The Last of Us Part II

[DANGERMAN]

I mean, firstly all of this should probably be in spoilers, but not killing someone is very rarely worse than killing someone

[DisturbedSwan]

What Ellie does is far worse in my view. 

[one-armed dwarf]

The worst deed of all was that Pearl Jam cover.

 

Cringed my way to another dimension.

 

Anyway when the hell is this getting multiplayer? I was just reading through the thread there and reminded myself that I actually really liked this game for a bit before getting a bit stuck on a boring section

 

Think I would like something a bit more gameplay focused.

[retroed]

Edited various posts for spoilers.

 

I'm glad this got all the GOTY awards. it deserves them.

 

[DisturbedSwan]

 

 

[Whiskey_chaser]

So the PS5 patch made me finally finish this. I'd gotten about 18 hours in and stopped playing for a bit and just lost momentum with it.

So glad I did go back though because wow. What a game. I don't think I can really add anything to what's already been said but I'm firmly in the 'gaming masterpiece' camp. Some bold story choices made by ND and I salute them for it. I see a lot of feedback saying it doesn't work as a critique against video game violence because it's so brutal but i'd disagree. It's so unequivocally violent, there were moments where I actually had to stop and take a breather throughout because of my actions in the game. It was a game that shoved the consequences of your actions back down your throat and then realise how futile the payoff was for said actions.

And team Abby all the way.
 

[shinymcshine]

It's now reduced to £9.99 at Game (online) plus £4.99 p&p or free collection in store.

 

https://www.game.co.uk/en/m/the-last-of-us-part-ii-1285539

 

Seems more relevant here than tucked away in the Bargain thread.

[shinymcshine]

On 28/01/2021 at 23:25, retroed said:

Edited various posts for spoilers.

 

I'm glad this got all the GOTY awards. it deserves them.

 

 

I appreciate that I'm only 3 hrs in but whilst it could be 'cut scenes of the year' the actual gameplay, so far,  isn't particularly good at all.

 

It also annoys me quite how much Ellie's character model jogs backwards and sidewards when moving, rather than turning like a regular person would.

 

Oh and those 'hint' prompts, when you're free exploring and it feels like they game is saying 'hey dumbass, get a move on' - can't see how you can turn them off (other than just ignoring the prompt) .

 

Don't get me wrong, I don't start off being on the hater pile (I've avoided reading any of the spoilers/opinions) but first impressions aren't great - I just hope it improves.

[one-armed dwarf]

Yeah, it's basically a drawn out movie game for a really long time. Gameplay wise though it gets really good and surprised me.

 

That said I never beat it cause I don't like ND's storytelling much and I thought the game was needlessly violent in a way it struggled to justify. I have plenty of time for games that deal with negative emotions (Pathologic) but the main thing I took away from the graphic murdering in TLOU is you should stop playing it after a while. Because it's probably not healthy to get to a point where that stuff stops bothering you, so I stopped

[Maryokutai]

From a certain point onwards I was actually surprised by the limited amount of cutscenes in this. Of course there's quite a few at the start of chapters or during pivotal moments but there are actually rather long gameplay segments in between. And speaking of those, yes, it doesn't reinvent the wheel, but they do manage to kind of make every are feel different and fresh by changing the layout, the cover possibilities, the enemies you encounter etc. I really don't think it felt drawn out for the most part, though it does tack on quite a bit of maybe unnecessary stuff at the end.

[shinymcshine]

I've just hit Seattle, seem to be allowed some free wandering, and it already feels a bit better.

 

Opening the gate added a bit that I liked :

Spoiler

Having to throw the power cable over the fence - where, without onscreen prompt, after picking it up I thought, "Oh it's not long enough to go around, from generator to main gate control, maybe if I throw it (like you can bricks, bottles etc)" and yes, and it worked.

 

Simple but effective.

 

A bit like using the prone crawl to check out under some structures to find hidden loot.

 

[mfnick]

I thought the gameplay in this was fantastic. The stealth and shooting mechanics felt great IMO. Probably best playing stealth focused game Ive played.

 

Give me all the violence too! All

of it! 

[bellow]

Killing the dog handler and watching the dog mope around tearfully was great tho....?

[shinymcshine]

I guess my biggest take after 11 hrs is how indifferent I feel about the game - it looks fantastic, but the gameplay is quite banal and the whole tension and vulnerability from the first game feels lost with Ellie somewhat becoming Nathan Drake's little sister, oh well.

[one-armed dwarf]

IMO, if you're finding it banal give the difficulty modifiers a look. You can change everything at a really granular level.

