Benefits
- Creepy attitude and story
- Pleasant and varied combat system
- Running on M1 or later
Disadvantages
- Shooter -act may require a game controller
- No support for Intel Macs
- Irritating autosave system
Our judgment
The auto-gem system can be cumbersome, but control is a great action game with an atmospheric inter-dimensional setting and an enjoyable combination of shoot-‘-up action and mental superpowers.
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We all know that most A-list games are never released on Mac at all, and although there is a Mac version, it will often take many months to arrive, long after the release of the PC version. However, there are not many games that take so long to reach Mac as control, which was first released back in 2019.
It’s definitely better late than never, especially since control is really one of a beaten super-driven shoot-‘-up action game with some seriously weird X-Files vibes. And hopefully, the developers at Remedy Games will now think of bringing some of their other strange wonderful games to Mac as well, such as the acclaimed Alan Wake series.
The X-Files comparisons are inevitable as the game opens with Jesse Faden arriving at the headquarters of the federal agency of Control, a government agency investigating paranormal changed world events known as Awes. Jesse’s younger brother disappeared during an awe, and since then she has been led by a mysterious voice in the head leading her to the headquarters of the FBC.
Known as the oldest house, the FBC office is strangely quiet when Jesse arrives, with only a mysterious – and rather creepy – caretaker to give her directions to FBC’s director’s office. This opening section acts as a tutorial that gives you some time to get the most important controls, but also gives the background to the story as Jesse performs a useful dialogue with her inner voice as she wanders in Halls of the FBC.
When she finds the director’s office, it turns out that he is already dead after he apparently killed himself, with his hand gun lying on the floor next to him. However, this is no ordinary gun. Known as service weapons, it continues to whisper instructions to Jesse, and effectively recruits her to FBC and assigns missions that she must complete.
Jesse’s first mission reveals that the oldest house is somehow linked to another dimension where she meets some shambling alien figures and gets her first taste of battle. It turns out that the service weapon also has some other tricks up the sleeve as it can magically reload when Jesse gets low on ammunition. It comes well as I have never been very good at shoot-‘-up games and most of my shots miss Miles.
However, Jesse also discovers that she has some magical powers that begin with a kind of psychocinetic stans that allow her to strike the enemies that come too close. This helps compensate for my miserable shooting skills as I find out that I can let the creepy beings come quite close and then knock them down before pumping balls into them up close.
Foundry
Jesse can further improve her psychocinetic powers as the game progresses, learn how to throw objects on enemies and also upgrade service weapons and other weapons she finds along the way.
The game has some rough edges icing an annoying auto-gem feature that only saves the game on specific points. This means that being killed by a particularly hard enemy often forces you to go back and play the previous section a few times, which repeats your steps through the oldest house repeatedly as you try to defeat the enemy once again.
However, it is one of the few annoying features, and the game’s combination of shooter action and mental forces ensures that the fight is fun and varied, even for someone with my limited sliding skills.
The way the action continues to change placements between the FBC and the astral aircraft also keeps things interesting as you try to reveal the mysteries of the oldest house.
Foundry
The age of the game also means that you do not need a powerful Mac to run it properly. The notes about the App Store say control requires an M1 processor or later runs Sonoma (although unfortunately there is no support for Intel Macs). I played the game on a MacBook Pro with an M2 Pro and was able to get a playable 34 frames per second when I ran at 2560 × 1440 resolution with medium -sized graphics settings, so you need to be able to get decent performance, even with an M1 if you don’t mind lowering the resolution and graphics settings.
However, it is a shame that there is no demo version available so you can first check it out. And once again, the Mac version of Control is only available in the Mac App Store, so people who already own the PC version of Epic or Steam will have to buy the Mac version separately. Remedy told us they were hoping to make the Mac version available at Steam at one point but was unable to give a specific release date at the time of this review.
Control is a little more expensive than we expected for a game that is a few years old that costs $ 39.99/£ 34.99 on the Mac App Store. But it is similar to the price of the PC version, and this ultimate version includes two expansion packages with additional missions and stories that you can uncover.
Should you buy control?
The emphasis on Shoot-‘EM-up action may not appeal to everyone, but the extra mental forces that Jesse can learn during the game help keep things varied and interesting. And of course, conspiracies and mysteries from the Federal Bureau of Control will appeal to fans of X-Files as well, making it a good opportunity for anyone who enjoys challenging and atmospheric action games.
Wanna play some games on Mac? We’ve tried loads and our favorites can be found here: Best games for Mac: A-LIST MAC game to play.