Last of Us 2 Forever Shatters Critic Review Impressions 

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Someone should design a rotten tomatoes type voting website that rates critics.

Journalists have become that guy in an art gallery who stands next to a painting in a black turtleneck shirt with glasses and stage 4 male pattern baldness and says shit like “This, is amazing”. But when you look at the art, it’s a photo of a banana taped to a wall.

"When you use the controller it feels like you're playing a game!" - IGN 10/10

All jokes and memes aside, I think what pisses me off the most from game journalists is when they say in their review: "You don't get it." You, of course, being the player. The person who spends their hard earned money on a $60 game that they've been waiting months if not years for and it doesn't live up to their standards or it went in a completely different direction. When they say that, it makes me angry. I played the game, I watched the cutscenes. I know the context. And I'm not talking about Last of Us. I mean, in general. Don't tell me how to think. Don't tell me how to feel. And above all else, don't tell me that I "don't get it". I'm an adult, not a child.

"If you dont like this game, you're a virgin" - IGN

It pisses me off that some people say that Joel isn't a beloved character.

"If you look at the grass, it looks green like in real life" *10/10 - IGN*

Now this is why we should keep supporting independent content creators!

Critics: "Am I out of touch? No, its the gamers who are wrong."

I never trust professional critics. I’m quicker to trust some of the RU-vidrs I follow and my fellow gamer friends, and then still form my own opinion on a game.

ND has won the battle, good sales, but has lost the war, they lost so much fans, gg wp

2:27 I love how this guy essentially says: "Despite what you may think, the reviews are not literally bought and paid for; but they are *basically* bought and paid for."

Joel in The Last of Us 1: *"Life is about surviving, we must do anything and everything to protect ourselves."* Joel in The Last of Us 2: *"Hiya there friend, my names Joel, my bank pin is XXXX and my Facebook password is "I killed your family a while back!", now anyways, what are y'all doing with all those guns pointed at us?*

I wasn't aware people still looked at these kinds of reviews. Why would you do that when there are so many people on RU-vid doing deep reviews in so many styles?

Two things that are fun to note: how expert critics were deceived by this stupid plot and how fanboys are working hard to rationalize in an attempt to convince themselves that their $ 60 has been well spent. One thing that this video did not comment on is that the plot is simply dumb. It is not only divisive, poorly made, controversial, it is also extremely dumb and any serious literary critic would probably consider that script to be the work of some amateur writer without talent who is unaware of his own limitations.

These game critics have become so full of themselves, they feel like only they can understand the "deep" meanings of games, and have forgot the entire purpose of games, having and engaging story and the player having fun.

"I thought this was a game about golf" - Random critic

“The truth will set you free” *said nobody at IGN ever.*

The problem with the ending is that the plot of the story does not fit the world they are in. Ellie has learned that its not the best idea to seek revenge, but what if her girlfriend for example gets killed? will she do nothing about it now that she thinks seeking revenge is a bad thing, or will she go after the murderer? The story just does not fit the settings they are in.

Journalists lost any shred of credibility giving this game 10/10. Spinning the false narratives we knew it was disingenuous and skeptical

Remember how Ellie was supposed to represent hope for Joel during the apocalypse? Then why did they think it was a good idea to completely deconstruct her character to the point where there’s nothing left? By the end, the game’s message just felt sadistic and nihilistic.

Don’t forget they can also pull ads if they don’t bend the knee.

10/10 is a PERFECT score. For me that means the game should exceed expectations on every front. Perfect performance, perfect graphics, perfects story. It should also be a new milestone in at least one category - new, groundbreaking gameplay, new way of story-telling, something to make it unique. In short, a flawless game, unicorn. Does TLOU2 have those qualities? No, gameplay is mostly unchanged, it looks good, the story is weird.

"The game is good because we tell you its good." -IGN 10/10

metacritic isnt letting new people write negative reviews. it sends you to a 503 screen been doing that for days to boost the score

IGN gave Spongebob a 2 for being "too punishing" they aren't intellectual higher

Imagine the hell that's gonna be raised when this game wins GOTY over Cyberpunk and FF7 Remake...

"See, there was a sequal. Wasnt as good" - Dead guy

Honestly, I don't think it was so much them being bought out, but rather they had to tread on eggshells making the review. Look at the backlash the likes of SkillUp and other streamers are getting for not liking the game, they're being labelled as haters of LGBT despite they have plenty valid reasons for saying the game isn't upto their standard. If any reviewer like IGN were to say that, the entire company would be in flames for disrepecting the LGBT community.

