How is this even possible? No way it's that different, gaming companies still paying off journalists and reviewers?

The truth is somewhere inbetween. The game is a solid 8 or 9, if you're a game critic you've seen the same formulas get recycled over and over and over again. This time the formula is being recycled with some actually daring story choices and crazy high production values/attention to detail. The user score outrage only highlights that this game is actually taking risks and not being the boring cookie cutter plot I'm sure most fans want where everything turns out fine for the characters they like.

That's probably a good thing. If you as a critic are placating your audience instead of advancing the practice of criticism and challenging perceptions of the medium, you're a boring shitty critic. People who just want critics' opinions to reflect the general audience reception are retards who want video games to be reviewed like cars and refrigerators.

The two groups have different interests. The journalists want to stay in the in group, and treat some games like they might achieve the artistic merit of movies. It elevates their stature. They are also easily duped when a piece of art has certain themes. Same goes for movie and music critics.

The review bombers are mostly people who didn’t even play the game. Throw around 0s to punish the game instead giving actual scores (this game is not a zero by any metric). And a lot of the fuel started because gamers feel betrayed. They are sensitive. How dare Joel die an unceremonious death and then you play as the killer. Joel deserved a respectful death, is what they say. Every other critique comes from this and is blown out of proportion.

The truth is somewhere in between.

The user score was brought down the same day ratings became available and was primarily people who never even played the game or own a PS4.

You know, poor people.

It's typical though. Gamers are generally unemployed, live with their Moms, and only have money for one PC that they then obsessively claim is so much better than consoles despite the fact that the games they play, predominantly, are based on console hardware and the PC options rarely exceed the console specs by a large margin.

Source: Own a rig with i7 and 2070, along with every console.

>joel deserved a respectful death
You would have to be a boring, wimpy retard to think this. The first last of us was all about death and brutality. Characters died for small mistakes and sometimes no reason at all, like Joel's daughter. Expecting this game to give a character an avengers-style heroic disney sacrifice death just because you like him is so stupid. Joel's death is one of the best parts of this game.

I was parroting the haters there, I didn’t make it clear.

I don't believe journos are paid directly. It's rather:

We want readers to make money -> to have readers we need to get review copy on time to put out reviews before anyone else -> corpos won't send us review copies if we give it bad score

Sometimes journos don't even have time to finish games for their deadlines. It wouldn't be surprising to find out a journo who gave this 10/10 never even got to the part where you are playing as Abby, it happened before.

TLOU 2 has objectively bad story because it is built up on plot holes.

Oh wait nevermind

U give Alanah some credit because she's friends with Troy Baker and she potentially has a lot to gain if she "played ball" and jerked off ND. She said she didn't like the story. I'll give her credit for being honest even though there is a huge conflict of interest being that she's friends with Troy. Troy isn't a piece of shit he's just bought into Neil's bullshit.

Review bombed by fragile male gaymers. You can see the user score is correcting as they remove the fake ones and legitimate gamers start to finish the game and write reviews.

I wouldn't mind anyone dying in any way, including being beaten to death by golf club. It's the illogical way those events happen what makes me dislike it. Joel and Tommy must be retarded to make it possible to kill him, Abby is helping people she knows for seconds, it's just garbage writing.

>The first last of us was all about death and brutality. Characters died for small mistakes and sometimes no reason at all

Exactly. And Joel LIVED in that world. He was always portrayed as someone suspicious of EVERYONE around his because he knew how the world worked. But he just totally walks into a room with militant strangers, watches them lock the door, stands in the middle of the room surrounded by them and tells them his name.

Fucking horseshit writing.

>B-But years of living in Jackson Town made him soft!

No that's more bullshit. Jackson was an oasis. Everyone who lived there knew how precious it was and would have been constantly vigilant to protect it. Its the reason Joel was out on patrol in the first place - Jackson Town would have been a constant target for roaming gangs. Joel would have beem even more paranoid about meeting a bunch of militants in the snow so close to town.

Its utter shite writing.

