The Last of Us Part II

[Manicm]

Only put an hour into this, but wow! And my PS4 is quiet...not Xbox quiet but quiet, I did vac the air vents clear all the dust from it first. Graphically it’s stunning, I can’t let myself get too invested, the PS3 is plugged in, controllers charging so I can play the first game...

[AndyKurosaki]

I’ve had a few fights where I’ve enjoyed chucking a brick at clickers, that made them go towards human enemies. Then kicking back and finishing off whoever survives the carnage. Fun times. 

[one-armed dwarf]

Yeah I did that too, I'm looking forward to figuring out how the AI gears churn. Feels like they've got a default state where they have medium range of vision, then heightened alert where they will notice you more quickly. Then like the scenario where you get the clickers to chase them they are so distracted you can sort of move a lot more freely and flank them.

 

So it already feels much more dynamic than TLOU1 which kinda felt limited imo and was mostly shanking and shooting.

[mfnick]

Just started Day 2

 

Spoiler

 

How good was that Jurassic Park/Museum and space section?! Holy shit, that may be up there as one of my favourite video game sections of all time. I loved everything about it. Perfect pacing by and as always in this game too, just as I was getting mega stressed out from the main gameplay (in a good, intended way) it give you these amazing, quiet character moments where you get a few minutes to breathe and relax. 
 

I’ve only come close to tears from a game once or twice before, one of which (and the only one I remember) is from the origins TLoU. This has done it twice now where I started getting a bit of something in my eye - Joel’s death, and the moment in the Capsule. So well done, that look Joel gives Ellie after passing the tape. Expertly done. 
 

Works so well as a horror game this too. Liked how they built you up to have a fight in the 2nd museum - loads of ammo and crafting bit - to just shit you up with a quick jump scare and that was it. Good touch. 
 

The Shambler sound effects are even better than the Clickers too. Fucking terrifying having them in a room with you just because of the sound. 

 

Special shout out to the way this uses Surround sound too, it’s so well done. Being able to tell the game where your speakers are and adjust the Dynamic range on the fly without messing about with the AV settings should be the norm. Really appreciated. 

 

 This game is so good! 

[Maf]

I don’t know if I like the combat in this just because it’s so hard. It’s not bad by any means it’s just over the top tough. I’m thankful the game just continually throws never ending amounts of ammo and materials my way because if I couldn’t Rambo dudes to death I would be screwed. The human AI is just too smart for me. I’m constantly getting flanked and cornered and shot down. I find they also move really rapidly so as I’m trying to put a plan together they’ve wandered off somewhere else. I heard the AI in this was really dumb, and there was one moment where I basically created a stupid, stealth game death corridor where hapless idiots kept wandering in one by one, but apart from that they have me on the back foot all the time.

Even the Infected manage to mess me up over and over. They’re significantly easier to deal with for sure but if one gets alerted and I’m not ready for it it’s just a mess. They should be so easy but my success of stealth killing them all is embarrassingly low. 
 

It’s not that I don’t like the combat, I just don’t like being bad at it. This game is going to take lots of practice ?

[Snaggletooth]

Pretty sure clickers have changed, they amount of times I have been crouched motionless with a clicker a few meters

away just for them to detect me, never had that in first game.

 

Not noticed to much in the way of the smooth animations of the trailer from 2018 but then I am playing rather conservatively and not rushing in

because usually means getting picked off, similarly enemies are much better now at flanking you which makes for so great tense encounters.

 

That being said, taking a shot with the pistol,to stun the enemy then ruch in with a lead pipe, still so satisfying and love the thud as it collides with the 

enemies skull. Also Shot a human enemy who was situated at distance above me, thought I got a clean headshot, but all I could hear was pained screams,

I quickly moved on.

[AndyKurosaki]

I’m on Normal, had a few deaths but nothing too tricky. Thankfully there’s no difficulty trophies, so I might attempt the Platinum as it doesn’t seem too bad.

[Maf]

I’ve died 4 times so far. It’s not hard in the sense that I die a lot, just every fight is very messy and feels like it’s always falling out of my control. Somehow people always end up behind me, or somehow a Runner always sees me. It’s not tough to win it’s just tough to be good at it, I find. 
 

Oh, and I’m playing on Normal. 

[one-armed dwarf]

I'm playing on hard. Tbh even if things get messy the auto aim is very generous and the game makes a point of making sure that bullets absolutely destroy people. I usually only have around 3 handgun rounds, 2 shotguns and 1 or 2 rifle shots and haven't found that to be too little or anything so far

 

The on the fly crafting stuff is good too. One encounter I had one guy as a human shield, a bomb at the far off door and his friend start shooting at the guy I had (why don't they hesitate? This is really weird to me, not like how it is in MGS). Dudes come running in the door I'm not watching when they hear the commotion and get blowed up and I shoot the other guy and drop the human shield.

 

Tbh tho I'm getting the sense there's not much more to these encounters than this. Unless there's a ton of other stuff you can craft later or there are weird environment gimmicks.

[Maf]

Maybe hard mode is different but from the 2 or 3 times I’ve had a human shield the other guys don’t start firing until I fire on them. 
 

Also smoke bombs and bricks/bottles are my best friend. I just wish I was using them for tactfully instead of panicky. 
 

