The Last of US II Spoiler and story discussion thread.
- Thread starter Gray2233
- Start date
Caporegime
I have no idea how Joel makes acoustic guitars on a work bench, you need a ton of clamps, heating (to bend the timber), and where on earth did he get the machine heads for the tuners?!
Think in a scene Joel or Tommy talked about there being a guitar shop not far?
The sex scene haunts me.
I really, really didn't enjoy it. I'm far from a prude but I feel it was utterly unnecessary given the visuals and intent, I've seen tamer things on pornhub believe it or not. I know people are going to say that it I could have just skipped but, but in a story driven game surely I shouldn't be skipping cut scenes? It just left a bad taste in my mouth.
The way Joel died was ridiculous and totally out of character.
Errrgghh. lol...
The guitar stuff comes across as dark comedy in a game that doesn't do comedy.
I just find it poorly written.
I've a bunch of issues but those are the ones that come immediately to mind.
I really, really didn't enjoy it. I'm far from a prude but I feel it was utterly unnecessary given the visuals and intent, I've seen tamer things on pornhub believe it or not. I know people are going to say that it I could have just skipped but, but in a story driven game surely I shouldn't be skipping cut scenes? It just left a bad taste in my mouth.
The way Joel died was ridiculous and totally out of character.
Errrgghh. lol...
The guitar stuff comes across as dark comedy in a game that doesn't do comedy.
I just find it poorly written.
I've a bunch of issues but those are the ones that come immediately to mind.
The way she killed him also didn't make sense. Where was the emotion?
You been hunting the guy who killed you father and you finally find him and you stay pretty calm and collected but go to work with a golf club.
I thaught I would feel something but was like meh.
This is the Last Jedi bad and it's obviously that Drunkmam is Rian fan. Diverting expectations.
Not as many people would be mad if he death was handed better buts that the thing. With Drunkmam agenda ATM (yes he has one. Listen to his interviews) you can't have a gruff male giving his life to save a strong female.
People calling this a master class is ridiculous. This is nothing new and Joel death is like something out the Walking Dead it's just old and I think people are just fed up with the style of writing. Its been around years in TV and movies.
I've started seeing people from the LGBT community giving it flack for the story and ham
politics.
You been hunting the guy who killed you father and you finally find him and you stay pretty calm and collected but go to work with a golf club.
I thaught I would feel something but was like meh.
This is the Last Jedi bad and it's obviously that Drunkmam is Rian fan. Diverting expectations.
Not as many people would be mad if he death was handed better buts that the thing. With Drunkmam agenda ATM (yes he has one. Listen to his interviews) you can't have a gruff male giving his life to save a strong female.
People calling this a master class is ridiculous. This is nothing new and Joel death is like something out the Walking Dead it's just old and I think people are just fed up with the style of writing. Its been around years in TV and movies.
I've started seeing people from the LGBT community giving it flack for the story and ham
politics.
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Associate
What concerns me is that the reviews by professionals are giving this high scores and yet the public really hate the game. The Twitch streamer who cuts the disks in half when Joel is killed sums it up for me.
Sadly most of the people in the other thread just don't get the difference between "entitlement" and sheer bad writing 
Or they just haven't got to the ending yet..... I really didn't think the comparisons to GOT season 8 could be possible but sadly they are.
All of these memes sum up everything wrong with the game
It's pretty clear Druckadumb has a hidden agenda too and is loving adding even more fuel to the fire with his twitter posts like this
What's even more laughable are people supporting a man/game like this where:
- got rid of all the writers from the first game to support his own trash
- reviewers being told to say only positive stuff otherwise they will get blacklisted
- reviewers being told they can't comment on the last half of the game
And yet you have idiots going hope this wins GOTY, yup, that is really going to be good for the gaming industry isn't it
Or they just haven't got to the ending yet..... I really didn't think the comparisons to GOT season 8 could be possible but sadly they are.All of these memes sum up everything wrong with the game
It's pretty clear Druckadumb has a hidden agenda too and is loving adding even more fuel to the fire with his twitter posts like this
What's even more laughable are people supporting a man/game like this where:
- got rid of all the writers from the first game to support his own trash
- reviewers being told to say only positive stuff otherwise they will get blacklisted
- reviewers being told they can't comment on the last half of the game
And yet you have idiots going hope this wins GOTY, yup, that is really going to be good for the gaming industry isn't it
Well, some people here seem to like the game and don't find anything wrong with the story, though I think it's just the honeymoon phase and not actually analysing things they see because they're wowed with the graphics, action and some of the little moments.
