Gaming The Last of Us Part II (PS4)

Redlambs said:
Is anyone else playing on hardest and refuses to use that shit listening thing? I hate that kind of wall hack mechanic in games. I mean there's already an easy mode, why add another crutch that breaks the immersion?

In fact if you bothered levelling up any of that first skill tree, you are bad at games.
Joking, but still git gud khed!​
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Yeah. Only playing it on hard though here, I was quite miffed you couldn't turn it off but I've managed to just not use it at all so far. I usually play this with my platinum headset and with the 3d sound on so it's much better to just listen and guage where enemies are and take advantage of the luscious sound design :drool: it also adds much more tension to the encounters.
 
Finished it(finally) Need some time for it all to settle but my immediate reaction is somewhat disappointed. It looks amazing, the gameplay, dated as it may be, is more refined, love some of the little Easter eggs scattered around.

However It is a little too long, the gameplay, improved as it is, can not carry the length of the game on its own, characters and writing are just not as strong as I would like. It is by no means a bad game, but it has little of that magic in the relationships and occasional lightness that the first had. Unremittingly grim throughout doesn't help, the first was dark but it had uplifting moments.
 
evil_geko said:
I know this dude to be most forgiving and positive "reviewer" out there and even he didn't like the story delivery, pacing etc. Polarizing game like this can't be "best game ever made" no matter how hard some journos want it to be, first one was universally beloved, this one, not really, it will not be in the TLOU, The Witcher 3 etc tier after some time.




This is a great sentence from a CV journo:
In trying to subvert expectations, The Last of Us Part II discards the best aspects of its predecessor to provide a rote revenge tale that is ill-considered, ending on a note that makes everything — all the violence, all the loss, all the struggle — feel utterly, hopelessly pointless.
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A fellow Cohhilition member I see!
 
Surprised. Not many people on my friends list are playing it.
 
About 9/10 hours in now and I have to say the gameplay is brilliant. Such a huge improvement on the first game. Also, the music is great. Got a very Hans Zimmer thing going on.

The gameplay is particularly great at:

the point before you meet up with Jesse. You got all those houses and hills and there’s a group of enemies that show up. A few dogs, too. That bit was excellent. They made it so you weren’t boxed in and you could always escape. It made for a very tense, but very enjoyable combat section. Also, I really liked that bit with Joel and Ellie about an hour before this in the flashback where they wander around that museum. I thought that was a nice section. I just saved it before me and Jesse make a beeline for that truck.
 
Amarsdd said:
No, they are all the gamers who bought the game, finished it and then review (bombed) it within an hour of the game's release.
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Yeah, fair play to them. Completed a 25-30 hour game in an hour or two. Not too shabby.
 
got to what i assume is the midpoint after thinking i was near the end and have lost desire towards finishing it. Really enjoyed it up to that point
 
I did a thing (spoiler warning)

 
100 said:
got to what i assume is the midpoint after thinking i was near the end and have lost desire towards finishing it. Really enjoyed it up to that point
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Keep going, there are some good new characters introduced and moments after that.
 
BusbyMalone said:
Yeah, fair play to them. Completed a 25-30 hour game in an hour or two. Not too shabby.
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Why does a person have to finish a game to review it... its terrible logic. I'm just curious by the way. If a game is bad to a player and not worth finishing their criticism is still valid.
I've walked out of many movies or turned off many films on tv 20 minutes in.

I knew after 2 hours Red Dead 2 had crap gameplay (to me), despite a potentially great story. Its perfectly fine to dismiss something after an hour of playing if its not for you or you think something is so broken its not worth playing out.. I also knew after 2 hours Horizon Zero Dawn would be one of my favourite games ever.

I know you are implying that lots of the review bombs didn't play the game (and they likely haven't) but many may have decided 2 hours in. If someone sat down, found the first 2 hours boring, the next bit terrible and thought the gameplay was clunky and dated thats a legit review.
 
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padr81 said:
Why does a person have to finish a game to review it... its terrible logic. I'm just curious by the way. If a game is bad to a player and not worth finishing their criticism is still valid.
I've walked out of many movies or turned off many films on tv 20 minutes in.

I knew after 2 hours Red Dead 2 had crap gameplay (to me), despite a potentially great story. Its perfectly fine to dismiss something after an hour of playing if its not for you or you think something is so broken its not worth playing out.. I also knew after 2 hours Horizon Zero Dawn would be one of my favourite games ever.

