Control is a very fun game, and Jesse was an intriguing character with an unusual backstory. Enjoyed my time with it. I’m optimistic for Control 2 and hope we’ll get more lore! And of course, something that hits as hard as the Ash tray maze!
I love Control, I think the gameplay and level design is amazing, the world building is phenomenal and some of the side characters are great. Jesse herself wasn’t really that memorable to me though. I get that she’s supposed to act like a foil for all the craziness that’s happening, but as a result she ended up feeling kind of bland and forgettable. I always thought this was intentional, as the main focus of the game was the world building and lore and the Oldest House. Having a protagonist with a super strong colorful personality would be too much and just end up distracting from that.
It has the following gameplay types that you can switch to and play as long as you like:
PvE missions where you and other humans (team or randos) battle AI
PvP missions where its you and your team up against anther human team
Free Space missions that you can complete solo or in teams
Free Space exploring where you can jump system-to-system and explore without any objectives
The game studio, Gaijin, is Russian-based and has a tank game War Thunder (infamous for real-world military leaks) and a vehicular combat game called Crossout, though I’ve never played them.
Anyway Star Conflict is free-to-play, pay-to-win (PvP), but if you play the PvE and open space parts you don’t need to invest any money to have fun. You can stick to the lower ship tiers for casual gaming, and switch between fighting styles and ship roles easily. You can pilot blazing-fast interceptors, balanced mid-size fighters, heavy-hitting frigates, or super-slow but massive destroyers, and customize each one with a huge selection of weapon types, shields, and auxillary syatems. The underlying fighting principle is kinda like rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock, so an interceptor can easily solo a destroyer, a destroyer can take out a group of frigates, frigates outpower fighters, fighters hunt interceptors, etc. And the same goes for weapons and shields too, with thermal, EM, and kinetic types and their shield counterparts. If you venture into a space region infested with pirates who use kinetic weapons and thermal shields, then equip your ship with weapons of the opposite type of their shields to maximize damage, and equip shields of the same type as their weapons to minimize damage.
Anyway go try it out and let me know what you think!
Honestly? Aloy from the Horizon games. She’s maybe not the most rounded character, but she is a very strong, determined, stubborn, and intelligent person. She knows what she wants and will stop at nothing to get it. I think it also helps that the games don’t really have many choices or multiple endings, which I think was a good design choice. The story belongs to Aloy, not the player.
Also she’s not a protag (sorta, you can play as her) but I would like to give a shoutout to Lae’zel from BG3. I suspect a lot of players haven’t explored her character questline much because of how prickly she is at the beginning, but her character development is extensive and, at times, heart-wrenching. A story of someone getting the entire fabric of their life and soul torn out from under them.
My issue with Aloy is that she was such a Mary Sue in the first game. I can give some benefit of doubt to her on the account of the spoilers, but my god literally the only time she failed was at the beginning of the game during the trial and even then it was more a force majeure than anything she did wrong. She could thrust herself into any situation and come out on top with nothing dragging her down.
I’m found her more relatable in the second game because in the second get we at least get some hints of her mission being a burden on her and when she is caught off guard by a superior opponent she doesn’t magically beat them. But even in the second game she doesn’t have a lot of depth. There’s so much more depth Aloy could have but the writers never gave her the depth she deserves. And I don’t want people to think I’m dunking on Aloy, I think she could be a very interesting character if she had been properly fleshed out as a person. It’s an issue all Horizon series characters suffer, they all lack depth. Some of them are flatter than the Bonneville Salt Flats.
And I completely agree with Lae’zel. She’s my favorite characters from the BG3 party of character. She’s literally how you described Aloy: determined, stubborn and intelligent. If we ignore the zealotry (which stems from her upbringing) Lae’zel is very similar to Aloy because she thinks she exists solely for the sake of her mission, she is indominably determined to fulfill her mission and she will step on anyone who gets between her and her mission. I find it pretty weird how Aloy is almost universally liked while Lae’zel is one of the least liked companions. I guess it’s the difference of seeing the world through the eyes of the person vs seeing the person as they are within the world.
None of the guys at my old job liked lae’zel. I think because she’s kind of mean. I’m like that’s what I’m here for. I don’t want some pushover passive aggression like shadow heart, and karlach is fine I guess, but lae’zel making people lick her boots is the shit. I’m not even into being dominated but I do like women with agency.
TBH I don’t even hate that part of her, but couple that with her people’s fucked up society that she wholeheartedly endorses until a certain part of her personal quest …
I’d probably have been more willing to explore her quest if I actually liked that part of her. Didn’t quite click for me.
Some of my other picks have already been mentioned so I’ll go with an obscure answer: Cpt. Olivia Rhodes from the VR game Lone Echo.
She is by far the most realistic and immersive NPC I have ever had the fortune of experiencing. The storytelling and immersion in Lone Echo is S tier. The game itself is in my top three VR games with Half-Life Alyx and Boneworks.
Very cool, very indie game where you explore a solar system, and the Newtonian-style dog fights are wicked awesome. But it’s also got boarding ships, and realtime atmospheric entry.
It’s one single developer creating it, and it’s been 2 years since the last update, but there is a recent post saying a new one’s coming.
You might want to check out Chorus, it’s on sale super cheap on GOG right now. It’s an action game with some levels on foot and others in space.
An honorable mention is Star Wars Battlefront 2 (classic) - maybe not exactly what you want, but it has space combat where most of the action is with ship dogfights, where you can also attack the opposing capital ship and disable its core systems to win the match. The whole single player game ensures you’ll get one hell of a power fantasy as the ace/hero, even on harder difficulties.
Everspace 2 might be what you’re looking for. It’s fighter piloting and npt battleship style combat bit it’s one of the closest feels I had to what Xwing vs Tie Fighter was back in the day. You can drift and swap end for end just like XvT.
You might also like the spaceship portions of Star Wars Outlaws. I’ve been having fun in there, too.
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