As I've been saying, Joel's death is not a problem in itself, it's how poorly done and dry it is. He also acts out of character by even following Abby into the cabin (especially that she mentions she has her men there IIRC). This is a man who outright drove over a guy in 1 because he suspected a trap. Am I supposed to believe his survival instincts wouldn't kick in? And even if he took the risk, why did they give out their names like that? Tommy is also not that stupid. TLoU1 Joel would've jumped at one of the guys the moment they started encircling them, trying to do survive and do as much damage to them as possible before going down. Here he just waited for the inevitable. The player immediately susepcts something's fishy but Joel doesn't? And that's pretty minor compared to the rest of the game. His death is just a cheap plot device to set up the shallow revenge plot and give space to spend 12h as Abby.
The best bit about his death is that Joel's killed by a comical daughter of NPC#1xx who we were FORCED to kill in TLoU. He pulls out a knife on you. You can shoot him in the hand, in the leg or whatever... He always dies. Normally, I'd let it go but ND is under a higher standard of scrutiny because of part one. Now they bring it up and flesh it out like we're supposed to care about their new unrealiastic protagonist when they effectively made the choice for us. I really tried to not kill the random surgeon. Couldn't it be for example Marlene's relative or daughter? Wouldn't that be more sensible? That at least happened in a cutscene and she was a major character. This kind of, let's say, "retconning" is really laughable and they decided to build the entire plot around it. I can bet people in the official thread think this is brilliant or see no problem with it... Whether or not Joel deserved to die is a separate question because you can argue he did. It's still kinda funny, he gets killed after saving his murderer who didn't even have enough balls to find him alone and the fact he killed a person who had threatened him first and the game tries so hard to portray him as cruel? Or is it the tired "humans are the monsters" cliché? The first game also didn't establish that sacrificing Ellie would 100% give them a cure. However, Neil obviously did before 2's release.
And forgive me, I simply can't take Abby's design seriously in this sort of setting, for reasons I outlined in the official thread and the obviousness of her real purpose. This alone makes me care less about her. Weren't they going for realistic, nuanced characters? I have a friend who's a personal trainer and fitness model with a history of competitions, she's been training for 10+ years and doesn't look anything like Abby. You need to push ridiculous SAA to get that physique, with perfect nutrition. Pretty realistic given the setting, innit? I think mine and Neil's images of a stronk, independent waman are fundamentally different. And if you're ideals of such necessitate caricaturising a character, you should know something's off.
Next, critics talking about nuanced characters. Can someone explain to me what is nuanced about Dina or Jesse? Dina's development for the first 10h amounts to "I think I'm pregnant" (lol), she literally exists for the little lesbian family drama with Ellie. Want to have lesbian chars in the game? Put some work into it, make it interesting and meaningful. Don't just put them in the game because of your ideals. If Dîna was well-written, I'd buy it completely.
Jesse? He exists literally to give Dina a child and die. Nothing nuanced or deeper about him at all. He doesn't say or do anything interesting and then gets shot randomly. Extremely dry.
Compare that to TLoU1 where Bill who has like 15-20mins if screentime is more nuanced than both of those. And he's also...wait for it...GAY.
That's the problem, they introduce all these random characters and fail to flesh them out properly to make the player feel something. I was completely indifferent to most of the cast. The desperation with which they overuse flashbacks to give everything some meaning and tie it together is proof of that. I mean some of the flashbacks with Ellie are enjoyable but the game definitely jumps too much.
Ellie is also as deep as a puddle, mostly. Hurr, revengeee, I'm gonna kill all of you, literally murders dozens of people along the way, then has remorse because she killed a pregnant woman... I mean, don't they realise this is stupid? That's why there are so few worthwhile revenge stories, especially in games susceptible to such ludonarrative dissonance.
And that's why you don't turn something of TLoU's calibre into a hackneyed revenge story that you can't even take to the end. Hell, even God of War III is a better revenge story. Kratos at least does the job, kills his father and gets to live with the consequences. Here, the ending is mind-bogglingly hackneyed and stupid.
And the worst part is, many people will lap it up because ND operates on cheap shock value, hands shaking, crying and the technology to portray those etc. to make it all seem deep and hoping the audience isn't perceptive enough to connect the dots. It works and many people won't even think about the stuff outlined above.
