Disney Speedstorm early access review (Xbox Series S)

I love a kart racing game, it's the only type of racing game I have ever really liked. And that's because they are a lot simpler and more fun than your average motor racing simulator. If I'm playing a racing game I just want to pick up a controller and just play with a smile on my face. That's not to mean that I don't like a challenge or that I don't appreciate the likes of Forza Horizon or Gran Turismo, but I prefer a racer with a bit of novelty to it. 

Disney Speedstorm only came to my attention a few months back when I was playing through Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2 & 3, and it looked decent. I really enjoyed the Nickelodeon racers, so the game caught my eye more than it otherwise would have. I followed its development right up until I bought it on first day of release. And having spent a solid four to five hours on it, I've just given up, it's one of the most disappointing games I've played in quite some time. Not that I was expecting it to be amazing, but I wish I could get my money back.

As the title suggests, Disney Speedstorm is a kart racer that's based on Disney IP, the slim roster of racers include favourites such as Mickey, Mulan, Goofy and Jack Sparrow amongst others. The racers will also have their own Disney themed racetrack, for example you have a Pirates of the Caribbean track and another based on Olympus from the Hercules movie. The game is visually decent, nothing pops out as jaw dropping but the character models are okay and the track locales are easily recognisable. The game's particle effects are pretty impressive, these light up the screen when you use a power up or a boost.

The core gameplay reminded me of a cross between the simple drifting of Team Sonic Racing and the customisation of the Nickeloden Kart Racers. There is a boost metre in the game that is activated by performing a drift or hitting opponents with a power up, it works because it gives the player the incentive to at least think about the way they use their resources during a race. The power ups are your standard boost, projectile launchers and shields, rather unimaginative to be honest. But each racer does have their own unique skill, for example Mickey Mouse has a skill that lets out a music melody that gives him a prolonged speed boost.

Outside of the local and online multiplayer modes, the meat of the single player experience is in the Starter Circuit and Season Tour modes. This is where you will race to win awards and unlock racers, both of these modes are near identical. Here you will be able to compete in races and missions as you progress from one side of the screen to the other. Each race will have their own objectives, these will usually involve finishing in the top 3 at a bare minimum to pick up medals. There are different versions of the racetracks but there is still not enough of them, there is fun to be had but it won't be long before you get incredibly bored, I find it shocking that in a kart racing game there is no grand prix mode. For me it is the best part of the single player experience in a game like this, nothing beats the satisfaction of seeing yourself gradually improve as you beat each grand prix on a higher difficulty through learned experience.

Most modes have to be unlocked if you have the standard edition of the beta, to be honest it doesn't take long to unlock most of what's on offer but it brings me to the one thing that makes the game go from being painfully average to just bad. And that's the cluster mess of the game's progression.

There are three kinds of currency in the game, you have racer shards, tokens and multiplayer tokens, I think those are the three. It's such a mess that I genuinely forget which is which. These can all be used in the game's shop to buy cosmetics, racers, or random loot boxes. There's even upgrade flags that are used to upgrade the handling and speed of your kart. The entire progression is a numbers game, and it's so boring and uninteresting. You can cosmetically change your kart and what your racer wears, but again none of it is interesting. 

In short spurts the racing can be a real joy, the online mode is still pretty busy but the race tracks just aren't interesting enough or deviate in a way that makes anything feel unique. It does not have the eloquent designs of the tracks in a Mario Kart, none of the colourful chaos of a Nickelodeon Kart Racer, or the scale of the Sonic racing games.

I would not pay for the early access to this game, wait until it comes out as free to play, it might be worth checking out for a few hours. The online might still be busy by then and there might be more content in terms of racetracks, but as it is I cannot recommend the game. What little quality the game has, is unfortunately buried by a bad user experience.

