A rarity in the zombie apocalypse game genre, Dying Light absolutely SHINES in terms of its gameplay and presentation. "You don't like slow movement and dry gameplay progression? Well how bout doing parkour across the city?" Fuck yes. Dying Light absolutely prides itself on its compelling parkour system that puts you on the edge constantly, forcing you to run away from everything in your sight and take a tactical approach to every combat encounter. The story sucks, but hey, that's every zombie game. And Dying Light isn't just any ordinary zombie game.

I am really going to get a lot of hate for this, but I really don't think the Last of Us is hot shit to be honest. Much like every other zombie apocalypse game ever made, the Last of Us is a game about surviving in a dead and dreary post-apocalyptic America where everyone is varying levels of psychopathic, except now its a dude and some teenage girl killing everyone and everything in their sight instead of a generic group of survivors. The gameplay is solid, but The Last of Us feels like a checkbox of every deplorable zombie apocalypse trope possible. The Last of Us Part II on the other hand...

A masterpiece of a game that greatly builds upon the previous one in both gameplay and plot, featuring smoother controls as well as a fine-tuned First Person View allowing for more accurate aiming and less wasted shots. The story, and the game itself in general if you really think about it, is a massive fucking trip where Raiden is basically trolled by everyone AND everything, allowing for the story to make a poignant statement about the threat of misinformation in the modern world, a statement that still holds true even more so today, in our current Trump-era political landscape.