 

I think it's less Nathan Drake you want to be emulating and more Rambo. It's a lot of running around/being sneaky and baiting people with traps and loud noises. If you tweak it so resources aren't as available it turns it into a game where you've got to be a bit more creative.

 

For me I never liked the first game cause the systems in it felt so undercoooked, the clicker stealth was terrible and boring and it always bothered me how your AI companions were invisible to enemy AI. Towards the end I just dropped it to easy to get it over with cause there wasn't much of a game there, but the sequel is the total opposite

 

[shinymcshine]

Acknowledged, but I shouldn't have the do that to make the game interesting.

 

I just don't feel the same character engagement that I did in the first one, for example:

Spoiler

I'm pretty sure I was suppose to feel some emotion when the horse got shot in Seattle Day 1, but I'd found I wasn't really using it for free exploration anyway, and it was no Argo in SotC moment.

 

Furthermore, there's no loss or consequence of dying, reloads pretty much from the same part, so death is trivialised (yes, I could play permadeath, but really....).

 

I think ultimately it all feels a bit too much like playing a mid 90s RE or SH game, wander about, pick up resources, read (way too many) notes, do a simple puzzle, repeat - and when I'm not feeling any particular connection to the characters and story, it all feels a bit mediocre.

 

I will continue hoping it develops more though.

 

[Maryokutai]

It's not going to fundamentally change, and personally speaking while I didn't dislike the second half, I preferred the first one due to the overall tension. Two teens going on a revenge mission against an organised group where every misstep could kill them and end their journey abruptly – yeah, it didn't quite translate that well over to the gameplay but I just found the entire experience to be extremely intense.

 

I don't remember what difficulty level I played on, but it was probably just standard normal difficulty or something. Overly difficult sequences in games like this usually have the opposite effect an me as they frustrate me and therefore take me out of the game by reminding me that it is, in fact, a game. I feel like the sweet spot between punishing and cake walk is ideal for a cinematic experience like this, but if you're not feeling that side of it, maybe making it harder and tackling it as a classic videogame challenge will work better for your personally.

[one-armed dwarf]

7 minutes ago, shinymcshine said:

Acknowledged, but I shouldn't have the do that to make the game interesting.

 

Well it will fix your problem though. It's a mainstream cinematic sony exclusive so by default it's tuned to something bordering on walking sim with pretty graphics because it's pitched to an extremely wide audience, most of whom might not be interested in having to retry sections or have consequences for dying. But it's really scalable in all directions. From accessibility features for people with poor vision to hardcore survival modifiers to turn it into something more intense. I wouldn't bother with permadeath either but I found that the checkpoints on some areas were still fairly spaced out

 

To be clear I'm not a defense squad for this game, or ND in general. But if the default difficulty is not exciting you then ND really have you covered here in the most thorough way possible. I can't say anything to the story stuff cause I already wasn't that invested anyway from the offset because it wasn't very original. Children of Men came out a long time ago after all

 

I can't remember what difficulty this was on, it might be default actually. But one thing I appreciated in it is the tactic of using big, loud violent encounters to direct enemy AI in a direction and then flank them. Which becomes more useful if your ammo constrained and can't afford to engage in open firefights

 

 

This video here is way too long, but I thought this neighbourhood section was especially well designed. Lots of different ways to approach it, especially when sneaky. But staying low profile is only one option, going loud in this game is also handled really well. It transitions between a stealth game and an action one in a really seamless way

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Maryokutai]

Yeah, that area was one of the best in the game, lots of different options to go about it and the dogs made sure you couldn't just stay in one place all the time.

 

Another one I really liked was the mall with the flooded ground floor.

[one-armed dwarf]

The thing I really like also is the way the AI will have names for each other, so eg a character will call out someone called 'Evi' and say 'hey, check out what's in that house'. Then you might eliminate the dude that was talking to her and use that contextual information to pinpoint where 'Evi' is. Particularly if you play with headphones you can depend so much on sound cues. If you make a lot of noise in one spot then you can use the direction of people's shouts to figure out where from they will rush to you, and then flank them.

 

I compared it to Rambo but I actually think Predator is another effective analogue, the systems in the game support that. It was one of the biggest surprises for me how clever ND suddenly got at designing stuff like that after how flat the TLOU felt to me. By the same token the zombie enemies really don't have the same level of depth, except if you bait them and cause a huge battle between them and the humans you're fighting. 

 

I'd love to see ND take these ideas and make a VR game, but it's unlikely that Sony will ever allow that kind of money go into VR.