The Last of Us: Part II

Discussion in 'Video Games and Technology' started by Rusty24, Dec 3, 2016.

  1. Applejacktimus

    Applejacktimus Still see the Sunshine

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    Now I know how the Star Wars fans feel...
     
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  2. Novaburnhilde

    Novaburnhilde Destron Enforcer

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    Just a little reminder to those who seem to have difficulty with reading comprehension.

    This means if you're going to argue, have an actual argument and articulate it properly. Accusing people of having soggy knee's isn't an argument, it's an ad hominem that blatantly goes against 2 of the rules on this site. The rules aren't hard to follow, you also aren't obligated to hang around and defend the terrible game you're enjoying if you can't even do it properly.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2020
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  3. Tekkaman Blade

    Tekkaman Blade Professor of Animation

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    Well I don't want to go into that as is may go against board policies. Not to mention cause more arguments. I will say one of the Official advisers for this game was Anita Sarkeesian. Look her up, then look her and the last of us II together in google search, you should be able to figure it out. She was involved in some other famous gaming controversies a few years back as well.

    Not to mention Doctor Who, and Star Trek. There is a lot of this stuff going on in entertainment. Writing for the cause before the plot. People see the obvious message and the poor story telling. And they don't like being preached to, they just want to be entertained. It's fine to have a message, but entertain your audience first, have your message subtle, and make sure you have a good plot above all else.

    For instance I was a big fan of the show Daria, there were a lot of feminist plots and dialog. But it was funny and entertaining. So I didn't have a personal objection to any of the messages or thought they were out to promote a cause above all else, I was just entertained. It wasn't till I was older that I realized some of the shows messages. Made me appreciate them and the writing. These days it seems like many shows while trying to have similar characters, don't have the ability to entertain and insert their messages at the same time. So they go for preaching over plot. I watch some shows and it seems like it was written by The Daria character Janet Branch. Who they were making fun of for being too extreme.
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    Of course then other shows and movies seem to go into the other direction like they had Mr. DeMartino in charge.
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    They were the two extremes of what not to do.

    But they seem like the way people writing modern shows seem to think. All extremes no nuances.

    And for those of you who do enjoy the game good. Glad you do, I'd love more things to enjoy. Now why are some people reading reviews like a hawk and looking for things? Well lately we have been disappointed a lot by the media. We have our Game of Thrones season 8, Last Jedi, Star Treks Picard and Discovery and so on. It makes us distrustful as it keeps happening. Many of these things especially games cost money. I'm on a budget as my job closed suddenly last year, and while I have a new one, I don't get paid near as much as I used to. Until I get hired at a better job I'm budgeting like crazy. So I watch reviews to make sure I'm not going to pay for something and then regret it later, be it movies, TV or games. Even many figures I many times wait for others to buy it first and test quality control. I'm sure many others are in a similar position.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2020
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  4. SuperTitanHans

    SuperTitanHans Upgraded

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    And likewise, if you are going to post negatively, please do so based on your own first hand experiences of having actually played the game. Thanks in advance.

    I think you said “involved” when you meant to say “a victim of.”
     
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  5. Tekkaman Blade

    Tekkaman Blade Professor of Animation

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    Again this is why I don't want to start this argument......It was already played out years ago and I figured people would take certain sides.
     
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  6. Rodimus Prime

    Rodimus Prime Sola Gratia, Sola Fide TFW2005 Supporter

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    キャプチャ.PNG
    Vocal minority...

    If you have watched the live stream, you have pretty much played it.I've watched multiple because it is pretty hilarious seeing people going from hype to hate.

    ImDontai-hates-the-game.PNG
     
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  7. Haloid1177

    Haloid1177 Hey, That's Pretty Good

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    Don't backseat mod while hiding behind the rules to shut down conversation that doesn't agree with you. Be better.

    Bruh. Like I know you aren't posting user review scores for a game 48 hours after release that had more user reviews than the original TLOU an hour after it launched on Friday as a metric. That don't mean shit. And you know it don't mean shit. It literally fits the narrative that people read the leaks and review bombed a game without playing. Or watching a stream and calling it sufficient to give the game a score.
     
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  8. Not Blitzwing

    Not Blitzwing Well-Known Member

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  9. Shin Densetsu

    Shin Densetsu I WILL DESTROY YOU Content Contributor Veteran

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    What I posted doesn't have to be reiterated and the rules apply to you as well. You quoting my post and reinterpreting it doesn't reinforce any argument you may be trying to win in this thread. In fact, it is a sign to me that maybe this thread isn't worth keeping open.

    This is understandable and hopefully the conversation can pivot back to the game itself. From what I've read it sounds broken and should've been postponed until some glaringly simple bugs could've been fixed(FWIW 1 of my friends worked QA on a game before so I know it can be rather extensive but some of the things missed here, one would think would've been fixed by release).
     
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  10. Haloid1177

    Haloid1177 Hey, That's Pretty Good

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    I would like to add there is literally no source that says this. Druckmann said he liked Anita's videos and that she influenced him as a writer, but she had no official role with the production of this game at all, and these blatantly false statements bringing her into this paint the picture of the real issue here. Like, come on. Fan speculation that Anita "ruined" this game is the dumbest shit, and I legit didn't expect to see it on this site, trying to spout fan speculation as fact.
     