Verdict: 4.5/10

Sonic Frontiers review (PS5 version)

 Sonic Frontiers is a long time coming, it's been five years since Sonic Forces, which was the last mainline game in the series. Which was not very good to be quite frank, so coming off of the back of that game, Sonic Team have decided to completely change the formula and make Sonic an open world game. Or 'Open Zone' as the developers have stated. The end result is a game that's fun and frustrating in equal measure, with a surprising amount of scale that's held back by what feels like potential that's not quite been reached yet.

Frontiers begins with Dr. Robotnik transported to cybserspace after tampering with an ancient portal. On investigating what has happened, Sonic and his friends also get sucked into the portal. Sonic then finds himself on a mysterious island where he has to save his friends and confront a strange new villain called Sage.

There are five islands in the game and each is one big sandbox of short platform segments that lead to rewards that can be used in the open zone progression. Anyone who has played or watched a previous sonic game, old or new will recognise these staples of the series. You will be speeding through a lot of loop the loops, bouncing through the air and using your homing attack from one enemy to the next. 

The platforming is the real star of the show, while not particularly complex the platform sections have this quick, snappy feel to them as you get from point A to B. These little sections don't last for long as you reach your eventual reward and return to the open world. But the game quickly finds a rhythm that becomes a bit addicting, there will be a lot of repetition but it all feels so good and satisfying. One moment you are bouncing through the sky and the next you are sliding along a rail from one side of the map to the next, all at a speed that few games can offer. Much like Assassin's Creed, Frontiers is one of the few games where its open world is built around its gameplay mechanics. 

Sonic controls really well for the most part, so exploring the islands is a lot of fun. Points of interests can be unlocked on the map by completing mini tasks. But I never once looked at the mini map at all, it was a joy just to go from one place to the next, picking up my rewards as I went and progressing at my own pace.

While the look of the islands fit nicely within the context of the story, there could have been more imagination used in their design. The colour palettes are bland and bleak, two words which you'd not usually use to describe a Sonic game. Although each island has a different biome and their own level designs, they are all just a little too generic. They are for better or worse just sandboxes so Sonic can run around and do stuff in, a backdrop for the gameplay to loop around. I can only imagine what it would be like to fully explore a highly realised Green Hill Zone or a Carnival Night Zone.

And while each of the islands are little more than palette swaps, they do have breathtaking locations that can be explored. Whether that be a floating temple or a sky high tower.

The variety of enemies does change up with each island, some of them have their own unique ways of being defeated. One stand out mini boss on the second Island, Ares, was a shark that swims in the sand dunes. You defeat it by the grabbing onto its tail, which then thrusts you into a frantic quick time event as you speed around the island waiting for the chance to attack it. 

To get from one island to the next you have to collect Chaos Emerald's, and there are six to collect on each island, with the last taken from a boss fight. You can only unlock these emeralds by completing the cyberspace levels, completing these levels will grant you vault keys which unlock the emeralds.

The cyberspace levels are in the tradition of what you might expect from a Sonic game, where the goal is to reach the level's end point. These levels mix it up between 3D and 2D sections and don't last for two minutes or more. There are objectives in these levels that grant you more rewards. Such as collecting a specific number of rings, collecting five red stars, and finishing the level under a time limit.

Unlike the open zone islands, the cyberspace levels are full of splashy colours. They are short bursts of fun that divert from the main game, and while they have their moments of frustration they aren't particularly difficult. So you will be trying them over and over until you've completed all of the objectives. 

But the big issue with these levels is that they eventually get boring and feel like they get in the way of the more interesting open zone stuff. It would have helped if it wasn't just the same four level types that are repeated, two of them taken from classic Sonic stages, Green Hill and Chemical Plant zone. It would have been so much better if at least half of the cyberspace levels were original and none of them had to be played through more than twice.

It's not just the open zone islands where the formula has changed, Sonic can now kick and punch. So it's more than just his homing attack that's at your disposal this time around. The combat can be upgraded via the skill tree in the main menu, you can do this by picking up skill points by completing tasks and defeating enemies. The combat is basic but engaging, the latter skills you unlock come in handy when you are fighting enemies in large numbers.

