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The Last of Us Part II - Review Thread

Final predictions?

  • 95-99 (Same as Uncharted 2, The Last of Us)

    Votes: 639 46.6%

  • 90-94 (Same as Uncharted 4, Uncharted 3)

    Votes: 599 43.7%

  • 85-89

    Votes: 90 6.6%

  • 80-84

    Votes: 14 1.0%

  • 75-79

    Votes: 4 0.3%

  • <75

    Votes: 24 1.8%
  • Total voters
    1,370
  • Poll closed .
McScroggz

McScroggz

The Fallen
Jan 11, 2018
5,981
Are you a journalist who reviews a high profile game with a narrative focus that has moments where the gameplay and story go in directions you weren't expecting and hasn't been publicly shown?

Are you a journalist who has issues with sensitive topics related to the story and characters of a high profile game that you want to talk about but would spoil the game for players who haven't had a chance to play the game?

Are you a journalist who got the game four weeks before release and had an embargo lift one week before release?

Write/record your review in a professional way that doesn't spoil the game for players, and if there are issues you can't discuss broadly for whatever reason allude to there being problems with the game you'll go in depth with later and move on. And you know what? You now have another piece of work to bring in revenue and add to the discussion of the game!

Like, maybe I'll play the game and be like, "yeah I can see why some reviewers felt like they should have been able to talk about this," but I kind of doubt it. I don't want to be harsh by judging them but the complaints about the restrictions on what they can talk about before the game is out (after parts of it leaked) is rubbing me the wrong way...
 

Deleted member 31817

Nov 7, 2017
30,876
Dr Pears said:
XL7n3ay.jpg

If i wasn't paying attention, one wrong click and I would've been spoiled lol
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You can just ignore the thread from the main page
 
Crossing Eden

Crossing Eden

Member
Oct 26, 2017
53,834
Rainy said:
Are people thinking Cyberpunk will get 95 or higher? I feel like low 90s maybe. Not that it'll be indicative of its final quality to me, but it seems so ambitious that I'm sure reviewers will ding it somewhere.

Regardless, looking forward to it.
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Considering that Cyberpunk has to run on the base versions of the consoles I feel like in some aspects it will feel like a next gen game concept made for current gen hardware. Think, a title like Bioshock Infinite and how pristine those demos looked before we got the final product. Or how Control's emphasis on super detailed environments filled with tons of physics causes issues. I think developers, even moreso than players, are ready to flex new hardware.
 
Buzzth

Buzzth

Member
Jan 15, 2018
746
Japan
I've concluded I physically cannot stomach playing this game based on the footage I've seen. I enjoyed TLOU because I felt the gore was mainly restricted to fighting clickers, but seeing so many ordinary people screaming and dying in pain as you stab into their necks is just a little too much for me to handle. I think I'll just watch a friend play it.
 
SupremeWu

SupremeWu

Banned
Dec 19, 2017
2,856
It says a lot about CDPR that a game with this high an aggregate has folks shook. Three months before the competition even rolls out.
 
Sephiroth

Sephiroth

Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,273
KG said:
Yeah, if I saw that Kratos
in the reviews, I would be pissed. That moment was a fucken awesome moment with the whole lead up to it.
Are we gonna start hating on movies reviews because they didn't tell us who died at the end of Endgame?
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There was a review i thought that didn't talk about it but accidentally included footage of it on Kratos.
 
Trigonometrize

Trigonometrize

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,143
Literally a Goose said:
I understand that art is subjective, but these youtube reviewers calling the game "absolute garbage" and giving it ridiculously low scores are out of their minds. Just because you can't pre-order gold plated guns or it makes people uncomfortable doesn't mean its not a good game. Some people are just so used to video games being "fun" that when something comes along with something to say they have no idea what to do.

The fact that there are some contrarian reviews gives me such hope, if it was universally loved, I would fear it would suffer from the same banality of story as God of War, just enough story for it to be viewed as "emotional" and "deep" but not enough to really have anything important to say.
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A few of the traditional media reviews say The Last of Us Part II has absolutely nothing important to say either. I think you make a lot of assumptions about the misunderstood ambition of the game when it may or may not play out the way you think.
 
Stinkinmushroom

Stinkinmushroom

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,708
noyram23 said:
This might be presumptous of me but I think this review is more important to ND than everything else. Good dogs :)
caniplaythat.com

The Last of Us 2 — Deaf/HoH Review

"The Last of Us 2 is the game of a generation. Not in its narrative and artistic beauty, [...] but in its accessibility." Check out our review here.
caniplaythat.com caniplaythat.com
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This is really really cool. Major props to Naughty Dog for raising that bar.
 
