Last of Us Part II

[Julius]

9 minutes ago, dwarf said:

I pre-ordered this from ShopTo a while back. How zippy are they usually?

I pre-ordered with them too and just got an email saying mine was being processed in the warehouse a bit earlier today, but I read that Sony's been pushing online retailers hard to make sure that the game doesn't arrive any earlier than Friday. Of course, we'll have to wait and see if that actually happens 

Only got a half day at work on Friday, and booked Monday off, so while I don't want to rush through the game and will likely be just as thorough as I tried to be when playing the first game a few weeks ago, I will be preparing for some long and intense gaming sessions in the next few days 

[dwarf]

Just noticed I received an email at 5pm saying the same. Really hope they dispatch tomorrow!

I just want to congratulate myself more than anything for knowing next to fuck all about this. All I've seen is the original guitar playing trailer from ages ago and the odd couple of seconds of advert footage when scrolling through Facebook.

Still a bit devod they removed factions. If they still plan on releasing the standalone factions game, and it's built for PS5, I might be convinced to make the generational leap. 

[Ganepark32]

I've got my order in with Shopto and similarly got an email just after 5 saying it's in the warehouse for packing. What's odd is that my order had been saying that it was processing since Monday. I've known about them not being able to send them out early but retailers are sending those out for orders that were 48 hour delivery. I went for first class delivery but given that I did the same with Xenoblade Chronicles on the Switch and it didn't arrive on release day because the Royal Mail are a bit delayed in getting things out, I'm not expecting to get my copy till Saturday at the earliest.

I'll be gutted that if it's not here for Friday but I just don't see it happening if its posted tomorrow with how Royal Mail is working (I'm waiting on a very small parcel coming through with them that got posted on Monday with 48 hour delivery, which should've been here today but hasn't turned up either). Still, it's not like I haven't got other things to play in the mean time.

[Dog-amoto]

I really hope that the AI is better in this game. Been playing the first again and it’s a lot worse than I remember. And I remember it being pretty bad. 

[Julius]

Ellie Nendoroid coming in November: 

Quote

Introducing the First-Ever The Last of Us Nendoroid

From the PlayStation®4 game "The Last of Us Part II" comes a Nendoroid of Ellie! She comes with two face plates—a standard expression and a shouting expression. Weapons from the game including a gun, bow and arrow, machete and the infamous brick are included as optional parts. Be sure to add her to your collection!

 

[CrowingJoe79]

I'd recommend avoiding YouTube for the next few days, as many users are putting spoilers in the titles of their recently published videos, which for some reason, Google haven't censored. Well, I guess the game is already available in certain countries, which makes that act of trying to ruin it for randoms on the Internet, seem "okay" to them.

 

 

 

[Julius]

It's here  

Two discs and needs 95 GB free to install and play, install is only 4-5 GB and takes 10 minutes or so, if anyone was wondering! Finally saw the dreaded "you don't have space screen"  looking forward into diving in after lunch and hiding from the internet over the weekend 

Edited June 19, 2020 by Julius

[Ganepark32]

Unfortunately, nothing for me from Shopto. Apparently got sent out yesterday but I only received an invoice, no dispatch email. Going through their page to get my tracking number (as I don't have it elsewhere because of the lack of dispatch email) and its saying that Royal Mail were made aware of a dispatch on Wednesday night, that the have it in Swindon MC as of last night but other's been no update since other than saying that they expect to deliver it today. Yeah that won't be happening as I think the mails already been up here so it's unlikely that it'll just turn up without any tracking updates.

Annoyed as I'd paid the extra for track postage but they know that the Royal Mail is having delayed deliveries so everything should have been sent out on Wednesday to get in customers hands for launch. Especially annoyed that they were taking orders with higher delivery fees but clearly not sending them out to meet their delivery date 

As I said further up, I've other things to play and baking and household stuff to get on with but its more that I've now had 2 pre-orders from them with 24 hour deliver fall outside of that window when I've paid for that on top of other orders for things not turning up on time from other places (an easy order turned up yesterday with a second class stamp on it despite me paying for 48 hour postage).

For those that have it, enjoy. I'll be bowing out for now until my copy arrives.

[CrowingJoe79]

Hey, I got it on Amazon no problem. I reside in Edinburgh. 

