The Last of Us Part II

mrk

mrk

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Took me 30 hours to complete with some exploration to find safes etc.Cracking a safe with sound alone is super easy as there's a shift in click when the anchor for that turn in the barrel drops :cool:

Overall I enjoyed it although there were plenty of frustrating moments and quite a bit of rinse and repeat which is a bit tedious in terms of opening drawers to find things, reading letters dotted all over the world etc.

On the default difficulty it's fairly balanced I found although with enemies being alert and I often found them using combat strategies and teaming up to lure me out.

The combat system as a whole is A-, the fluidity and animations aren't quite as realistic as what was shown off in the E3 trailer but it's close enough and much closer than what I recall from the original game vs its early trailers.

One part I will always remember is not a spoiler so I an describe it, sneaking along a low wall with a unit of enemies up ahead patrolling a building perimeter. They had a dog with them as well so I threw a bottle for distraction in the bushes, the guy with the dog went to investigate whilst 2 guys by the house scoped out the opposite area by me where the wall was, I used a silenced weapon to take one guy out by me but the dog guy saw and started mooching over with his dog so I pulled out an explosive arrow and as he passed a wacked out car I popped up from the wall and arrowed him. The explosion also took out the dog and alerted the 2nd guy now closer to the wall looking for me. I took out the silenced gun again as he'd fired a shot which knocked me to the ground and as I'm lying on the ground weapon drawn aiming in his direction, blind fired a quick spray nailing him in the head with one bullet which cleared the area.

It's moments like that I'd only imagine being able to do properly with a mouse and keyboard on PC but here I am sitting back marvelling at the little scene that just went down.

I also remember one area where I stealth killed a guy and his mate walked over to investigate why he had no responded to a holler only to see him dead so he shouts "Lee?! ****! they killed Lee!!!!" and started panicking into offensive mode" :D

It would have been an A+ if only the melee attack wasn't so easy to activate. Many times I intended to go prone but accidentally hit melee and stood up waving a pickaxe around like a doofus!

The ending is a chat for the spoilers thread!

May your survival be long, and your death be SwiftKey!
 
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Soldato
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23 Dec 2002
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Shiny Shanghai
I didn't think I was going to do this as I only just finished it, but with a couple of weeks left to Ghost of Tsushima, I'm having a crack at New Game+ on Survivor+
Phew....

It's quite intense.
Gotta get out of all the habits I previously formed.
Since for example, you now only get about half a second of the warning rumble before an enemy notices you, instead of the 2-3 of seconds on Hard :/
No more dragging enemies around before murdering them.
You even gotta do a half left stick push to sneak up on humans now. Yikes !!
 

V F

V F

Soldato
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UK
I didn't think I was going to do this as I only just finished it, but with a couple of weeks left to Ghost of Tsushima, I'm having a crack at New Game+ on Survivor+
Phew....

It's quite intense.
Gotta get out of all the habits I previously formed.
Since for example, you now only get about half a second of the warning rumble before an enemy notices you, instead of the 2-3 of seconds on Hard :/
No more dragging enemies around before murdering them.
You even gotta do a half left stick push to sneak up on humans now. Yikes !!

Yep, Survivor is sneaky sneaky. No slacking.
 
Soldato
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The environments never fail to have me impressed. So much details and so many different ways to tackle a situation.

I fthink i would like to replay an area using some different tactics just to see how the AI responds, ive had some great moments when a simple bottle or brick thrown can lure out a battle between infected and human NPC's and i just sit back and watch the carnage.

I did have one proper jaw drop moment on Seattle Day 1 where i wrealised later on just how far i had managed to attract mobs from further away. MAde me realise their patrols are more than just your usual lap round a particular building.

Its also a simple touch but having so many areas able to be accessed through breaking windows or using air conditioning ducts or even the odd prone under a crumbled wall really helped open up levels into more varied tactics. Top notch stuff.

I have to say im enjoying my playthrough, ignore all the 10/10 reviews as you would the 0/10's its a solid game which has been over exagerrated on both sides.
 
Soldato
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I'm playing at the weekends with my wife watching me play through it - she loves ND games and has sat there through all of them. I am planning on playing it again afterwards with headphones on (I might up the difficulty as above). Some of the music is amazing and the buzz you get off it - especially during encounters - is great. Really gets your heart going. Regarding environments I've often felt after battles when I am scrounging around for supplies 'oh, I could have gone through there, or up there, or through that hole'. Just things you can't really notice in the intense fights. It would be great to go back now that I know where some of the shortcuts are.
 
