chrisheadshot

It's the result I wanted but geez... what a mess. A saftety car that late into the race was always going to be messy and make the decider a bit artificial, but that felt especially clumsy. Credit to Hamilton for dealing with the loss relatively graciously though.

Horner and Toto have both been pretty cringe with some of their behaviour this year. I wonder how much of a bonus they recieve from Netflix for playing up some of this year's drama... I think Red Bull winning would be great, purely for how absolutely alpha it would be for Honda. All those years of being criticised and ridiculed for being crap, then to come in and break Mercedes' utter dominance before Ferrari and Renault, only to pull a Rosberg and walk away with the trophy.

It has been interesting watching this season considering I don't particularly like Hamilton or Verstappen. I want Verstappen to win the championship just to mix things up a bit, but I've got to say, the wheel to wheel racing between the two of them has been a bit of a joke this year. Max just simply wont yield to any overtake attempt made against him during a corner. Its either force the other drive off or make contact. I don't expect him to be as passive as Bottas when defending, but what he does goes beyond hard racing. He's basically only passable on a straight (which funnily enough, still managed to be a difficulty in this race). It's dramatic to watch but it doesn't look like good racing. Being a bit unfairedly biased, I've basically let it slide because it's against Hamilton, but when he goes up against a driver I actually like, something needs to be done about that style of racing.

So I played this back at launch, went into the game with pretty high expectations from the first game and managed to avoid all the spoilers before playing. I remember bingeing the game for 3 days, trying to finish it before I had anything spoiled. I succeeded in finishing the game without it being spoiled, but remember walking away from it disappointed. So much so that I didn't even start up the second playthrough to platinum the game, I just left it. I recently completed the game a second time so that I could finish off the trophy list and feel like I've given it enough time for the intial shock and hype to dissipate so that I can properly reflect on it. Technically speaking, the game is a 10/10. It looks amazing, it runs well (it should considering the long loads), the gameplay, movement and combat are all improved on the first game and feel smoother and less clunky. The story... it's definitely divisive. I'm not a big fan of many of the choices they made, and they haven't grown on me over time. Broadly speaking, I agree with a lot of the critiques of the game that have been raised here and elsewhere. The game is drawn out, it uses maniuplutive story telling to make characters more or less likeable to fit the narrative, it ruins some of the characterisation developed during the first game and it's just generally depressing to play through. Something I haven’t really seen talked about much would be the characters' delivery. For all the criticism of Abby there is on the internet (much of which I agree with) I thought that her character development and delivery were great. Her interactions with Lev and Manny are probably among the most authentic and enjoyable in the game. Even some of the more flat interactions like Abby’s with Owen or Mel aren’t bad, they’re just comparatively not as believable. On the other hand, I don’t know if it was a conscious decision to have Ellie come off as so beaten down and depressing; but the result is that her dialogue seems to lack the enthusiasm and emotion of the first game. Sure, you could argue that the majority of this game focuses upon her avenging the death of her closest companion, and that she doesn’t have a reason to be happy or enthusiastic given the circumstances . Whatever the reason, she just seems so disinteresting compared to the first game. Strangely, where Ellie has dialogue with Joel in the second game, she comes across with the same emotion and enthusiasm as in the first game. This is even in circumstances where Ellie is unhappy with Joel. This leads me to believe that the issue isn’t necessarily with Ellie’s voice actress (Ashley Johnson) being unable to portray grief, vengeance or downbeat emotion; but more so chemistry between voice actors, or chemistry built into the characters via writing. Maybe Troy Baker somehow gets the best out of Ashley Johnson? I don’t know, for all I know their dialogue is recorded separately and they have little real interaction with each other. In which case, the blame would seem to fall on direction or writing. Conversely, something about Ellie and Dina just feels off. You could jump to conclusions and say that’s because I’m a homophobe or that I don’t understand same-sex relationships, but I think that would be a cop out that fails to properly analyse why their relationship is lacking. Ellie and Dina lack chemistry. The game throws in kissing, dancing and throwaway nicknames like calling each other ‘babe’, but these all feel like cheap attempts to create or show chemistry or closeness where there is none. They just come off as awkward a lot of the time, and I don’t mean awkward in like a cute or endearing kind of way. More like they don’t believe in or feel what they’re saying. Compare their interactions with Ellie’s interactions with Joel, Tess, Sam or even Bill from the first game. They just felt more authentic. Arguably, even Ellie and Jesse have more genuine dialogue. The same sex relationship dynamic just could have worked better. It works in movies and tv series, but it falls short here because either the writing doesn’t create believable chemistry between the characters, or the voice actors just don’t have it. In terms of the SJW type criticisms levied at the game, I probably fall somewhere in the middle. I've seen the neckbeard types over on Reddit that seemingly hate the game merely because it features progressive characters and ideas. Without any added constructive criticism or justification, those criticisms can just be dismissed as immature and outdated. However, there are equally blinded people who praise the game as a masterpiece merely for its inclusiveness and for its braveness in tackling social justice issues. Focusing on these often detracts from genuine criticism of the game. At this point, any criticism made in mere proximity to any of the progressive issues covered just invites accusations of bigotry, prejudice or intolerance. Never mind that the problem isn’t with any of those issues per se, but instead the way they have been covered or implemented into this game. While I didn't have the game's plot spoiled for me while playing, I do recall seeing several reviews and articles that focused on the divisive SJW aspects around release. Whether that subconsciously put me on notice to look out for SJW type stuff or not, something can be said about the prevelance of progressive issues featured in this game. For all the anguish, horror, loss and fear you would expect to exist in a world taken over by 'zombie-like' creatures, roving gangs of outlaws, and morally ambiguous people, this fictional world actually appears to be even more progressive than our reality. Make of that what you will, but even for someone like me who considers themselves fairly progressive; it can be kind of immersion breaking when you're thinking more about the probabilities and realities of so many coincidences occuring at once in this apocolyptic world, than you're thinking about the main story. Ultimately though, anything social justice related is basically a non-issue on the scale of my grievances with this game. The game is good. If the game was standalone or the first entry in the series absent anything that happened in the first game, I'd probably rate it as one of my favourites on the PS4. But because the first game set the bar so high, and I let my expectations get the better of me, I guess I could call it a disappointing success. For what it's worth, I don't think the game's release date did it any favours. The game released practically peak covid. With everything going on in the real world, I think people needed something upliflting and hopeful. With such a big wait, massive excitement and anticipation surrounding its release, in hindsight, it sounds crazy that anyone would hype themselves up for such a bleak and depressing game. Had the game released before the global pandemic, maybe my tolerance for a 'noir' type story would have been greater.