[dwarf]

The fucker's arrived.

Ordered from ShopTo and got in an hour ago @Ganepark32, so still some hope?

Edited June 19, 2020 by dwarf

[drahkon]

Remember to use spoiler tags, peeps. These ensure that nothing can be read on the "Posts" section on the right side of the main forum page.

Enjoy the game I'll join the discussion in 2021

[Cookyman]

Well my willpower faded at work today so bought this on digital.  The good thing is I had it downloading so when I got home it was good to go.

Right, I better get cracking then...

[martinist]

I might pick this up when it's cheeper. I've already been spoiled to high hell anyway.

[Ganepark32]

3 hours ago, dwarf said:

The fucker's arrived.

Ordered from ShopTo and got in an hour ago @Ganepark32, so still some hope?

No dice sadly. No update on the tracking from Royal Mail so no idea where it actually is at the moment. Still says it's in Swindon since yesterday evening. ShopTo will lay the blame squarely with the Royal Mail for it not being delivered today. Likewise, ShopTo claim their 24 Hour Tracked delivery can take between 1 to 3 working days so they'll dodge a refund unless its not delivered by Tuesday.

It's more frustrating than anything because I've had the pre-order in and paid for for ages and if money wasn't tight and they had a more robust cancellation setup, I could've gone and bought a copy at Argos and been playing today. Same thing happened with Xenoblade Chronicles a couple of weeks back. Clearly not worth me shelling out the extra for postage to make sure I get it on time as getting first class postage next day is clearly not happening with ShopTo at the moment.

[Fierce_LiNk]

Luckily I've got school reports to write and the football is back on. Otherwise, I don't know how @Eenuh would be able to play this game without spoiling it for me! We're managing fine, so far. Doing my best not to look up.  

[CrowingJoe79]

Graphically, this has to be the MOST impressive video game on the PS4 overall. Every area you explore is amazingly detailed. Some of the enemy models are repeated I think, which was somewhat disappointing. I kept seeing the same looking black woman with a bow. However, they were very realistic looking, so I won't complain too much about those aspects.

Unfortunately, the story wasn't anywhere as great as the first game, which was flawless. All of that was thrown out of the window with this follow-up, after a decent first 20 minutes, but it picked up here and there. The story though was so dark, and I can see why it will definitely upset a lot of fans of the original. That isn't to say I think the game is by any means "crap" after finishing it, but it seemed like the plot was rather all over the place at times with the disjointed story, and the gameplay seemed sluggish, or next to unfair and dodgy for the most part. Not to mention, it was generally a violent mess overall, and the plot didn't portray the slayings as having any real purpose, other than being the result of somebody's anger induced brutality. All in all, it was a decent game, but vastly bleak in terms of what it set out to do. 

But in any case, here's my review of the game on my YouTube channel. Do note there's a lot of spoilers throughout, and I made comparisons to similar survival horror games, since I play many franchises in that sub-category.

 

[S.C.G]

Three and a half years later... (since this game was announced) a lot has changed, I might play this someday but I'm nowhere near as enthused for this as I was.

I can see that it still has good points from what people are saying, it sounds like the world-building is still solid and I'm sure the soundtrack must be spectacular.

But if the story doesn't stack up to the original and if a lot of the violence is just there for the sake of it, then I don't think this is a game I'd enjoy that much any more.

I really do hope that anyone who has bought the game already though, is enjoying it, as I'm sure there must still be plenty of detail in it to appreciate.

I'm definitely interested to hear more of everyone's thoughts on it.

Edited June 21, 2020 by S.C.G

[Fierce_LiNk]

I've heard nothing about this game online and even if there were people trying to post story details here and there, I wouldn't bother reading them.

Why are gamers all of a sudden allowing other people's opinions on the story to impact on their own decision making? All it's doing is creating a culture where gamers have already decided that the game sucks or the story sucks before they have actually played it themselves. After that, it's leading towards a culture where one agrees with others purely to follow the crowd, rather than forming their opinions themselves.

I'm looking forward to playing it and plan to read zero reviews and zero impressions beforehand. You can always go back afterwards and see what others think and then discuss it.

