Be Excellent To Each Other

I've done it on Hard too. Was actually really fun.

I finished it on Grounded difficulty.

This game proper creeped me out last night, I love it and it's awesome but the whole world is so oppressive and brutal that it really gets under my skin.

I can do about 60-90 minutes at a time and then I have to turn it off and play something else.

All finished!

As you can see I didn't exactly charge through it, I feel it's a game to be savoured and experienced fully, and I had to be in the right headspace to play it, some nights I just didn't feel like it.

It's a solid 9/10 I'd say. In pure game mechanic terms it's not particularly revolutionary, but the world it creates, the story, the characters - are what gives it its greatness.

Could have done with a little bit of tightening up here and there, and falls back on a few familiar videogame tropes from time to time - but overall, fantastic game.

Ending's a bit of a suckerpunch though:

My thoughts on the spoiler above:

I'm not 100% sure about that.



Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick?

Ahhhh right here's a transcript of the surgeon's recorder, and this ties in with everything else.

I should retry this at some point.

I made a video about it.

I've been playing the Left Behind DLC the last couple of nights, cor, that's good innit!

I am so stoked for The Last Of Us 2. (In a way that I'm totally not stoked for RDR2.)

Yep!

Finished the Left Behind DLC just now - a wonderful addition to the main game, perfectly paced, and just about exactly the right duration.

I'd have to find a slot for this game and its DLC in my All Time Top Ten Videogames list, it's really that good.

Roll on the sequel, can't wait.

Y'know, I found this game and its DLC genuinely affecting.

This video is great. (I went on a little Google-o-thon last night after finishing the DLC.)

Urgh, some of these sentimental, verging on sanctimonious, analysis’ are so tired and worn. “Photographs are an attempt to capture the past...” must have been copied from some GCSE textbook.

Your happiness is infectious.

I thought it was quite a nice analysis, and the parallels with Children of Men were interesting.

So I have bought the PS5 remake of this, I wanted to play through it again after watching the magnificent HBO TV series. I fired it up on the PS4 Pro and it still looks fine, but I knew the PS5 version existed and everything I'd read/watched about it said Naughty Dog did a magnificent job on it, so I took the plunge on a PS5 and the £69.99p (!!!) Sony are charging for the game.

And it's totally worth it.

For starters you get all the accessibility stuff Naughty Dog did in TLOU2, I'm a bit shit with a pad and I don't think TLOU is really the best game of all time ever anyway, it's far more about the world and the characters and the story, so I was able to customise the game to play exactly how I want it, which is great.

And then there's the graphics, this is not just a spit and shine job, it's a total remake and it looks utterly and completely amazing, on several occasions I have found myself standing still and simply looking around at the world, it's incredible.

The audio mix is a lot more sophisticated too, I've got a 5:1 setup on the big telly and it's stunningly immersive, the clickers are terrifying.

They've done a fine job with all the haptic stuff on the PS5's pad too.

They haven't messed around with the actual game much at all, so all the puzzles are still there, moving dumpsters and ladders around and whatnot, but there is an option you can toggle on that lets you skip them if you want.

There are a couple of good videos about it here, the NoClip documentary in particular was what tipped me over the edge, you can see the massive amount of love and care than went into the remake.

Also, the PS4 Pro was a fucking noisy bastard, the fan noise was awful and intrusive, there's none of that with the PS5.

So yeah, it's not cheap, but if you loved TLOU, and perhaps have enjoyed the TV series and want to experience the game again, this is the best way you can do it.

That hasn't aged well though.