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  11. Autobot Burnout

    Autobot Burnout ...and I'll whisper "No."

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    I feel like this isn't exactly fair because TLOU as a whole has always been presented story-first. The gameplay could be great but if the story is garbage then people will focus on that since without a good story, why bother playing?
    This largely is why Joel dying so early pisses off a lot of people - not so much that he dies, but the main character of the previous game gets executed by a complete nobody after saving their life and really, Abby's existence seems to completely go against the game's whole "revenge is bad" message since she pretty much gets away with it all scott free since she gets to go back to the Fireflies or whatever while all her buddies died for her actions and she doesn't seem to show any remorse for the most part, and Ellie doesn't get to get revenge but loses everything regardless.

    It's basically the same anti-climax that was Arcee not killing Airachnid in TF Prime, despite being 100% justified in doing so. Except with TLOU2 its worse because people spend the entire game getting pissed at the bitch, but when the time comes they are denied having the choice to kill her, meaning the entire game was pointless. Sure, as a narrative it could work, but this is a video game - do you really think players are going to get any kind of satisfaction about having all their work thrown in their face like that? What did they get for $60+ other than seeing all the characters they like getting killed or otherwise turned into unlikable asshats, while this murderous psychopath whose first impression pretty much is the only true defining detail of their character?


    People wanted the game for more Joel/Ellie interaction...that isn't really what they got, and people are mad about it.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2020
  12. Dran0n

    Dran0n miss me w/ that

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    ah yeah anita sarkeesian no i remember that. actually she was gonna speak at a university in my state and they got hit with terrorist threats because she said some things about video games. dude it was like 8 years ago i’m sorry she made youtube videos that you could easily not watch.

    and yeah please when these people are making art like movies and video games please make your message so subtle i don’t have to notice it and think critically about anything
     
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  13. Haloid1177

    Haloid1177 Hey, That's Pretty Good

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    Boy do I have a very different read on this game then you do.

    How in the fuck can you tell me Abby escapes completely unscathed like goddamn dude. Ellie kills her close friend, her best friend/ex-lover, her best friend's preggo girlfriend, her dog, Tommy kills her other friend, she get excommunicated from her people for helping a child, and gets tortured by people that take her in Santa Barbara. Why is it so critical that after all that, she dies? Why is it so much worse that she killed Joel, and then Ellie went and killed all those people just to get to the actual person she wanted to? Like look at what Abby's revenge cost her for killing Joel. And you want to look at that and say she is immune to the game's message of "revenge is bad" cause like I think that's a tough sell. And she is going to look for the Fireflies, I bet she never finds them.

    On the Ellie front, she loses everything because of her own actions. Like Ellie could have just as easily not gone to Santa Barbara to finish her revenge. She could have had the growth as a person to let it go. But she didn't. Acting like Ellie's loss is a direct result of Abby is dumb. Like Abby let Tommy and her live, I can absolutely easily make the case that Abby is less blood thirsty than Ellie throughout this whole game. Which, again, doesn't mean Abby is good. You see her brain Joel, you're told how she is the best Scar killer of their group, that she does bad things, but TLOU isn't a game where the player is meant to dislike someone for their bad choices. We're told similar things about Joel, but the player still grabs onto him very quickly.

    As for the portion about the player's work. The player plays as Abby as much as Ellie. The "work" isn't one sided to Ellie. By the end fight, I wanted Abby to win, I didn't even want to fight her, because Ellie was so far in the wrong at that point that it was difficult to play as her. And kudos to the ND team for taking that chance.

    I don't get how you can complain earlier about "games aren't doing enough different," then say "well we just wanted more Ellie/Joel." Like what you got is a very risky, different sequel, instead of more of the same. It's basically the exact opposite of what Naughty Dog did with Uncharted for the three sequels. Not to mention the fact that the Ellie and Joel moments that the game gives you are arguably better than anything the original game gave us, which means they did allow for that group to have what they want. Hell, after replaying TLOU1 and Left Behind DLC before TLOU2 came out, Ellie's relationship with Riley was like, 10x more interesting than hers with Joel, because you got to see her with a kid her own age, something that never happened in the first. I dunno. I think that hanging onto Joel and Ellie as being the core important piece, meanwhile it's also the most tropey and overdone part of the genre that the first game relied on so much, would have really hamstrung both the characters and letting the game series grow.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2020
  14. Rodimus Prime

    Rodimus Prime Sola Gratia, Sola Fide TFW2005 Supporter

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    Even ResetEra was tearing it apart. This isn't review bombing, this is a lot of people hitting the 4 hour mark and getting pissed.
     
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  15. Haloid1177

    Haloid1177 Hey, That's Pretty Good

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    I feel as though saying it isn't review bombing, when the game had more user reviews in a day than the original had in seven years, just doesn't actually really work. And ResetERA is treating it about the same as they treated The Last Jedi, with a pretty even split and a bunch of bickering.
     