I know you are implying that lots of the review bombs didn't play the game but many may have decided 2 hours in. If someone sat down, found the first 2 hours boring, the next bit terrible and thought the gameplay was clunky and dated thats a legit review.
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I mean, you can have an opinion on whether you want to play on sure. I mean that's not for me as things can, and often do, change but meh an opinion is an opinion.

But to leave a review on somewhere like metacritic after just playing an hour or two? Nah, that's ridiculous and exactly why you can't trust those sites fully. Especially if you are going to go extreme either way.
 
Redlambs said:
I mean, you can have an opinion on whether you want to play on sure. I mean that's not for me as things can, and often do, change but meh an opinion is an opinion.

But to leave a review on somewhere like metacritic after just playing an hour or two? Nah, that's ridiculous and exactly why you can't trust those sites fully. Especially if you are going to go extreme either way.
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Maybe generally I don't know leave reviews but its the same amount of time something like Steam gives you to rate a game for a refund etc.. In general how I feel after a couple of hours is generally how I feel at the end. I finish 99% of games and nothing changes. I think most reviews that are less than a 4 are pretty biased in general with regards to almost every game, unless they are flat out broken. I don't think there has been a AAA game in years that would be down there cept maybe Fifa.
 
padr81 said:
Maybe generally I don't know leave reviews but its the same amount of time something like Steam gives you to rate a game for a refund etc.. In general how I feel after a couple of hours is generally how I feel at the end. I finish 99% of games and nothing changes. I think most reviews that are less than a 4 are pretty biased in general with regards to almost every game, unless they are flat out broken. I don't think there has been a AAA game in years that would be down there cept maybe Fifa.
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The steam thing is about compatability, mistakes, fraud and all that too tbf.

But I'm not sure if you are disagreeing with me about leaving reviews, but I stand by the point it's ridiculous. It's like listening to the first 3 seconds of an album and then thinking you can leave a review.

Again though, if you form an opinion like that then you do you. You've probably missed out that way, but then again you've also likely missed some real stinkers ;) But do you think you can actually fairly review a game after that time?
 
padr81 said:
Why does a person have to finish a game to review it... its terrible logic. I'm just curious by the way. If a game is bad to a player and not worth finishing their criticism is still valid.
I've walked out of many movies or turned off many films on tv 20 minutes in.

I knew after 2 hours Red Dead 2 had crap gameplay (to me), despite a potentially great story. Its perfectly fine to dismiss something after an hour of playing if its not for you or you think something is so broken its not worth playing out.. I also knew after 2 hours Horizon Zero Dawn would be one of my favourite games ever.

I know you are implying that lots of the review bombs didn't play the game (and they likely haven't) but many may have decided 2 hours in. If someone sat down, found the first 2 hours boring, the next bit terrible and thought the gameplay was clunky and dated thats a legit review.
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I think its important to differentiate between saying "I don't like the game or playing the game" vs saying "the game is shit". Its totally fair to say the first thing after playing 1-2 hours of it. But the review bomb was more of the second within hours.
 
Played 3 more hours. Much better. The did the exploration part pretty well so far to be fair. You benefit from exploring optional areas and it isn't a chore.

Combat and stealth are pretty outdated though. Doing the job yes, but outdated and new ideas I have seen so far aren't really new when it comes to other games around.

Though they might saving something up their sleeves to show later in the game.
 
padr81 said:
Why does a person have to finish a game to review it... its terrible logic. I'm just curious by the way. If a game is bad to a player and not worth finishing their criticism is still valid.
I've walked out of many movies or turned off many films on tv 20 minutes in.

I knew after 2 hours Red Dead 2 had crap gameplay (to me), despite a potentially great story. Its perfectly fine to dismiss something after an hour of playing if its not for you or you think something is so broken its not worth playing out.. I also knew after 2 hours Horizon Zero Dawn would be one of my favourite games ever.

I know you are implying that lots of the review bombs didn't play the game (and they likely haven't) but many may have decided 2 hours in. If someone sat down, found the first 2 hours boring, the next bit terrible and thought the gameplay was clunky and dated thats a legit review.
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It's a legit point, however some games just start pretty poorly and improve a lot later on, and some starts well but goes down hill or becomes very repetitive as you progress, thus it's fair to point out concerns on the game early on but writing a full review about the game, I think you really need to get the full experience first before you do such thing (writing a review that will tell others whether they get it or not).
 
padr81 said:
Why does a person have to finish a game to review it... its terrible logic. I'm just curious by the way. If a game is bad to a player and not worth finishing their criticism is still valid.
I've walked out of many movies or turned off many films on tv 20 minutes in.

