So, what you playing at the mo? Retro Edition

It was a gripping game for me, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Once again, the world building was just mesmerising in terms of detail and atmosphere. They absolutely nailed nature reclaiming the land & buildings, the different environments in decay, the weather, the lighting, the sounds....all truly top class for me.

Emotionally, the game really grabbed me too. Joel's death at the start for brutal, and visceral. Having 'got to know Joel' all through the first game, understanding his choices, knowing his motives, etc, made his sudden and viscous murder a veritable shot gun blast to the chest. Setting out then as Ellie when the game got going, the game succeeded in making me want revenge for Joel at any cost. Throughout much of Ellie's side of the game, I had a singular focus in reaching Abby, and making her pay for what she done.

Unexpectedly then (as I went in blind), the game goes back three days, and tells you Abby's story. It showed why she murdered Joel, and while I still didn't agree with what she did, and I still didn't like her as a character, I could at least understand her motives - which tie directly to Retr0's biggest complaint with the first game - you HAVE to kill the surgeon to save Ellie, a complaint I share, and one with carries through into the second game.

Playing for some time with Abby, you kinda get to know her...I still never really felt I 'liked' her at that stage...she's a pretty cold hard-ass soldier, but then that all changes when she has encounters Lev & Yara. They save her life, and end up having a big impact on her. She can't reconcile that she left them to fend for themselves, and eventually goes back to help them - this definitely has a humanising effect on her character, and I started to warm to her a bit. Helping Lev & Yara cost her everything in the end, but she did the right thing, and proved she wasn't as cold as we initially thought.

Then came the confrontation with Ellie & Abby, & I felt a big incongruity here. Playing Abby, the game forced me to confront Ellie, and that was something I didn't want to do. I had to keep reminding myself that I'm playing a written story, and free will wasn't part of that. I suppose the narrative is so overarching, so knitted together, and pretty much game-defining, that adding branching paths into the game would be an enormous undertaking.

I felt Abby's part in the game was perhaps slightly padded & overly long, & I was glad to get back to Ellie's story for the final haul. Again, Ellie needed closure on Joel's death, and for her, there was only one way to do that - to seek and kill Abby. At this stage, the game had gotten the message about revenge through to me, and I felt Ellie should have stayed with Dina, and rebuilt herself. She doesn't though, and eventually finds Abby for the final showdown - ultimately Ellie can't go through with killing Abby thankfully, but the fight cost her her final link to Joel (the loss of fingers, and the ability to play the guitar he taught her to play).

For all its flaws, again, I really loved it. It was an emotionally gripping game, the world drew me in, the characters all came across as very human, the graphics were fantastic, the score brilliant....but the narrative became so all-encompassing, that the infected very quickly became minor distractions, in the way of sheer anger and revenge. I suppose in that sense, if the game is for you, it's for you, and if it's not, you're not gonna like it at all.