I have more to say and I will later because here I can at least not disturb those who think the plot is impeccable and nor get disturbed myself by "entitlement" or "hate only cuz LGBT" (please try and find those words in my little tirade above).
As I've been saying, Joel's death is not a problem in itself, it's how poorly done and dry it is. He also acts out of character by even following Abby into the cabin (especially that she mentions she has her men there IIRC). This is a man who outright drove over a guy in 1 because he suspected a trap. Am I supposed to believe his survival instincts wouldn't kick in? And even if he took the risk, why did they give out their names like that? Tommy is also not that stupid. TLoU1 Joel would've jumped at one of the guys the moment they started encircling them, trying to do survive and do as much damage to them as possible before going down. Here he just waited for the inevitable. The player immediately susepcts something's fishy but Joel doesn't? And that's pretty minor compared to the rest of the game. His death is just a cheap plot device to set up the shallow revenge plot and give space to spend 12h as Abby.
The best bit about his death is that Joel's killed by a comical daughter of NPC#1xx who we were FORCED to kill in TLoU. He pulls out a knife on you. You can shoot him in the hand, in the leg or whatever... He always dies. Normally, I'd let it go but ND is under a higher standard of scrutiny because of part one. Now they bring it up and flesh it out like we're supposed to care about their new unrealiastic protagonist when they effectively made the choice for us. I really tried to not kill the random surgeon. Couldn't it be for example Marlene's relative or daughter? Wouldn't that be more sensible? That at least happened in a cutscene and she was a major character. This kind of, let's say, "retconning" is really laughable and they decided to build the entire plot around it. I can bet people in the official thread think this is brilliant or see no problem with it... Whether or not Joel deserved to die is a separate question because you can argue he did. It's still kinda funny, he gets killed after saving his murderer who didn't even have enough balls to find him alone and the fact he killed a person who had threatened him first and the game tries so hard to portray him as cruel? Or is it the tired "humans are the monsters" cliché? The first game also didn't establish that sacrificing Ellie would 100% give them a cure. However, Neil obviously did before 2's release.
And forgive me, I simply can't take Abby's design seriously in this sort of setting, for reasons I outlined in the official thread and the obviousness of her real purpose. This alone makes me care less about her. Weren't they going for realistic, nuanced characters? I have a friend who's a personal trainer and fitness model with a history of competitions, she's been training for 10+ years and doesn't look anything like Abby. You need to push ridiculous SAA to get that physique, with perfect nutrition. Pretty realistic given the setting, innit? I think mine and Neil's images of a stronk, independent waman are fundamentally different. And if you're ideals of such necessitate caricaturising a character, you should know something's off.
Next, critics talking about nuanced characters. Can someone explain to me what is nuanced about Dina or Jesse? Dina's development for the first 10h amounts to "I think I'm pregnant" (lol), she literally exists for the little lesbian family drama with Ellie. Want to have lesbian chars in the game? Put some work into it, make it interesting and meaningful. Don't just put them in the game because of your ideals. If Dîna was well-written, I'd buy it completely.
Jesse? He exists literally to give Dina a child and die. Nothing nuanced or deeper about him at all. He doesn't say or do anything interesting and then gets shot randomly. Extremely dry.
Compare that to TLoU1 where Bill who has like 15-20mins if screentime is more nuanced than both of those. And he's also...wait for it...GAY.
That's the problem, they introduce all these random characters and fail to flesh them out properly to make the player feel something. I was completely indifferent to most of the cast. The desperation with which they overuse flashbacks to give everything some meaning and tie it together is proof of that. I mean some of the flashbacks with Ellie are enjoyable but the game definitely jumps too much.
Ellie is also as deep as a puddle, mostly. Hurr, revengeee, I'm gonna kill all of you, literally murders dozens of people along the way, then has remorse because she killed a pregnant woman... I mean, don't they realise this is stupid? That's why there are so few worthwhile revenge stories, especially in games susceptible to such ludonarrative dissonance.
And that's why you don't turn something of TLoU's calibre into a hackneyed revenge story that you can't even take to the end. Hell, even God of War III is a better revenge story. Kratos at least does the job, kills his father and gets to live with the consequences. Here, the ending is mind-bogglingly hackneyed and stupid.
And the worst part is, many people will lap it up because ND operates on cheap shock value, hands shaking, crying and the technology to portray those etc. to make it all seem deep and hoping the audience isn't perceptive enough to connect the dots. It works and many people won't even think about the stuff outlined above.