I knew after 2 hours Red Dead 2 had crap gameplay (to me), despite a potentially great story. Its perfectly fine to dismiss something after an hour of playing if its not for you or you think something is so broken its not worth playing out.. I also knew after 2 hours Horizon Zero Dawn would be one of my favourite games ever.

I know you are implying that lots of the review bombs didn't play the game (and they likely haven't) but many may have decided 2 hours in. If someone sat down, found the first 2 hours boring, the next bit terrible and thought the gameplay was clunky and dated thats a legit review.
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Im in the same boat there, but i think any game deserves a bit more than two hours, especially story driven games like these with slow pacing in the start.

That being said though, i read a really good point about why RDR2 and TLOU2 got almost universal acclaim from reviewers despite users not feeling the same. They play games for a living and are forced to play through "safe" generic games again and again for hours upon hours, so when a game like TLOU2 comes along that breaks out of the mould, they get a bit (over) excited.

The review bombing is utterly pathetic though. For all the shrieking on the right about "safe spaces", its a bit ironic they lose their fecking minds like this just because the protagonist is a lesbian
 
padr81 said:
I know you are implying that lots of the review bombs didn't play the game (and they likely haven't) but many may have decided 2 hours in. If someone sat down, found the first 2 hours boring, the next bit terrible and thought the gameplay was clunky and dated thats a legit review.
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Many many games take more than 2 hours to get going. You don’t even get anywhere in TLOU2 within 2 hours. I’m currently playing Horizon after beating TLOU2 and I was about to bounce off it after the first 2 hours. Because the pacing of the beginning is slow and it isn’t as polished - the transitions from game to cutscenes are clunky, talking to other characters is awkward. Even though it’s a AAA title and a lot of people’s favourite game, the amount of polish is actually night and day.

However, I’m finally starting to get into it because the world has opened up. Video games that last longer that 12 hours can’t be reviewed after 2. You can review your experience with the game, saying I realised it wasn’t for me, but you can’t actually say whether it’s good or not. If I reviewed Horizon after two hours I would have shat on it, but that’s because I haven’t scratched the surface of the story, seen much of the world, the fighting is relatively boring with no upgrades and there were only three types of enemy in the initial area.

I mean to use your tv/film analogy, you walked out because you weren’t interested. Do you honestly think you have enough information beyond ‘I didn’t like the beginning’ to form a well rounded opinion on the product as a whole? How many books/films and tv shows are famed for having slow beginnings but are considered masterpieces. The Wire is considered one of the best shows ever, but everyone always says you have to get through the first few episodes.
 
Really enjoying the Abby story now considering when it started I just assumed it would be quite brief to show 'her side' but now I'm kind of rooting for her. Almost completely forgot I was previously playing as Ellie. It's an interesting way to go and not seen it done like this in a game before.

I'm just at the bit where I'm with the kid and we need to get to the hospital via the rooftops.
 
To genuinely review media (games, films, TV) you have to finish it. Otherwise it's just an opinion on an incomplete experience.

Loads of films have endings with mental twists, imagine "reviewing" a film without knowing the twist. You'd be reviewing a completely different story.

I haven't found TLOU2 to be too bad in the beginning compared to some games, a bit too much slow walking tbh, but most games do that now so it is "longer".

Coming straight off the back of my playthrough of the first it doesn't feel clunky at all, quite the opposite.
 
Solius said:
Really enjoying the Abby story now considering when it started I just assumed it would be quite brief to show 'her side' but now I'm kind of rooting for her. Almost completely forgot I was previously playing as Ellie. It's an interesting way to go and not seen it done like this in a game before.

I'm just at the bit where I'm with the kid and we need to get to the hospital via the rooftops.
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I tried but I just can’t find any compassion or connection with her. My wife has taken over her part because she gives no fecks about storylines in games and just aims to cause destruction :lol:

The sooner it goes back to Ellie, the better.
 
Finally completed the game. It was brilliant! After hearing all the hate I expected it to suddenly make me hate it towards the end. I’d give it a 9/10. Some parts of the game are just a bit too long going through all those buildings and starting wearing on me. But everything else was great. The acting, Graphics, Story and the character development. I’m glad I like the game. Thank feck!

