The Last of Us Part II

The Last of Us 2 closes out the PS4/XBoxOne era with a whimper. Naughty Dog is an overrated puppy mill in the 3rd-person action genre. There are glimpses of what the PS5 might do but this game lays bare the tropes and tired gameplay that has existed in gaming ever since the Playstation 1. Games need to evolve.

The PS1 closed out its amazing collection of games with enough diversity that it's impossible to name just one as the definitive PSX game. Though the PSOne Classic had its detractors, I found that any combination of 20 games would have been fine. The system was that strong. The absence of my favorite game, Tony Hawk 2, did not bother me. Alot of my favorite games don't ever need to be played again. Nostalgia in videogames can be completely eliminated if you boot up most games that you used to love. I hadn't replayed a PS1 game until the PSOne Classic came out. Those games do not hold up well but were enough of a force at the time that im still gaming decades later.

I closed the Playstation One generation out with Tony Hawk 2. This would be the last game that made system limitations apparent. The inevitable 3rd game, though being on the psx, would surely be eclipsed by the next generation ps2 version. This is how you know when your console-relationship is over. Tony Hawk 1 was solid enough of a game that it merited replace-this-console status. If i were to break the console I wouldn't sell games and jump ship to the competing console. I would buy another system. The excitement for THPS2 was that as long as i was given everything in the original plus more then i’d be satisfied. THPS2 delivered. The promise of next generation was evident for a potential 3rd game. I didn't care what Tony Hawk 3 would do on the PS1. I wanted to see what the Playstation 2 would do for THPS3. 3rd-Person action games have reached a point where I don't care what they do on PS4 and I might not care what they do on PS5. The enhancements for LOU2 on PS5 won't bme the departure that THPS3 was for the PSX to PS2 transition. It will be the same game. Power won't be enough. 3rd person action games have worn out their welcome much like other genres have done as well.

There is absolutely nothing that the 2020 remake of Tony Hawk for PS4 will do for me. Nothing that will make me desire that game. Of course there is a price point that I will pick up the game for. However, that has everything to do with the value I place on entertainment and an unwillingness to watch some twitch streamer navigate that game. The console wars and best games arguments are moot, absolutely blunted by the low cost barrier-to-entry. Being able to be part of the Last of Us 2 discourse in a meaningful way through a purchase of a PS4Pro and a copy of the game is worth it. I won't miss a meal. The arguments remain fun and fuel this site, videogame progress, and 99% of what i consume online. The discourse matters because if people are excited about a soundtrack or disappointed in a game for enumerated reasons it's more helpful than a back of the box quote or Gamestop employee will ever be. So if a game like Last of Us 2 is going to monopolize the conversation for 6 months i will pay the bridge troll to have my own angle.

Games in this day and age are truly amalgamations of what has come before and in the case of game series, between titles. Between titles of Tony Hawk the gaming landscape has been saturated with in-game stores, coins, and paywalled modes and levels (graffiti is the only multiplayer mode worth having) all are which deal with monetization. Gameplay wise we've been stagnant for quite some time. What could they have possibly learned in gameplay from other games?. The genre is stagnant. Why are we willing Skate 4 into existence? Boredom? An internet meme? There is nothing Skate 4 can do for me either. 3rd Person action is well tread as well. I hope The Last of Us 2 marks the end of an era and not just the vision of what PS5 will offer.

Much of the gaming community was excited by the June PS5 reveal. For me, all i saw were trailers and gameplay for games doing what they've always done. Last of Us 1 ushered in the PS4 generation by closing out the PS3 generation. Now the Last of US 2 closes out the PS4 generation and promises nothing but the same for PS5. The PS5 reveal really had nothing but trailers and without hands on from this site or others we really should not be excited. Maybe the last games of the generation like LOU2 or Ghost of Tsushima offer the best cues for what next generation will be.

The Last of Us 2 does not deliver? That’s not fair. I’ve only had 1 month to marinate on what I want after recently playing LOU1 for the first time. What do I know? I skipped the PS3 in favor of the 360. I also skipped the abysmal first 3 years of PS4 in favor of the Xbox One. On Xbox One I played Tomb Raider (2013) and saw how immersive quicktime events could be. I came, I saw, I conquered and truly need not see another quicktime event again. Granted, many actions like opening a door is a quicktime event. Hell, everything in a game seems to be a quicktime event. Maybe I don't know what I'd lose if QTEs were completely eliminated from games but I don't really gain much.