Games media feels like a good old boys club. Everybody knows each other. They are blinded by their own bias.

I love how forbes instantly associated all reviews that were mixed and had legitimate critiques of the game as being part of the review bombing on metacritic. Saying how a large number of negative reviews were posted and a majority of them haven't finished the game. I'm not arguing that there is bombing by people but when you group actual reviews and opinions from people who genuinely didn't like the game and brought up real points of interest you're essentially labelling their opinions as inferior to yours regardless, or as a hater or troll. Also there was very little said by forbes about the 30k+ positive reviews that came flooding in to mitigate the negative reviews. Where is the justification from that side of the story? There was an actual 10/10 user score that simply said "I'm 1 and a half hours in, fuck off haters this game is perfect" So they haven't finished, they haven't even got to any major plot or gameplay section in the game, but gave it a perfect review. There are hundreds similarly like this. I already knew "professional" critic opinions were skeward for certain games but those who called this game a masterpiece and then denounced any mixed or critical opinion from users as misogynist, homophobic, anti lgbt+ because the game was bombed is pathetic and just as much of a problem. I loved life is strange, its probably one of the best stories I've ever experienced in all forms of entertainment. It was dark but had happy, lighthearted moments, amazing characters, setting and story. It made me feel empathy and care for its characters like I actually knew them. It was also seen as a landmark in video games for its portrayal of lgbt themes. But because I didn't like the portrayal of characters and similar themes and thought they were poorly executed in the last of us 2 I'll be grouped as a close minded misogynist, homophobe and anti lgbt person by somewhere like forbes....

I'm a psychology student so when you started talking about Asch's study I got a huge smile on my face. Keep it up

The fact that we’re supposed to believe critics actually play these 30 hour games and review them with context in the first place shows how stupid they think we are

*with a little something for everyone*

Metacritic has zero credibility after they went in and deleted thousands of negative reviews and stopped allowing new negative reviews to be posted for some time. The user review score should be still down in the low 3's but they couldn't let that happen and are doing their best to get it boosted up to at least 5.

Get this, they rated TLOU 2 higher than Witcher 3. IGNs review is officially forever irrelevant for me until the end of time. The only way I'll change my mind is to hear an open apology and re review with lesser score.

I'm glad you brought up the difference between "bought reviews with actual cash" and access journalism. A lot of people in the industry (or even those tangential to it) are trying to claim that these scores aren't "bought" because no actual cash transactions have taken place. This mentality is at best, woefully ignorant and at worst, deceptive and disingenuous.

I have nothing against people liking the game, it's their opinion and tastes. I have everything against people trivializing the actual issues with a game just because you disagree or thing their 'haters'.

“The last of us part 2 has a little golfing for everyone” 10/10 IGN

While I don’t believe that these reviews are paid for through bribery, I do believe that some of them are extorted. “Review this game well or you don’t get early access to future games.” Or “Review this game well or you don’t have a job.” Is a form of bribery, it’s bribery in the fact that their offering you continued employment.

If a story-driven game has a bad story, it is a bad game. Good Graphics are basically a given from AAA titles, and the gameplay is just a device to get from cutscene to cutscene in these types of games. Not to say those should be discredited, but if the story takes precedent, than the story is how it should be judged.

What a travesty of a game. *Gaming in 2020:* “muh graphics”, “muh diversity”, “muh wokeness”, and of course, inane, dumb plot. *10/10 “Would play golf again”*

"The system is broken." It's that way on purpose and it's not going to fix itself.

I just pull the Disneymove now: The last of Us part II is not canon.

I already forgot about this title. They can do whatever they want, and call me whatever they want, i dont care, i will vote with my wallet. I buy games from people who try to make good game, with interesting gameplay and cool story, not from social and political activist who put agenda in their games and dont care about gameplay or story at all.

At the core, everything in mainstream critiquing over the past five years has become about praising certain political agendas and demonising others. “Quality” just means how many or how few of those agenda boxes got ticked. It’s really unfortunate for a lot of art forms.

The fact that this game has nearly the same reviews as Red Dead Redemption 2 is ridiculous

We're heading into an era of inane, asinine, drab, unrealistic, break-immersion, ludicrously-told stories.

