Does anyone else believe The Last of Us Part 2 is overated?

The game is not terrible. Just want to get that out of the way. But i've been playing the last of us Part 2 recently (see link below) and honestly i can't think i've play a game that is so mediocre that has gotten such wide praise from critics and many fans. The story thus far has more holes than the titanic, and more contrivances than your average politicians. Please can some explain how this game has won over 261 game of the year awards?

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Haven't played it yet, but that's what I'd expect after the mediocre first game.

It won cause others think its good.

I actually rate the first game, not from a gameplay perspective, but from a story perspective. I think TLOU2 should not have been made, but here we are so.

It's significantly better than the first one.

Did not play it.

But if it is anything like the first game, yes, it is incredibly overrated.

That's an opinion I don't hear often. What was it that made it better?

No, I really enjoyed it and I will definitely pick up a PS5 if and when they release part 3.

For me, I really enjoyed the story and the stealth gameplay.

I haven't played it yet, but I expect it to be as good or nearly as good as reviewers believe.

@kadin_kai:

What was it that you enjoyed about the story. So far for me the writing is a considerable step down over the first game, and the characters have been neutered in order to allow the plot to happen (from what i've played).
It does look good though, gameplay is nothing to write home about.

Really enjoyed a lot

@mrbojangles25: Gameplay, level design, AI

No, no one actually believes that crap. Those saying otherwise are lying and haven't played it. You can't have played either game in the series and come out thinking anything other than masterpiece. Literally impossible.

Absolutely loved the original, nothing overrated about it unless it's people who haven't played it pushing the whole "derp derp movie game derp derp" narrative. I have the 2nd game but haven't played it yet, but it looks incredible.

Overrated? If anything is actually underrated having in mind the ridiculous amount of hate it gets...

If I rated the first one on story, it would still be average. The first Walking Dead game made me care more about the protagonist and his redemption through the orphan girl. The characters acted more like people. The Road was better too. Last of Us didn't make me care.

@madstarkaven: Well the story was fairly interesting, namely the relationship between the characters.

Ellie’s relationship with Joel, the ups and downs and how she disagreed with Joel’s decision to save her and kill all the Fireflies in the first game.

But despite that, her penchant for revenge, which is a reflection of her love for Joel put the lives of her friends at risk and also eventually destroyed her relationship Dina and their child.

And despite such a strong appetite for revenge she chose forgiveness at the end.

Just as Ellie was at ease with murder and revenge so was Abbie. If anything Abbie was the better person having let Ellie live and moved on. She was also heroic and showed loyalty to … was it Lev and Yara?

So yeah I thought it was interesting, we don’t normally see such a narrative in most games and such deep characterisation.

As for gameplay, I love stealth games. I practically killed everyone without them seeing me (maybe I’m twisted). But I’m doing the same thing with Far Cry 6, I estimate I’m getting around 97% headshots with a silencer and Ms16… zero alarms and zero detection.

I haven't played it, but that's usually the case with hyped up cinematic games. They focus on shit I have no interest in, making me feel the game is shit.

Storywise absolutely but in terms of graphics and attention to detail no. As for gameplay it's solid I do like how brutal the kills feel.

Didn't play the sequel because the first game didn't click with me.

I found the shooting 'off' and didn't feel right, covering not great though a slight improvement over the Uncharted series, the stealth mediocre just like Uncharted.

The pacing and exploration was pretty decent and enjoyed how gritty the world and violence was. The set up for the game as well was masterfully done. That's it for the praise.

My main issue is the RP walking, forced slow walk n' talk is very annoying to me and that made The Last of Us to me too much like Uncharted. Difference is Uncharted had some fun puzzles to break it all up.

As a shooter The Last of Us is not impressive in the slightest, the game came out three years after Vanquish, as such I will hold a cover based third person shooter to what I personally believe does it the best.

As a Survival Horror The Last of Us barely captures the feeling, most the game is attacking human enemies and the stealth sections with Clickers breaks immersion due to A.I. blunders. Overall I think people who call The Last of Us a Survival Horror never played one outside Dead Space.

With the above noted have zero interest in the sequel, in fact I have not been a fan of Naughty Dog since beating Uncharted 3 and writing a review which rabid fanboys attacked because how dare I criticize Naughty Dogs terrible game with a shitty pay to win model.

I believe the developer (Naughty Dog) gets a free pass making good looking games but they suffer heavily from a gameplay perspective. We call these people shallow gamers who are easy to please. I forgave the first two Uncharted games thinking they'd only get better, and they didn't. Some tell me Uncharted 4 was a huge improvement but never read a convincing argument for why that would be.