But the biggest change in Sonic's movement is the cycloop ability, this allows Sonic to leave a trail when he moves. It does have combat functions but it's for the most part used as a tool to solve puzzles and reveal secrets. It is a neat little addition to the series and going forward there is a lot of room to expand its role within another open zone game.  

The Sonic series has always had elaborate boss battles. These worked far better in the classic games where all you had to do was avoid Robotnik's attack patterns before you were given a small window to attack back. The same is the case for the boss battles in Frontiers, with mixed results.

The boss battles are utterly breathtaking in terms of scale, not just the sheer size of them but the way the game puts you into a cinematic fight as you control Super Sonic. Like the classic games, these boss battles have attack patterns that you need to learn, but be prepared to die a lot through trial and error. As soon as you clock onto their patterns of attack they are relatively simple to beat.

It was only in these boss battles that I had an issue with the camera, which can sometimes not keep pace with the action. So the few visual clues given to the gamer can easily be missed and incoming attacks are often not seen until the last second.

For the first time in a while I am excited about Sonic's future, Frontiers should be a a blueprint going forward. Keep the engaging story, make the open zones a little more colourful and their design unique to the gameplay. Any fan of the series will need to pick this up, it's the most interesting Sonic game in years. With rewarding platforming and an intriguing story, there's plenty to like for newcomers as well.

Verdict: 7.5/10       

Multiversus review (PS5 version)

For me the mark of a good fighting game is one where you are having fun even when you are losing, Multiversus is exactly that. You can lose fight after fight but it just hooks you in, there's something about its simple mechanics and fluid combat that is just incredibly satisfying.

Multiversus is a platform fighting game, the most obvious comparison is the Super Smash Bros series, and while there are clear similarities, Multiversus manages to make itself distinct from the competition. The clearest difference is the roster, Multiversus is made up of characters from various Warner Bros IPs, all of whom would be familiar to anyone who knows their popular culture. We have the obvious Bugs Bunny, Batman and Superman to the more obscure Steven Universe. The roster is good for the most part but it feels a bit safe, it really could have done with some more villains.

Each of these characters require the same button inputs for the most, but unlike Nickelodeon All Star Brawl, these button inputs make each character's movesets unique. Each have a basic light and neutral attack which will be the primary forms of offence, along with a special move that needs to be recharged. Like Super Smash Bros you do not have to press button inputs in a specific direction in a particular way to hit your opponent, this game is as basic and as accessible as you can get. But don't confuse this simplicity for being easy, each character has their strengths and weaknesses, and executing combos takes gradual experience.

Fights are fast and frantic, this is only helped by the dodge button, with just a tap of the button your character can evade incoming attacks. With no block button to slow down the pace of the fighting, the timing of the dodge is a key skill you will need to master to notch up victories. The fast nature of the fighting generally makes matches feel short and sweet, and you do have the option of changing your character after each round when you are playing the best of three. The only negative thing I can say about the speed of the fighting is that there will be times when your character can get lost in the animation sprites during a teams battle. This is especially the case when you respawn after dying, when this happens you are speedily dropped back into the fight from the middle of the screen. I feel there could have been a little more breathing space between deaths, because there were far too many times where I was dropped into a crowded fight and it was hard to see where my character was amongst the animation visuals.  

The overall look of the game is impressive, there's nothing jaw dropping in terms of the details, but the presentation is spot on. The animation of the characters finds a sweet spot by being cartoony but not childish. 

Progression is made by levelling up your characters as you use them, you will eventually unlock perk slots that will improve your characters stats. Perks include such things as '4% reduced incoming damage', '10% reduced ability cooldown' or 'armour for 5 seconds after respawning'. There's a lot to play around with, and some of the perks make a real difference.  In a game where recovery is so critical, having the ability to make an extra jump in the air is going to save you many lives. At a certain level you are able to use in-game currency to buy new perks that can't be unlocked through a character's progression. This gives the player the chance to customise their options a little, and tailor a character to their play style.

