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  1. #76
    Invincible Member Havok83's Avatar
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    Im opposite. I wasnt feeling it as much when playing the second half of the game for story reasons, ranked it below the first game and would give it an 8.5 but after beating it and with time removed, I see it as a masterpiece. 10/10 game

  2. #77
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    Quote Originally Posted by Havok83 View Post
    Im opposite. I wasnt feeling it as much when playing the second half of the game for story reasons, ranked it below the first game and would give it an 8.5 but after beating it and with time removed, I see it as a masterpiece. 10/10 game
    I'll be considerably surprised if people still feel this way in a couple of years. Give it time. Bioshock Infinite was an untouchable masterpiece a year into launch and then after people sunk their teeth in and so on, they realized there was nothing there and its shine faded and never came back.

  3. #78
    Mighty Member TriggerWarning's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    I'll be considerably surprised if people still feel this way in a couple of years. Give it time. Bioshock Infinite was an untouchable masterpiece a year into launch and then after people sunk their teeth in and so on, they realized there was nothing there and its shine faded and never came back.
    Its only been 1.5 months but my feelings are only growing stronger about this game. I played it and was blown away. Was ready to declare it best game of the current console generation right then. I immediately went and played the first again, first time in about 5 years, and found it so wanting in comparison til the end when the bond between Joel and Ellie finally connects at which point I remembered why I loved it so much. Then i played II again and it still was great.

    Now a month later having not played it I only feel stronger and if anything my statement of best game of the generation, formerly held by Horizon Zero Dawn in my book, is faint praise. This IMO is the best overall game ever made because it completely transcends what a video game is thought to be capable of. For comparison, I'll use the Uncharted games which are also by Naughty Dog and because after TLOU2 I decided to go back and finally do these games. I'm on the last one, Thiefs End, right now. They are fun games and tell a great story but when I'm done with them they don't linger with me. Its been a month since TLOU2 and I still think about how emotionally invested I was in the game and how it so emotionally connected me to the game: Only two other games ever in my life have done that for me: the First Last of Us and Horizon Zero Dawn. By comparison in the third Uncharted game there is a scene where you think Sully died and I just kinda yawned and went on. While the games are well told and fun they lack the emotional transcendence that the TLOU games gave.

  4. #79
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    Quote Originally Posted by TriggerWarning View Post
    This IMO is the best overall game ever made because it completely transcends what a video game is thought to be capable of.
    Leaving aside my and your subjective feelings,
    -- TLOU2 is not especially innovative in gameplay terms. It's basically a standard third person shooter, and in terms of using gun mechanics to convey meaning about the impact and nature of violence, stuff like Far Cry 2 has it beat. That game had weapon degradation and jamming of guns in key moments so that emphasizes the tension, paranoia, and fear in any gunfight as well as the brutality and psychology of being in conflict, being constantly on the move and so on. Whereas TLOU-2 is essentially a military fantasy where even in a post-apocalyptic system you don't have weapons that get jammed and need to be kept clean and maintained. The weapon upgrade systems with its detailed animations adding upgrades in loving visuals, is classic "weapons porn" all said and done and in fact serves as a perfect example of "ludonarrative dissonance" because the solid gun mechanics does run counter to the game's criticism of violence and conflict. The finale where ycu go in and satisfyingly kill all those Rattlers at the end and except for the part you meet Abby, it's all played as Rah-Rah.
    -- In terms of level design, TLOU-2 is classic point-A to point-B linear storytelling, and in fact many people have criticized the game for dispensing with the platforming and traversal puzzles that you had in the first game and in fact other ND games like Uncharted. When people consider innovative games on this front, they think of Sands of Time, or ICO.
    -- Most of the emotional moments in TLOU-2 happen entirely in cutscenes rather than gameplay. If you were to remove the cutscenes of TLOU-2 and consider the actual gameplay component, I think TLOU-2 would be severely and drastically reduced and diminished.
    -- In storytelling terms, almost every beat in the game has precedents. The whole controversy of switching from Ellie to Abby is basically Metal Gear Solid 2 Snake-to-Raiden all over again. The concept of forgiving a villain who hurt someone you love was done in DISHONORED with Corvo and Daud. Killing off a player character from a previous game in a cutscene by a character who you later play was done in GTAV when Trevor stomped the face of Johnny Klebitz in his opening cutscene, and then the first playable mission has you going on to massacre what's left of his supporting cast from The Lost and the Damned. Deconstruction of the protagonist and so on was done with Spec Ops the Line among others.

    So in most respects, TLOU-2 is not an innovative or original title in gameplay, or storytelling. Graphically it's quite a leap, and technically in terms of motion capture performance it's quite advanced, some of the presentation and consumer-approach, i.e. the accessibility system is definitely a step up. But in general it lacks the substance of what is truly considered the greatest games ever made, whether we are talking of the creativity and level design and ludic possibilities of Super Mario 64 or Portal and Portal 2 which is still among the very few truly original games made in the last decades, or the mystery and poetry of ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, not to mention its visual richness. In terms of storytelling it lacks the epic scope, detail, intricacy, polish and emotional richness of titles like The Witcher III and, as you mentioned, Horizon Zero Dawn.

    For comparison, I'll use the Uncharted games which are also by Naughty Dog and because after TLOU2 I decided to go back and finally do these games. I'm on the last one, Thiefs End, right now. They are fun games and tell a great story but when I'm done with them they don't linger with me.
    In terms of level design, I know I'll remember the train and the Himalayan mountains in Uncharted 2, and the Colombian flashback, the ship level, the Rub'al Khali desert from Uncharted 3, as well as the city in Madagascar, the open countryside of the mountains, and Libertalia in Uncharted 4...far more than I will any level in TLOU-2, where the settings and background levels are fairly generic for the most part. TLOU-1 because it had the roadtrip plot from the Uncharted games had many memorable settings and levels too, whereas Seattle in this game is not good.