As for The Last of Us: Part 2 all I read is that it has an infamous butt sex scene. For a company known for censoring games, showing so much as a side-boob, I consider this horrific to all developers that get restrictions placed upon them. Meanwhile in-house teams like Naughty Dog get a free pass to do whatever the **** (literally) they want!

I love TLOU. Probably one of my favorite games of the last couple of years. The gameplay and 3rd person carnage is amazing.

Yeah... the cinematics & production values are usually top notch, which covers up the lackluster rest of the game. Pretty much like most of Naughty Dog's games.

I can feel the effort of the developers, but it doesn't actually work much better for me than the original

I think it's hilarious that people can't understand what makes TLOU2 (or ND games for the matter) the masterpieces that they are. I mean, it's fine not to like them, no one says you should, but not seeing the reason why they are so highly praised is kind of weird. Some of you should actually try playing it and appreciating it for what it tries to do and focuses on, instead of judging it for not being the 716484th iteration of the of type of game you want it to be.

@RSM-HQ: How did UC3 have a pay to win model? Or was that in the MP portion of the game (I never played the MO for UC3)?

Was the multiplayer, it was not well recieved for having P2W multiplayer when U2 didn't have any of it. Shame too because the extended modes for U3 seemed like an overall improvement but Sony got greedy.

The SP game for U3 I have written my problems with that too often and overall I am not a fan for what they did from U2 to U3.

I dunno, seems fairly simple why The Last of Us games are well received.

TLoU is easy on the eyes, like a super model. Grounded post apocalyptic world (which is overall very popular among people just look at Fall Out) helps because people love that stuff. Some gamers also focus more on the story than the game itself too for why they fondly love the experience, just look at all those Telltale 'games'. As such the games give plenty of down time for those who prefer story time over doing anything else.

And that last part is my issue personally speaking, I play games to. . . play games. And even when TLoU gives gameplay it's pretty generous on the player with its often autosaves and retarded A.I. Never played the sequel but the first game was extremely forgiving and A.I. basically dealt with itself.

It's awesome that people like The Last of Us, doesn't mean I also have to praise it as a masterpiece when it fails at the basics so often, and the developer refuses to improve in those areas.

I don't think so. I think it's a huge improvement over the first game and also like the way they weren't afraid to take the series in a different direction. Gameplay, graphics, AI, and certain aspects of the controls just felt better. It felt less clunky. My only complaints would be about the story but's it's their story to tell and they can do what they want in that department. I also really liked the atmosphere as well. They nailed it. My favorite part was the abandoned hospital.

Overrated by the press, but it was always going to be that way: the gaming press exists to promote a game like that, not critique it. The public at large has a much more polarized view of it. Metacritic user score sits at 5.7, which is a fair reflection of the opinion split I see when this game is discussed on forums or discords (in fact it might be even too generous).

I have observed three kinds of people: those who thought the gameplay was great but the story a hot mess and that sinks the game, those who acknowledge the story is has serious problems but conclude gameplay is what matters and those who unconditionally loved both gameplay and story (a minority, as far as I could see).

i didn't like it first time round. joel's death felt like much more like shock than plot value. to blow his leg off with a shot gun leaving tendons dangling, and then repeatedly smash his head in with a golf club, in front of ellie, until his skull literally exploded open was too much for me lol. i'm not squeamish, and play violent video games all the time but it was just f*ckin awful. it set such a grim and depressing tone i just couldn't get into the game. nothing positive at all to cling on to or character to root for.

but, i tried again some months later, with the ps5 update (which looks incredible btw), and it was a different experience. i knew what was coming with joel so was desensitised to that. and i cranked the difficulty up as mates had tipped me off that's when the game shined. and they were right.

just to be clear, there's far too much stop, start, and seize control back from the player for me, but when the game does finally get out of your way and let you play - and there's only a handful of times it really does that - it was some of the most visceral, immersive and atmospheric gameplay i've experienced. open areas and absolute seat of the pants, survival stealth. incredible stuff. the rest of the game goes out of its way to interrupt you, and the level design is often far more restrictive.

i still have mixed feelings about it. it's frustrating and flawed but when it's good it's very f*ckin good. if nd ever decided to switch their focus from cinematics to that kind of gameplay, and make a full game out of it, instead of just a handful of times in a 20hr campaign, holy shit it could be something special

Idk. I wasn't interested in playing it.

I thought the first game had a good story, but I wasn't interested beyond that.

@madstarkaven: Please don't use the forums for advertising your YT channel.