At face value there is not much content in the game, we have a practice mode and your basic 1 v 1, 2 v 2, and a free for all mode where four fighters compete against one another. There is an option to play all of these modes against bots as well online players. It must also be stressed that an arcade and ranked mode will arrive when season one starts.

There is no story mode in this game which is fine for me, I do not play fighting games for the story, I consider it an added bonus if there is one. As a free to play game, Multiversus is perfect for people like myself, who just want to pick up the controller and compete online. If you are going into this game expecting a heap of content please keep your expectations in check.  

Like most free games Multiversus is not exactly free in the literal sense, for better or worse this is linked to both the roster and the players progression. For example not all of the characters are available when you boot up the game. There is a free rotation of four characters every two weeks, so you do get a pick of some characters. But if you want the full roster you will heave to earn gold coins to pay for them. Gold coins are the in-game currency, it's earned after each match and each time you level up a character. If you want to crack out your wallet you can, there is another in game currency called Gleamium. This can be spent on unlocking fighters, comsetics, as well as perks. If you want to unlock everything be prepared to go on a long grind, but the game is so much fun that I never really felt the need to spend money. I will confess that I have personally spent £7.99 to buy one character. I did this because I felt like giving the developer some of my money for the large amount of time I was spending on the game. I never once felt pressured into spending any cash.

You can pay for the founders pack that gives you a bunch of goodies as well as character tokens. I would not buy this pack right away, give the game a try and then decide whether it's worth paying for the whole experience in one go.

If you want a fun and easily accessible fighting game, Multiversus more than fits the bill, it really did take me by complete surprise. Going forward I hope the game is given the support it deserves with new characters released in frequent doses. As I stated earlier there really does need to be more villain characters in the roster. Do be aware that the game is tailored more towards a team experience, as stated earlier there is a 1v1 mode, but the 2v2 is so much more fun.

Verdict: 8/10

No time to die Review

 

Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga

Running time: 2 hours and forty three minutes

No Time to Die directly follows on from the last 007 movie, Spectre. Bond is once again retired, but this time he is seemingly in love with Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux). But it's not long before past events come back into play, and Bond is forced into action again.

What follows for the duration of the runtime is just about every trope you might expect from a classic Bond movie. Gadgets, action and a disfigured villain that has a secret lair. The action scenes are thoroughly entertaining without being too overblown. A thrilling car chase through Italian city Matera was the big highlight, probably my favourite part of the movie.

If you are going into this movie having not watched any of Daniel Craig's previous 007 movies, you are going to be completely lost. Unlike his predecessors, each of the Craig era movies tie into one another and all of them have in some way led into the events of No Time to Die. Which explains why this movie feels like one long goodbye to his tenure as the MI6 Spy.

The story is fairly simple and does the job but it's let down by an underdeveloped villain. Rami Malek does a good enough job as Safin, but aside from a creepy opening scene he's very much in the background until the last twenty odd minutes. And even for a Bond villain his motivations do not really justify his wider plan.

With the story shifting to a more character narrative, this is the best Bond performance Craig has given since Casino Royale. As was the case in that movie, the stakes are far higher and more personal for the character, and we see a fragility to Bond that we have not seen since then either. Lea Seydoux is also given a meatier role here, in Spectre she was little more than a damsel in distress but in this movie her importance is central to everything.

Similar to the villain, the supporting cast don't really do much until the last third of the movie, when everything dials up to eleven. I was disappointed that Ana De Amas's screen time was reduced to little more than ten or fifteen minutes, albeit with an impressive action scene. 

No Time to Die is a fitting end to Daniel Craig's Bond, it ties up his era like a bow. But an overly long run time and weak villain left me a little numb to the whole experience. If you are looking for just under three hours of entertainment you can't really go wrong here. And I think it's better than Spectre, so I can easily recommend a cinema visit.

