Short Version
Long, but if you like action/stealth combat and good storytelling, you won’t mind.
Long Version
80% of the world’s population is made up of assholes. The litterers, the line jumpers. The people who gleefully reveal their particular flavor of prejudice within the first five minutes of meeting them. After that you’ve got 15-18% who are alright. Most of your coworkers fall into this group. You get along fine, but they’re best in small doses or in a large group. You don’t mind seeing them around, but if you get left alone at a lunch table you’re like, heyyyy, we’ve never interacted one on one before. Finally there’s the 2-5% who you might – might – consider a true friend.
So it is with the post-apocalyptic world. Except now, instead of 2 million people in your immediate vicinity, there’s 50, more or less ensuring everyone you know sucks. The end of the world isn’t going to improve anyone’s personality, but what are you going to do? Leave? Risk the wastes, hordes of zombies, and almost certain death on the off chance you run into someone who makes you laugh? Face it, for better or worse, you’re stuck with these d-bags.
So it is with The Last of Us 2, a game centered around two of these d-bags. Developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, TLoU2 – not an attractive acronym – puts you in control of Ellie and Abby, two characters with legitimate reasons to seek revenge, but who, like so many before them, become consumed by it.
Minor Spoilers!
The story of The Last of Us 2 is its greatest triumph – the script is fantastic – it’s beautiful and epic and sad. Sad because it’s a tragedy and also because when it was over, I wanted to go back. To stay for a little while longer. The characters aren’t always perfect, but you’re bonded to them through shared experience and I miss them. It’s like reading a great book, I didn’t want to return to the real world which is weird because the world of TLoU2 is pretty rough. There are scenes I thought I would hate, like the flashbacks and the music store in Seattle, that I was utterly charmed by. Sitting through the scene in the music store, I kept thinking, “Man, this is long!” but simultaneously, “Man, what a beautiful moment in an otherwise brutish existence!”
There was an instance in this game where I was given a simple command, press the square button, where at first, I physically could not do it. I set the controller down. I intentionally died multiple times because what I was being asked to do crossed so far beyond my own ethical boundaries. Never before have I had that experience in a video game. That, in and of itself, is an achievement, and it’s an achievement in storytelling. I mean you have to care about the characters in order to care about their wellbeing, and I cared deeply.
Another great thing about The Last of Us 2 is how everything feels. Burning a shambler with a molotov feels fantastic. Getting killed by an infected feels awful. There’s a split second at the end of the clicker kill animation where Ellie looks straight into camera which punched me in the gut every time. Even manipulating the weapons at the workbenches feels satisfying. A lot of this has to do with the sound design. The clicks, clunks, and screams are all deep and rich. They feel important and decisive.
I love the rhythm of this game – scavenge, fight, scavenge, fight. Every time a new NPC would join me I’d have to explain to them, out loud, in my living room, “Listen, since this is our first time adventuring together, I have to warn you, I move pretty slow. I have to check everywhere for treasures so don’t rush me.” Then they’d rush me! “Are you coming?” they’d ask. “Yes! God damn it. As soon as I make sure I can’t crawl under… AH HA! A screw!” I love the simplistic approach to crafting, and I love the way it forces you to think creatively about how to solve problems, i.e. kill everyone.
Left to my own devices, I’m the kind of player that will stealth kill whenever possible, but TLoU2 forced me out of my comfort zone with limited inventory space and tricky AI. Limited inventory space forced me to use every weapon at my disposal because I find it abhorrent to hunt down crafting materials and not be able to pick them up. To that end, I’d use whatever weapon would free up space in that material category. Full on rags? Throw molotovs. No room for baldes? Shiv time. And heaven forbid I have to leave shotgun ammo lying about. The enemies also travel in unpredictable routes. Some of them go in loops, but sometimes they just break off and go somewhere else. They also do this great spin-look just in case there’s anyone sneaking up behind them and guess what, there is. More often than not, I would get discovered midway through an encounter and be thrown into combat, desperately fending off enemies with a limited supply of bullets. They do not let you just sit and line up a headshot either, these creeps are quick on the draw.
Major Spoilers!
Ultimately, even though Ellie is, well, Ellie, the main character and the closest thing this game has to a hero, Abby’s half of the game is the more compelling. Her story is layered and her sequences, getting abandoned in the dark by Lev and Yara, descending the crumbling building, and escaping the Seraphite island, are fucking fabulous. The evolution of my feelings towards Abby was another of this games successes. By the time the game pits them against each other, I was begging for things to work out. It doesn’t though.
The ending is untidy, but I’m not sure what I wanted. Actually I do, I wanted them to team up, recognize in one another the same indomitable will and unflinching loyalty that allowed them to survive this hell on earth and build a new society together. I wanted Abby to have her own ending. I wanted Ellie to go to Catalina to see if someone else was working on a vaccine; maybe technology had progressed to the point where they could make it without killing her. I wanted to know if Lev was ok. I wanted to know where Dina went, and if Ellie was going to find her. No one gets what they want at the end of The Last of Us 2, but that’s how some stories go. I do hope I get to see them again. They may be d-bags, but they’re my d-bags.
Advice to the Player
Go loud if you want to – you can shoot and then hide to reestablish stealth.
Tall grass is your friend – you can get away with a lot if no one has mowed in a while.
Bricks and bottles – best weapons in the game. Combine with momentum and a spike bat.
criticalmush.com 