The ending was so nerve wrecking because I didn’t expect to like Abby at all after what she did. But in the last couple of hours playing as her, I began to like her and Lev. I was begging Ellie not to kill her because they’ve both gave it to each other a lot. He killed her dad, she killed Joel and then Ellie killed all her friends. And Abby nearly killed everyone when they met again. Enough blood has been spilt for it. It just wasn’t worth it anymore. I’m glad she spared Abby. Man that fight was vicious. Little bit sad that Dina didn’t wait but it’s understandable.
 
Bobcat said:
Im in the same boat there, but i think any game deserves a bit more than two hours, especially story driven games like these with slow pacing in the start.

That being said though, i read a really good point about why RDR2 and TLOU2 got almost universal acclaim from reviewers despite users not feeling the same. They play games for a living and are forced to play through "safe" generic games again and again for hours upon hours, so when a game like TLOU2 comes along that breaks out of the mould, they get a bit (over) excited.

The review bombing is utterly pathetic though. For all the shrieking on the right about "safe spaces", its a bit ironic they lose their fecking minds like this just because the protagonist is a lesbian
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I don't agree that people are angry because Ellie is a lesbian, my main issue with the game was that it was a miserable experience all the way through and the game doesn't allow you to do anything else but miserable things (then they have the audacity to make you feel like shit for doing said things).

The game drags on for far too long and that isn't helped by who you take over in the middle of the game. The gameplay is far too repetitive to keep going for 25 hours and it isn't evolved enough from the previous game.

Also, the hype and the perfect review scores didn't help. This game isn't 10/10, it should be at the highest 7-8/10 and some reviewers comparing this game to Schindler's list just made people ready to tear the game a new one.
 
padr81 said:
Why does a person have to finish a game to review it... its terrible logic. I'm just curious by the way. If a game is bad to a player and not worth finishing their criticism is still valid.
I've walked out of many movies or turned off many films on tv 20 minutes in.

I knew after 2 hours Red Dead 2 had crap gameplay (to me), despite a potentially great story. Its perfectly fine to dismiss something after an hour of playing if its not for you or you think something is so broken its not worth playing out.. I also knew after 2 hours Horizon Zero Dawn would be one of my favourite games ever.

I know you are implying that lots of the review bombs didn't play the game (and they likely haven't) but many may have decided 2 hours in. If someone sat down, found the first 2 hours boring, the next bit terrible and thought the gameplay was clunky and dated thats a legit review.
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Well, there you go then. It was obviously a comment on the knuckleheads who haven't played it. You don't need to play the game in its entirety to form an opinion. And I wasn't saying otherwise.
 
Amarsdd said:
I think its important to differentiate between saying "I don't like the game or playing the game" vs saying "the game is shit". Its totally fair to say the first thing after playing 1-2 hours of it. But the review bomb was more of the second within hours.
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100%. I completely disagree with the review bombing of the Last of Us.
 
edgecutter said:
I don't agree that people are angry because Ellie is a lesbian, my main issue with the game was that it was a miserable experience all the way through and the game doesn't allow you to do anything else but miserable things (then they have the audacity to make you feel like shit for doing said things).

The game drags on for far too long and that isn't helped by who you take over in the middle of the game. The gameplay is far too repetitive to keep going for 25 hours and it isn't evolved enough from the previous game.

Also, the hype and the perfect review scores didn't help. This game isn't 10/10, it should be at the highest 7-8/10 and some reviewers comparing this game to Schindler's list just made people ready to tear the game a new one.
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Only he wasn't doing that (if it's the same guy we're talking about).

As an aside, I also find the "this game or this movie isn't a [insert random number score here] a bit weird. It's fine if you don't think that, but it's all subjective. It's the implication that the score is somehow "wrong" I find it a bit weird.
 
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BusbyMalone said:
Only he wasn't doing that (if it's the same guy we're talking about).

As an aside, I also find the "this game or this movie isn't a [insert random number score here] a bit weird. It's fine if you don't think that, but it's all subjective. It's the implication that the score is somehow "wrong" I find it a bit weird.
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I can agree on the score, but the main journalist reviews bigged this game up to such an extent that the hype was insane, it's a good game (gameplay wise) albeit with a very poor plot that has been done better elsewhere.