 

[S.C.G]

I think a lot of it (for me) is just down to which games I enjoy playing the most, while I enjoyed the original The Last of Us a lot at the time, I'm not sure the sequel would be quite so enjoyable to me now. I'm not saying that it won't be a fun game to play, I'm sure it will be mechanically solid and that the environments will be amazingly detailed.

I just don't think the story or the seemingly excessive amount of violence are elements which I'm that eager to experience. 

It's not like I'm boycotting the game for myself either, or not wanting to play it right now, I'm just going to wait it out a bit perhaps and pick it up when it's a bit cheaper maybe.

Then again, I could change my mind and decide that, sod it... I really need to play this right now afterall, but I'm just not feeling it at the moment.

[Ronnie]

45 minutes ago, Fierce_LiNk said:

After that, it's leading towards a culture where one agrees with others purely to follow the crowd, rather than forming their opinions themselves.

Films and tv series have seen this for years. People seem more intent on following a popular narrative (usually negative) than actually making their own mind up about something. Mostly thanks to social media but YouTube has played a big part in that too.

[Goafer]

2 hours ago, Fierce_LiNk said:

I've heard nothing about this game online and even if there were people trying to post story details here and there, I wouldn't bother reading them.

Why are gamers all of a sudden allowing other people's opinions on the story to impact on their own decision making? All it's doing is creating a culture where gamers have already decided that the game sucks or the story sucks before they have actually played it themselves. After that, it's leading towards a culture where one agrees with others purely to follow the crowd, rather than forming their opinions themselves.

I'm looking forward to playing it and plan to read zero reviews and zero impressions beforehand. You can always go back afterwards and see what others think and then discuss it.

 

I've read the spoilers and I'm glad I did. I really don't like what they've done with the story. I have no issue whatsoever with the "woke" elements that so many people seem to have issues with (I actually like that traditional depictions are being challenged), nor the violence, but there are certain story elements that I have absolutely no interest in seeing. I get that they're there as a commentary on a certain topic, but they've ruined the series for me. 

I'm sure it's a great game and I hope people enjoy it, but it's not for me.

I may put my issues with the story once a few more people have played it and more spoiler tags appear in the thread. Until then, I don't even want to tempt people with spoiler tags.

Edited June 21, 2020 by Goafer

[CrowingJoe79]

I do not really like the darker theme of this game, but I can see why it's not supposed to be a "happy story" for the player. There's definitely tons of The Walking Dead vibes throughout. For obvious reasons that are already widely known by now, any fan of the first game will probably have to try to be accepting of the big changes in store to gain any enjoyment. It's not easy to face up to that fact, but it's the truth. And to be honest, I don't like Neil Druckmann's perceived sarcasm on Twitter now that he's aware of all the hateful feedback on websites such as Metacritic.

Spoiler

In general though, the game itself was amazingly designed, and there is some new Infected to battle against, including a strange boss fight with the Rat King, or something. It's basically a hybrid of other Infected. I think it's about time we got new enemies... and this one did not disappoint. The mini games were also cool. The snowball fight with the kids near the beginning of the game was temporarily awesomeness. I also liked the shooting gallery segment with Abby Anderson. Although that character was interesting in my opinion, she is also universally disliked.

Unfortunately, if I don't take to a story in a game otherwise, or it saddens me, I cannot see that feeling diminishing with subsequent runs. So I can say personally that I won't be playing it again any day soon for that reason...

Edited June 22, 2020 by Ashley
spoiler tag

[Julius]

@CrowingJoe79 spoiler tags? I've seen most (but not all) of that already but I think it's best to respect others by putting basically anything that gets too specific (bosses, anything about new characters, even that nice story moment you mentioned at the start), at this point, in spoiler tags for the foreseeable future when discussing this game 

@S.C.G I imagine I'm around two thirds of the way through the game by now, around 20-something hours in (taking it slow, checking areas thoroughly picking up everything I can, straying from the beaten path to do so a lot of the time). It's not hard to see why this game has been met with backlash from a fan perspective, so maybe this is just as a result of me having only played the first game for the first time last month, but so far I've really enjoyed it and it's kept me on the edge of my seat.

I didn't read the leaks, but I will say that - again, having not played the first game until last month - I probably had a fresher perspective on a lot of the trailers when they released than those already invested, so certain things I had started to assume way back then without the context of the first game, and I'll leave it at that. 

