The Last of Us Part II: Battle Tendency
-
-
I'm just not down with the pacing of TLoU2. I don't really have much a problem with the story (found it rather meh really, didn't really care for a lot of the characters, and the overcranked bleakness wasn't doing it for me. Sheesh even Walking Dead knew when to dial it back a bit), but all the flashbacks and walking bits just got annoying after awhile. I know they wanna tell a drama but going the Man of Steel route really didn't help the narrative any. Why, oh why, didn't they just do separate campaigns for this game? Story would've been more cohesive, better paced and you can understand where the other side is coming from better. Gameplay wise though, pretty fun, just the first game's combat ratcheted up a bit, more open areas and giving you more options for stealth. Did get irked how some enemy just have eagle eyes and can spot you from a distance when your not even that close to them. I know they're going for realism but some of the getting alerted parts were BS. But otherwise, same ol same ol, grab parts, conserve ammo, pick your kills where you can and enjoy the exploration. Won't lie, it's a pretty game and did like the visuals and settings. But the story really made it a chore to get through for me.
-
Or failed.to comprehend the underlying narrative, considering how many people the protagonist of the first game was a hero.
I don’t know how people got this idea and seeing why some of the butthurt exists for the 2nd game makes it even dumber.
-
I don’t know how people got this idea and seeing why some of the butthurt exists for the 2nd game makes it even dumber.
Despite the first game making it pretty obvious like tatermoog partly stated what it was about, people wrongfully saw it as a more traditional story of hero saving damsel and while doing that saving himself, and those people are mostly now jumping and acting out with what happens in the second part.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
I'm just not down with the pacing of TLoU2. I don't really have much a problem with the story (found it rather meh really, didn't really care for a lot of the characters, and the overcranked bleakness wasn't doing it for me. Sheesh even Walking Dead knew when to dial it back a bit), but all the flashbacks and walking bits just got annoying after awhile. I know they wanna tell a drama but going the Man of Steel route really didn't help the narrative any. Why, oh why, didn't they just do separate campaigns for this game? Story would've been more cohesive, better paced and you can understand where the other side is coming from better. Gameplay wise though, pretty fun, just the first game's combat ratcheted up a bit, more open areas and giving you more options for stealth. Did get irked how some enemy just have eagle eyes and can spot you from a distance when your not even that close to them. I know they're going for realism but some of the getting alerted parts were BS. But otherwise, same ol same ol, grab parts, conserve ammo, pick your kills where you can and enjoy the exploration. Won't lie, it's a pretty game and did like the visuals and settings. But the story really made it a chore to get through for me.
! Because you first are supposed to feel the same way Ellie feels, angry and full of vengeful thoughts, massacring everything in your sight until you actually get to her, before seemingly getting to fulfill said revenge, and then immediately they turn the thing upside down by revealing Abby´s side of things and underlying how she basically did the same thing to Joel you were trying to do with Ellie to her for the last 10 hours or so. The immediate change-up of the perspective is intended and pretty much the most crucial thing about the narrative, and spending time as her, seeing her story and her relationships over the next 10 hours is supposed to show how futile Ellie´s goal is, among other things. You are supposed to feel angry initially when the perspective changes, because nobody is interested in playing as the character that was the target of hatred for the entire game until that point, just like Ellie is not interested in knowing anything about her beyond the person she feels she needs to kill, Abby is objectified as the evil that needs to be killed, just like Joel was for her.
Whether this experimental approach works or not, people should definitely decide that for themselves, but from what i have seen so far, the majority of "critics" do not get this far, hence why i stated before the game requires both an open mind and dissecting not only what happens but also what is being said, and even the facial expressions.
Completely splitting the "campaigns" might work better for the pacing (you basically almost finish an entire game, just falling short of the supposed end goal (which it actually never supposed to be) but would miss this entire point. -
Learn to analyze the story before you start judging all the criticism as pointless or "didn't get it".
While there are stupid complaints, there are legit ones out that highlight the fundamental problems with the confused narrative that doesn't match at all with the gameplay, character's being super one-note and only existing to be used as plot-devices in order to make the player feel bad, the constant repetition of brutal violence and pointless deaths in order to beat you over the head with the simple and utterly "NO SHIT" message of "VIOLENCE BAD", cheap emotional blackmail tactics and a general nihilistic tone that shows how there isn't much depth or talent to be found here aside from cartoony violence.
Look at the actual characters. Look at the actual relationships. Look at the actual message. None of it is properly developed or established as much as game stating "character goes here, character says this, character does this. FEEL BAD" instead of properly establishing characters with any depth whatosever. Everything is fundamentally so ham-fisted that I wouldn't be surprised if people like it because it has blood, mature tone and gore and not because it is conveying anything meaningful with that.