I have more to say and I will later because here I can at least not disturb those who think the plot is impeccable and nor get disturbed myself by "entitlement" or "hate only cuz LGBT" (please try and find those words in my little tirade above).
Soldato
The last of us was/is one of my favourite games ever. The story had me absolutely gripped and everything about it was believable and raw. It had a genuine emotional impact on me to the extent that I was thinking about it weeks after completing it.
Part 2 was an absolute joke. I can't believe it's got so many overwhelmingly positive reviews from game sites. For me, that's the final straw in trusting game review sites who lined up to gush un-deserved praise on a story arc that was totally non-sensical and at times cringingly embarrassing.
But hey, it's got good graphics and voice acting though, right guys? :|
Part 2 was an absolute joke. I can't believe it's got so many overwhelmingly positive reviews from game sites. For me, that's the final straw in trusting game review sites who lined up to gush un-deserved praise on a story arc that was totally non-sensical and at times cringingly embarrassing.
But hey, it's got good graphics and voice acting though, right guys? :|
All right, I've done something I rarely do and marathoned most of the the game at my friend's, despite watching an entire let's play already but apparently that wasn't credible enough.
This is going to be long, sorry... I might repeat some bits.
Nothing's changed. I think this is the worst written story with such high production value in recent years. I'm talking purely about STORY here, not graphics, not some good little moments here and there, setpieces, some interactions. The game can have all that and still be poorly written.
I cannot fathom how some guys lap it up so easily or how they relate to characters having zero development throughout the entire game, coming and going with no buildup or exposure. Incidentally, those are the same guys throwing around insults like "incels", "agenda" and other hilarious crap.
Dina? She has NO development through the entire game, her only defining moment is "I'm pregnant" and getting beaten up by a roided gorilla (theater fight was hilarious btw
) and kissing scenes with Ellie. I didn't get to know anything interesting about her.
Jesse is even worse, nothing interesting happens with the character until he gets shot randomly and never ever mentioned again till the very end.
Abby? What did I get to know about her to make me care? That she's the daughter of NPC#120 that I was forced to kill and she's scared of heights? That she ****ed some Owen who is equally bland and undeveloped? Why did I have to go through a 10h DLC and still have a character so poorly explained and fleshed out? It did nothing to make make me think such an amateur twist they built THE ENTIRE plot around was "masterclass" writing. Why didn't I even get to know how she had built and was able to maintain such muscle mass with this lifestyle and setting? Sorry, she gets the most flak because they clearly wanted her to be the protagonist. Why didn't you just go all out and make her one? Why lie in trailers switching Jesse with Joel?
You should've just built the entire plot around your new stronk wahman hunting down Joel and killing him in the end. It would have still been better than this jumbled mess that doesn't know what it wants to be. A revenge story without revenge? A flashback within flashback? A multiple-perspective narrative? An introduction to new characters? A hackneyed "cycle of vengeance" story? All of that at once in 20h? Good luck when everything is so half-assed.
The rest of the cast? Lev? Yara? Anyone? Why should I care? What was their purpose in this? To make Abby look good? The game is goddamn 20+h long, yet most of it is combat room padding and flashbacks, even flashbacks within flashbacks because the game knows what's happening isn't nearly interesting enough so it desperately jumps back and forth.
What are the WLF doing? The Seraphites? Nothing? No interesting background info?
But yeah, best story ever, better than 99% of TV shows definitely. Maybe if you're easily wowed by graphics and animations. And some little moments that I admit are good. Exploring Seattle with Ellie was the highlight.
The 10h DLC included in the base game is completely external to the main narrative and introduces even more poorly defined characters. By the time it's over, it feels like the main plotline is in the past. It's hard to even say stuff about the main plotline since it's just a basic revenge story without the actual revenge ever taking place. They did the most cliché thing possible with the ending.
Ellie herself is bland as hell. I didn't get much of a glimpse into her suffering except one flashback with Joel and that really funny moment when she kills a pregnant woman and feels remorse when she had already murdered dozens of people who might've had families and friends. Making the game dark and brutal simply doesn't work if you can't build it up properly and operate on cheap ways to sell the plot. Oh, there were some cool guitar scenes. Oh well.
