Satsuma wrote:
1) Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Xbox) - 7/10
2) The Division 2 (Xbox) - 8/10
3) Horizon: Zero Dawn (PS4) - 6/10
4) Horizon: Zero Dawn (DLC - The Frozen Wilds) (PS4) - 7/10
5) Ghost Recon: Breakpoint (DLC - The Terminator) (PS4) - 3/10
6) The Surge 2 (PS4) - 6/10
7) BioShock 2 (DLC - Minervas Den) (PS4) - 6/10
8 ) Bioshock Infinite (DLC - buried at Sea Episode 1) (PS4) - 3/10
9) Bioshock Infinite (DLC - buried at Sea Episode 2) (PS4) - 7/10
10) Sea Salt (Xbox) - 8/10
11) Astral Chain (Switch) - 5/10
12) Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening (Switch) - 7/10 6/10
13) Code Vein (PS4) - 5/10
14) Call of Duty: MW Warzone (PS4) - 8/10
15) Ori & The Will of the Wisps (Xbox) - 10/10
16) Dark Souls: Remastered (PS4) - 9/10
17) Flashback (Switch) - 2/10
18) Gradius/Nemesis: The Gradius Collection (PS4) -
19) Hyper Dot (Xbox) - 10/10
20) Outrun (Switch) -
21) Remnant (Xbox) - 9/10
22) Monument Valley 2 (iOS) - meh
23) Streets of Rage 4 (Xbox) - 9/10
24) Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (PS4) - 8/10
25) Star Wars: Republic Commando (Xbox OG) - 7/10
26) Persona 4: The Golden (PS Vita) - 10/10
27) Panza Dragoon: Orta (Xbox OG) - 8/10
28) The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4) - 9/10
Boy, it’s long. I kinda wish I’d known about that before going in as my expectations as to where the story was going was completely fucked. Y’know when you watch a film you’ll get 90 mins or, more likely these days, 2 hours and a few minutes and it’ll be done. Or you read a book and look at the number of pages or the thickness of the book, you generally know what you’re getting. Or you buy a CoD game and you know you’ll get 4+ hours or a JRPG and you know it’s a 50 hours plus. Here, I think I’m at the end and I’m only half way through. Because of that the pacing felt off and it took me some time to readjust to the second half.
But the thing is, the second half probably has the most memorable set pieces and action. In the first half it’s all very familiar stuff gameplay-wise but in the second half it’s larger action sequences and really memorable sequences - skybridge is a technical feat and the descent through the skyscraper is fucking great. Even some of the story beats are great with your rescue (also a beautiful escape through a forest lit with torches in the rain) and then following your companions. There’s a utterly brilliant sniper section that has a fucking wicked ending that genuinely stunned me.
Then there’s the extended epilogue. I was thinking it was the game that never ends, but I was enjoying myself so much I couldn’t care less. And something that baffles me about the epilogue was that was the only time where helmets are introduced!? 5 minutes from the end and all of sudden the baddies realise they should protect themselves from arrows in the face. Mind you, they aren’t much protection from explosive arrows dumping your lunch over the pavement.
As to the story, I really enjoyed it.
ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
Joel’s thoughtless murder sets off Abbey’s revenge. Abbey’s story is all about her living with herself after she gets her revenge. Obviously the revenge murder doesn’t lead to a resolution at all and she continues to get the nightmares of her dead dad, her singular motivation to get revenge had lead to the breakdown of her relationship with Ewan. It’s not until Ewan gets in trouble and wants to leave and Abbey helps some children does she stop having the nightmares and starts to find meaning in life.
Ellie’s story is all about getting her own revenge which inevitably leads her to go through all the things Abbey already has: it destroys her relationships, kills her friends and is ultimately empty. Although she does realise the latter right at the last minute.
It’s not the most original story but it’s presented extremely well. The voice actors and mo cap are all terrific and exciting.
Yeah, I didn’t like the knife fight at the end as Ellie just couldn’t let it lie which felt wrong at that stage but everything before and after it was great stuff.
It’s nothing that we haven’t seen or read before but it was still interesting and I enjoyed seeing play out. I felt sad after it had ended and wondered what would happen to Ellie from there. I hoped she would seek out Dinah.
I’ll tell you what I didn’t like so much: the Scars. Religious nutters who just live off the land based on a mysterious island. I just don’t believe people would go that mental after an apocalypse and the religious nutters have been done to death. Their design was great and I just loved the whistling, mind. It was just the story based on a large scale faction warfare; it was too grand for my tastes. I’d preferred something more low scale where the two sides weren’t two armies and one wasn’t obviously bad because they’re religious nutter who slash their members faces, but that’s by the by.
So yeah, it was extremely good but you’d best get your expectations in check before you go in because you’ll be playing for some 25 hours on the easy difficulties but it you play it like it’s supposed to be played on the hardest difficulty you’ll be with it for a good 30 hours (31 for me). I’d suggest you take a break after the first half of the story too.
A spectacular technical achievement and a worthy follow up.