From the spoilers, I assumed that this might actually be a bold direction for ND. But instead it is fundamentally exactly like how I imagine ND to handle it. Polished surface but utterly shallow when looked upon closely.
So much shit is skipped and then sloppily ham-fisted to you as you stand/walk around as the caricature characters then deliver their "sob" stories in forced dialogues just to make you feel bad about what is coming next. The worst thing about is that the game wants to take an attempt at critiquing the violence but don't seem to understand that just having NPC's with "names" or killing dogs isn't thoughtful commentary. It's just utterly stupid and makes the writers look like people who fundamentally don't even know what they want to really convey here.
There is a reason why there were three different directors for this game and two different writers. The disconnect between what they want to convey, how they convey it and how that connects with the gameplay is fundamentally huge. This is basically like Batman vs Superman or Gantz in the regards that once you overlook the horrible shit, you will soon realize how basic and simple the message is and yet the writers struggled to convey it even in 20+ hours and that's while skipping doing any sort of heavy-lifting characterization-wise.
IDK how anyone can call this "experimental" when Spec Ops the line already did the concept much better and that's not even including all the indie/Japanese titles that accompolish and explore the concept in much better and more subtle way.
This is a modern Western work through and through where the writers use the most cliched techniques and emotional blackmail as a way to be like "VIOLENCE IS BAD. FEEL BAD" while I was just massacring everyone without a single care about either side or characters. I'm sorry but this is not deep. There is no depth to be found here.
As someone who finished the Vinland Saga anime and read through the Farm arc literally hours before TLOU2 came out, the difference between the two works was super huge. Like Berserk to Gantz level of difference. One series wants to properly explore the ideas and gives it time, characters and scenarios that properly lay the groundwork while the other skips all that, pulls all the cheap trick in the book and tries to make you feel bad but once you overlook that, there is absolutely nothing to be found. Just mindless blood, bore and brutality.
-
As usual, come off your high horse and learn to read, i clearly stated there are critics and criticism i agree with, first and foremost the dissonance between the actual gameplay, meaning actually playing it, and the story, so you basically have two disconnected parts which do not really fit together well, but this is neither a problem with the story in itself, nor have most actually been able to either comprehend or articulate this problem, since they are stuck with simplistic complaints.
Most people not comprehending it and the game still having problems are not mutually exclusive, and having a nuanced opinion beyond "absolute garbage" and "masterpiece" is pretty rare, which i have stated several times.
Everything else is just rambling. -
Neir and Neir Automatata did the "replay the story a second time and switch your perspective to realize what you did might have been messed up" super well.
And of course we've got freaking Undertale as the go-to example of a game going "hey, if you keep killing stuff just because its a game and you can, here's reasons to feel bad and think about what you've done."
And so on. LoU2 isn't the first game to try and attempt this sort of thing so it doesn't get points for being brave or anything if the actual execution is bad.
-
As usual
I love how quick you are to ignore the very form of the product that you are discussing here. TLOU2 is a game. Not a tv-show or a movie. An element going against the very concept/form of the product is a pretty damn big of a deal. I'm guessing this is your first ND title or you simply haven't really noticed this but ND is pretty famous for being developers that fundamentally don't understand how to incorporate story with gameplay. These aren't different elements. These are the foundation of the entire product particularly for a game that wants to comment on violence. So when you get a game that is as serious as TLOU2 in terms of narrative but is soooooo stupidly fun in terms of just massacring those human NPC's, do you realize the absolute damage that does to the overall product?
It wants to seriously tackle the question of violence for the narrative but then also makes the act of violence so much more fun in the gameplay that the subject matter in itself cannot be taken seriously whatsoever especially when there is absolutely no way to avoid the violence. No incentive for the player to REALLY think about their choice when every and all enemy encounters end with their death. I have no choice and stopped giving a shit early on and REALLY enjoyed beating the shit outta everyone. This isn't just a small thing; this is where the work itself is completely clueless to the form as well as what it really wants to convey.
And yes, killing dogs will make some people feel bad. Just as I can create a game right now where the player is forced to beat the shit outta childrens, infants and fetuses and then point fingers at the player for killing them, without any form of choice, and making them feel bad. That is known as emotional blackmail because regardless of the talent, people will generally feel bad when you have to pointlessly kill someone particularly animals. That is not talent. That is not quality-writing. That is not bold or experimental. That is the cheapest trick in the book for getting an emotional reaction. The first game literally started off with killing off a child in order to achieve an emotional reaction from the players. Not quality writing or the fleshed out relationship between Joel or Sarah that made it emotional. But the pure implication of a child being gunned down and dying to achieve that effect. And that is the entire reason for this game's existent; it wants to simply make the player feel bad. It has NOTHING whatsoever to convey or to comment on beyond the needless emotional blackmail and violence.