Tommy and Joel act like complete dumbasses in this. It's like they never had to survive in this world. "Oh, hi, I'm Tommy and this is my brother Joel. By the way, we have a settlement nearby with innocent women and children so if you happen to be bad people, feel free to come and kill someone." Joel not only doesn't attack pre-emptively when the encircle them but doesn't even try and lie about his name in order to survive when he gets shot. "What? Joel Miller? You've got the wrong guy"
"Nah, let's get this over with, I don't care"
They just casually follow Abby into the cabin, normally they'd at least take away her gun and slowly check the surroundings or even risk dying on their way back without going into a den of armed strangers. However, their original character traits are weaker than the plot armour.
Ellie is equally stupid. You open a door with a gun in your hand and you see the most important person in your life lying in a pool of blood barely breathing. How long do you need to shoot the **** who did it in the back? Just long enough to get jumped and beaten up by her cronies? I would've been shooting like hell, something that, ironically, Abby does immediately when Jesse runs into the room and gets killed.
On top of that, you lie there screaming you're gonna kill them all but they let you live anyways. No harm in that, after all it'd make them equal to Joel. Not that they'd just shot a guy in a leg with a bloody shotgun, tourniquet his leg and tortured him with a golf club. No biggie.
There are quite a few of those little decisions that make it all seem artificial and out of character, I won't even touch upon the ending because no one will probably read this all and even if, they'd have been exhausted by this point.
The bottom line is, the plot is such a mess in this that I can't even write about it in a calm and collected manner because there's so much to cover. I don't think it's worth it anymore, though. If people want to see this as masterclass writing and believe everyone who disagrees is an incel, bigot or an idiot then whatever.
It'd be easier to overlook some of the above if TLoU1 wasn't so razor-sharp in its delivery but the way it is I simply cannot pretend that I've been moved or impressed with 2's writing.
This is going to be long, sorry... I might repeat some bits.
Nothing's changed. I think this is the worst written story with such high production value in recent years. I'm talking purely about STORY here, not graphics, not some good little moments here and there, setpieces, some interactions. The game can have all that and still be poorly written.
I cannot fathom how some guys lap it up so easily or how they relate to characters having zero development throughout the entire game, coming and going with no buildup or exposure. Incidentally, those are the same guys throwing around insults like "incels", "agenda" and other hilarious crap.
Dina? She has NO development through the entire game, her only defining moment is "I'm pregnant" and getting beaten up by a roided gorilla (theater fight was hilarious btw
) and kissing scenes with Ellie. I didn't get to know anything interesting about her.Jesse is even worse, nothing interesting happens with the character until he gets shot randomly and never ever mentioned again till the very end.
Abby? What did I get to know about her to make me care? That she's the daughter of NPC#120 that I was forced to kill and she's scared of heights? That she ****ed some Owen who is equally bland and undeveloped? Why did I have to go through a 10h DLC and still have a character so poorly explained and fleshed out? It did nothing to make make me think such an amateur twist they built THE ENTIRE plot around was "masterclass" writing. Why didn't I even get to know how she had built and was able to maintain such muscle mass with this lifestyle and setting? Sorry, she gets the most flak because they clearly wanted her to be the protagonist. Why didn't you just go all out and make her one? Why lie in trailers switching Jesse with Joel?
You should've just built the entire plot around your new stronk wahman hunting down Joel and killing him in the end. It would have still been better than this jumbled mess that doesn't know what it wants to be. A revenge story without revenge? A flashback within flashback? A multiple-perspective narrative? An introduction to new characters? A hackneyed "cycle of vengeance" story? All of that at once in 20h? Good luck when everything is so half-assed.
The rest of the cast? Lev? Yara? Anyone? Why should I care? What was their purpose in this? To make Abby look good? The game is goddamn 20+h long, yet most of it is combat room padding and flashbacks, even flashbacks within flashbacks because the game knows what's happening isn't nearly interesting enough so it desperately jumps back and forth.
What are the WLF doing? The Seraphites? Nothing? No interesting background info?
But yeah, best story ever, better than 99% of TV shows definitely. Maybe if you're easily wowed by graphics and animations. And some little moments that I admit are good. Exploring Seattle with Ellie was the highlight.
The 10h DLC included in the base game is completely external to the main narrative and introduces even more poorly defined characters. By the time it's over, it feels like the main plotline is in the past. It's hard to even say stuff about the main plotline since it's just a basic revenge story without the actual revenge ever taking place. They did the most cliché thing possible with the ending.