***

I am not a huge 007 fan but I have seen every new release at the cinema since Casino Royale (which is still by far Daniel Craig's best Bond entry), so I am not an expert on the subject. But going forward I don't think they need to make the character less serious, they just need to make him less tragic.   

Verdict: 3/5

     

Avengers review (PS4 version)

Summer is an unusually quiet season for video game releases, that's until the early weeks of September when a few games suddenly pop up before the big holiday releases in the months afterwards. Which is one of the reasons why I decided to buy Avengers, despite none of the gameplay footage impressing me. The other reason is because it's made by Crystal Dynamics, the same company that made the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy, of which I adored enormously.

So I went into Avengers with little expectations, I just wanted an engaging campaign and a fun multiplayer as a side distraction when needs be. To some degree I got both of these things, but I cannot help but feel the game lacks ambition, and ends up just being another games a service title. Long story short, the beginning of the campaign starts on A-day, which is a celebration of the Avengers, it is also a day in which they intend to unveil a new energy source called Terrigen. But things don't go to plan when San Francisco is attacked and the terrigen spills out onto the streets of the city. Leaving it devastated and many of its citizens with new superpowers they never had before, these people eventually become known as Inhumans. 

The Avengers are blamed and disband soon afterwards, fast forward five years and we take control of Kamala Khan, a teenager who has superpowers owing to the attack on the city (in her case she can stretch her arms over longer than usual distances). The beginning of the story is by far the best part of the campaign, where you play as Kamala as she escapes from AIM (Advanced idea Mechanics), which is a private company that uses its machines to hunt down Inhumans. Kamala Khan is an immediately likeable character with her youthful naivety, but the campaign takes a dip in quality around middle of the game when it opens up and the missions begin to repeat themselves. Before going out in a blaze of glory in the last act, with an epic team up section and a challenging boss fight.   

Aside from some small moments of platforming, Avengers is first and foremost a beat em up game, everything from the level and mission designs to the skill trees, function so you can pummel as many enemies as possible. The combat is rather simple and fun for the most part, with each hero genuinely feeling different from one another, and all have a pretty decent skill tree that you can upgrade to your liking. My two favourite heroes were Black Widow and Iron man, Black Widow is the quickest and most elegant to control, it was a joy to use her grapple hook to transport from one enemy to the next. Iron Man is difficult to use due to the finicky flight controls, but the satisfaction of using his ranged attacks never gets old. The Incredible Hulk is the only hero I did not enjoy playing, his slow movement and lack of interesting skills meant that I only ever used him when the story demanded it.

One area in which the upgrade system does not work is in the gear department, which works in a similar vein to what you see in Destiny and The Division. You collect the different gear by looting chest boxes lying around the game's worlds. But unlike those games, the loot just isn't interesting in Avengers because the stats just don't seem to make much of a difference. Although the combat is fun it's hardly complex, and adding a few percentage points on top of your damage or speed feels convoluted and pointless. 

What makes matters even worse is that the gear does not change the way you look, it's just a number. Which is utterly baffling because one of the central pillars of grinding or collecting for loot is so that your character looks cool and unique to what you want. I know we are dealing with established characters that have a set look, so there might have been an issue with licensing. But it's a crying shame that the gear is just a stat sheet, it kind of takes away some of the incentive to progress through the post game content.

While sticking to the subject of cosmetics, the game has a battle pass for each hero, which give you certain costumes that would otherwise not be available. You can purchase in-game money to use for some of the more fancy gear on offer. I never felt the need to spend any money on microtransactions, one because it just isn't worth the value, and two because what's on offer is no better than the base cosmetics that you start with. The in-game store does seem egregious when the overall grind just isn't worth it. I am not especially against microtransactions in games, but I worry that it's gradually taking precedence over product quality, but that subject is for another time.  