Rainy

Rainy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,948
In conclusion this thread has been weirdly (actually maybe not too weird now that I think about it) negative for a game with a MC of 96.

96.
 
Couscous

Couscous

Member
Oct 30, 2017
6,089
Twente (The Netherlands)
Rainy said:
In conclusion this thread has been weirdly (actually maybe not too weird now that I think about it) negative for a game with a MC of 96.

96.
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It's an exclusive, duh.

i just discovered that publications like IGN Denmark and IGN Sweden are on Metacritic whilst IGN Benelux isn't. Is there a reasom for this? IGN Benelux looks like the bigger site and has a bigger audience (Dutch/Belgian/Suriname people)
 
Philippo

Philippo

Developer
Verified
Oct 28, 2017
7,989
Can you guys point me to any particularly well written review? I'm sure this is the type of game that push some very beautiful pieces.
 
plow

plow

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,682
Reading the Spoilers and knowing what they are saying, i seriously don't know how they want to Talk about it without needing the Story to be spoiled massively.
I really don't understand this complain at all
 
DitaParlo

DitaParlo

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,079
maybe MAYBE mAyBe narrative combines with gameplay so imhan
McScroggz said:
Are you a journalist who reviews a high profile game with a narrative focus that has moments where the gameplay and story go in directions you weren't expecting and hasn't been publicly shown?

Are you a journalist who has issues with sensitive topics related to the story and characters of a high profile game that you want to talk about but would spoil the game for players who haven't had a chance to play the game?

Are you a journalist who got the game four weeks before release and had an embargo lift one week before release?

Write/record your review in a professional way that doesn't spoil the game for players, and if there are issues you can't discuss broadly for whatever reason allude to there being problems with the game you'll go in depth with later and move on. And you know what? You now have another piece of work to bring in revenue and add to the discussion of the game!

Like, maybe I'll play the game and be like, "yeah I can see why some reviewers felt like they should have been able to talk about this," but I kind of doubt it. I don't want to be harsh by judging them but the complaints about the restrictions on what they can talk about before the game is out (after parts of it leaked) is rubbing me the wrong way...
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maybe MAYBE mAyBe narrative combines with gameplay so they have a point ( 90% of the reviews says something like that)
death stranding is a narrative + gameplay game thats almost impossible to review without spoilers
 
Fat4all

Fat4all

Woke up, got a money tag, swears a lot
Member
Oct 25, 2017
95,298
here
DitaParlo said:
death stranding is a narrative + gameplay game thats almost impossible to review without spoilers
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there were plenty of death stranding reviews that never got specific with the narrative

I should know, i was thirsty and read a fuckton of them and was shocked many multiple times while playing it

and im assuming all those reviewers were under a similar embargo
 
Osahi

Osahi

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,968
Pooh said:
Ironic that you would imply somebody has not read enough, when you clearly have no concept of disaster collectivism that has repeatedly shown itself in human societies throughout history and is arguably the reason why civilization has even been able to advance to where it is now. Stresses and anxieties cause us to bond over our shared humanity, especially when those stresses and anxieties come from a great external force. (Sidenote: this is the literal foundation of Ozymandias' plot in the graphic novel Watchmen, so if you are disagreeing with the concept of disaster collectivism my guess is you would also insist Moore has "never read a history book.") In TLOU's setting there is an enormous external disaster that threatens humanity as a species. It is absolutely nihilistic and unfounded to say that it would mean we would all tear each other apart the first chance we get.

Perhaps you would do well to step out of only history books, which tend to focus on the most dramatic moments for the sake of brevity, and consider reading studies on human psychology: you could start with this study by the University of Virginia on human behavior becoming more cooperative in the face of uncertainty when personal control over a situation is low. Or you could simply look at any of the recent natural disasters which have led to people going out of their way to help others survive or rebuild. There are many other studies on this aspect of human nature, if you're curious.

The fact is, when the social contract is broken, especially with moments of extreme personal violence, it makes an impact because it is jarring and most importantly unexpected. It is a cynical and nihilistic view that says humans are all too willing to be as cruel and violent as possible to fellow humans. There's a reason why armies (and police) dehumanize their enemies, and it's to make it even POSSIBLE to do the atrocities they do. When it is impersonal, yes, we can deal with a lot. But even drone operators have crises of conscience and develop PTSD, despite being as far away from the violence as possible.