He's in a pretty shitty situation. If he leaves Ferrari, it tarnishes his reputation further as another example of him leaving a team once he's faced with a team mate who beats him (which is an argument I don't think can be put so simply). But if he stays, there's no guarantee he'll retain lead driver status, nor any confidence that Ferrari have the technical or strategic skills to sustain a championship challenge. I don't envy his position nor the sort of pressure he must be under to perform. I personally think he would be best to just go back to Red Bull as they seem better able to develop the stable, high downforce sort of car that suits him. As for the season generally, I expect things to settle back down to the usual Merc dominance for the remaining races. Ferrari were only just able to win at Spa and Monza which were tracks that heavily favoured them. Red Bull might be able to snag a win at Singapore and Mexico. Barring a Mercedes stuff up, the remaining races should all be Merc (Hamilton) wins.

Not surprised he was replaced really. Even though I don't think Albon is necessarily ready either, surely he can't do much worse than Gasly? The car has enough margin in it to gap the rest of the midfield so hopefully all he can do is improve. It'll be interesting to see if the RB is as difficult to adapt to as Gasly has been making out. It will also be interesting if Gasly manages to outperform Kyvat and returns to the form he had last year.

Why only include the last 9? Seems a bit of an odd number to arrive at. Funnily enough doing it that way only serves to highlight Mercedes' era of dominance so it kind of detracts from it being a significant driver achievement.

Edit. All done.

The next gen is just so inconsistent. The likes of Thiem, Tsitsipas, Kyrgios, Fognini etc. can all pull off good matches and play entertaining tennis but they just can't do it consistently. They'll beat one of the big 3 one day then another day they'll lose to someone outside the top 50. It's not even like some of the next gen can routinely make it to the quarters or semis of slams. Must be hell for bookmakers to set odds for them .

They're a more competitive e-sports type event so I'd imagine the competition is generally tougher in the Nations Cup/Manufacturer Series events. Though it depends on the lobby. You can gain a slight advantage in those events by practicing the combination before the event goes live in arcade mode, as a lot of people jump into those events blind with little to no prep. If you put the time in, you'll naturally get better at the game over time. I'm not particularly skilled at racing games but I enjoy playing them which means I don't mind putting the time in to get better at them. I think I'd played like 50 races and only had 1 win to show for it before I started tanking my S/R. I got the plat a few months ago but I still hop on every now and again because I enjoy the online. I've since picked up another 30 or so wins the legit way against A/A+/S ranked players which I wouldn't have thought I could do back when the game released. One of the tricks I would do to rack up wins quickly was to keep an eye out for tracks I liked and could perform well on, and made sure to play as much as I could for the week they were available. With your other game experience, I assume you're pretty familiar with tracks like Suzuka, Nurburgring, Catalunya, possibly Brands Hatch? Conversely, if all 3 races available for the week have car/track combos you hate, take the week off. It's no fun grinding through races you aren't enjoying in the hope that you'll luck into a win.

For me personally, my 5 hardest were: 1. Sewer Speedway (would be cake if the shortcut worked consistently) 2. Mystery Caves 3. Crash Cove 4. Dragon Mines 5. Polar Pass