I had a PS4 after all the following games were out: Last of Us, Spiderman, Death Stranding, Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Days Gone. I was ready for the potential of a yet released Last of Us 2 . Classic Sony 3rd-person action games. I had been Xboxing enough and a broken arm meant i was going to be miserable so why not explore a system with all of their finest games. My Death Stranding hype was real. I came to realize that these games are all the same game with different coats of paint. I completed Uncharted 4 played some PSNow (which is a tremendous service and better than Gamepass in cost and diversity with Sony games, just a better library all around) and dabbled in other games. I sold the system because paranoia of a price drop eroding trade-in value and I had enough, despite the digital games I couldn't trade in. I'd be back eventually that's how I am. I did leave with a sour taste in my mouth. For all of the PS4 acclaim and 100+ million sold their best was nothing but QTE.

I didn’t experience Last of Us 1 on a PS4 in a meaningful way. It took a pandemic for me to experience it on a PS3. A scratched disc made me want it even more. I endured. As mentioned before I skipped the PS3 in its prime (no such thing, I know) but I absolutely picked up a backwards compatible with PS2 version and a standard PS3. My support for consoles or games ebbs and flow. I have yet to rationalize even a Wii-U purchase. So over the years I attempted to, with my heart of hearts, to play Last of Us 1 on PS3. Unfortunately, all the proclamations of great A.I. and story were not evident quickly enough for me to get beyond the first hour of the game. It wasn't the only game in my collection so I’d live. I'm not one to watch a 10 hour youtube video. I play games. At some point during the COVID quarantine I took stock of all my games. All the ones that I owned but couldn't be arsed to play. Games like La Noire, Mafia 3, Persona 5, Arkham Knight, and Last of Us. My state’s lockdown was to be from Mid-March until June 10th. I could dive into my backlog. I scheduled my play list for the 75 days i would be in quarantine. The Last of Us 1 did not make the cut. As I completed game after game I had a good rhythm. I have to look back at my achievements to even remember what I played because I played so much. I started with completing New Vegas and moved on to State of Decay. I found that I really enjoyed the most horrible of worlds, that mirrored the one I was actually living in. The apocalypse in games is truly cathartic and helped me delineate the range of emotions possible when going through COVID, a real life event. I had not quite made time for Last of Us 1 yet. My PS3 was packed away. Then the spoilers for Last of Us 2 hit the internet.

Here I am with free time and after a couple of days I could have an opinion and thirst for the 2nd game, if that thirst was earned, by completing the first game. I watched all the spoiler videos for Last of Us 2 with no context. The headlines were legendarily hyperbolic. A release date was announced within a couple of days, with the leaks seemingly the impetus. Reddit.com/r/lastofus2 existed and was a dumpster fire. It was a great time and distraction from everything else on the internet. I rummaged through my collection and found my copy of the game in less than pristine condition. I played through Last of Us 1 in about a week. I had to baby the game with alcohol wipes and i refused to even remove the game from the disc slot for fear of creating even more scratches. I contemplated curbside pickup for a newer copy from Gamestop but I really didn't want to be out in the world or over saturating supply channels with my "needs," by having a copy shipped to me. I had a purpose and a date in the future other than June 10th to look forward to. The spoilers did nothing to ruin my Last of Us 1 experience.

I used to work at a movie theater and I've learned to appreciate movies in-order, out-of-order, or having all plot points ruined. It's not that serious. The only spoilers that I hate are the one’s proffered by our favorite podcast hosts when they have a copy of the game and nobody but the initiated can get that same access. It’s unfair and really hamstrings our live podcast listening and chat experience when hosts randomly insert conversation about the game prior to release. Some are better than others at the humble brag. At this point i am sufficiently primed to buy a new PS4 Pro and preorder my copy so i can be ready for Last of Us 2 on June 19th. The Playstation community (source) has dubbed the Last of Us 1 the Game of the Decade. Single-player wise I would agree. I won’t rehash that game here but I had an experience. And as said before the apocalypse has been a staple for my COVID experience.

The collective truth for all of the games that I experienced during quarantine was that they were released and patched well before COVID. As i sifted through my games and looked for the right fit I pondered about when the first COVID influenced game would go live. No, not some itch.io game or some patch into State of Decay 2. A game that, at minimum, went gold during the pandemic. Last of Us 2 was this game. A game about a pandemic should surely speak about our (still present) world. Last of Us 2 should have been delayed. This is the biggest missed opportunity in the history of gaming. Period. For once games could capture the moment not in story or a rewritten plot, just some commemoration. We are all having a COVID moment right now. My inability or your inability to approximate some creative nod to this moment is understandable, we are passive consumers. But the producers and writers and directors have absolutely failed.

