actionpact

Well, I would have to say that the people giving this game 0 to 3 ratings are overreacting quite a bit. That said, many of the complaints people have about this game are totally valid. For large parts of the story, characters show little to no emotion about anything that's going on, and everyone is just hellbent on revenge, no matter how alien their indifference to murder might seem to their character. Ellie and Tommy spend no time thinking about how, just maybe, Joel kind of brought his fate on himself. Ellie herself says that she doesn't think she can forgive Joel for what he did in TLOU 1, so why on earth would the people on the other side of the equation be able to forgive him? To them, and I would imagine to most who played the game, Joel is, well, kind of f'ing evil. Ellie and Tommy are decently intelligent people, and yet they never even begin to explore any internal conflict or potential empathy with those they seek vengeance against. It's super frustrating. Even when that development does happen within the space of literally 1 second near the end of the game, it isn't explored or questioned, but just kind of happens out of nowhere in a relieving but pretty dumb way. That, at least, is my main beef with the game. As for actually playing the game, it's really similar to the first installment. The mechanics are more or less the same, but smoothed out a bit (I only found the game clunky in a few ways that didn't impact my enjoyment terribly. The shooting felt really smooth, though), and the skill trees/supply gathering at all very familiar. I wouldn't say that's a bad thing, really. It might have been interesting to add some new elements, but it could also have just bogged down an already decently robust combat system. It's super stressful at points, as we would expect, but does an okay job of breaking up the really creepy bits with only somewhat creepy bits. Definitely more jump scares than I would have liked. The acting is as good as you would expect. Shannon Woodward does a great job as Dina, who despite a limited role is a bit of a highlight of the game (despite apparently having 0 judgement), as does Laura Bailey as Abby, who actually I thought was pretty cool but to each their own. The thing is, the interactions between the main characters and their companions are really good, but just don't really happen enough and generally aren't as deep as you might like. With most of the negative out of the way, the game is actually pretty good. It's not ground breaking like its predecessor, but that is an insanely high bar. Character development does fall a bit flat, but that doesn't make the story entirely bad. the POV change part way through I actually found really interesting and refreshing. Playing through the second half makes you view the first half in new context, a context that even still isn't really explored enough in games. The game also looks great and for the most part is fun to play, though there is definitely some padding in there. The ending is, well, it's not what you want. I'm still not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand there is some poetry to it that contains a nuance the rest of the game can't seem to find, but on the other hand something is just... missing. There is a definitive lack of closure and honestly postmodern endings are just not it anymore. Still, I can't help but feel that this game's biggest flaw is that it's the sequel to The Last Of Us, and perhaps it was never possible to recapture that depth. Everything about it is seems cool, and on the surface level is cool, but isn't fleshed out. In most games I really don't think that would be a big deal, but here it is. I want to get to know Lev and Yara more, I want to know more about the Seraphites, about how WLF came to be and what they want. I want to learn more about Dina's story, I want there to be stretches of the story where literally everyone you meet doesn't want to kill you on sight, because so much of the game is actually really cool and good, but so little of it is embellished on. Basically, this game is that is really, really good, except there's too much of what you don't really want, and not enough of what you do want, and so while I still enjoyed playing it (a lot!), there were too many flat moments for it to stand out as a truly great game. I really hope they consider a trilogy, because I know there's enough still there to make something remarkable. And also all the people complaining about how it's too intersectional can ****.