Robert Middle

I'd give it a 5/10. But I lean more towards the negative. Graphically? beautiful. Naughty Dog always delivers on aesthetics and stability. The accessibility features are commendable. Most of the acting is great. That said, I personally am very, very, very sick of Laura Bailey ( and Troy Baker, Yuri Lowenthal and Travis Willingham were easy to peg too. Also yes, Troy is Joel and this is his most indistinguishable character so it's fine) in video games at this point. Their omnipresence is incredibly distracting at this point. I'm begging devs to use other actors at this point. I'm sure they're nice people. From a consumer's standpoint, it immediately takes me out. Probably would be less of a problem if social media and promo made less of a deal about totally revealing how the sausage is made. Leave some mystery. At the end of the day, people show up for the actual experience of consuming a story. Not the bts. Gameplay is improved on paper but both playable characters feel more like the stars of 2 expansions rather then main character leads if that makes sense. Maybe the gameplay was always shallow but it really feels worse to play than the first game despite the expanded tool set. It's certainly easier than the first game and yet also more complicated. So it's less challenging and yet more tasking. There are definitely great sections. Ellie gets most of them though. And wish her campaign was bigger. But this game isn't "fun". Ultimately, I don't like this story. I don't like these characters. I think the new factions and lore are ridiculous. And I definitely don't think anything really deep is being effectively discussed. Naughty Dog suffered massive cognitive dissonance. You can tell they certainly thought they were really doing something here. The whole thing comes off as somewhat arrogant/pretentious. They certainly felt entitled to preach and take way more time to tread and then continously retread the most basic of moral conundrums. ( Screw your cinematic mandatory walking sections ND. They suck. They've always sucked. They will continue to suck.) That's what ultimately makes the game feel somewhat offensive. Unfortunately, most of the legit criticism of the title has been conflated with legitimate "phobes" and "ists". It's a shame because IMO ND is clearly on the wrong path. But they are maybe too insulated by success and Sony's investment in PR to paint them as a singular genius studio. All I know is I wouldn't buy Playstation to play a Naughty Dog game like I did with Uncharted 2. And I maybe wouldn't buy a new Naughty Dog game at all.