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  16. SuperTitanHans

    SuperTitanHans Upgraded

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    No it’s not. This isn’t independent thought. It’s a mob mentality.
     
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  17. Rodimus Prime

    Rodimus Prime Sola Gratia, Sola Fide TFW2005 Supporter

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    Oh, no, there's plenty of shill rating on both sides of the equation, but the visceral hatred by original fans is real. Also, :lol  at TLJ being even on there. I actually watched the thread on it.
     
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  18. Autobot Burnout

    Autobot Burnout ...and I'll whisper "No."

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    Its relative - compare Abby to Ellie. They suffer the same loss, except Abby actually gets her revenge kill. Ellie doesn't, but suffers the same consequences. That genuinely makes it look like Abby got the better end of the deal in that zero-sum game, if not scott free.

    Ellie is pretty dumb in her own right in the game, but the whole driver is purely Joel's death. Given how popular Joel was, even if he had to die, the game could have been structured way better to have his death happen near the end of the game instead of simply doing it almost at the beginning and the whole thing being a long slog to ultimately a very unsatisfying ending.

    That end fight shouldn't have happened - Ellie walks into that room to kill Abby, decides to not kill her and lets her down from the cross, and then suddenly wants to kill her again? Its just bad writing that dictates she wouldn't shoot Abby on that cross then and there and be done with it.

    And yet Abby weirdly has the same kind of aesthetic going on as the main villain of UC4 - weirdly muscular female antagonist never mentioned before who inexplicably is so much better than the main protaganist. They share the same VA, too, IIRC.

    But they kill him first, which means all that interaction is treated as retroactive and ultimately pointless if only because Joel is dead and those parts are all flashbacks.

    I don't really have a basis for the DLC, admittedly, I just know something about Ellie being a lesbian is involved.

    Except there's supposed to be a third installment and given the outcry of the general public, where exactly can the story go? Nobody is going to want a game that actually features Abby as the main protaganist, Ellie can't come back wanting revenge without TLOU2's message of "revenge is bad" being completely undermined further since now she actually doesn't even have anything to lose anymore, and Joel's dead.

    The fact this takes place in a zombie-filled apocalypse is almost completely forgotten - sure, they fight infected, but the fact its is zombies is completely generic and could be made any kind of threat at this point. Heck, Ellie's infected IIRC and that doesn't seem to be a major plot point anymore.
    [/QUOTE]
     
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  19. Haloid1177

    Haloid1177 Hey, That's Pretty Good

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    I just don't feel like playing the game yields that emotional response. Like I did not feel that in that final fight, killing Abby is the closure Ellie needs, nor do I feel that all Abby had been through, she escaped completely free. And that's something I don't think watching streams gets you. Games are an interactive medium, and watching a stream half heartedly doesn't invest you in the character or story the same way as playing in Abby's shoes for 10 hours.

    Again, I found the ending painfully satisfying in all the right ways. Joel wasn't the companion I needed anymore, and that's the point. Ellie doesn't need her surrogate father at all times, she had outgrown him, but it turns out she hadn't outgrown the worst traits he'd passed down to her.

    I think Ellie killing Abby on that cross would make her basically irredeemable. Abby was clearly tortured and broken, and killing her then, defenseless, would have made me never look at her the same way again. And she didn't just not want to kill her, but she needed a way off too, and also Lev was an unexpected wrinkle she had to deal with. Not to mention realizing how pointless it all was remains the only point of growth Ellie has, because otherwise she had the worst traits of Joel basically.

    I don't understand what this is trying to say? Nadine was great in UC4 and Lost Legacy. It's arguably the best UC4 game and by far has the best villains of the series.

    I don't get how saying "well this happened in the past and doesn't effect the present so it's pointless" when those flashbacks influence the whole game. The break between Ellie and Joel is at the core of all of it. And I don't really understand what we're expecting to best those character interactions when Ellie is an adult now, and hardened by the world and Joel's choices. Her choosing to forgive Joel in that final flashback is perfect, cause right after she leaves because she thinks Dina will give her a second chance if she could do the same for Joel.

    Not that like I want to point fingers, but I find it weird that this whole time someone holds up the first game in such high regard, but doesn't play like actual important DLC. It ain't a knock, but like you see a lot of Left Behind in TLOU2, for the better I feel, and I think it's a missed opportunity to discuss this game so critically without having played that first.

    A third installment isn't a confirmed thing at this point. Like I feel it'll happen, but with Joel out of the picture, you can jump so far ahead into the future with these characters now that I find the prospect very exciting, especially if the infected are mostly wiped out and the discussion is about the new society that has finally formed. And don't say nobody, cause I'd prefer a game about Abby than Ellie at this point. And why would Ellie's only path back be revenge? Seems short sighted to imply.

    I mean Ellie being infected is literally what causes her and Joel to fall out, so I don't think it's just ignored, but also, we really gonna act like the zombies were what made the first game interesting. I could have lived without zombies as a whole in that game, and I don't think it would have even hurt it that much, similar to The Road.
     
  20. Autobot Burnout

    Autobot Burnout ...and I'll whisper "No."

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    I guess we will have to agree to disagree, since I think we're just getting into circular arguments at this point.
     
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