Yeah, I saw this, and I do generally agree with it. But there are some things about it that don't stick too well for me. Like, Naughty Dog's game design IS in a way outdated, but only in regards to how it connects to the story it tries to tell. It's a weird negative influence that both the gameplay and story have on eachother. The gameplay is quite good, and has more range than Naughty Dog has had since Jak and Daxter, but at the same time the gameplay is too rigid to tell a grounded story that isn't overly dark, locking the characters in this moody prison.
Can't say I agree with his opinion on MGS3 though. The Sorrow sequence always felt like a gimmick that didn't in anyway make me reflect on my violent ways except for whether or not I would actually recognize some of them based on how I killed them. TLoU2 did more for me in that area. Not so much in the 'oh no, brutal violence' kind of way, but more in 'Lev and Yara are good people who just want to escape this crazy cult, and I'm killing members of this crazy cult to save them, but those people I'm killing might very well be in the same boat as Yara and Lev but are too scared to go against what they've been taught. And here I am murdering them.'
Also, MGS3 's stealth mechanics are certainly deeper than TLoU2 's, but in the latter the stealth is a malleable tool as opposed to the former's where the rigid controls make you fear the allmighty alert phase like the wrath of god. I was actually able to play around with the stealth in TLoU2.
I know TLoU2 would never have been a feel good game (although honestly it would've been far more interesting had they tried their hand at it), but in as dark a universe that TLoU takes place in, deliberately going for 'dark' I feel tips the scale into the obnoxious. It doesn't feel like there's anything for the dark to bounce off of, resulting in it just becoming a bunch of white noise.
I also feel the game really should've ended with Ellie killing Abby. Not because I wanted Abby to die, but because I feel it would've been a much more interesting way for it to reflect onto the player. By that point Ellie is a horrible killer anyway, whether she kills Abby or not. A lot of players would want to kill Abby, because I don't think I have to tell you how hated Abby is as a character in the gaming community. So having the player want to and succeed in killing this person who has become weak and emaciated, unwilling to even really fight and barely recognizeable as the person she once was would've worked as a nice mirror I think.
I also think it would've functioned as a genius contrast with the first fight between Ellie and Abby. Where in that fight both characters are probably at their peak physical condition, and eventhough Ellie is the main character and our main goal in the first 15 hours or so of the game was to kill Abby as Ellie, we play this fight as Abby instead. And with Ellie losing and the player controlling Abby, both Ellie as well as the player are purposefully deprived of the satisfaction of fighting and beating Abby. Possibly fueling the desire to beat/kill her even more, only to have our fight as Ellie against Abby be one where Abby is half alive and a shell of her former self, again robbing the player and Ellie of this prize. By having Ellie stop herself and realize... whatever, I think it flubs this.
I still love how that first fight was set up though. That was really good stuff and probably the most interesting gaming moment of 2020 for me.
