this may be shocking, but ive somehow avoided a good chunk of the discourse surrounding this game since its release. so when i say that i had low expectations, that negativity mostly stems from the numbing experience that was the first game. but also because of my bottomless ire for neil druckmann. druckmann is a wannabe, constantly wanting to live up to the names of sam lake, hideo kojima, and shinji mikami. in pursuing fame, the fake auteur clutches onto the medium of video games with pitiful fingers. although he and naughty dog catch a lot of flak, the developers deserve credit for their hard work. the game looks outstanding, feels great to play, has some sick art, and has a neat scavenging gameplay loop. but as a director, druckmann deserves all the shit i and other people throw at him. the story's plot is alright, and there are also some good tidbits (ellie's missing fingers at the end was a great touch). however, the gross romanticization of misery and inspiration for the story throws all the good under the bus. the game wants you to feel bad. it wants you to feel bile in your throat, dried blood on your gamer hands, and an uncomfortable twist in your stomach. violence is cruel, revenge is cruel, but to have players succumb to it for 20+ hours paired with the discord of satisfyingly explosive headshots, the last of us part 2 fails to evoke those feelings outside of cutscenes. it fails so badly that dogs are introduced to the combat as a cheap attempt to guilt the player. which is so odd when the story is already geared for emotional compulsion.

the characters you play as are bad people. they are selfish, violent, and vengeful. they have little to no redeeming qualities outside of helping those they care for. and that's the point. i don't understand the bashing of the protagonists for being unlikeable. they're anti-heroes; you're not supposed to like them, but you root for them because of something they've done that shows some glimmer of humanity. that's probably the one saving grace of the masturbatory playtime (inflated by how almost disrespectfully long cutscenes can get). but even then, the game's idf propaganda. one half, it's a venture into a foreign land for blood. the second half, it's a disgusting dehumanization of the palestinian people. druckmann's gone on record citing the lynching of 2 idf reservists as a major inspiration to the story for this game. and it shows because it's so clearly written from a zionist's point of view. "wow look how barbaric and violent these religious zealots are. theyre so transphobic and misogynist! the wolves (IDF stand-in) are normal people; look how cool they are with their militarist regime!" at times it tries to show that the wolves (WLF) aren't as good as they seem, but it's never fairly compared to the seraphites. it's so excessively biased, only making the WLF a full-on enemy in abby's story when she wants to be her own person. it's never a complete decry of the WLF, but it's always a condemnation of the seraphites. at least the game's version of the idf are just as much of a warmonger lol.

if i could strip away the politics and my ingrained distaste for the game's creator, the game is just mid. it's a run-of-the-mill AAA third-person shooter blockbuster. it looks next gen but it plays like Sony's stuck in 2009. there's nothing special going on here. It's the first game with some new guns, skills, and enemies. the level design is improved, but the visual clutter of photorealism sometimes detracts from the enjoyability of exploration. the story did not deserve the gut-twisting and palm-sweating reactions of its players. this game did not deserve to be heralded as the future of video games. neil druckmann did not fucking deserve to be awarded as a legendary "innovator" of games for directing the same game he did 7 years prior. if this is what AAA games are expected to become, i'll just continue digging into my hole of indies and classics. developers are being abused, neglected, and vacuumed into obscurity just to put out something to fulfill the dreams of the vainglorious. the games industry is fucked.

alas, im but a measly gamer... i dont know what's right for gaming. hail druckmann, the savior of the medium! we've truly found gaming's citizen kane! finally, our hobby is legitimized in the world of art!!1! miss me with that bullshit. im going back to silent hill 3 or some other good stuff.