Game:

The Last of Us Part II (2020)

Duration: 31:33

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This is one of my favorite parts of the game. I don't do all that well, but I was just replaying LOU2 on the PS5 to see how it runs. I'll probably stop when I get to the Abby section.

I missed a lot of items. I practically walked right past some of them.

The PS5 60fps version does have occasional odd texture drops here and there while the engine tries to keep the 60fps going. There are noticeable stutters in some places when a new sequence is loading without a transition (such as when new WLF forces are arriving at the TV station and Ellie and Dina will have to run).

I'm still a story hater on this game. The simplicity of my issue is that when I found out what was done in the story, all I could think to myself was wtf did they do that. Then I found out Neil wanted a revenge story for the first game, and the leadership dialed that back and made the story gameable with strong characters. Then the leadership left and Neil rehashed his revenge story for LOU2, and made the flow of the story incredibly manipulative beat for beat (Ellie gets that look on her face when she sees the two victims of Tommy's torture, eventually Ellie presses on (has to press on) on her own leaving a pregnant girlfriend at the hideout, which makes her repeated killing more reprehensible because there isn't a second presence to help validate it, in the heat of the moment she decides to go after Abby instead of help Tommy when in another moment she might have chosen otherwise, and Abby never kills any dogs and gets two kids to save.)

The trouble for me is that my concept of a game that I like usually remains consistent or at least improves as I find out more about it - trailers, finding out here and there more of what happens in the game, watching let's plays, and playing it myself. For this game, the trailer excited me, finding out what was in the game made me say wtf, I watched let's plays to see reactions, and I played it (pre-owned copy only) to experience the parts that looked cool. Playing through it gave me a slightly more accepting viewpoint towards Abby because I got a stronger sense of her internals, but only just. My whole experience with this game is just pure division, which ultimately makes it pointless. I'm angry at the creators for that. And the story structure, with 4 rising actions and drop-offs (Ellie finally meeting Abby, Abby saving Lev, Abby fighting Ellie, Ellie saving then fighting Abby) is just awful.

I can easily say the sequel didn't meet with my expectations of how the story would be continued after 7 years. Neil just did what he wanted without a care at all for providing a real answer to how the first game should flow into the second. He just hurled his own tastes and agenda at it without respecting or regarding what came before, and that makes the story effort completely adolescent. I'll always see this game that way. The kinds of world events between the first and second game are consistent (zombie world, human groups, fight for resources, complex resulting human dynamics) - the themes and intent of the creators for Joel and Ellie and their story and the devices around it are not. There is a proper respect to be paid to what came before, and this game isn't it.

The game has a lot of technical excellence going for it - and people clearly worked very, very, hard on it. For that reason only, I'm not too against it winning game of the year. Its story just doesn't rise to the task at all. It's a solid monument built in a place that blithely crushes the relevance of the first game rather than building on it. I feel like people who openly love this game's story and characters just let themselves be spoon-fed whatever the creators decide to slide at them. As someone who would like to make a game someday, I find that pattern of creation distasteful. Consumers deserve more respect for their time and money.

I frankly wasn't very impressed with Uncharted 4, either (although it had some really good sequences), and I'm guessing I'll be just as unimpressed with Naughty Dog's latest venture.

Even now I look at a recent video of someone experiencing the game exactly as it is for the first time, and the top comment is "finally an unbiased opinion!" No, every opinion is biased, every single one, including the comment of someone who clearly loves the game praising an unbiased opinion. I need to stop reading those comments because all they do is anger me.

After remembering how angering the division is over this game and how so many people use words like unbiased and beautiful towards it to argue against the haters, I was considering just uninstalling it and trying out the next game on the PS5. But I sat down, picked up the controller, and played through the end of Day 2. The stalker section, the Scars, the WLF at the hospital - the play is so compelling, once I'm in it, I just keep wanting to do so. I just so wish the story, its structure, and Neil's intent lived up to all the other qualities.

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