Also has a few times where I feel it could be argued that there are pacing issues, though from my perspective the story is told pretty naturally considering that I expected a lot of the cuts to happen exactly where they happen.

On the technical side (again, base model PS4): a couple of frame rate hiccups here and there, the new dodge mechanic revealed way back when we first saw gameplay can be a bit janky (dodging off a rooftop to fall to your death...yikes, also feels a bit overpowered and like gaming the system when in smaller spaces), a few times with some pretty noticeable texture pop-in (mostly grass and leaves when in vehicles, one time after I rushed into a room and immediately picked up a note). 

Production qualities are unsurprisingly some of the best you'll experience on a console video game today: I'm playing on a base model PS4 and though there was one time early on where the fan got quite loud, it's otherwise blended into the background pretty well considering the level of animations (the ropes in this game, seriously!), sound design, model design, music, etc. This is the best looking (realistically art styled) game I've ever seen. 

As for the brutality, I'll be honest, there are times where it has disturbed me. I'm not squeamish when it comes to blood and brutality (having not played horror games before last month obviously that aspect is probably what's raising the tension the most) but this game is VIOLENT. We've seen it in gameplay and in some of the trailers, but hearing someone gurgle their own blood after a shot to the throat just isn't pleasant, and we are getting to that point where games look incredibly similar to real life, and I am a bit concerned about the audience when it comes to this.

Now that I'm older I don't have a problem with younger (mature, teenage) audiences playing Call of Duty (despite the fact that my parents would keep me away from such games growing up, as it "glorified violence"), and I feel like the art style just about veers away from realism and the kills, despite being a FPS, just feel so... distant, at least in the campaigns. I killed an NPC, no big deal, there's a lot of us vs a lot of them, and people are going to die. Those games, from my limited experience with them, seem to be much more about collaboration and the bigger picture, and it's rare even in the campaign that they get brutal.

As I touched on before, The Last of Us Part II has some of the most realistic murders you'll see in a video game up to this point, and they're so realistic at times that I could see a ratings board taking a hard stance against similar things moving forwards. To an impressionable young mind I feel like this game could genuinely do some harm, so I genuinely hope that there aren't any psychologically immature teens playing this more than I ever have before. I hope parents are being sensible, but judging from the number of kids that play GTA, I wouldn't keep my hopes up. 

Anyway, the reasoning for this brutality is something that Neil Druckmann revealed way back, one word which I feel contextualises it for the most part...

Spoiler

...revenge. 

It's the focus of the message that the game is trying to send, so the brutality I feel pairs up with that. Even if it is disturbing, it's part of the point, and I'm not sure if it would hit quite as hard if not for this. We'll see if my mind changes by the end. 

Also the vast ocean of accessibility options presented at the very start of this game are absolutely something to be recognised and commended. I spent five minutes at the start of the game just looking through them all and playing around with them, which put a huge smile on my face. I hope more developers (specifically AAA, who need to lead by example and set that standard) follow suit. 

Edited June 22, 2020 by Julius

[Goafer]

1 hour ago, Julius said:

It's the focus of the message that the game is trying to send, so the brutality I feel pairs up with that. Even if it is disturbing, it's part of the point, and I'm not sure if it would hit quite as hard if not for this.

This pretty much sums up why I wont be playing it, but still appreciate it.

The brutality has a point and undoubtedly creates a powerful story, but it's still disturbing. Much like people who don't watch horror movies because they don't want to be scared, I won't play this because I don't want to be disturbed. At least not in regards to the specific plot point I read about in the spoilers. There are some things I just don't want to see.

I'll put it more specifically when more people have had chance to complete it.

[Cookyman]

The game is brutal but it's an 18 certificate so what's the problem?

There are some incredibly brutal 18 certificate films but there is no backlash there anymore - thank god we are finally past the video nasties of the 80's and the "ban this sick filth" tabloid headlines for Child's Play 3 when the Bulger murder was headline news in the 90's.

We fortunately now live in a society when we can choose our films without moral outrage  and hoperfully we can choose our games too although judging by user ratings in Metacritic we have a moral majority who disagree (I'm guessing many of whom don't even have the game).

Edited June 22, 2020 by Cookyman