So when it is personal, as the brutality in TLOU2 is depicted, over and over and over, the vast majority of humanity bonds together against it. You don't even have to look very far to see this in action; just look at the protests worldwide because people saw up close and personal the killing of a man by police. People do not do well with repeated, up-close violence unless they are sociopaths. The implication that we're all sociopaths simply isn't justified.
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EatChildren said:
The criticism towards exaggerated violence and arguably unjustified, comical brutal human behaviour comes not from obliviousness to systemic and heirarchal authoritarianism and the dehumanisation it has lead to in human civilisation, but the lack of evidence to suggest humans regress to murderous, animalistic monsters in Naughty Dog's survivalist premise. It opens a real conversation as to whether such framing of humans, that are inherently communal, is actually believable or instead outrageously exaggerated, and whether or not that gives brevity to the portrayal of questionable violence and human actions or instead presents as superficial torture porn that provides an incredibly bland, surface level misunderstanding of human behaviour masquerading as insight and depth.

I haven't played the game and I dont know. But that'll make for interesting post mortoms.
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This is in no way to attack you, because what you both say is correct, but you really should wait with criticism on the message, themes and worldview presented in the game after you played (and completed it).

Because TLOU2 doesn't really comment on the human condition in times of disaster, nor is it a traditional 'people will devolve into a state of barbarism once civilization is gone', and the violence depicted doesn't serve that message (or at least, I never felt like it wanted to portray that). It's hard to get into without being able to give examples (spoilers and all), but the game does not really depict a society that has degressed to a 'survival of the fittest natural state'. Like Druckman already said it is way more about tribalism and the hard-to-break circle of relatiation. The act of dehumanisation to justify violence is a big theme too and maybe one of the most important things the story comments on.
I also want to add that a big part of the game takes place in Seattle, which isn't just a post-apocalyptic landscape with survivors trying to survive, but more of a war zone where two competing groups fight it out. I've interpreted the violence depicted more as the violence of a civil war, than the supposed violence we'd degress to when society would collapse. There are aspects of post-apocalyptic tropes of course but that's, again, hard to get into without spoiling.

So yeah, the violence is in your face and uncomfortable, and the fact the enemies are humanised by giving them a name and showing their dispair is there to make it uncomfortable. It is unglorified and messy, like I suppose real violence is. I felt that was what the game was going for: to show you how ugly violence is and what effect it has, and to avoid glorifying it. To me it had more the gut punch effect of the horrific violence shown in Saving Private Ryan or The Pacific, than that I felt the game was trying to tell me: see what animals we deep down all are!
 
Bruceleeroy

Bruceleeroy

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
5,381
Orange County
Crossing Eden said:
Considering that Cyberpunk has to run on the base versions of the consoles I feel like in some aspects it will feel like a next gen game concept made for current gen hardware. Think, a title like Bioshock Infinite and how pristine those demos looked before we got the final product. Or how Control's emphasis on super detailed environments filled with tons of physics causes issues. I think developers, even moreso than players, are ready to flex new hardware.
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ThisIs random but you reminded me of it. I was thinking during the Ratchet and Clank reveal that they are finally doing in real time what Bioshock Infinite promised so long ago but could never deliver on with Elizabeth pulling in portals and objects
 
McScroggz

McScroggz

The Fallen
Jan 11, 2018
5,981
DitaParlo said:
maybe MAYBE mAyBe narrative combines with gameplay so imhan

maybe MAYBE mAyBe narrative combines with gameplay so they have a point ( 90% of the reviews says something like that)
death stranding is a narrative + gameplay game thats almost impossible to review without spoilers
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They should still be able to eloquently discuss the pros and cons of the game while being granular with things that are publicly known and broadly with things we have no idea about and wouldn't predict. From a narrative perspective I think about MGS2, even with a game that pulls the rug from under the player to that extent you can absolutely discuss its pros and cons without needing to discuss things in detail. And I go back to my main point where if there are aspects of the game that are really important for you to discuss but doesn't fit within the constraints of a review that protects the audience from spoilers it's a perfect opportunity to write or record a follow up piece.

Without having played TLOUII I can't be certain, but these complaints just feel super misguided.
 
nelsonroyale

nelsonroyale

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
12,135
EatChildren said:
The criticism towards exaggerated violence and arguably unjustified, comical brutal human behaviour comes not from obliviousness to systemic and heirarchal authoritarianism and the dehumanisation it has lead to in human civilisation, but the lack of evidence to suggest humans regress to murderous, animalistic monsters in Naughty Dog's survivalist premise. It opens a real conversation as to whether such framing of humans, that are inherently communal, is actually believable or instead outrageously exaggerated, and whether or not that gives brevity to the portrayal of questionable violence and human actions or instead presents as superficial torture porn that provides an incredibly bland, surface level misunderstanding of human behaviour masquerading as insight and depth.