The impetus for the release date was almost exclusively the leaks coming out and not this global pandemic. Anthropologist will look at a calendar and this game’s release date (June 19th 2020) and the national state of emergency (March 13th 2020) and assume some things. That's 98 days from an unprecedented world event to Naughty Dog's day 1 patch. People will extrapolate false parallels and deeper meaning in the game than Jesus on toast, after the fact. But as of today, the thread that says that this game acknowledges the impact of world changing events does not exist in their game whether through art assets, in-game dialogue, collectible, or credits. The game fails because of it. This cannot be a 10/10. We ask more of our art. Is this art more than spreadsheets and managed art assets? This is the biggest fail in gaming history. Hyperbole in retrospect? Maybe. Being in the moment? Absolutely spot on. Now I haven't poured through the credits and I kind of wanted an opening title screen offering peace to not only people in the United States but around the world now or into our posterity. If Mafia 3 released in a similar time frame amidst the current climate with Black Lives Matter and confederate monuments and said nothing it would be gross and negligent dereliction of duty. Yet you might find solace in that maybe not everybody that worked on Mafia 3 is touched by Black Lives Matter. There are probably still documents on the printer in the offices of Naughty Dog because someone working from home sent a print job there by mistake. We are all still affected by COVID and have yet to see the true fallout. I can’t believe not one person within Naughty Dog pushed for commemoration of not necessarily the virus but this moment, in their game about a pandemic. The Olympics in Tokyo were cancelled. This needs to be recognized. Their game was touched by this game. And maybe it wasn't. But the prevailing discourse for LOU2 is about whether the game is good or not. Our discourse should be about what Naughty Dog didn't say about COVID what they could have said.

If I am to entertain their themes on revenge and loss yet they don't see the power of this moment then none of their themes matter, because they don't get it. Defenders will say there wasn’t enough time and i don't understand the game development process. My issue is they didn't have a release date. The only impetus for the release date was the spoilers leaking. Hours after the leeks we get a tweet for June 19th. We, as consumers, are at our most forgiving during all of this. If the PS5 were delayed we would understand. It goes without saying that toilet paper is scarce and only the most negative of Nancys continues to drone on about it, we deal. June 19th speaks to a bottom line AND NOT some message or some opus. If your pandemic game can’t be influenced by a pandemic then i really don't care what you have to say. So maybe my actual review will be tainted by what isn’t in the game more so than what is in the game. Maybe there is some easter egg and it will be powerful. It should be more overt. We need that. This game should not be celebrated without it. This game must not be your game of the year.

The Last of Us 2 is a poor bookend to the end of a generation. The promise of next generation, glimpses for what the PS5 holds are here, but the commitment to it falls way short. Failure of LOU2 to incorporate door closing mechanics proves why this game was developed in a vacuum, speaking nothing of what’s happening in gaming and absolutely the real world. The Last of Us 2 absolutely encapsulates the best of the PS4 era of middling 3rd person action games. What am I to expect from PS5? More of this? Maybe they’ll apply a James Bond license to this tired formula and we will have another 30 hour game a poor waste of my time and a 2 hour movie experience, at best. Let me get back to my real life please. Atreus moment? Absolutely. QTE me to death? Yep. I only witness and experience your visually astounding levels just enough to pivot the camera and repeatedly tap triangle to ensure i have accessed every piece of upgrade, because god forbid i miss something and am handicapped further in the level (apparently with accessibility options you can eliminate the repeated tapping of triangle.. so they recognize this needs to exit gaming, permanently). Kudos for unique patterns for each impassable area. Each bush that prohibited exploration was different. Every impassible stairwell had a couch or dresser uniquely placed. The signposting was immaculate. I think yellow is the agreed upon ‘go here,’ paint job. All things existing here existed in some state on PS1. What are we even doing?

Game A.I. is such an oxymoron. The dial is either turned to ‘die more,’ or ‘live more’ in the encounter. Your A.I. doesn't deserve acclaim if the encounter is on rails every time i reset from dying. Sequels shouldn't just be more of the same but that’s what you get here. Nothing in gameplay development serves to enhance that story.

Crafting in realtime created tension in the first game. There is nothing unique yet similarly important here. What does a bigger badder bad even do to Ellie’s motivation? Maybe explore some infighting at Jackson? Don’t just copy and paste enemies with more, in the NES era, pixels. The game just drags because of it. Environmental puzzles were just terrible, not Uncharted 4 terrible, but just are more of what is expected. What would have been more interesting than the ending we got would have been maybe protecting Baby Yoda at the homestead as you make me aware of the threat of infected as it currently affects the world Ellie and Dina live in. Maybe have Abby do a home invasion?Have the courage to end your game.

