Control

Gameplay, graphics, physics, detail - this game stretches current-gen hardware as far as any effort I've seen. The environments are as pretty & polished as you could want, but they're also fully destructible - and not even in a "some objects will fall over then disappear" kind of way. Effort has been made to keep every detail looking & feeling as realistic as possible, even in the middle of all the superpowered skirmishes. This is the real centrepiece of the game - your character's powers, and how you use them for fun & fighting. Jesse Faden starts out as a normal woman drawn by some inexplicable force to The Oldest House, a shady government bureau where she procedes to obtain an arsenal of supernatural skills - allowing her to overcome the House's hazards and uncover its secrets in the most joyful, empowering & eyecatching ways. The storyline (one of pseudoscientific research & interdimensional espionage) provides a creatively grounded backdrop linking the action together, but it always felt to me as if this was a gameplay-led project; while Alan Wake had some cool & innovative gameplay, its remembered mostly for its dramatic story and themes, whereas Control feels more like a showcase of video games as a spectacle. I wouldn't be itching to tell people about the narrative, which suffers a lack of clarity at times - there's a lot going on in The Oldest House, and much of it is devoid of explanation (which is probably intentional) or an obvious point (which probably isn't). However I couldn't wait to show friends all the cool stuff you can do whenever you feel like it, and how good it always looks when you're doing it. Confronting a wretched, wailing group of interdimensionally-possessed former office-workers who have become twisted beyond human form, and defending yourself by telekinetically flinging a tray of photorealistic coffee cups at them - that's what this game is all about. And it's great.