Control is brilliant. What this One-Shot is in fact trying to get across to you, dear reader, is that because of Control, my interest in the supernatural has spiked again. In this instance, I want to discuss why I’d happily buy a game focused solely on an idea presented to you in a side mission called ‘Langston’s Runaways’. Let’s get into it.
A quick crash course for those unaware of the premise of Control. It’s your job to go into a government facility known as the Old House to help clean up a bunch of mess being caused by naughty beings from another dimension. This largely involves shooting said naughty beings, and cleansing objects of power and altered items that have become corrupted in supernatural ways. These objects can grant power to people, but I’m here to talk about why I’d play a whole game focused on you dealing with individual altered items in a myriad of bizarre ways.
You may be thinking that’s the idea of the game anyway, and it sort of is. However, the focus of Control is on a very few specific objects of power, whereas what I’m concerned with is the altered items (which are slightly different from what I could fathom). The side mission ‘Langston’s Runaways’ has you dashing around the Old House to find completely mundane items that have become infused with supernatural power. It’s your job to get your hands on them and cleanse the pesky fiends, thus stopping the threat they present to people. Easy peasy.
Except, it’s not all that straight forward because some of these altered items are devious in how they will try to thwart your plans of cleansing them. I’ll discuss the ones used in the game, then go on to throw some of my own ideas out there, which will hopefully make everything come together in a tidy package.
A few of the altered items you must cleanse for Langston are simple cases of clearing an area of enemies and touching the respective item (the Japanese paper lantern, the hand chair), however a few of them are a little more interesting. There’s a traffic light that projects a large beam out across the floor, the catch to reach it is that you can only move when the light is green. Should you happen to be moving when it’s red, then it’s back to square one.
One altered item is a mannequin that when you first touch becomes dozens of the blighters, and it’s your job to identify the correct one and cleanse it.
There’s also a cheeky flamingo that will have you utilising your levitation powers to reach it, whilst a rubber duck will just keep teleporting away until it finally tires. Finally, there’s a set of letters that dart between predetermined positions which you must catch when they stop. Good luck.
What I most enjoyed about cleansing these altered items was that none of them were too frustrating to deal with, yet the idea of mundane objects becoming riddled with supernatural power opens so many possibilities, in my mind at least. Time to spit ball.
Why not have a kite that keeps evading you, so you must hunt it down by flying (or rather, levitating) after it. A traffic cone could split into three when you approach and do the shuffle game where you must identify the right one. An evil pen could squirt deadly ink that you have to avoid, there could be a sentient rope monster, a pair of headphones that shoot sonic blasts at you, a lightbulb that you must deploy your shield against when it turns off, a wheelchair that you have to race another wheelchair against, or even a tree that constantly extends its roots as you reach the trunk.
Some of those ideas are like those already in the game, or follow a similar pattern in their design, yet think of the possibilities a group of creative minds could come up with. Various notes and other titbits that you can collect in Control all hint at things such as this, and I think even if it’s just a short DLC expansion, I’d happily play through a set of missions where your goal is to round up and cleanse a load of altered items. There are some totally unique ways that you could do so, and I’ve no doubt Remedy would be able to knock it out of the park.
That’s it for this One-Shot, it was just a little ramble about how one aspect of Control really intrigued me and how I’d love to see it explored a little further in creative ways. I’m not saying it would need to be tens of hours’ worth of gameplay, that could get tedious, but something short and snappy could work for sure. I’d also like to mention that one altered item is a fridge that kills you if you stop looking at it. Like a Weeping Angel in Doctor Who but with more milk inside. Make of that what you will.
Dualshocks and Daydreams 