On Normal supplies are plentiful as well. For maybe 3 hours yesterday I was basically completely full on every ammo and material type. To the point I would find a health pack when I was at 90% health so I would have to use one just to pick up a new one. 

[one-armed dwarf]

Make more molotovs

[bellow]

I'm on normal. I'm doing quite well, but I'm extremely cautious and stealthy, although I do like the old bottle stun/knife to the throat combo if a location is virtually cleared. Call it a kill of celebration.

 

Just walking around and open area at the moment, finding notes and putting question marks on my map. It's good.

[Maf]

The facial animation in this game is amazing except when it’s not. Most of the time it’s good to great but sometimes characters look very strange. 

[one-armed dwarf]

Captured a hard mode Day 2 encounter, features doggo violence. Spoilers

 

Spoiler

 

 

Really enjoy figuring out the AI in this, there's a big improvement in the design here compared to TLOU1. It's not just about being sneaky, it's about being noisy also and creating diversions.

 

Strongly recommend headphones and setting the audio to such in the menu, or having good surround sound. You can hear the position of NPC when they are searching you down, you can also figure out which ones have a dog with them and try and isolate them both.

 

Maybe that 3D audio thing on PS5 could actually be really cool. 

[Hendo]

I’m on Day 3 I think. Made it to the Ferris wheel, which should indicate where I am without spoiling anything.

 

Playing on Normal, died a fair few times.

 

I’m really enjoying it but not finding it as brutal as I was probably expecting. Might be expectations, or the worst is yet to come, or just 2020 yo.

Having said that, some of the Ellie deaths and enemy deaths can be really fucked up, but the story itself isn’t as brutal as I was expecting.

Yet.

 

It’s good but it’s probably not one I’ll be in a rush to play through again, mostly due to how long it is.

[DisturbedSwan]

I’ve been playing on Hard since the beginning but bumped it up to Survivor briefly in Day 1 just to see what it’s like. I have to say for my previous grievances I felt with the combat not changing a lot from the first game the way you can now adapt on the fly is extraordinary.

 

I was in one area yesterday with 2 clickers and about 4 infected. Tried and died numerous times trying the stealth approach, another attempt when I got spotted I decided to just try to survive and it was so fun sliding over counters, getting a few quick shots of then dodging attacks left and right whilst making sure I put the Clickers down. It’s just exhilarating stuff, really does feel like you’re on the edge of death constantly, one wrong decision and that’s the end for you, especially with clickers about.

Day 1 gate puzzle:

Spoiler

Did anyone else fiddle about with that rope at the gate by the way? I messed around with it a bit but saw a few vids after of people doing some stuff with it and it’s just crazy how much stuff you can do with it and what you can bend it around in that area without the game cracking.

 

I have to say though that my last session wasn’t that fun. The area I’m in is like a mix between Left Behind and Lost Legacy - well the whole game has been quite similar to Left Behind in many ways - and even though I was still enjoying it I was just a little bored. Everything that came before has been extraordinary though - with a severe emotional gut punch being dealt at one point - so I’ll cut it some slack, I will say that I hope this Lost Legacy-esque format from this area doesn’t continue throughout the rest of the game though. 
 

Lots of pics, all in spoilers but I’m only up to Day 1:

 

Spoiler

 

[mfnick]

@DisturbedSwanwhat do you mean by the lost legacy and Left Behind format? Just not sure because I’ve not been bored once. Hope you don’t mean the

Spoiler

museum

section. As I said before that is one of my all time favourite sections from a game. 

[one-armed dwarf]

Frankly I think I found a lot of day 1 pretty boring. I'm just really not into the sort of Naughty Dog diorama thing they do where you aren't really engaging much with the game, but I've definitely been surprised by day 2. I'll probably also try and see what it's like on Survivor. I'm deliberately trying to not use the detective vision stuff so that might be cool.

 

It's kind of got a thing where it's like if Metal Gear is all about systems this is way more about AI and how it behaves and reacts. Also your ability not to just plan but to quickly get out of a messy situation. It can be very exciting although I have to feel like if the game is all about making you feel bad about how brutal everything is they maybe shouldn't have made it fun to play cause it kind of feels a bit weird lol

 

Ellie has one animation where she repeatedly stabs doggos in the ribs and they whine. Not cool even if the dogs were being naughty by trying to eat her

 

BTW I am finding the Pro noise a problem now. I play with headphones but this game is so quiet and is about picking out NPC chatter and dog noise with some very little ambient soundtrack. Which is drowned out by fan noise. Really shit system

[AndyKurosaki]

10 hours in, on Day 2. Been having a brilliant time with it. Well, except for the dogs. I don’t feel too keen on killing them. But when they’re bringing enemies towards me, it’s them or me. I had one moment where there were two guards and a dog. So I chucked a petrol bomb and killed all 3. Felt a bit grim. But hey, rather them than me.

[DisturbedSwan]

I checked your spoiler and I’m not that far into it yet @mfnick ? so no.

 

As for the Lost Legacy and Left Behind analogy. 

Spoiler

The way I’m going around this little open world area and ticking off locales on the map is very similar to Lost Legacy. The vignettes and developing relationship with Dina is similar to Left Behind.