In the first game you are a man who lost his daughter, who now has a shot at helping to save the world by protecting a little girl and delivering her across the country to a group who believes they have cure to what is plaguing mankind. That is not what this game is about.
The Basics
The Last of Us 2 is simply about hate and revenge. There is a lot of hope in the first game, not so much here. Instead of playing as Joel we are instead now Ellie, and she is out for revenge.
While on that path of revenge you can choose to be silent and sneaky or go in loud and guns blazing, although resources in this game are still very precious, so the latter is not always the best. Movement is very smooth and some new actions and some very useful weapons have been added.
An interesting thing the Last of Us 2 does is takes you on little dips into the past. This not only gives you some storyline, but is also used to teach you how to use new skills that were not in the original game, like swimming.
I will say while I enjoy the crafting system and creating my weapons on the go from the things in the environment, the carry limits on most things seem a bit low. Also, there are workbenches where you can upgrade your weapons from parts you find along your journey, and the animations from those are incredible.
A new enemy this time around is the dog, which adds issues to the stealth player as the canine can smell you and also follow your scent path, so staying on the move is now essential. Also new with the enemies is the mix of infected and humans in the same environment. This can make for interesting situations if you can get the infected to take out your human foes and still leave you be.
Without spoiling for those who have purposely avoided being spoiled; my biggest issue overall is that while playing I felt kind of like I was in an episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, and at one point you are forced into a high point and then a kind of reset button is hit. But not like the typical game where you are captured, lose your stuff for a level and get it back, but a start from scratch rebuilding everything again, almost like a save file was wiped out. That cheesed me off the most.
On the Plus Side
- Very involved and lengthy story
- Smooth gameplay, no load screens
- Plenty to collect
- Fantastic (and helpful) sound
The Negatives
- Some collectables are easy to miss, and you can;t go back for them
- Many may not like this story line compared to the first games
- Game starts to drag about half way through
I ran out and grabbed this game as soon as it hit shelves as I was very excited for it having loved the first game. Having gone from a story of survival, hope, and bonding to one of simple revenge actually makes me hope they stop here and that there is no Last of Us 3 however.