Even if you corrected the score so only people who played the game reviewed it, would you believe the 99% that say it's not good or the 1% that say it's 10/10?

objectively, the game is a solid 7.5/10
>the core gameplay (shooting, sneaking, traversal) is solid and great for what it wants to do. it does have issues, like registering jumps to ledges, and sneaking was a tad iffy at times, but, overall, solid.
>sound direction was, again, solid. the choice of music, and lack of, in different situations was used well. the guitar segments felt great and fitting each time they were used
>visually, this is a very pretty game to look at. animations (outside of janky grab from front and turn the target around) were done well. blood and gore was satisfying, and taking a pickaxe to a dogs head, while fucked up, looked impressive.
>the story is shite, flat out. it was paced poorly, was a regression of ellie's character, and they used Joel's death too early as a shock factor and plot device. Abby could've been a good foil to Ellie, but we spend too long just hating her til we get to learn who she is. the ending was garbage, and so many moments were completely uneeded.
So, taking everything into account, and being generous, a 7.5/10 is completely reasonable. that being said, this is a game that puts story as the primary focus, and you can argue to drag that score down all the way to a 6/10

You were parroting only retards, completely ignoring valid criticism of the story. Much more people raise valid points. I could do the same shit you did and say everyone defending this game is just saying you are bigot and hate women and trannies and it's not true. But I've noticed the defense of the game resorts to name calling and unrelated shit compared to critics of the game.

Whens your AAA high scoring video game being released user? Will be great to see your quality assessment of writing applied to something to be nitpicked.

>would you believe the 99% that say it's not good or the 1% that say it's 10/10?
Where are you getting that statistic?

>outside of janky grab from front and turn the target around
Play the game on survivor, you can't grab enemies from the front unless you stun them in combat.

>Exactly. And Joel LIVED in that world. He was always portrayed as someone suspicious of EVERYONE around his because he knew how the world worked. But he just totally walks into a room with militant strangers, watches them lock the door, stands in the middle of the room surrounded by them and tells them his name
Joel definitely acted out of character there, and did a lot of things he would NEVER have done before, but, there's one thing to correct there:
Abby already knew his name, because Tommy fucked up. In the events before that, Tommy tells her both of their names. He couldn't lie to the group, because Abby would instantly call him out

You're just making up random things. You've no basis for those stats. You've probably got the percentages the wrong way around given the high review scores by professionals and the rising review score as legitimate user reviews finally go in.

>make a game that plays much better than the first one
>gets rated like trash because muh joelerino muh story

man gamers really don't give a fuck about gameplay anymore

>How is this even possible?
what kind of stupid question is that? After making hundreds of threads on Zig Forums and Zig Forums and countless discord rooms to plan reviewbombing the game, now you want to make it look like the general audience hates it? lmao

Nobody rates games like this. In the last 30 years nobody has rated games like this. There's no point in arguing about this since no one is going to start rating games like this.

LToU is all about story and character. The gameplay is pretty bare-bones with out it.

And the story in LToU2 is shite.

>No that's more bullshit. Jackson was an oasis. Everyone who lived there knew how precious it was and would have been constantly vigilant to protect it. Its the reason Joel was out on patrol in the first place - Jackson Town would have been a constant target for roaming gangs. Joel would have beem even more paranoid about meeting a bunch of militants in the snow so close to town.
So much of this. It makes me mad when Druckmann says shit like I know the character better than you and I love the character more than you and he got soft because he lived in Jackson and had a daughter. If anything it would make him MORE paranoid.

Just fucking imagine having a daughter in a post-apocalyptic world full of hunters and infested not-zombies. He would be more vigilant than ever. Even before the outbreak when they were in the car Joel didn't stop for that family to help them and that's before 20 years of survivin' in a fucking crappy world. Anyone saying Joel would go soft is a fucking retard.

Except rating based off of the parts, and then taking into account the rest of the game, IS how games used to be rated, back when reviews were objective and not paid advertisements.
The story for TLOU2 is bad, and its enough to handicap the entire experience, but, taking it objectively, the entire package is still at least middle of the pack/tiny bit higher than average

>major plot hole
>something to be nitpicked

Why are you avoiding the question user? I'm really interested in your next visionary game lauded for its strong writing that will define a generation of gaming. Tell me about it.

You fucking revisionist nigger. Games used to be rated like this. Shut the fuck up.

>if I say it's a major plot hole then that makes it one
Quality contribution. Where did you study literature user?

>criticize something
>l-let's see you come up with something better!!
Is this how sheeple counter argue these days?

This. They dont have to pay them, allowing them to become 'Access' media is in a way a form of monetary reward because they get early access and thus a shit ton of readers.

>y-you can't criticise products you're a fan of unless you make your own $200 million product

Grow up kid. The story is dogshit.

Sony blacklist reviewers that give their games bad scores.