So before I delve into details on the second game I'm featuring for the "games I hate" blog, I thought it best to give a quick update on the previous one.
With Zelda: Breath of the Wild, I went from hating the game, to accepting it and even quite liking it. We're currently on good terms. although it will never be a game that I just can't wait to sit down and play each time; for me it's a lot like any given episode of Westworld. It's not something that I would go out of my way to sit down to, however, if it's on I'll probably thoroughly enjoy it.
I'm going to continue playing Zelda and I'm sure one day I will get around to completing it. Maybe even before the sequel!
So now on to the second game I thought I'd feature.
This game received critical aclaim across the board, even receiving 10/10 scores.
Literally everybody I know loves this game. I really tried to get into it but the first time around it just didn't gel with me.
So I'm giving it another go and with perfect timing, as I write this the sequel is being released in a matter of hours.
Of course I'm talking about "The Last of Us" ( remastered ).
So the first time I played this I did actually quite enjoy it for a few hours.
I really enjoyed the character development, their interactions and the story as a whole.
Possibly the main reason I was put off this game so vehemently is that I really do not like horror games and I cannot stand jump scares.
Jumps scares just give me massive anxiety followed by incredible anger and it ruins my day.
This, coupled with the fact but I'm actually not very good at games. I excel at maybe a handful of titles, everything else I am tragically bad at and I will nearly always choose to play through any game on the easiest difficulty level.
I like to just relax and play through a game without any stress, explore, progress and let stories unfold organically. I do not need a challenge to overcome to feel any sense of accomplishment, simply making it through yet another day in 2020 gives me that sense of achievement.
So being not very good at games I hit difficulty wall a couple of hours in. While exploring some of the first abandoned buildings, some of the first encounters with the "clickers" . I'll never forget being ambushed in a stairwell, over and over again, trying to fend them off and failing miserably. This happened repeatedly to the point that I switched the game off never to play it again.
That is until last week, when I decided to try and give it another go before the sequel was released.
I played a little throughout the week and a particularly heavy session at the weekend, I genuinely gave it my all.
I embraced the stealth culture, taking my time with each new environment, being as cautious as possible, trying to avoid any jump scares.
This method proved to be a double-edged sword, on the one hand I sidestepped the anxiety, but on the other, the game it took a particularly slower pace.
I spent another five or six hours plugging away at the game and in all fairness I did enjoy it. However on checking my progress I was alarmed to see that I had barely scratched the surface, undoubtedly because I had spent 90% of my time crouched and creeping about.
While I had always appreciated the story, voice acting and character interaction. I now had a renewed interest in the game and had learned to quite like the mechanics.
I can honestly say that I no longer hate the game and I genuinely found it quite engaging. However I am not going to complete this, I am done with it.
It's just going to take me far too long and with the sequel around the corner I don't have the time.
I was going to watch a play through of the final hour or so of the game on YouTube, but to be honest I couldn't be bothered with that either. I'm just not that invested in the story. Besides I'm pretty sure that when the sequel is released later today there will be a: "previously on the last of us. .."
The few hours I have played at the original game has been enough to introduce me to the characters, the challenges and enemies they face just piqued my interest into this fascinating game world.
The last week or so has changed my attitude toward the forthcoming sequel, from indifferent to actual anticipation.
I'm looking forward to going into The Last of Us 2 with a slightly more open mind.
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