   

For a game centred on some of Marvel's mightiest heroes it's unfortunate that the locations in the game are rather bland. There's only one moment in which the story takes place outside of Earth, and even that is a short, linear section towards the end of the campaign. The other locations are set in a desert, a city and a snow covered locale, all of them are nothing more than a means to an end. Although you can explore them to find collectables and resources, they are neither visually interesting or engaging to traverse.  Although I did enjoy finding the audiotapes and reading files dotted around the maps, each of them add a little depth to the story and characters. 

In each of these locations will be enemy bases that you have to infiltrate for one reason or another, and it's in these buildings where the meat of the game's campaign takes place. It's where you will be smashing your way through countless enemies in narrow corridors that look rather identical to one another. The missions consist of the familiar protect or destroy objective markers, which is fine but rather unambitious. Rather like the open world maps, the enemy types are a little bland, consisting mostly of robots in some form or another. As cannon fodder they just about do their job, and they do have a purposeful role within the story. Which is especially the case towards the tail end of the game when they become more interesting and challenging.

Speaking of enemies, the boss battles are a real mixed bag, they generally require you to hit their weak points over and over, so they don't deviate too much from your usual video game bosses. But there were two that really stood out, one was at the start of the story and the other was right at the end, both were cinematic and important to the narrative. The others in the middle of the game became repetitive chores that lack imagination.

I might have been a little more lenient with my final review score had it not been for the technical issues that the game is littered with. This is especially the case in the last third of the campaign, where frame rates drop to ridiculous levels and textures take a while to load up. I have a base PlayStation 4 from 2016, and the game pushed it to the limit, causing it to crash three times during one rather uninspired boss battle against a giant, robot spider.

When the campaign is finished you're left with the multiplayer, some of these missions are new while others are retreads of those that you've already been through. To be honest I never played an overwhelming amount of the multiplayer, so I never tried a Warzone mission, which are bigger missions specific to the multiplayer. But from what I did play, the multiplayer does not deviate much from what you play in the campaign. You are still doing the same objectives and beating up as many onscreen enemies as possible. There is however a decent amount of content to keep you busy before more is delivered post release, which is not always the case with these games as a service titles on release day.

Despite all of my criticisms and what might come across as a highly negative review, Avengers is not a bad game by any measure. The combat hooks you in with its simple, undemanding button mashing, and that's a good thing to find in a game from time to time. It reminded me of how I felt as a kid when I played Streets of Rage back in the Mega Drive days. Although the story fades a little towards the end, it starts out exceptional, and overall it's pretty damn good. Aside from Thor each of the heroes play a pivotal role, and the villains have strong motivations for what they want to achieve. The story was certainly far better than I had anticipated. It's also elevated by some of the best voice acting I have ever come across in a video game, and a script that's full of charm and emotion. But this strong core is hindered by a mediocre outer shell, I really wish the game had focused on being a linear experience and left the open world stuff to the multiplayer and endgame.

At present Avengers is a decent game, it's the jack of all trades but the master of nothing. It does have the potential to get better, which will hopefully be the case as the developers have promised new content in the future. Not to spoil anything but the game does have an epilogue that hints at future story DLC, which does interest me. Can I recommend this game? only for those who are in need of a new game, as well as those who are Marvel fans. For everyone else I would wait for a reasonable sale.

Verdict: 6/10       

 

Tenet review

Director: Christopher Nolan

Rating: 12A

Running time: 2 hours and thirty minutes

I am in the minority of people who doesn't like most of Christopher Nolan's movies, my personal favourite is Batman Begins (of which I also consider to be one of the best comic book adaptations of all time). His others leave me feeling indifferent, they are all wonderful in concept but lacking in the execution department. I do confess to have never seen Inception and Dunkirk, which are two of his more recent movies.

Tenet is the first movie I've seen in the cinema since the middle of March, which was about a week before the national lockdown happened here in the UK. So I was more than pumped to watch the first major release since they reopened, which makes it even more of a shame that I left disappointed and deflated by the movie. Aside from watching the first trailer, I went in knowing almost nothing about Tenet.