For the final fight I should have had some say in the outcome of the story. Let me choose whether I control Abby or Ellie. The zeitgeist on the internet during spoiler leaks was that it is impossible to care about the new protagonist, Abby. Though somewhat true, I could learn to hate Ellie, which I did. And if given an option to take over Abby i would have absolutely done so. But games, as you remember are made in a vacuum, this ending was not going to change one iota nor would anything be changed. As evidenced by the E3 trailer from 2018 showing the evening dance at Jackson which was the last 15 minutes of the actual game. No vision shall be detoured from, life experiences be damned. The main failing for this game with me comes with the absence of door closing and not being able to pull our gun out 100% of the time.

Open carry is a threat that i live with in my real life in my open carry state.The characters in this game can take a day off at the dinosaur museum or some other scripted slow-me-down part of the game. No, I don't expect to be able to fire the gun at all times. Actually I do. The threat should be real and apparent. Pervasive even. When I'm at the museum I know nothing is coming for me. Guess children can uncover their eyes, it’s Oscar time. It dissolves the illusion. The threat of zombies should be real, even when i'm getting a bigot sandwich. Door closing mechanics have defined Apex, Fortnite, and PUBG this generation of gaming for both single and multiplayer games. Resident Evil had door shutting creating tension back in 1996. Shut a door to get away. To create opportunity. The LOU2 has none of that. Have they not played anything that utilized door mechanics. It is absolutely the game defining feature of this generation. Call of Duty spent years of multiplayer without it, now it's a thing. Are they not currently playing Fortnite? Door closing is the composite hockey stick to the wood stick. It is the GPS to the road trip. It is essential. It would have been a differentiating factor from the Last of Us 1. As I checked drawers in the first game I wrote off the limited number of accessible drawers to just a fact of the PS3 hardware limitations. Those restrictions continued with Last of Us 2 on PS4. I had an idea that maybe those drawers and doors could serve as an obstacle to zombies. Novel idea? Maybe not, but if you’re going to enhance what exists in the Last of Us 1 you should do something different. The close of a generation and expectations for a next game in a series is that you do everything that mattered previously and you do one thing better. Especially if you’re a flagship title. This does nothing new. There are some good moments though.

The snowball fight really defined the existence of youth for Jackson's kids, something Ellie didnt have. Could that absence be the reason for all of her faults? I enjoyed breaking glass everywhere. The horse experience in downtown Seattle was the moment that i finally got a glimpse at what PS5 will probably do. None of the gatekeeping and visual signposting. Through text and collectibles i made my way through downtown Seattle. Maybe i'm more upset that i knew that wasn't going to last (thanks to an unwelcome pre-release spoiler on the Beastcast) and i would never be satisfied. This game should have been downtown Seattle only. The game is a horizontal experience that shcould have existed only in 2020's CHAZ of Seattle. That is what i want the PS5 to be. The rope mechanic and mostly absence of ladder and total absence of rafting was a pleasant surprise. I don’t think I could have taken more ladders and rafts after playing Last of Us 1 only months ago. If you look at the Last of Us 1 and Last of Us 2 as bookends you really have nothing new. Their downtown Seattle effort was amazing. I want all games to do this. But everything I got was some version of Last of Us 1. Last of 2 has very unique dialogue and environments. I feel like the game remained character driven and I was engaged the whole time. However, the failure to strategically deploy delays to have a bigger message and the lack of focus on doing the downtown Seattle thing for the game just really makes this game another forgettable 3rd person action game that has existed since the PS1.

For a game that incubated during the entire span of this generation you might be surprised that they missed the most important aspects of the gaming generation. One of the most important developments of our life , COVID-19, is absent in any meaningful way. I expected some sort of commentary in the only medium that, currently is safe and free of the dread that is real life. The real world is actively a scary place and games i might have been reluctant to play for their dark settings now seem comically harmless as well as utilitarian and prescient. Naughty Dog had a chance to be a voice during a pandemic. Hopeful of a post pandemic world. No messaging exists in the game, it exists in a vacuum and absolutely fails due to tremendous oversights and failure to bring anything new to 3rd person action.

TLDR: Did I enjoy The Last of Us 2? Yes. Will I ever replay Last of Us 2? Sure, whenever the Last of Us 2: COVID and me edition releases on PS5. This is my favorite game series but I know better than to care about their next game. Sometimes when you have a story to tell you just don’t listen. Score: 5/10