"If Bioshock Infinite was Irrational’s Christopher Nolan’s Inception, The Last of Us is Naughty Dog’s Cormac McCarthy’s The Road."
I don't have a dog in this fight, but jeeeeezus his writing is bad. Mentioning Bioshock 4 times in the review isn't helping - it's lazy and has no value to people who haven't played Bioshock. Clearly playing for clicks.
Oh boy, that really is a terrible, terrible line. Not only is it clunky (Irrational's Christopher Nolan's?) but it makes an asymmetrical comparison (video game to movie, video game to book), the first of which I would call a little bit ridiculous. I guess thematically Inception and Infinite both deal with regret and are a bit mind-trippy (Infinite far moreso than Inception) they're still miles apart. The comparison to The Road does make sense, kind of, but are either of these (in the canon of art, very recent) releases some sort of huge watermark studios will model games after in some sort of tribute? No.
He goes further: "If there’s any Hollywood in this game, it’s the downbeat art house Hollywood of the Coen Brothers’ True Grit, Joe Wright’s Hanna, or Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild. Young women coming of age in harsh times and the men who try to protect them." The point of the sentence is to introduce the main theme and characters of the game, and demonstrate that it has been done before. However, the sentence begins with a comparison to Hollywood, hot off a comparison in Uncharted's production values to that of a Hollywood film. A comparison to Hollywood (or really any sort of design studio) would be one involving style or production values, not plotline. A "downbeat art house" movie like Drive has a plot rather similar to a movie like Fast and the Furious; it's not the story that makes it art house, but rather its tone and visual style. The movies he uses as examples are perhaps the most different movies possible, in style and production values, with Beasts of the Southern Wild not really even counting as a Hollywood movie. Yet again, the examples he uses are very recent films.
Here are some other highlights:
"There will be no baptism. There is only the father and this child of men. Okay. The central question of Bioshock is “Dude, what if there were a million dimensions?” The central question of The Last of Us is, “How do you demonstrate that you love your daughter more than all the world?”
I haven't played the Last of Us, but those don't seem like the central questions of either game.
"Metro: Last Light is another linear shooter with sneaking elements (and a very similar theme), but it has a consistent gameplay identity, an ongoing setting and tone, a sense of focus that sustains it"
He seems to only be able to evaluate a game through comparisons.
"It visits urban jungles, suburban idylls, and even wilderness, but it’s always the same tortured rooms and hallways"
What is he saying here? That in the wilderness you walk through the same hallway and room models (or even outlines) as when you're indoors?
"But the zombies become oddly peripheral, and they’re way too silly. They’re fungus zombies. Did anyone think this wasn’t ridiculous?"
He finds it ridiculous that a disease could be spread through a fungus.
"Furthermore, the entire McGuffin that motivates the characters to make their journey is a disappointing cliche and nearly as eye-rolling as Milla Jovovich herself being the fifth element."
Another comparison to a movie completely unrelated to the game, if only to show that he has seen movies and has opinions about them.
"Furthermore, there are no stakes. There is no risk of failure in a game like this. There is only the risk of having to play the same section yet again."
What modern game hasn't used a system like that? He provides no comparison for this.
I'm fine with a reviewer not liking a game, but this is just awful.
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