Soldato
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I'm playing at the weekends with my wife watching me play through it - she loves ND games and has sat there through all of them. I am planning on playing it again afterwards with headphones on (I might up the difficulty as above). Some of the music is amazing and the buzz you get off it - especially during encounters - is great. Really gets your heart going. Regarding environments I've often felt after battles when I am scrounging around for supplies 'oh, I could have gone through there, or up there, or through that hole'. Just things you can't really notice in the intense fights. It would be great to go back now that I know where some of the shortcuts are.

Once you have completed an encounter you can replay them from the main menu, prob best to do once finished though. Good for trying out new routes, tactics and some of the options.
 
Soldato
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Once you have completed an encounter you can replay them from the main menu, prob best to do once finished though. Good for trying out new routes, tactics and some of the options.
Good to know thanks. Yeah I'm definitely going to play through the whole thing first.

In Seattle day 1 I missed 2 work benches!
 
Soldato
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TLoU2 is divisive indeed! For me, TLoU2 is comfortably the best game of this generation and better than the original. Perhaps. Not in every way, but in enough. What started off as a prettier TLoU with some questionable/challenging plot choices becomes something truly epic. The last 3rd is jaw dropping and I’d argue achieves things no other video game has. Partly due to it's ambition and quality in telling of the story - which I believe many had made their minds up on before picking up a pad - and partly due to the gameworld - which is the best, most realised seen to date. The former is subjective. The latter, quite obviously, is not.

I went in completely blind. Avoided all trailers, forums, had no idea opinions were divided, and went through the full roller coaster. From
verging on being devastated at Joel's death, to thinking he deserved it and back again. Likewise with Ellie. Towards the end I was in camp Abby and wanted Ellie dead - crazy, damaged psycho that she is - until the scene with the baby, farm house, understandable ptsd, and then not knowing what to think. In this medium, this is quite an achievement

Regardless of whether you like the plot, I don't see how any can fault how it's told. Delivered through gameplay that seamlessly merges with cutscenes. We've never been so close to controlling a movie. Gameplay wise, TLoU2 is a better survival horror than Resident Evil and a better tactical/action shooter than Metal Gear.

Criticisms - the sheer body count coupled with the detail of gore detracts from any attempt at telling a mature story (I like killing virtual ppl so am OK with this :D) and it's too ambitious. There's two games worth of content crammed in here and TLoU2 just needs to calm down. My biggest issue is
the lack of chemistry between Ellie and Dina in the early, opinion forming stages of the game, and the time it took to explain the strained relationship between Ellie and Joel. The opening 3rd is certainly the weakest, I’d argue, for these reasons. The internet comments about woke lesbians and big armed girls - it's embarrassing being a gamer sometimes - were filtered out with the rest of the garbage. The last fight/knife scene was also OTT and got dangerously close to sadism.

TLoU is my favourite game and I didn't want a sequel with Ellie and Joel (some posts exploring why from 2016!) And while some plot elements and pacing could have been handled better, TLoU2 turned out way better than I'd hoped for. In every other respect, it's a clearly better than the original and in some ways industry leading. Big win tbh :p
 
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Associate
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Wait for a sale lol bloke does not know what he is on about game has sold millions the silent majority love it its only a few very loud crybabies that are moaning.
That's mostly positive, with some reasonable criticism.. In fact a lot of the reviews that mark this game as perfect point out the very same flaws!
 
Soldato
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What i will say have a look at some of the accessibility options, if you are having difficulty with combat you can adjust auto aim, and listening distance. One of the coolest settings to play around with is "Max Payne" mode where you can enable slow-mo mode, it can be switched on with a swipe of the touch pad at any time or when you enter combat, fun shooting bits off that way lol


I didnt know about that! Might be good for my 2nd play through.

I honestly can't speak highly enough of this game. I didnt think the original needed a sequel but I'm glad they did.

I hope they don't do a 3rd though :p
 
Soldato
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I didnt know about that! Might be good for my 2nd play through.

I honestly can't speak highly enough of this game. I didnt think the original needed a sequel but I'm glad they did.

I hope they don't do a 3rd though :p

Imagine what ND can do on a PS5! Since this is the PS4's fastest selling game ever for Sony, I think we'll see a 3rd one late next gen. I don't think we'll see another Uncharted game - perhaps a new IP from them next up.
 
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