A year of playing TLOU
I really enjoyed season 1 of the show, and then I finished season 2 in May 2025 (not as good, even from the POV of someone who didn't know the games, but still very entertaining) and I just couldn't handle not knowing what happened next. I had never played a video game before, but I figured I could just give it a go and see how far I got. I started with TLOU Remastered on Light; I could barely use the PS controller so Joel was just running in circles looking at the sky and getting massacred over and over again in the prologue. But I persisted! I couldn't believe how good the game looked, and while I found it so challenging, all I wanted to do was look at every nook and cranny of that world and hang out with Joel and Ellie. I finally finished it, and then I moved on to Part II...and the obsession was complete.
It's almost exactly a year later now; I bought the Part I remake and have played through it (and Left Behind) on Moderate, Hard and Survivor, and I've lost count of how many playthroughs I've done of Part II (but I have now banked over 300 hours so...safe to say a few!), and I try to do the daily run of No Return whenever I can. Last night, I finished Part II on Grounded+ (wish I could have done it without the + but I was never gonna get through the arcade without the machine gun lol). This game is everything.
I realised something on this playthrough that I hadn't before; >!I think the last thing Owen sees, as he's thinking of Mel, is the mamma and baby whale hanging from the ceiling above him...!<
Seriously, this game is incredible.