Finally, someone calls them out for what is truly going on. I recently unsubbed from one of the few game reviewers I actually trusted because of this. Won't mention them, but when they got called out by their fans, a big part of their defense was "well other reviewers gave it a 10/10, look!" Reading that told me everything I needed to know.

Here I was thinking - after decades - we were at the unanimous point where "critic review" of games are as irrelevant as "critic review" of cinema.

MSM watching the house being cleared in MW: "I can't watch this, I can't believe this is a thing, it needs to be changed" MSM watching Joel get his head caved in: "Such a brutal bittersweet turn of events to coax Ellie into this masterpiece of a narrative".

Back in the 90s i bought a monthly Video Game Magazine to get the latest reviews. The Journos did a good Job back then. You knew, they were Gamers themself. But today? Meh. Absolutely worthless opinions.

The fact that people can give so many 100 or 0 with a straight face so often is problematic. Perfection and absolutely not worthy of existing by any metric should not be that common.

They did my man Joel so dirty. I don’t know how unsatisfied I felt after finishing the game.

Critics will always to be full of themselves, they gave mixed reviews for Spongebob Battle For Bikini Bottom Rehydrated (2/10 from Gamespot and 5/10 from IGN) yet they give TLOU2 near-perfect to perfect scores (8/10 from Gamespot and 10/10 from IGN).

Zero out of "x" reviews are merely a response to the undeserved perfect scores, whether the game deserves them or not. It's to counteract the "professional critics" bogus, inept and corrupt scores.

People love Darth Vader. Anakin Skywalker is a "beloved character", despite falling to the Dark Side and committing multiple mass acts of literal *galactic* genocide. He has the blood of an entire GALAXY on his hands, and he's beloved. So, someone please tell me, how is Joel not a beloved character?

That's why I always believe that a Steam-type review system is absolutely necessary for ANY major video game platform. Featuring with real player reviews (you must have that game and played it for at least a short period of time to review it), review rating function (other users can rate a review as useful or not, or simply a funny one), language and time filters let you specify the language of reviews and/or the publish date of reviews, and last but not the least, enough information about relations between reviewer and game (like their game is given for free or not, their total playtime and the playtime when they publish the review). For example, you may find a game with "Overwhelmingly Positive" rating in total, like 97% recommend or so, but it's recent 1-month rating is only a "Mixed", say 50% recommend. Then you can go check the actual review section and find out the reason easily: maybe the latest update totally broke this game in someway, or maybe just a new DLC with ridiculous price came out. And of course, when it comes to purchase-or-not advise, an actual review with 1000+ words and 300+ hrs playtime is much more informative than a hundred recommends with 1 word and 0.1 hrs playtime each. Sadly, I still haven't seen anything like this anywhere else.

“And then Ellie lives her worst nightmare of being alone in this world... THE END!” “Sounds bad.” “Ur just sexist and a homophone!” 🎩 🐍 no step on SNEK! 🇺🇸🇭🇰

“It’s got golf weed and maams a little something for everyone” - 10/10 IGN

I still don’t see how the game “shatters” critic review impressions. I thought Days Gone did that already.

I repeatedly kept getting killed by Ellie on purpose and just deleted it after when I had enough and then she lives happily ever after.

Ellie: Kills a pregnant woman Also Ellie when she can kill Abby: *"ItS nOt ThE rIgHt ThInG tO dO"*

I know this goes for PC, but Steam reviews are legit the best way to tell if a game is good or not.

This video is the most important thing out of all TLOU2 controversy. This needs more views.

so now playing a game is like enjoying an art, where you are either a genius to be able to enjoy it fully, or a bigot or an idiot for not liking it...holy sheet.

This game is at best, a 6/10, at worst, a 3/10. It's graphics are great, but being a PS4 game kinda makes that a given. The Gameplay is ok, just not as fluent as many expect, and the Story....I mean....Damn.

We've reached the point of having games that use virtue signalling and progressive narrative as immunity shield against criticism.