I haven't played the game and I dont know. But that'll make for interesting post mortoms.
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Just because humans are communal species doesn't necessarily say anything about how people will react versus another group in a situations were the physical and social infrastructure people are used to begins to break down. Of course, looking at history you can see many instances were people as individuals and members of groups acted in ways that make even TLoU2 seem relatively restrained (i.e., during the Crusades or medieval witch hunts). My comment would be that humans are pretty diverse but so are the ways they can respond to a given situation. History teaches us that the brutality depicted in say the Last of Us 2 is feasible enough. The issue perhaps is whether it focuses solely on that negativity, or also on the positive interactions that often do sit along side that. This was perhaps one of the issues with say Game of Thrones. Not that it was somehow unrealistic in its brutality - Martin's imagination couldn't possibly match that of those who have actually engaged in some of the most depreived actions in history - but that it focused mostly on those negatives, so gave a skewed perspective of human actions and relations even in times of upheaval. Maybe the same is the case here. But that is also a narrative choice, and I don't think it is possible to make an assumption that they are extending that portrayal to the rest of the humanity without playing the game. I know I am keen to find out.
 
Edgar

Edgar

User requested ban
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
7,180
Rainy said:
Are people thinking Cyberpunk will get 95 or higher? I feel like low 90s maybe. Not that it'll be indicative of its final quality to me, but it seems so ambitious that I'm sure reviewers will ding it somewhere.

Regardless, looking forward to it.
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cyberpunk wont hit 94 even, let alone match TLOU 2 score . Its gonna be janky , less polished /unfocused experience . Also because its create your own character in an open world the narrative wont be as good/tight. And because it needs to run on PC/Ps4/ps4 pr/xbox one/xbox one x it wont look near as good visually due .
At best it will probably hit 91
 
EatChildren

EatChildren

Wonder from Down Under
Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,066
FYI - I've read every single response to my posts and taken them all on board, I just haven't replied to all of them. Just in case people think I've done a runner haha.
 
SlickVic

SlickVic

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,020
USA
Stuggernaut said:
Man I REALLY need to play the first one through, I only ever get about 20 min in before I get distracted RL and forget to go back lol
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The good thing is it isn't that long to get through, and to me at least, it's one of those games that's just the right length. I just finished my replay yesterday and clocked in just under 14 hours (and another 2.5 hours for the DLC). Actual times will also vary based on selected difficulty of course, but I guess I've come off a lot of games in the 40-90 hour range recently, that this felt pretty quick by comparison.
 
m4st4

m4st4

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
5,505
When do you guys think we'll be able to see Collector's edition unpacked? Usually IGN does these things. Surely before release? I'm eager to check out the quality of the figure.
 
SlickVic

SlickVic

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,020
USA
TheModestGun

TheModestGun

Banned
Dec 5, 2017
3,781
Claven said:
TIL RDR2 doesn't have a story.
There are the strangest takes on ERA sometimes, smh.
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Lol right? Say what you want about the design of the game, but it absolutely has a story, rising action climax, falling action and all that jazz.
I happened to think it was an excellent story, and its one of the few games that has made me openly weep.
 
Dalek

Dalek

Member
Oct 25, 2017
39,338
Buzzth said:
I've concluded I physically cannot stomach playing this game based on the footage I've seen. I enjoyed TLOU because I felt the gore was mainly restricted to fighting clickers, but seeing so many ordinary people screaming and dying in pain as you stab into their necks is just a little too much for me to handle. I think I'll just watch a friend play it.
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I'll be honest. My enthusiasm has dipped a bit because of this. All of that sounds like too much for me. Unless I can really try a mostly non lethal play.
 
Couscous

Couscous

Member
Oct 30, 2017
6,089
Twente (The Netherlands)
Kiekura

Kiekura

Member
Mar 23, 2018
4,081
BrickArts295

BrickArts295

GOTY Tracking Thread Master
Member
Oct 26, 2017
14,073
The game is closer to 95 than 97 in MC. Edge giving it a 9 will probably drop it to a high 95. There's still around 30-40 more reviews left (judging from GOW and DS). So it could either stay at 95 or slightly make it to 96 by the end.
Either way, congrats to ND for pulling it off once again. Not an easy feat to be on par and/or outdo your first entry, especially TLOU.
 
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