The winter chapter is really good. Pittsburgh has my favourite stealth arenas and encounters. Everything else ranges from forgettable, to redundant, underutilized... or just down right bad. If a game is 10% great, 15% good, and 75% a waste of my time, then it's 100% not a masterpiece.
If the whole game was like the Winter level, I would give Neil Druckmann and ND my props, but there were so many empty hallways where characters made the most bland nothing-burger dialogues, if they even spoke at all.
It's trying to be more evocative than talkative, I get it, but does it achieve it? Not... really. When the giraffes in the last chapter came in and it was like a premonitory symbol for the joy of the journey ending, I was like "That's pretty cool, where was this directorial muscle before the winter level?". It's one of those games where people are like "Damn, I don't like ND games, they are trying so hard to be a movie" and meanwhile I'm here thinking "This stupid ass game should've used more cutscenes, that way we could've had more character moments".
What do I know about Ellie in the end? Very little. What do I know about Joel? Very little too. The game is so set into giving you the bare minimum, and I get what it's trying to do because I've eaten up like a hundred pseudo arthouse movies doing shit like this, with mixed results. Trying to focus on the holistic view of the world and only giving small glimpses into the main characters and making the player have to fill in the blanks. I get it. I don't think it works when these kind of understated interactions are spread out throughout a 15 hour game, they get drowned by everything else. Specially if there's way more distracting stuff like... the empty hallways, the sparse action or some surprising amount of jank for a game of this caliber. Or more importantly, the lack of some direction. And I don't mean it like "have a point to the story", I know it's more "about the journey". But there's very little moments than stand out outside the Winter level. And when they stand out, sometimes it's for the wrong reasons.
The whole section with Tess? Toss it to the garbage. Horrible fucking beginning to the game. The rest of the game isn't as bad, but it plays the zombie rulebook so fucking straight it should be a crime to be so self impressed. "Oh shit, black characters in a whitely produced zombie production, they are gonna fucking die and- Yup, sure enough". "Let's have a character explain why the worst part about the apocalypse aren't the zombies but rather the monster inside of people" YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWN. Goddamn notes sometimes were more interesting than what was happening on screen, even if they are like post apocalyptic cliche number 1.
I find it incredibly embarrassing how we slip in crafting elements and looting in a linear Naughty Dog game. It's trying to replicate the more organic experience of the, at the time, emerging zombie survival genre, so it's taking a lot of its aesthetics and mechanics but repurposing for what's ultimately a game that wants you to experience the way in a very specific manner. In fact, it has that Uncharted thing where some sections are designed to be beaten in a specific way, and trying to deviate from it in a way that feels second nature in a shooter game, will give you jank because Naughty Dog aren't that kind of designers. It's taking what other (way smaller) games are doing naturally and organically, to instead make a synthetic replica of it. Some stealth sections will end prematurely not because you did something wrong but rather the game decides "that's enough, horde coming your way". And I think it does it to "spice things up" because they struggle with just making a level and let the layout and enemy placement speak for themselves.
Also... I think they just didn't have many ideas for encounters. Pittsburgh had the more open arenas, the suburbs had the sniper section... everything else tho is very non-descript and it just echoes what other better zombie or action games have done much, much better. Hell, even the end of the game is basically them saying "Shit, we don't know how to make this climactic, so we'll just throw some enemies that do exactly the same but have more health". Side note: I'm tired of how many times I had to carry Ellie throughout a """"puzzle"""" section in a wood plank through. The puzzle designer came in one morning, had two barebones ideas, and then clocked out to never be seen in the office again.
AI is also not very apt. I've caught these motherfuckers looking at walls sometimes or just struggling to act because they locked their reaction routines as doing certain animations, so you might get aught but the enemy will be doing weird shit with their arms and shit. In general the game does that thing where animation fidelity is more important than functionality (see OG Prince of Persia) and that creates a certain disconnect with what's happening and the player, so even the best moments don't have the biggest intensity.
AND SO. MANY. GODDAMN. EMPTY. HALLWAYS.
Have you seen the Campus chapter?? That section is like 80% walking with nothing happening, 5% moving blocks """puzzles""", 1 small zombie encounter that's over before you know it, and the last encounter, where the game finally decides to start cooking with the way Joel gets hurt an all.
TRIM THE FUCKING GAME OR DO SOMETHING. YOU CAN'T GET AWAY WITH DOING NEITHER.
I don't want to hate on the game, I think if the whole experience was on the level of the Winter section, with that amount of care and attention put in, it would've been a blast! Every time I mention how it's my favourite part of the game, everyone goes "Oh yea" and then I ask "OK, NOW THAT WE AGREE, WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT THE REST OF THE GAME???" IT'S A BASIC GODDAMN ZOMBIE GAME WITH WAY TOO MUCH BUDGET AND TOO MANY EMPTY HALLWAYS.
When Ellie escapes during the dam level, or when shit goes down in the last minutes of the game, my reaction isn't "Oh shit, this is some real stuff" it's more like...
