Adam Whitnall

I'd love to review this game properly but I can't get into it. I spent an hour yesterday getting the gold trophies in the Music Rally races while the game downloaded, only to turn it on today to play it and discover all of my progress and hard earned gold trophies were gone! On top of that, I had to replay the Music Rally race to access the real game (after also having to go through all the setup screens again) - which didn't even work! Apparently the servers are down, and have been for hours, and you can't do anything in the game without an internet connection. Seriously!? Why is an internet connection required when all I want to do is play the single player mode!? In addition to that the microtransactions are apparently ridiculously expensive. This will be the last Gran Turismo game I buy, what a joke.

Beautiful game, with some excellent level design and great storytelling, but massively let down by two things. Firstly, the controls are absolutely appalling, I've never played a game with such a frustrating control scheme. Secondly, they completely ruin a beautiful story with a horrible and brutal ending which has left me feeling completely deflated. Overall I would not recommend this game, the frustration and disappointment just aren't worth it.

[SPOILER FREE] If I'd stopped playing this game at around 90% of the way through I think I'd be sitting here giving it 5 stars. The gameplay itself remains true to the original, so players of that game will appreciate the continuity. The world is once again beautifully designed and incredibly detailed. They've done an excellent job of creating a linear path through the game that feels as open and expansive as an open-world game, while subtly funnelling you down a single path. The zombies are back, with all your favourite enemies from the original, plus some new zombies which have obviously been created to force you to adapt new methods of avoidance or attack. In this area it felt to me like they were trying a little too hard to fix something that wasn't broken, but it was rarely more than a short-lived annoyance. The story has again been incredibly well designed, with complex relationships between the characters, and a well thought-out continuation of the story arc from the first game. It forces you to make some difficult decisions in your mind between forgiveness and revenge, between love and betrayal. But herein lies the problem - you don't actually get to make any decisions IN THE GAME, and to me this is the major issue that becomes difficult to deal with towards the end. By this point you will have likely made your own mind up about how you feel about the characters and their decisions. But like a bad movie where you're forced to watch the characters make stupid decisions while you scream at the screen, you're powerless to change anything. What makes it worse is that YOU have to make the trainwreck unfold through the gameplay! Overall, The Last of Us Part II is a brilliant game, if you liked the original you will enjoy this. But be aware that the character development goes far deeper, and you may not like the rabbit hole you tumble down. One last point - a huge amount of the 1 star reviews for this game are from the vocal homophobic community. If you are comfortable with modern gender fluidity and the right to freedom of sexual expression then you won't have a problem. If that's not you then probably best you go stick your head back in the sand and try to pray the gay away.

I'm a big fan of the Crash franchise, having played it since the first one was released back on the PS1. But ultimately this latest version of the game disappoints. Why? It's just too hard. I'm a seasoned gamer, and consider myself pretty handy with a controller, but they've considerably increased the difficulty level of this title to the point where I find myself spending more time frustrated than actually enjoying the game. It's such a shame as the levels are beautifully designed, and the gameplay functions really well, so I just don't understand why they've taken a game that should be enjoyable to play and made it into one of the most frustrating titles in years. Buy this if you're desperate for your hit of Crash nostalgia, but don't expect to be able to kick back and relax on the sofa like you were able to with previous titles.