Ellie herself is bland as hell. I didn't get much of a glimpse into her suffering except one flashback with Joel and that really funny moment when she kills a pregnant woman and feels remorse when she had already murdered dozens of people who might've had families and friends. Making the game dark and brutal simply doesn't work if you can't build it up properly and operate on cheap ways to sell the plot. Oh, there were some cool guitar scenes. Oh well.
Tommy and Joel act like complete dumbasses in this. It's like they never had to survive in this world. "Oh, hi, I'm Tommy and this is my brother Joel. By the way, we have a settlement nearby with innocent women and children so if you happen to be bad people, feel free to come and kill someone." Joel not only doesn't attack pre-emptively when the encircle them but doesn't even try and lie about his name in order to survive when he gets shot. "What? Joel Miller? You've got the wrong guy"
"Nah, let's get this over with, I don't care"
They just casually follow Abby into the cabin, normally they'd at least take away her gun and slowly check the surroundings or even risk dying on their way back without going into a den of armed strangers. However, their original character traits are weaker than the plot armour.
Ellie is equally stupid. You open a door with a gun in your hand and you see the most important person in your life lying in a pool of blood barely breathing. How long do you need to shoot the **** who did it in the back? Just long enough to get jumped and beaten up by her cronies? I would've been shooting like hell, something that, ironically, Abby does immediately when Jesse runs into the room and gets killed.
On top of that, you lie there screaming you're gonna kill them all but they let you live anyways. No harm in that, after all it'd make them equal to Joel. Not that they'd just shot a guy in a leg with a bloody shotgun, tourniquet his leg and tortured him with a golf club. No biggie.
There are quite a few of those little decisions that make it all seem artificial and out of character, I won't even touch upon the ending because no one will probably read this all and even if, they'd have been exhausted by this point.
The bottom line is, the plot is such a mess in this that I can't even write about it in a calm and collected manner because there's so much to cover. I don't think it's worth it anymore, though. If people want to see this as masterclass writing and believe everyone who disagrees is an incel, bigot or an idiot then whatever.
It'd be easier to overlook some of the above if TLoU1 wasn't so razor-sharp in its delivery but the way it is I simply cannot pretend that I've been moved or impressed with 2's writing.
@Amatsubu
Wouldn't bother trying to wrap your head around people lapping up this POS, it's like the ones who defend GOT season 8, they just aren't aware of subliminal messages and can't see the plot holes and sheer bad writing, either that, or the outstanding graphics and design of the game world have blinded them and made any common sense and appreciation for quality writing like the first game go right out the window.
Won't lie, I can fall for shiny graphics and physics etc. too i.e. division 2 but at the end of the day, you can't polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter
Wouldn't bother trying to wrap your head around people lapping up this POS, it's like the ones who defend GOT season 8, they just aren't aware of subliminal messages and can't see the plot holes and sheer bad writing, either that, or the outstanding graphics and design of the game world have blinded them and made any common sense and appreciation for quality writing like the first game go right out the window.
Won't lie, I can fall for shiny graphics and physics etc. too i.e. division 2 but at the end of the day, you can't polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter
So when is part 2 of your review coming out
Soldato
I honestly dont get how the critics lapped this up. It's almost as if they actually didn't play the game.
Soldato
- Joined
- 13 Dec 2006
- Posts
- 3,236
I'll start this with the caveat that I've "finished" the game but I watched it start to finish via a live stream over the course of the past 3 days. Some people might discount my opinions based off that, but given this is a pretty linear story driven game I believe I can comment on the majority of the game.
I think it's a solid 7/10. I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as people are trying to make out, the themes etc aren't that bad but only the flip side is disingenuous to say it's a 10/10 like all the outlets have given it.
From a technical standpoint it is simply outstanding but I think everyone can see and appreciate that fact surely so not really much to say about that.
Gameplay - this is harder for me to say as I didn't directly play this but overall it appears to be the same as the original. It did seem to get a bit repetitive though... The stealth sections all played out exactly the same. With Ellie seeing has she now has an infinite knife it made them too easy (the streamer I was watching was on hard for all the settings). It had way too many QTE's all of which are just mash 'square' as quickly as possible, surely it wouldn't have been that hard to put some variation in there. You could even predict when the QTE was about to start and mash square in advance of the prompt. The shooting also was a bit clunky, this seemed to be due to a weird deadzone problem that a few in the other thread have mentioned and the streamer commented the same.