In my personal opinion, I didn't enjoy the game, and that could be on me as I went in with high expectations, but people have to stop with the sexism, homophobic and transphobic arguments as these shouldn't be used to beat people because they didn't enjoy the game.
 
macheda14 said:
Many many games take more than 2 hours to get going. You don’t even get anywhere in TLOU2 within 2 hours. I’m currently playing Horizon after beating TLOU2 and I was about to bounce off it after the first 2 hours. Because the pacing of the beginning is slow and it isn’t as polished - the transitions from game to cutscenes are clunky, talking to other characters is awkward. Even though it’s a AAA title and a lot of people’s favourite game, the amount of polish is actually night and day.

However, I’m finally starting to get into it because the world has opened up. Video games that last longer that 12 hours can’t be reviewed after 2. You can review your experience with the game, saying I realised it wasn’t for me, but you can’t actually say whether it’s good or not. If I reviewed Horizon after two hours I would have shat on it, but that’s because I haven’t scratched the surface of the story, seen much of the world, the fighting is relatively boring with no upgrades and there were only three types of enemy in the initial area.

I mean to use your tv/film analogy, you walked out because you weren’t interested. Do you honestly think you have enough information beyond ‘I didn’t like the beginning’ to form a well rounded opinion on the product as a whole? How many books/films and tv shows are famed for having slow beginnings but are considered masterpieces. The Wire is considered one of the best shows ever, but everyone always says you have to get through the first few episodes.
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And if you jumped out, you'd be perfectly entitled to and leave a review saying "This is boring" and add your criticisms". Thats my point. It is not your fault you thought the start of the game was bad. It's Guerilla Games. You pushing through a game you don't enjoy is perfectly fine but so would be you reaching a point where you've had enough and jumping out, giving it a bad review. All your criticisms of Horizon are legit and very unlikely to change, the transitions from game to cutscene are similar, the dialog is similar. All that is likely to change is your opinion on the story. If you decide that's not worth pushing on for, that is a fair call.
 
edgecutter said:
I can agree on the score, but the main journalist reviews bigged this game up to such an extent that the hype was insane, it's a good game (gameplay wise) albeit with a very poor plot that has been done better elsewhere.

In my personal opinion, I didn't enjoy the game, and that could be on me as I went in with high expectations, but people have to stop with the sexism, homophobic and transphobic arguments as these shouldn't be used to beat people because they didn't enjoy the game.
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Have you ever considered that those reviewers did not aim to "big the game up" but simply gave their honest appraisal which you happen to disagree with? No one should be expected to agree with any particular opinion but I find the notion that "their opinions created expectations that the game did not live up to in my opinion, therefore those opinions are false" a weird one. You have a different opinion than those reviewers, there's not really any more to it.
 
edgecutter said:
I can agree on the score, but the main journalist reviews bigged this game up to such an extent that the hype was insane, it's a good game (gameplay wise) albeit with a very poor plot that has been done better elsewhere.

In my personal opinion, I didn't enjoy the game, and that could be on me as I went in with high expectations, but people have to stop with the sexism, homophobic and transphobic arguments as these shouldn't be used to beat people because they didn't enjoy the game.
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Preach.
 
padr81 said:
And if you jumped out, you'd be perfectly entitled to and leave a review saying "This is boring" and add your criticisms". Thats my point. It is not your fault you thought the start of the game was bad. It's Guerilla Games. You pushing through a game you don't enjoy is perfectly fine but so would be you reaching a point where you've had enough and jumping out, giving it a bad review. All your criticisms of Horizon are legit and very unlikely to change, the transitions from game to cutscene are similar, the dialog is similar. All that is likely to change is your opinion on the story. If you decide that's not worth pushing on for, that is a fair call.
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I know what you’re saying. Regarding Horizon I thought the beginning of the game was bad - so many open world games start super slowly. But now I’m probably 5 hours in and the combat is great and the open world super interesting.

I couldn’t in good conscience recommend or advise people not to play a game I’d barely played. The furthest I could go is ‘nah not for me’, unless it was truly truly broken. I mean I just tried to start Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and my word the game seems shocking in the first hour or so, but from what I’ve read of other fans, once you get into the meat of the game and forgive its bugs, it’s really engaging. I can understand that because my favourite game of all time is Oblivion. I’m probably not going to play Kingdom Come because I’m not in the mood to push through, but I’m not going to have a firm opinion on it purely because I haven’t seen what it has to offer.

Giving a game a total score for a partial play through doesn’t sit well with me. I mean it wouldn’t have an effect on a company of Naughty Dog’s size, but say I was playing an indie game with 10 reviews on Steam. That one bad review with only 10% played isn’t helping other gamers make an informed decision, but more importantly it’s adversely affecting the indie studio.
 
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