No. 49 The Last of Us Part 2.
I've so many thoughts on this game I could write pages and pages and I think it gets a lot of hate it doesn't deserve. Yes, there are pointless throwaway characters that were never fleshed out so their deaths were meaningless, yes Joel getting the golf club was done in a disastrous way, yes the cut in the middle to Abby and resetting all progress is super jarring (although it's a bold choice to handle progression in a longer title), Yes the pacing is wonky etc. But what this game does well, it does extremely well, the themes of revenge and an eye for an eye hits hard and the game hits on some incredibly emotional beats not just in the story but in some of the combat sections as well. I've never seen such brutality in a video game, something I'm hardened against but at times the game made me physically ill with some of the kills and other times rushes of andrinaline while running through an enemies encounter after being caught and gunning everyone down. It has masterful emergent gameplay and like Red Dead Redemption 2 has yet to be mached in that next gen feel, esspecially in the animations department and minor details in stuff like the rope physics. The kills using some kind of random generation animation based on the situation is wild and leads to incredibly emergent scenes that look like they were scripted. The story while disjointed is pretty damn good when you dissect it. It forces you to feel certain emotions and it does it very well. I think some people weren't ready for this game.
There's a reason this game has such a high completion rate at 60% on ps4 and the pandemic lock down is only one factor, the game is simply addictive to play and gets it's hooks in early and they don't release until you've seen it through. Pandemic or not people wouldn't play that long on a bad game and this game is long indeed for a linear narrative game. I believe the people complaining to be a very small loud minority.
With the above said it is no. 49 on my list so it does have it's flaws as I've mentioned above but it's simply cause there are so many great games on my list that are less flawed. TLOU pt 2 is a 10/10 on a knifes edge for me despite it's flaws it makes up for them in other ways. Great game I plan on replaying next year.
Last edited by LegitHyperbole - on 13 November 2024
