Adventures in Mac Gaming, Volume Two

Government conspiracies are a dime a dozen, and in modern times the theorists run the asylum. This won’t be a political post, no, but the lede towards Remedy’s weirdest game, Control. Originally releasing in 2019, the macOS version shipped in March of this year exclusive to the Mac App Store (sorry, those who owned the PC version via Steam, of which I’m a part of), coming in at $40 and including both DLC expansions. It’s compatible with even the oldest Apple Silicon Macs, so even if you have an old M1 machine, it’ll work just fine. Unlike last week’s game, GRID Legends, it supports GameCenter, so you’ll get the built-in Achievements everyone comes to expect. That said, it does not support iCloud saves, so like last week’s game, you’ll have to either stick to one machine or transfer it around the old-fashioned way. Alas.

If you haven’t played, or possibly not even heard, of Control, know that it’s… weird. You play as Jesse Faden, a woman looking for her brother Dylan, whom together they found a slide projector as children that opened dimensions to other worlds. Again… weird. Anyway, when that incident happened, the FBC, or Federal Bureau of Control, hit the town of Ordinary to cover it all up, and while Jesse escaped, Dylan was taken by the FBC to places unknown. Here comes the conspiracy parts! All these years later, Jesse stumbles on the Oldest House, where the FBC headquarters is located. Upon arrival, the director of the bureau shoots himself in the head in his office, Jesse picks up the gun and after mastering it, she becomes the new director. Guess they’re hiring outside candidates these days? Anyway, everything comes to a head at the end but even though the game is old, I won’t get spoilery with it. Control also features numerous side missions involving corrupted merry-go-rounds, anchors, and a refrigerator.

AGAIN… weird. If you like weird stuff in your video game entertainment, let me tell you what. There’s this underpinning on “yes, this is all very fucked up, but we act like it’s normal because, I mean, we have an evil fridge in containment that has to be watched 24/7 or it… does things” that gives a level of absurdity to the whole thing, but it doesn’t take itself seriously either. Just part of the job for the FBC.

Playing the game on a Mac is a treat, especially since it scales very well to older hardware. I have a 2020 M1 MacBook Air with the base specs, and while you might think it’s ancient in technology life, it’s still a fast and useful machine, and Control itself plays and looks almost as good on that old thing as it does on my new M4 Mini. It keeps a good, solid framerate and I haven’t seen any crashes or other technical issues. Given you get a lengthy game and two great DLC packs, spending $40 on this is a value. I will harp on this until the end of time, but if that small dedicated base of Mac gamers wants to see more and more games ported, they need to buy what’s out there and show there’s an audience. I want Alan Wake and maybe even Quantum Break on this thing someday, Remedy! Thankfully getting high-quality games like this are easier to swallow compared to what could be released.

This is the nice thing about Control coming to Mac in that it’s the kind of fun, breezy, weird game that fits the platform, which has always had the reputation of being a little more loose compared to the buttoned-up, corporate Windows. It’s *almost* the perfect showpiece for what could be if Apple really gets behind promoting games on its machines, except for the lack of iCloud saves. Which, again, needs to be standard issue on these ports pretty soon, especially since the competition is already doing that on Steam. That aside, if you download a copy of Control, you’ll get something that you can show off as proof that you can get great performance out of a Mac.