The incomprehensible plot revolves around an agent (John David Washington) who has to stop a Russian oligarch (Kenneth Branagh) from using a time bending device that could lead to world war three. It ought to make for a thrilling story, but no cohesive or engaging narrative develops from any of it. Most of it is described through heavy exposition by characters that aren't particularly interesting. That's not to say that there aren't smart moments in the story that blindside your expectations, but the overall package is missing a spine that holds anything together and a central mystery to keep it intriguing.

The movie would be best described as a spy thriller, with elements of the science fiction in the background. It's in the science fiction area of the movie where it showcases some clever moments of visual story telling, but they are in small doses. Not to spoil anything, but the plot does not play out in a typical A to B straight line.  

There's a lot more action than you would expect from a Nolan movie, and like the story, it falls flat when all said and done. From the previous movies that I have seen of his, action scenes are not one of the director's strong points. I appreciate the fact that they are generally edited so that the audience know what's going on in each shot, which is not the case in most action scenes in modern movies. But for me they lack any form of flair that generates excitement. Some of his other movies could get away with this because we cared about the characters, which in turn creates tension. And action without any form of tension is just not effective.

What makes these action scenes even worse is the dreadful, head banging sound mix. Every moment of action or potential tension was ruined by a listless thumping sound that repeated over and over. It happened during character dialogue as well to make things even worse, I honestly cannot remember a sound mix so obnoxious in my life. And I say that as someone who rarely takes much notice of the sound in movies unless it is noticeably good. A movie score should immerse you in the experience regardless of what emotional effect it wants to have on you. This is the first time I've seen a movie where the sound mixing actively hindered my enjoyment. 

Tenet is an above average movie that feels like a wasted opportunity, it's not without its merits, there's a lot of ambition and the story for all of its faults does come full circle and end in a satisfying way. And I thought Robert Pattinson and Elizabeth Debicki were pretty impressive in their significant, albeit supporting roles. But I have little intention of going back for a re-watch any time soon. However, I would not be surprised if I might find myself appreciating it a little more on a second watch.

Verdict: 2.5/5

   

The Last of us Part 2 review

I need to make a confession, I never loved the first Last of Us, I thought it was a competent action game with exemplary graphics, but I never felt attached to the characters by the time the credits rolled. I appreciated its ambition and the ending was genuinely thought provoking, unlike most other video games. So I was not initially hyped for The Last of Us Part 2, but that quickly changed as the release date was drawing closer, so I ended up pre-ordering a copy, which is something I hardly ever do.

The bulk of the game is set four years after the first, where the main characters, Ellie and Joel, have settled in a walled off town called Jackson, in the state of Wyoming. From the get go there seems to be a partial sense of normality that has returned to the world, at least in Ellie's own life. The narrative takes a dramatic turn of events early on, leading Ellie to leave her relative comfort and journey to the city of Seattle searching for vengeance. It's not long after you arrive that the plot begins to twist and turn as you learn more about two factional groups, who are vying for control over what is left of a city that's been ravaged by nature and the loss of humanity.


In gameplay terms, little has changed, although I rather enjoyed the inclusion of a jump button. So there's far more platforming than I expected, which was a nice surprise. Outside of one particular area of Seattle, the game is relatively linear as you go from one point to the next, but the areas you explore are far bigger and multi layered compared to those in the first game. I loved exploring every nook and cranny for supplies, especially after a heavy gun fight.

Because of the relative scarcity of ammo and supplies, I tried to play as stealthily as possible, which is a lot easier said than done. So I ended up shooting my way through enemies far more than I intended. The combat can be clunky and a little awkward, and nothing more than just functional. However, it's always engaging because the feel of the weapons is extraordinary satisfying. On the standard difficulty I found myself with just enough ammo and supplies between each area, I never once felt overpowered or too desperate. The melee combat is rather simple but effective in its raw violence and tension. There is nothing elaborate about it, it basically boils down to you timing a dodge and then countering by hitting the square button. Every connecting hit you make is extremely gratifying. Word of warning, melee combat only works well when you are equipped with a weapon such as a baseball bat or a machete. Using your fists or a standard knife takes longer and only works when you are confronting one enemy at one particular moment. Like the guns, these melee weapons can be upgraded, but their durability does not last long. 

