Spoilers ahead - be warned if you haven't already finished this game!!!
Opinions are like bumholes. Everyone's got one, some choose to sit on theirs while others choose to let theirs trumpet away with long sour notes of distain. I fall into the latter camp and while all the plaudits and praise for "The Last of Us Part II" are still winging their way in, I'm still left feeling like I wish I'd never bought this wretched game.
I'm not here to troll or just put up a completely contrasting opinion for the sake of it. I'm actually genuinely pissed off that I spent money on TLOU2, in fact I'm not even sure why I did - other than that usual lure of "new game" shinyness and a vague appreciation for the original (certainly not a game that would've been anywhere near my 'Game of the Year' list but quite an accomplishment on the PS3 - showing just how technically dazzling Naughty Dog's games can be).
So what's up with the sequel? God, where to start. I play games in that loose kinda fashion that most busy dads do. I play them for a momentary distraction from a million other things. I play them because I want to feel like I'm enjoying playing them, getting something out of the damned things. I definitely do not play games to feel like I'm performing some daily chore and from start to finish that's exactly what TLOU2 felt like.
The game mechanics themselves were immediately problematic for me. Each and every action you perform in the game hinges around how much looted weaponry you can scavenge from the shattered landscape that acts as the backdrop to the game, and how you can prepare for the hordes of humans and creatures you will need to kill in order to progress. Most survival horror does at least attempt to introduce an element of problem solving that goes alongside the ammo rationing and health maintenance, yet TLOU2's meagre scattering of puzzles let me down even more than the scant ones you got in Naughty Dog's other breathtaking (and for me preferable) series, the Uncharted games.
The main problem with games like this is that they are designed to appeal to the sort of gamer who will find the violence in the game enjoyable, perhaps even addictive.
"Did you see that woman's face explode? Man that was AWESOME!" I can imagine them braying to their dudebros over the virtual watercolour at work or over Zoom. Now, I'm not some sensitive wallflower or snowflake who can't cope with violence in games, but there were times where TLOU2 took it to excess, almost glorifying in how realistic every smashed head, shotgunned face or twisted neck could look.
Technically the game does look amazing, and the amount of work that went into designing a rotting post-apocalyptic Seattle was, for the most part, quite something to see. But just as you settled into admiring the art direction there'd be another skirmish, another gunfight, another tedious mind-numbing burst of action (usually geared around killing everyone as quickly as possible) to distract you from the game's aesthetic.
Then there's what they did to the storyline and the characters. Those of you who played the first will know about the whole decision Joel made about Ellie - the supposed cure for the horrific fungal destruction of the human race. Let her die, providing a possible antidote, or rescue her, let her live. Joel opted for the latter and that part of the narrative almost feels like it was lightly passed over in favour of something else - a set of interlocking revenge scenarios lurching between Ellie, Joel, Tommy and Abby.
Who the hell is Abby?
I must admit I don't remember Abby or Abby's dad from the original game, because we're meant to believe in the first game that Joel (and Ellie) are the "Good" guys, and the Fireflies at the hospital are the antagonists. Yet in TLOU2 we're introduced to Abby first as a vile murderess with an obvious revenge vendetta about Joel (which we're not really clued into until much, much later in the game) then as something of a sympathetic character. There's even a point where you begin playing a major chunk of the game as Abby, even at one point engaging in a hideously tedious cat and mouse sequence where your aim is to subdue Ellie.
Wait, what? So you're playing the goodies AND the baddies in this game? What the hey?
In fact that's another major part of the problem. In trying to be innovative and push the narrative from both sides, Naughty Dog took a major chance with the way you play each 'side' - in an attempt to allow you the insight into what drives Abby's lust for revenge, and what later drives Ellie's equally self-destructive redemption / revenge plot.
A same-sex relationship is bludgeoned into the story with all the sensitivity and finesse of someone trying to fit a traffic cone in a warthog's most tender orifice. To be fair, some aspects of this do offer some of the game's nicer moments but overall is so clumsily dealt with that it felt more like a box-ticking exercise than anything new or revolutionary.
Later on, more box-ticking as a young transexual boy is given the same treatment, woven into the plot - again with all the style and deftness of a teenager badly sewing a patch onto their least favourite pair of jeans.
Don't get me wrong. I want that stuff in games, I think that stuff belongs in all manner of storytelling and narratives, but it loses its relevance if those elements are just there to say "hey look at us, we did this in our game, we deserve a pat on the back for it" rather than being an intrinsic part of what makes the plot stand out (put it this way, if those elements were NOT there at all, would there be any difference to the game? It didn't feel like it, which really burns).
The two near-superhuman women who form the core of time spent during gameplay (Ellie and Abby) couldn't generate any sympathy from me, any enthusiastic response to their plight. In fact both irritated the hell out of me with equal measure to the point that when I thought the game was drawing to a close, I was actually relieved.
My relief lasted moments as the game then decided that there wasn't quite enough revenge bullshit going on - and off Ellie went for her final confrontation with Abby. At this point I was hanging on in there purely because I'd spent my own cold hard cash on this bloody thing, way past the point of exacting any enjoyment out of it at all and then 2 hours later when the game finally did end - with what I can only describe as one of the worst deflated kid-party balloons of an ending, I swore I would never play this again, and I would almost certainly never buy another TLOU game.
This all probably sounds extremely whiny but I genuinely feel like I wasted a huge amount of money on this. Gamers are a funny lot, particularly us lightweight part-time gamers who aren't in it for the achievements, or to play through the game on the hardest mode possible (I actually chose the level 1 up from 'so easy you could probably sleep your way through it' purely because I wanted to at least have a fighting chance at seeing the whole thing - and I'm glad I did because I sincerely can't imagine how pissed off I'd feel if I'd made it any more challenging than it already was).
Naughty Dog are a team who know and learn their platform hardware inside and out - they know how to make stunning visuals but they're a team that seems to pander to gun nuts way too much (imagine, for example, an uncharted game that didn't involve Nathan Drake offing thousands of goons in the pursuit of buried booty).
Summary
I'm angry about this piece of crap. I think the only final thing to say about TLOU2 is that it will undoubtedly win every award going this year, purely because there's actually not a massive amount to go up against (personally I hope Ghosts of Tsushima blows it out of the water, it certainly has sales wise at least). In terms of the end of a console generation / release wind-down in anticipation of the Xbox Series X / Playstation 5. I can imagine folk actually enjoying some elements of the game, but I was left cold by almost every aspect of this, not a single element in the gameplay appealed or felt anything less than a right royal pain in the arse. I hated the relentless violence, I hated that the whole premise of why the world had gone to crap was completely glossed over in this (instead of menacing clickers or nasty spores, you're just facing off against arsehole humans for most of the game, just like in any other tedious shooter).
I do wonder if this would've been an entirely different game post-COVID.
I'm now left with no lasting love for any of the characters in this series, and absolutely zero desire to have anything to do with any future games or offshoots (I hope ND move on to something new but I've a feeling there's going to be a third game at some point, maybe on the new hardware, and I will avoid it like the fecking mushroom-headed plague!)
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