Episode 96 - The Snail Slide! - The Last of Us Part II

Why don’t you do whatever podcast you’ve got rehearsed and get this
over with? Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be
talking about The Last of Us Part II, which was the (surprisingly,
since we’re talking about it) highly anticipated sequel to one of,
if not the most popular game from the PS3. This game is a pretty
straightforward followup to the original, picking up where it left
off just a few years down the road, and the story has a similarly
dark tone. While the original game was mostly driven by it’s
characters as well, the state of the world is taken as more of a
given here in the sequel, and that bleakness permeates every
interaction you have. Underneath the game’s plot, it functions much
like it’s predecessor. Arguably too much. It’s a stealth action
game where you scavenge items along the way to use to make
decisions of what items you want or need in the game’s crafting
system and you perform combat where you employ stealth to even the
odds against an enemy force that outnumbers you by a significant
margin. And all of this is backed up by a signature level of
high-fidelity visuals and world design that can be frankly quite
breathtaking. We’re going to be talking about controversy
surrounding large scale releases, overbearing mechanical
similarities, and how your monkey brain feels about whether
characters live or die. Thank you for joining us this week! This
was an easy choice for us because our thoughts on the original game
were so mixed, the franchise has a really interesting give and take
in our minds. What did you think about the game? Did it live up to
your expectations? Were you one of the people who thought the
game’s plot wasn’t up to snuff? Did you skip the game for one
reason or another, and if so, what did listening to the episode
make you imagine the game was like? I want to play that game.
Imagination games sound nice. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the
episode, and be sure to check back in next time, as we’ll be
talking about Pyre!