There's no middle ground for me here, and it saddens me that gamers willingly concede ground on this issue. A full RRP game should not have pay2win/microtransactions to supersede actual gameplay. This road leads to a place even worse than where we’re already at: to full RRP games that end up being like Farmville or other Facebook games where buying coins with real money drastically speeds up the process of completing the game. Shadow of Mordor is one of a handful of games that are “testing the waters” until they eventually creep and creep to the point where gamers find it acceptable to pay £50 for a game and know that you cannot make decent progress without grinding your life away unless you start paying for “loot chests” to speed the process up.

To be honest, I wish some authority – government, consumer rights, law? – would look into this because companies like EA, Ubisoft, Activision et al have been pushing their luck for far too long. The consumer – us; the gamer – is treated with no respect or consideration by these large publishers. I know business is the end game here, but it does seem that gaming goes beneath the radar compared to, say, film and music. Publishers essentially do what they want with no fear of repercussion, and that’s a massive problem for us as gamers.

@infinity1: you could tell with KotOR that BioWare were passionate about Star Wars and truly wanted to do justice to the franchise. Furthermore, they also felt confident in their game with the backing of Lucasarts which is why, when it came out, it was a 70+ hour game if you did everything (and, unlike most RPGs, all the content was certainly worth exploring).

There is absolutely no emulation of that same drive, passion and enthusiasm in their subsequent titles. Jade Empire was nice in its own way, and the original Dragon Age is a solid RPG, but they both fall waaaay below KotOR, while Mass Effect, in its entirety, is an abomination compared to KotOR.

BioWare will never better KotOR. We have to accept that. But we can also be grateful that the game exists at all. Watching this video reminded me about this game which I do truly adore. Thanks GameSpot.

Morrowind is still by far the best game in the series. I remember playing it on the original Xbox and it ran like crap, looked like crap, and the combat was abysmal, but it had soul. The depth, the character to the world, the NPCs, the mystery and lack of hand-holding. It was so amazing to play and I loved every second of it.

Oblivion was a massive insult to fans of Morrowind: streamlined dumbed-down crap for console kiddies (and I say that as originally a console gamer!!). Skyrim, fortunately, seems to have found a balance. I am willing to compromise and have a game like Skyrim if it keeps sales growing for Bethesda, but I know I'll never get to experience a game like Morrowind again... which makes me die a little inside.

On a side note: I have similar feelings regarding BioWare and their history. Knights of the Old Republic (some would say Neverwinter Nights or Baldur's Gate) is their Morrowind, and everything since has been more streamlined and less in depth and less willing to let you use your initiative to learn to play and appreciate the game. Again, the original Dragon Age: Origins was a nice compromise, but I would argue BioWare have gone back over with recent titles.

I'll tell you what's not new but could certainly use a goddamn upgrade: the game engine and the freaking UI. Jesus Christ these games are beginning to look awful visually. Also utilising PlayStation 3 tech - this is a modified Demon's Souls engine, btw (yes, really) - hampers evolution massively: limitations on graphical effects (wonder why the FPS is so poor at times when lots of stuff is happening?); limitation on assets (less enemies because the old tech cannot handle it); and limitation on overall quality.

I am happy this is the last Dark/Demon's Souls game because these dudes seriously need to innovate and get out of the Ubi-Soft/EA 'crap the same game out every year' routine. They are better than that, aren't they? Or...

An 8/10 is correct, and I commend the reviewer for having the nerve to score it as such. Typically an 8/10 is fine, but this game - and others - usually transcend their deserved score because they're over-hyped, the reviewer confuses novelty with quality, or, more simply, a website or magazine doesn't want to offend the hand that feeds (i.e. advertisers; publishers). It is beyond ridiculous that an 8/10 could be bemoaned by anyone, but today's exceptionally poor gaming media has caused this state of affairs. We now have to put up with a media that can feel justified in giving games like Fable II a 10/10 (to be fair, not GameSpot - but they are equally guilty of scoring games too high when such praise is abundantly without merit). With games like that scoring 10s with ease, it is hard to argue for games like this to score 8/10, but we must revert back to taking gaming reviews seriously or else descend into the madness we already inhabit. TLoU is, of course, a billion times better than Fable II, but if we continue using scoring systems akin to what was used on Fable II then we might as well all give up now: gaming reviews are beyond pointless and are a complete waste of everyone's time.

Anyway, The Last of Us has a brilliant narrative, characters, soundtrack, and atmosphere. It is visually stunning. The gameplay is tight and responsive. But, as the reviewer points out, the ally AI breaks that atmosphere. Furthermore, recycling unrealistic ladder and plank puzzles is not good game design - it is poor. There's also far too many enemies in the game. The feeling of isolation and impending terror is diluted when you pile the corpses of hunters higher and higher. It is obvious The Road was an inspiration for Naughty Dog, but what that novel and film manage to achieve is beyond what The Last of Us can ever hope to properly imitate unless the amount of enemies, silly puzzles, and daft team AI is reduced by significant amounts. It is hard to feel the same sense of dread and hopelessness in a fully realised world when people have been polite enough to conveniently leave ladders and rafts for people to navigate around on. Or a world where enemies will shoot Joel dead but let Ellie run around like she's a mere test in a 'ignore that annoying girl' drill.

Again, I emphasise that the narrative Naughty Dog have created excels far beyond 95% of modern games, which is fantastic by any stretch. However, the gameplay and content structure is not spectacular. It is a polished and solid third-person shooter with minor horror and survival elements, but it is not revolutionary. It is not superb. Had the core game quality matched the quality of the story and characters then this would definitely be a 9/10 game, especially with updated 1080p resolution and 60FPS. However, that is clearly not the case.

As it is, I commend this review and wholeheartedly concur with Carolyn's 8/10 review. Well done.