MAAAAN, that's the kind of thing I needed last year!
Dude made the game alone, along with help of a mocap and EDM artist.
The soundtrack is absolutely badass, and the violence along with it.
The game is a beautiful mix of Hotline Miami and Arkham games.
The combat is so satisfying and so are the finishers, you can throw guns, weapons, etc after you used them, and a lot of blood/bodies on the ground showing the carnage you went through.
Of course some levels are gimmicky or can get annoying, but man this indie game is just a blast of fun. Definitely recommend

A very good game on its own, however, I will say that the story at least, in my opinion, feels like a step down from the predecessor. In an attempt to be bigger and more epic the heart of the story becomes a lot messier, setups have lame payoffs and massive payoffs have no setups.

Also while I cannot speak for the PS5 version of the game, the PS4 version did have some frustrating bugs and glitches. Most of them weren't big enough to ruin the experience, but some definitely broke the immersion, and there were some rare cases of game-breaking bugs that forced me to turn off the game and restart.

As a whole I still do love it, the gameplay is improved in every way it could have, and even though I have my issues with the story it still has moments of brilliance, and as I've said most of the bugs weren't too bad, but for me, the biggest appeal of the series is its story and that's the part of the game that I think was most poorly handled, so while I still like it, it doesn't quite live up to the previous game.

I'm cool with y'all leaving .5 star reviews because it immediately identifies which of you are some baby back broke bitches who are crying about a game you had no intention of buying in the first place. Nobody is forcing you to buy it. You're not some valiant soldier bravely laying down your life to defy Sony. You're just a chud feigning for internet points. If you simply think the price is too much thats fine, just don't buy it or wait for a sale, like an adult.

As far as an actual review for the game - this is a pretty excellent remake and anyone saying it's a simple "Graphical uprez" is being disingenuous or willfully ignorant. Nearly every model/asset has been completely remade and the revamped facial animations are a game changer. Scenes that I've seen countless times before are now able to carry even more weight, thanks to the industry leading animations. The nuances and subtle details conveyed in these performances are staggering, and quite literally something you will not find in any other video game except for TLOU2.

Same goes for the new lighting, as Naughty Dog continues to prove that they also have the best lighting artists in the business. Lighting is such a weird topic to discuss though, because the majority of debate with gamers usually comes down - vibrant colors = good lighting. Or they just throw buzzwords around and talk in circles. Like people who say the 2013 version had better lighting because it "...makes the world dead but also alive..." (Real quote) So I'll just say my stance on the lighting is that TLOU Part 1 and 2 are eons ahead of every other game and I refuse to argue about lighting with morons who have never lit a film set, or a game scene.

Now for the whole "iTs ThE SaMe GaMePlAy" folks out there... no. You are, objectively wrong. AI has seen a massive overhaul from the original, and no amount of out of context twitter clips with accessibility mode maxed out will take away from the fact that on the harder difficulties, both this game and part 2 have some of the most advanced enemy AI in gaming. The partner AI has also been greatly improved and there were several instances where I noticed they were far more active in trying to hide/avoid detection than they used to be. Those changes ARE a substantial upgrade to the game, and I promise you if you go back to the OG it will not feel the same. The gameplay animations have also been beefed up, with some new execution/death animations, updated bow handling, and far more reactive glass, debris and other destructible objects. Stalkers also function like they did in part 2 which is HUGE because I always thought the OG stalkers were really weirdly designed and didn't make much sense.

Now, does the game have a dodge or dedicated jump? No. Does Joel need those? Also no. This game was designed around neither of those things being there and I like the fact that it feels a bit different from part 2. Joel is not the same as Ellie, so they should control differently (this man is in his 50s btw) and I found myself playing Part 1 SIGNIFICANTLY different to how I approach Part 2, which I think, is pretty cool. I played on survivor, and far more bricks, bottles and fists were thrown than I think I did in all of part 2. And these combat/stealth scenarios are still excellent and intense, and I sincerely hope anybody calling them outdated has never enjoyed a game made by Ubisoft.