I love Ellie, Joel, Dina and Tommy(up until his very uncharacteristic final scene). Ellie seemed uncharacteristic as well as Joel. The art and tech dev team deserve the masterpiece label...but the directors/writers deserve far less

Everything is an echo chamber these days . The internet has turned into a battlefield where scores are artillery rounds and if you’re dropping artillery rounds onto your opposition, it only makes sense to attack with 100% force. Who would drop an 85% effective attack onto their enemy? This is why every reviews is written for maximum damage as either 100 or 0

I think these reviews from the Critics where for a Different reason. "Talk good about our game. Or we will NOT give you access to our stuff after this." MSM Does this too.

Entertainment Industry setting up HBO's TLOU show image like Netflix's Witcher, to replace "morally gray" GoT not understanding it takes a master author like GRRM whose entire books made that show happen. Cant just brute force weird ass mentally disturbed themes without story using wannabe Hemingway writers who dont want to spend the time fleshing it out properly, but still want ALL the praise.

Odd that when I step away from the internet and talk to people IRL, people's opinions of this game pretty much align with critics. I guess I'm a fool and have filled my social circle with idiots.

Excellent video. The discrepancy between professional pre release reviews and reality is astounding. Also - since when have games become something like arthouse cinema? I appreciate it when games get social commentary right but if the game is bad, then i won't play it. I have a master's degree in literature and consider myself a liberal woman. But this shouldn't be relevant for a video game review. Why do I have to be grouped in by a critic as a bigot if I don't like a game for having bad pacing, boring repetetive gameplay and way too much violence? And yes - also a bad story.

Did anyone see Kojima Productions' reply to a player who "sold Death Stranding to get TLoUp2?"

Critics: Golf has never been this satisfying. 10/10, It's a *MASTERPIECE* Joel: Am I a joke to you?

IGN said that the Spongebob Remaster is too "Kid friendly" even though the game is focused for kids and even has the announcer say "Are you ready kids?" in the beginning...

I’ve never tapped “Like” harder on a video than this one. Kudos.

I’ll never trust a critics review again, I feel so betrayed. GoT season 8 and Star Wars the last Jedi are the closest comparisons.

Every few years, some huge issue with reviewers like this comes along, and we all swear that we'll never trust them again. But they never go away. Nothing ever sticks to them. I still remember the Kane & Lynch thing. That was supposed to be some big industry turning point, too. And it wasn't. Nothing ever is. That's why they can just get away with printing 100s for games like this -- because they know that there are no consequences.

Game journalist, like a lot of the mainstream media, don't care about giving you an opinion anymore, they just want to tell you what your opinion should be and the consensus (a.k.a "The Narrative") that you should be adhering to. Woe betides anyone who dares to disagree with them.

My biggest gripe with the game is spending [spoiler] time playing Abby. I think this would have been better as a DLC. I understand from ND's perspective the structure they decided on.[/spoiler]

If we take any positive out of all this, it's that the deep corruption of game critics has been exposed to many new ppl.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again...I'm glad I didn't buy this game. It's a shame because I absolutely loved the first one.

A serious question, why are the enemies glowing white? Even though u have a tp camera, can it be turned of?

I'm like 3 hours in and 90% of my kills have been sneaking up behind someone to then have the same animation of a stealth kill over and over again.

Is everyone forgetting when IGN told WB their cheque bounced and they may have to change their review? That factually happened, so literal money does get exchanged in some cases

any reviewer who has this game within 30 points of RD2, witcher 3, mass effect 2, god of war is a HACK a paid shill

Its almost like they rate on agenda ... like Last Jedi, Star Trek Dr. Who etc. Etc.

You hit the nail on the head with this video dude. I'm glad someone finally came forward and said this. Subscribed!

We love dogs... (makes you brutally massacre a dog) ...as plot devices to push our narrative.