    It does say something that the level considered the best in TLOU-2 is the flashback level with Joel and Ellie at the museum and not anything in Seattle or for that matter Jackson.

  5. #80
    Incredible Member Robotech Master's Avatar
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    I would rate the game a 7/10 so far. Some gameplay improvements, but not as much as I would have liked to see since I think the first game had some real weaknesses in this category and was mostly held up by the story and presentation. This game is gorgeous and has really great level design, although some of the stealth mechanics and enemy AI were not touched up enough for how well expanded the environments are, the enemies feel like they are still in a boxed in area and I cleared way too much of the game with the "wait in the same location for a dude to come by to strangle, strangle the dudes who come to check on him, move on to next area where people are patrolling, repeat, maybe throw a Molotov at a dog since its the only threat to my plan" strategy. They did better with this in the Scars village, which is why I think it might be the highlight of the game in terms of gameplay.

    The story is Ok, but I'm reminded of the earliest days in my education of literature and creative writing where we reviewed early drafts of stories, where I see the intents, the leads, the unsubtle "when you're lost in the dark, look for the light" cues, but don't quite see the refinement or natural progression of those ideas, and it pulls me out of full investment. Alatreon came out last month in Monster Hunter World and I honestly ended up jumping back into that game and don't have much desire to finish TLOU-2.

  6. #81
    Ultimate Member ChrisIII's Avatar
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    I enjoyed it. My main problem is that it was sort of mainly a somewhat generic "cycle of revenge" kind of story, and I did like that we do get the same basic events from two perspectives/parallels, but I kind of missed the whole kind of bonding/road trip aspect of the first game although we do get a little bit of that with Abby and Lev, and the Dinosaur museum flashback with Joel and Ellie was perfect.


    I'm kind of curious if ND will work on some Uncharted title for PS5. Not necesarilly with Drake but something like Lost Legacy, which was pretty good (and kind of influenced some aspects of TLOU2, such as the melee system)
    Last edited by ChrisIII; 08-18-2020 at 05:07 PM.
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  7. #82
    Invincible Member Havok83's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChrisIII View Post
    I enjoyed it. My main problem is that it was sort of mainly a "cycle of revenge" kind of story, and I did like that we do get the same basic events from two perspectives/parallels, but I kind of missed the whole kind of bonding/road trip aspect of the first game although we do get a little bit of that with Abby and Lev, and the Dinosaur museum flashback with Joel and Ellie was perfect.


    I'm kind of curious if ND will work on some Uncharted title for PS5. Not necesarilly with Drake but something like Lost Legacy, which was pretty good (and kind of influenced some aspects of TLOU2, such as the melee system)
    I doubt we'll get anther Uncharted bc 4 really was about swan songing Drake's adventure. We got Lost Legacy but I think thats it. ND traditionally dont carry a series past 1 console gen and they did that twice with Uncharted and TLOU already. While we may get another TLOU, I truly think they are ready to move on from Uncharted (they started the first one in 2004!). I suspect the first game announced for the PS5 will be a brand new IP

  8. #83
    Ultimate Member ChrisIII's Avatar
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    They did express some interest (In some interviews when LL came out) in following Sully and Drake's brother, plus the british guy from 3, further adventures of Chloe, or maybe Drake's daughter. However it's possible they've abandoned those plans by now.
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  9. #84
    Ultimate Member ChrisIII's Avatar
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    Kind of funny that for a game set in Seattle and featuring quite a few landmarks (although many renamed), the space needle is pretty much given only a passing glance.
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  10. #85
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    Overall, i feel the game is technically marvelous. It looks and feels amazing but has major issues.

    However, my main problem with the game are its pacing and length. There is so much walking that parts of the game are a slog, and the use of flashbacks wasn't well executed because some of them literally had no relevance to the greater narrative. The game then introduces a THIRD faction near the end of the game which just seemed tacked on and kind of unnecessary at that point. Missions were darn repetitive too, this sort of game should just not be 25-30 hours.

    The story itself was well told and i really could understand both characters (i.e Abby and Ellie) perspectives. I eventually came to appreciate Abby a bit more. Ellie going on that murderous rampage despite knowing that Joel did made me question her more. Even after Abby spared her...TWICE...she still went after her. Like WTF?? The game showed Abby's growth from a ruthless killer to a more compassionate character but did the opposite with Ellie because she descended more and more into her blood thirst.

    Lastly, Druckman and co need to understand something- games are not movies. Trying to critique violence in video game that has you the player commit extreme acts of violence against humans and even dogs doesn't make sense considering gaming is an interactive experience. I literally did not feel anything cutting down enemies in the game because the entire experience is "kill or be killed". Whatever message Druckman was trying to convey here didn't transmit at all and frankly it was a poor attempt.

    Ultimately, I'll give the game an 8.5/10. It's a great game but not a masterpiece.

  11. #86
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    Quote Originally Posted by Username taken View Post
    Lastly, Druckman and co need to understand something- games are not movies. Trying to critique violence in video game that has you the player commit extreme acts of violence against humans and even dogs doesn't make sense considering gaming is an interactive experience. I literally did not feel anything cutting down enemies in the game because the entire experience is "kill or be killed". Whatever message Druckman was trying to convey here didn't transmit at all and frankly it was a poor attempt.

    Ultimately, I'll give the game an 8.5/10. It's a great game but not a masterpiece.
    Agreed with this.

  12. #87
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    This long review of TLoU-2 really gets into the flaws of the game, and it does so in a way that acknowledges what it's trying to do and all the stuff it gets right.

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