The enemy AI is challenging for the most part, human enemies have an almost perfect aim, and they do try and flank you when you are pinned back. But it was the infected that are the most challenging foes. If you make one mistake in a roomful of them, prepare to be aggressively rushed down, and once one of them locks onto you it can be a excruciatingly frustrating to fend them off. There are different enemy types for both the infected and the human cannon fodder, but outside of the way they look and the factions they belong to, the human enemies are generally carbon copies of each other. The various forms of infected will require a little more strategy to kill from one type to the next. One of the most deadly are the clickers, who will kill you the second they grab hold of you. It is a huge credit to the design team that they look so disgusting, and just thinking about them makes my skin crawl. 

Combat is made easier by a typical upgrade system that you use via the supplies you collect. It comes in two forms, on the one hand you can upgrade your character's more personal traits such as their health bar or crafting speed. The other side is to do with the weapons, of which you can refine and retool at various work benches placed in certain areas you travel through. While the upgrade system is by itself rather basic, it gels exceptionally well with the overall flow of the game, as you will want and need to explore the intriguing environments for supplies in order to survive.

Speaking of the environments, they do for the most part leave you with a variety of choices on how you wish to get past enemies. The environments and overall graphical fidelity of the game is truly gorgeous, the lighting effects and vistas of the exterior locations are the best that I have seen on the PlayStation 4. But these small moments are deceitful and contrast with the majority of the locations you explore. While some of the exteriors of the world look beautiful on first look, the interior locations are grimy and unsettling, the basement of a particular hospital was the most disturbing place I explored.

The Last of Us Part 2 is a rare game that manages to make its locales an intricate part of the story, rather than just a backdrop. You will notice subtle details in each of the rooms you visit that will tell you something about the people that inhabited them. Whether it's the way a living room or bedroom has been decorated, or the placement of a particular item. One small nuance that I really liked was when you use the work bench to upgrade your weapons. As soon as you have selected the upgrade you want, the character will take apart the weapon and then piece it back together. 

Like the first game, The Last of us Part 2 succeeds in being a cinematic experience, and it works most of the time. The cutscenes are finely directed and the performances are wonderful, as well as the animations which can be truly grisly with the realistic violence. This is helped with a consistently good script, a perfect example of this is with the in-game conversations between the characters, which are rather charming, and they provide a little rest-bite between the action.

The first half of the game is a straight up revenge plot, where you take control of Ellie, in the second half of the game you take control of a new character called Abby. When this change in direction occurred I did for a brief moment sigh in disbelief, because the story appears to grind to a halt. But by the end of the game I was more invested in Abby's story arc than that of Ellie, and she has the best action set pieces and the more interesting locations to explore. One particular boss battle reminded me of Resident Evil, which made it all the more enjoyable to defeat.

I don't have too many complaints to make, nothing that stopped my enjoyment of the game. From a gameplay perspective, changing weapons can feel a little finicky. From a story perspective, the pacing can be a little erratic with the narrative switching backwards and forwards, because some of the flashbacks don't initially execute on their premise. But they do become important within the grander context of the narrative.

It took me twenty six hours to complete the game over three days of playing, and I was invested from beginning to end. Which is a sign of an excellent experience, as I said from the outset, I never loved the first game and I was never compelled to go back to it. But having completed the sequel I will return to it at some point over the coming months.

The Last of Us Part 2 is a game that every PS4 owner should experience at some point, but be warned, it is dark and grim, and sometimes gut wrenching. But it's not to be missed, even if you don't find yourself liking the story, there is a great survival horror/action game beneath it all. 

   

Verdict: 5/5