Themes - This was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be or what a lot of people have made it out to be. They don't try and ram anything down your throats and the worst in my opinion was some of the interactions between Abby and Lev which just felt like really bad and lazy writing more than anything else. The sex scene was meh... I don't think it added anything and didn't offend me, just seemed pointless.
Story - This is obviously where it all falls down. It was a bold move trying to do what they did, but it ends up being a big swing with an even bigger miss. I feel it they did it in a more linear fashion it would have given them time to build up to you getting to know Abby and understand the character more, especially given how this. A lot of her section just felt dragged out and it's time they really could have used to flesh her character out a bit more.
You can see how they are trying to manipulate players perceptions as well. You have Ellie forced to kill Alive (the dog) and literally right after that you have Abby made to save the Zebra. It was the same with when Ellie kills Mel. Mel doesn't look pregnant at all until they point out she is but as soon as you switch to Abby it feels like they've changed the player model to make her look even more pregnant to really make you feel guilty and side with Abby.
My biggest issue with the story is how the entire thing hangs on the fact Abby finds Joel and Tommy by a coincidence, it was just poorly executed as if they wanted it to happen at the start of the game but had no idea how to make it happen in a way that is believable. She has no plan or idea where they are but just goes on a wander down a hill and finds them straight away.
The way they handled the characters make no sense either, you've got Joel, Ellie and Tommy all behaving the in exact opposite way everyone knows them to without any reason at all. The new characters on a whole are 2D and add nothing. They only ones l liked were Jessie and Lev.
It did have some good moments and scenes but nearly all of them are the flashbacks with Ellie and Joel coupled with some decent set pieces but they aren't enough to hold the game up. The end though was just hollow and makes zero sense from a character point of view. The actions Ellie take just doesn't make sense. I'd easily recommend people to buy it but would tell them to wait for it to come up on sale first.
I think it's a solid 7/10. I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as people are trying to make out, the themes etc aren't that bad but only the flip side is disingenuous to say it's a 10/10 like all the outlets have given it.
From a technical standpoint it is simply outstanding but I think everyone can see and appreciate that fact surely so not really much to say about that.
Gameplay - this is harder for me to say as I didn't directly play this but overall it appears to be the same as the original. It did seem to get a bit repetitive though... The stealth sections all played out exactly the same. With Ellie seeing has she now has an infinite knife it made them too easy (the streamer I was watching was on hard for all the settings). It had way too many QTE's all of which are just mash 'square' as quickly as possible, surely it wouldn't have been that hard to put some variation in there. You could even predict when the QTE was about to start and mash square in advance of the prompt. The shooting also was a bit clunky, this seemed to be due to a weird deadzone problem that a few in the other thread have mentioned and the streamer commented the same.
Themes - This was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be or what a lot of people have made it out to be. They don't try and ram anything down your throats and the worst in my opinion was some of the interactions between Abby and Lev which just felt like really bad and lazy writing more than anything else. The sex scene was meh... I don't think it added anything and didn't offend me, just seemed pointless.
Story - This is obviously where it all falls down. It was a bold move trying to do what they did, but it ends up being a big swing with an even bigger miss. I feel it they did it in a more linear fashion it would have given them time to build up to you getting to know Abby and understand the character more, especially given how this. A lot of her section just felt dragged out and it's time they really could have used to flesh her character out a bit more.
You can see how they are trying to manipulate players perceptions as well. You have Ellie forced to kill Alive (the dog) and literally right after that you have Abby made to save the Zebra. It was the same with when Ellie kills Mel. Mel doesn't look pregnant at all until they point out she is but as soon as you switch to Abby it feels like they've changed the player model to make her look even more pregnant to really make you feel guilty and side with Abby.
My biggest issue with the story is how the entire thing hangs on the fact Abby finds Joel and Tommy by a coincidence, it was just poorly executed as if they wanted it to happen at the start of the game but had no idea how to make it happen in a way that is believable. She has no plan or idea where they are but just goes on a wander down a hill and finds them straight away.
The way they handled the characters make no sense either, you've got Joel, Ellie and Tommy all behaving the in exact opposite way everyone knows them to without any reason at all. The new characters on a whole are 2D and add nothing. They only ones l liked were Jessie and Lev.
It did have some good moments and scenes but nearly all of them are the flashbacks with Ellie and Joel coupled with some decent set pieces but they aren't enough to hold the game up. The end though was just hollow and makes zero sense from a character point of view. The actions Ellie take just doesn't make sense. I'd easily recommend people to buy it but would tell them to wait for it to come up on sale first.