"Damn, I could've cared about this if you had put the effort before. But you didn't, so I don't"
If the whole game was like the Winter level, I would give Neil Druckmann and ND my props, but there were so many empty hallways where characters made the most bland nothing-burger dialogues, if they even spoke at all.
It's trying to be more evocative than talkative, I get it, but does it achieve it? Not... really. When the giraffes in the last chapter came in and it was like a premonitory symbol for the joy of the journey ending, I was like "That's pretty cool, where was this directorial muscle before the winter level?". It's one of those games where people are like "Damn, I don't like ND games, they are trying so hard to be a movie" and meanwhile I'm here thinking "This stupid ass game should've used more cutscenes, that way we could've had more character moments".
What do I know about Ellie in the end? Very little. What do I know about Joel? Very little too. The game is so set into giving you the bare minimum, and I get what it's trying to do because I've eaten up like a hundred pseudo arthouse movies doing shit like this, with mixed results. Trying to focus on the holistic view of the world and only giving small glimpses into the main characters and making the player have to fill in the blanks. I get it. I don't think it works when these kind of understated interactions are spread out throughout a 15 hour game, they get drowned by everything else. Specially if there's way more distracting stuff like... the empty hallways, the sparse action or some surprising amount of jank for a game of this caliber. Or more importantly, the lack of some direction. And I don't mean it like "have a point to the story", I know it's more "about the journey". But there's very little moments than stand out outside the Winter level. And when they stand out, sometimes it's for the wrong reasons.
The whole section with Tess? Toss it to the garbage. Horrible fucking beginning to the game. The rest of the game isn't as bad, but it plays the zombie rulebook so fucking straight it should be a crime to be so self impressed. "Oh shit, black characters in a whitely produced zombie production, they are gonna fucking die and- Yup, sure enough". "Let's have a character explain why the worst part about the apocalypse aren't the zombies but rather the monster inside of people" YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWN. Goddamn notes sometimes were more interesting than what was happening on screen, even if they are like post apocalyptic cliche number 1.
I find it incredibly embarrassing how we slip in crafting elements and looting in a linear Naughty Dog game. It's trying to replicate the more organic experience of the, at the time, emerging zombie survival genre, so it's taking a lot of its aesthetics and mechanics but repurposing for what's ultimately a game that wants you to experience the way in a very specific manner. In fact, it has that Uncharted thing where some sections are designed to be beaten in a specific way, and trying to deviate from it in a way that feels second nature in a shooter game, will give you jank because Naughty Dog aren't that kind of designers. It's taking what other (way smaller) games are doing naturally and organically, to instead make a synthetic replica of it. Some stealth sections will end prematurely not because you did something wrong but rather the game decides "that's enough, horde coming your way". And I think it does it to "spice things up" because they struggle with just making a level and let the layout and enemy placement speak for themselves.
Also... I think they just didn't have many ideas for encounters. Pittsburgh had the more open arenas, the suburbs had the sniper section... everything else tho is very non-descript and it just echoes what other better zombie or action games have done much, much better. Hell, even the end of the game is basically them saying "Shit, we don't know how to make this climactic, so we'll just throw some enemies that do exactly the same but have more health". Side note: I'm tired of how many times I had to carry Ellie throughout a """"puzzle"""" section in a wood plank through. The puzzle designer came in one morning, had two barebones ideas, and then clocked out to never be seen in the office again.
AI is also not very apt. I've caught these motherfuckers looking at walls sometimes or just struggling to act because they locked their reaction routines as doing certain animations, so you might get aught but the enemy will be doing weird shit with their arms and shit. In general the game does that thing where animation fidelity is more important than functionality (see OG Prince of Persia) and that creates a certain disconnect with what's happening and the player, so even the best moments don't have the biggest intensity.
AND SO. MANY. GODDAMN. EMPTY. HALLWAYS.
Have you seen the Campus chapter?? That section is like 80% walking with nothing happening, 5% moving blocks """puzzles""", 1 small zombie encounter that's over before you know it, and the last encounter, where the game finally decides to start cooking with the way Joel gets hurt an all.
TRIM THE FUCKING GAME OR DO SOMETHING. YOU CAN'T GET AWAY WITH DOING NEITHER.
I don't want to hate on the game, I think if the whole experience was on the level of the Winter section, with that amount of care and attention put in, it would've been a blast! Every time I mention how it's my favourite part of the game, everyone goes "Oh yea" and then I ask "OK, NOW THAT WE AGREE, WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT THE REST OF THE GAME???" IT'S A BASIC GODDAMN ZOMBIE GAME WITH WAY TOO MUCH BUDGET AND TOO MANY EMPTY HALLWAYS.
When Ellie escapes during the dam level, or when shit goes down in the last minutes of the game, my reaction isn't "Oh shit, this is some real stuff" it's more like...
"Damn, I could've cared about this if you had put the effort before. But you didn't, so I don't"