The last of us 1: building the best relationship in gaming history. All about to doing what you must do to survive, but to also be able to live for something other then surviving for surviving sake. The whole game was about Ellie learning to mature and Joel sacrificing so much to give Ellie a wholesome childhood and raise her as his own, and reconnecting with the positive parts of humanity in dark times. Last of us 2: yeah let’s take all of the time you invested in the first game and everything you like about the series, and either torture it to death or torment the innocent child character- all for a cheap ass “your not so different you and I. revenge is bad “ story. Thanks for making a game where the the last of us one’s story was completely meaningless. This franchise only exists now to take Elly, bate her with a stable and somewhat normal upbringing (because that’s what she feared in the first game- being abandoned or pushed onto someone else), and then beat her surrogate dad to death with a golf club, be disowned by the rest of her loved ones who didn’t die or get brutally beaten before her eyes, get her fingers bitten off, and give her ptsd. This game made the other game literally about giving a child false hope and then tormenting her. It’s not deep it’s being sadistic and gratuitous just to push the vengeance is bad agenda at the expense of everything that was good about the franchise. Can we just acknowledge here that this is the apocalypse so there is no criminal justice system you can put faith in to punish bad. Oh and Elly disowns Joel and shows no sympathy and acts in-spite of what Joel wanted until the very end! How could she not get it when Joel strait up tells her he can’t live without her and he’s sorry multiple times! So Ellie ruined too. Your a survivor and your choices are to kill a roaming militant possey so they don’t kill future people or do nothing as they go to kill another day. I understand Joel dying for Joel’s mistakes narrative wise even if it was written by making Joel stupid and coincidence and not at all cathartic, but Ellie being tormented for Joel’s slip ups? Ellie was unconscious when Joel killed Abby’s dad. Ellie looses more then Joel does and Abby gets her revenge and gets to be saved by the person who’s father she beat to death and then she boats off with her family and all it cost her were the accomplices she used and her relationship with abusive militant organizations who she betrays herself anyway. It’s not like Abby was a one off revenger who otherwise was a nice girl who will retire to a village: no she belongs to a militant organization who goes rounds bullying and torturing others who don’t comply. If Ellie were to forgive her then and there, Abby would go on to shoot up who knows how many random survivors in name of some bs cause. Now all the people and time who were killed in this game and the first game were for nothing. If Abby cared about loosing her father she maybe would have think twice when beating a dad to death with a golf club with his daughter begging Abby to stop after that same guy saved her life, and offing the dude who impregnated Dina, and perhaps not relishing the idea of slitting a pregnant women’s throat. You want to talk “breaking the cycle of violence” Abby had more character motivation/self awareness too stop then Elly. Abby shows No remorse. Letting Tommy and Elly live wasn’t Abby’s idea it was some random background charichters. Elly at least gave each of her accomplices the possibility to just give up information but they attacked her anyway and Elly is distressed afterwords. Imagine a story about forgiveness and revenge where they actually forgive each other with dialogue, can choose non violent ways of resolutions, and better yet have to unite to save the ones they love? Or you know you can end it with Elly literally never saying “I forgive you to Abby” and not talking it out but instead breaking down into an uneventful knife fight. No reason they could not have united in the end; scars could of abducted Abby’s and Ellie’s lover. Or at least talk it out but know “Just go!” Is it and the forgiver gets mutilated. Very deep way to explore your theme .10/10 don’t buy it if you care about storytelling. Joel positive arc all for Ellie’s tragic tormented fate is just a waste of time. +1-1=0 a waste of time. They didn’t even give Ellie a chance to grow up and develop before throwing her out of the buss.

I feel like this divide is true as well for movies as well. I find to go with the audience opinion over "professional reviews" mostly because it feels that the audience opinion are those that dont particularly have a stake in the property and are just looking for a good movie/game/show/etc

The question, whether the critics are right and the wider audience is wrong, is completely beside the point. Because it is not the job of a critic to be better than the audience. It is the job of a critic to accurately represent a subject of which he or she has knowledge of to their audience in a way that can be used by that audience to make a decision about the subject which they only have this second hand knowledge about, that the critic imparted on them. The critic is an agent of the audience, not vice versa. Therefore even if the audience was objectively wrong, it would still be right by the very definition. Just is a Politician is wrong by definition if he or she goes against public opinion. Even though the politician may be objectively right, it is not the job of the politician to be right or wrong but to execute the will of the people.

This is the first game that I didn't think of as good or bad, but getting to the end I just wished it wasn't made. I can never go back and enjoy TLOU 1 again.

Now they need to give cyberpunk an 11 out of 10

Thank you for taking time to make this. I saw the comparison between ign/last of us 2 and rotton tomatoes/dave Chappelle as well. Subscribed man! Keep doing your thing

Naughty Dogs: You will only be allowed to play the first 10 hours of game, the other 10 will be locked(don't ask why please!!). "Professional" reviewer: Seen's fair.

I can see that being the case. Everyone just going along with what everyone else is saying, some of the critics being activists and the rest just not wanting to be hounded by the mob. In either case, I think every one of these ‘critics’ should be fired.