*The winter level was as good as anything i can remember playing. it was the culmination of some pretty great character building for the protagonists with ellie finally earning joel's respect by becoming a bit of a savage (was discomforting hearing joel finally being openly appreciative of her in the next level, after what she did for him). Having control of ellie, showing how she could handle herself almost as efficiently as joel (with her own spin on things, sneaking through holes, taking out grunts with her knife) was simaltaniously brilliant and a bit disgusting, shades of Hit Girl from Kick Ass about it. as an aside, the bloke who was being nice to ellie, his voice actor reminded me of the ominous mechanic from southpark for some reason. lot of history down that road...
*Pacing reminded me a little of Half Life 2, in the way it mixed up the horror and soldier shoot outs. Had a nice mix of exploration and scavaging as well obviously.
*nailed the balance between open world and linear corridor style game; liked how not all areas had something worth exploring but it was generally worth going off the beaten track just in case. not really a big fan of the bethesda kind of scavaging for instance, given that it's initially a bother to work out what is useless fluff and what will be handy later, here it was stripped back a bit while still maintianing a wasteland survivor atmosphere.
liked the fighting. the slugging mechanics worked well with the limited supplies to ensure that many of the fights were improvised, making me work with what i had rather than settling on a favourite weapon and sticking with it. and the fire mechanics were always fun.
liked the resident evil 4 style upgrades to the weapons, although i feel you were supposed to really do up your favourite weapons completely; i only upgraded bits here and there as and when i had the resources. will try harder next time!
also i reckon it does a good job of justifying the violence within the narrative, often in games like bioshock infinite or uncharted i felt like half the fights were there because the game needed a change of pace rather than something that would actually happen within the game world. there was only once or twice where i felt the fighting was hacked on (eg: escaping from the univerity).
kinda on that topic, i'm not a fan of ultra violent games when they have predetermined bits where the protagonist is incapacitated with some injury ie: in this case joel skewering himself like he was reenacting a baraka fatality from mortal kombat 2. seems a bit odd when he's being shot and beat up non stop during the game and can heal himself within like 5 second etc. but it lead to my favourite bit in the game so i don't care in this case! hell i wish he got beat up more in cutscenes if it meant more levels like winter.
*how good was that opening!
*props to naughty dog for not hating women - a whole bunch of strong female characters who were treated with respect - no henchman calling ellie a ****en bitch or incessantly talking about how much they want to nail tess or whatever. classy!
*i reckon naughty dog are good at mixing sound or whatever that process is called. i don't know how many games have expository dialogue drowned out by obnoxious sound effects/hans zimmer music. can't recall it happening on one of these peoples' games. a little thing that more folks should get right but don't.
*don't think there's much to say that hasn't already been said about the visuals. who needs next generation?
*not much to criticise really. the swimming bits were a bit average i guess?
frame rate was a little slow every now and then, wouldn't mind seeing a 60fps version on ps4. don't care if its 1080p or whatever, can't really tell the difference between that and ...whatever this is.
i was happy with the ending in what it was going for but thought it was a little clumsy ie: why didn't ellie wait around and say goodbye to joel when she agreed to the operation? how did joel justify having ellie dressed in one of those... surgery gown thingies... if the fireflies were supposedly not interested in her, never mind the anesthetic? did ellie remember nothing at all about the hospital ie: seeing marlene? wouldn't she find it wierd that marlene didn't say goodbye? what if she wants to go back and see her, i mean they are practically family.
didn't notice it at the time, but why did ellie have to go with joel in the first place? marlene managed to get to the fireflies way before them. as i said i can't remember the details, but it seemed a bit odd at the end.
*as an aside, i feel like an absolute jerk for bursting out laughing when i read bill's (or bob, that crazy guy you meet early in the game) best mate's suicide note. oh god that was harsh
*mmm that's all i can thing of.