issues, while you listen to a podcast about a young couple who met in a cafe.

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