[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Itse

It's got an extremely stock zombie apocalypse setting, with mostly pretty generic characters and gameplay that's okay at best. Is the dialog and voice acting good for what it is? Sure I guess, but... Meh. I mean, the storyline about that kind of bonding should definitely be up my alley, but it's just so generic. It feels like the kind of writing that gets praised by people who don't usually play games with an emphasis on the writing.

This is just entirely... wrong. You've stated this with some conviction but it's utter nonsense. The zombie apocalypse setting is a bit tired now (less so at the time), but even that is done in an interesting way by use of the cordyceps to create enemies that are kind of this mix between terrifying and beautiful. The notion that the most dangerous ones are blind but use echolocation while the less advanced still have their sight creates the basis for a good stealth experience.

But what's really wrong here is the notion that the characters are generic. That's an absurd statement. They're actually deep and well developed, and they grow as the story goes along, largely through their interactions with each other rather than with the plot. That's what's different. That doesn't mean that actual character-driven storytelling is some revelation, because it isn't... except in videogames. If this were a movie, it would not get an oscar best picture nom - actually, Logan, to which it is often compared to for obvious reasons, is a pretty good comparable. But until other games start doing this, telling a tight and cohesive character-driven story (which I gather you only got a little way through), TLoU is miles ahead of anything else.

Then there's the whole "I'm a game that wants to be taken very seriously but also I'm a game where you routinely kill dozens of people with your bare hands" thing going on. But not even in an entertaining way, you just keep sneaking up on people and doing the same thing over and over. At times you use a shiv, wow.

Well, you're pretty clearly playing it wrong, or on a difficulty that's far too easy for you. If it's on a hard enough difficulty you should really be killing very few people and sneaking past most of the enemies, except where forced to fight. It's primarily supposed to be a stealth game, and it creates tension very well. Regardless, it is still trying to be a video game, not a survival simulator. That being said, the mechanics are certainly a bit clunkier 7 years later than they were when it came out.

In any event, while there are obviously objectively good and bad games in terms of gameplay, it may simply be that stealth games aren't your taste... on that, some variance in opinion is reasonable, which is why Rocket League appears in some of these top 5's, I guess.

And really just off the top of my head, games that IMO have better writing that the Last of Us: Senua's Sacrifice, Life is Strange, Banner Saga, Disco Elysium, Witchers 2 and 3, Tides of Numenera... Heck I'd even put Vanishing of Ethan Carter up there. (Easily my favourite of the "walking simulator genre", it really drew me in and actually scared the crap out of me at one point, which is hard to do.

This is where your already well-off-base post completely falls apart. None of these, with the arguable exception of Disco Elysium (and in fairness I've never played Tides of Numenera and probably should), has better writing, and none of them have better performances. The notion that Witcher 2 and 3 are better written is so laughable that you should really give up posting on this topic ever again. I've said before that those are good games, but they're written exactly as badly as the average pulp fantasy novel and the characters have exactly that much depth and development to them as you'd find in that sort of material. It's fine, totally tolerable and at times enjoyable, but it's "video game context" fine - in other media, it would be unbearably cheesy. I've seen arguments made for Planescape Torment - which I'm surprised not to see on your list given that Tides is - but even that is still pulp fantasy, it's just more carefully crafted and philosophically interesting pulp fantasy.

Senua's Sacrifice is brilliant, incidentally, and probably deserves to be on this list notwithstanding a couple of really badly designed bits gameplay-wise. But it's a well-executed, interesting concept of a game, more than it is a compelling narrative. Sort of like Edith Finch in that (and really only that) sense.

Good writing is just so much more than just dialog and voice acting.

Dialogue*... Anyway, both are completely necessary to actually execute a well written game, so they're pretty crucial. And I don't think anyone is suggesting that they're sufficient on their own, or you'd see way more arguments for the Uncharted games, which are really very well voice acted.