Now thats' not to say everything has aged as well as the combat scenarios, because the puzzles are definitely not as good as the ones in part 2. But they take like 2 seconds to complete so its not like it really slows anything down. I did also notice a few minor bugs and graphical mistakes like LODS popping too early, but they aren't major and shouldn't be hard to fix.

In the end, Part 1 is easily the best way to experience the game. If you haven't played it before, its certainly worth the $70, and if you have played it before, that's up to you to decide its worth. For me, it was worth every penny, and the storytelling and combat still hold up as some of the best in gaming.

The Last of Us as a franchise is in a bit of a weird spot now, as it's getting a lot of content, but its also super trendy to shit talk it online. It is a bit unfortunate that the best in the business have to deal with incessant screeching from people who called TLOU2 woke for "Making Ellie gay", but I suppose it just is what it is. When you're the best, those behind just wanna see you fail. I'll just be here enjoying this banger lookin like Robert Pattinson in the meantime - [https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/059/024/d2c.png]

Brutal. Cruel. Unfair. Bitter. Bleak.

All words that can be used to describe The Last of Us Part II. And rightfully so. This isn't an easy game to get through. By the end of it it'll straight up force you to do things you don't wanna do in the name of it's narrative. And I kind of love it for that.

I recently revisited this game as a part of my replaying of games that had a huge impact on me and boy oh boy, this one was probably amongst the hardest.

The gameplay is excellent, definitely up there with the best I've played. The graphics/animation is stellar, even holding up well into the next generation. The main characters are engaging and the story compelling. And that's where the sadness comes in.

This is not a game about happiness. Or even a game about catharsis. It's a dark tale of a woman you've come to love and care about destroying herself in order to avenge the death of a man whose heart would break if he could see what she'd done to herself in his memory.

It is also a game about the woman who killed that man realising that the violent revenge got her nowhere, bought her nothing. And this realisation leads her to try and find a new purpose to live for as she helps a child from an enemy faction escape persecution.

It's a story about a character you love becoming a shadow of themselves, and a character you hate becoming a better person. And that's not an easy pill to swallow. But it nearly always works.

The pacing of this game is definitely off, suddenly rewinding time right at the climax to three days you JUST experienced but from Abby's POV is a bit jarring, I personally think having each day contain both stories. back to back would have worked better. Some deaths, particularly Yara and Jesse feel almost pointless and really the only one of Abby's friends i'm sad to see die is Owen, but the game still sticks the landing. By the point Ellie forces Abby to fight her in the ruins of Santa Barbra by threatening a child, you hate her for it BUT you still cry with her. People ain't black and white and this. game shows it.

This is an exercise in Misery that works 90% of the time, and that 90% is a masterpiece. Not Naughty Dog's best, but definitely their most complex.

Right from the start Uncharted 2 was far more impressive in living up to its gameplay premise than whatever Naughty Dog was trying to do with the first Uncharted.

The story this time around was a far better introduction to the pacing, tone, characters, and hook to get the plot going for the rest of the game to follow. The characters, while honestly not being too drastically different from how they were previously, felt much better written in terms of their dialogue and involvement with the story. Nathan Drake is still missing something for me to really get why he’s something of an icon for vidya game protagonists but for what he is, in this game at least, he’s pretty fun all around. The other characters fill their simple archetypes very well and bounce off each other during the countless action set pieces energetically. It really feels much more epic and grand in terms of sheer scope and locations you adventure through which was sorely lacking in Uncharted 1. I would even go as far as to say the first half of Uncharted 2 could be a textbook example of how to make a vidya game sequel that truly builds upon its predecessor and rises above set expectations. But then the second half of Uncharted 2 exists, and that’s where this newfound action-adventure greatness dwindles a bit. With a midpoint that renders the great opening to feel almost pointless in retrospect, Uncharted 1 levels of annoyingly repetitive bullet sponge enemy barrages, companion(?) AI that’s just really stupid, and a final boss that’s only better than the first by a slight margin.

As a whole, Uncharted 2 is still a good game that shows Naughty Dog sticking the landing, if unevenly and barely keeping it together as it goes on, in creating genuinely engaging big budgeted action-adventure games that many others like it rip from, and for seemingly good reason too.