Not to mention that for a 2020 game, this feels very outdated and super old. MGS2, a game from 2001, can be played from the beginning to end without killing anyone yet TLOU2, a game released 19 years after MGS2, can't? And this is supposed to be looked at some kind of a ground-breaking new gen title? Just funny that the highly acclaimed title that is being considered to be ground breaking is apparently more simple and shallow than a game that came out 19 years ago. And this is not intentional as none of modern ND titles can be played without killing someone. It's not an intentional design-choice; it's a poorly implemented system simply because modern ND isn't really capable of creating gameplay scenarios that aren't run-and-gun or killing everyone. Again; the disconnect becomes more and more relevant as you start thinking about it.
If you want ANOTHER example of the Neil's incompetency for not understanding ludo-narrative dissonance in his own work then look up Uncharted 4's Nathan and Rafe moment criticism and look up Neil's response to it. Here is the article if you want to read it. Basically, Uncharted is a series that has long been criticize for having a narrative that paints ND has a lovable hero while in the gameplay you kill 100's of people without any care or regret. In fact, the games cannot be completed without killing and most gameplay sections REQUIRE that you kill everyone before you move on. This particular criticism came to a head when in UC4 (directed/written by Neil, who directed TLOU 1 and TLOU2) Rafe, the main villain, in one of the scenes states how Nathan Drake will "not kill you in cold-blood" when the player had already been doing that for hours prior to that scene occurring. Neil's reaction to that criticism? Here is his response:
I told all the people on the team, "This is my proudest moment, the fact that I came up with this trophy on this project." We were conscious to have fewer fights, but it came more from a desire to have a different kind of pacing than to answer the "ludonarrative dissonance" argument.
Because we don't buy into it. I've been trying to dissect it. Why is it that Uncharted triggers this argument, when Indiana Jones doesn't? Is it the number? It can't be just the number, because Indiana Jones kills more people than a normal person does. A normal person kills zero people. And Indiana Jones kills a dozen, at least, over the course of several movies. What about Star Wars? Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, are they some sort of serial killers? They laugh off having killed some stormtroopers. And in The Force Awakens, we see that a stormtrooper can actually repent for the person he is and come around, and there are actually real people under those helmets.Yep, you read that right. Instead of acknowledging a very big flaw for the entire game that makes the characters as well as the interactive segments of the game very disconnected and created by very different people, he instead points to other movies and tries to justify it while missing the entire point. It also doesn't help that Uncharted 1-3 are lighthearted, mindless action set-piece type games. Uncharted 4, on the other hand, is a "mature" take on the series and is supposed to be a serious character-driven game. That's why the disconnect, that already existed before 4, is such a huge thing. You are being told by the game itself to take it seriously but then it turns around and says "yea, it's serious, realistic and gritty …...if you ignore the gameplay/interactive side of things" while killing off any chance of the game being taken seriously.
This is like Mushashi becoming a wise person that cares about human life only for him to become like the main character of Kingdom and start killing everyone while the writer says that they are both consistent with each other and ignoring the very obvious inconsistent and confused message.
This right here is an IMPORTANT THING to consider because Neil is also the creator of TLOU2 and his incompetency and lack of any solid-understanding of the connection between narrative and gameplay and how that can make or break the game. In this case, it completely destroys whatever the game is trying to convey or explore. Because just from a design-standpoint, it's already at odds with itself before you even start talking about the other stuff.
As for the writing; I mean sure, if you ignore all the forced and out of character moment that starts the entire plotline of the game (like the golf scene, you know exactly what I'm talking about), the general lack of any character establishment, the slow-pacing and how utterly useless/waste of time it is considering that the characters that basically vomit their stories on you aren't even developed, understandable or empathetic. They are just empty cardboard cutouts that exist purely to make you feel bad for what happens to them. Otherwise, characterization in this game is basically non-existent with the best character moments being related to Joel, who is still by far the best aspect of the narrative.
How can a game feel super-rushed and yet utterly dragged out at the same time? Unpack the story in your mind, unpack the character moments in your mind, unpack the conversations in your mind, consume them, take your time, think about them and tell me exactly how much of that
A.) is actually relevant,
B.) tells you anything meaningful about the character and isn't just background fluff dressed-up as characterization
C.) doesn't comes across as empty words
D.) doesn't just come out and spell out the basic character sob story
E.) doesn't exist just to drag out the already paper-thin plotFeel free to elaborate. Because one thing I have noticed amongst ND fans or TLOU fans is that there is very little elaboration. Just "this is good" or "i cried so best game ever". Kind of a shame since people don't really want to discuss the actual quality of it; just merely praise it and then ignore any sort of discussion for it.
As for the rambling; it's called discussion and critiquing.
I hope you do try to respond with counterpoints and not cheap tactics to ignore the actual discussion that you yourself came to this thread to start.
-
Neir and Neir Automatata did the "replay the story a second time and switch your perspective to realize what you did might have been messed up" super well.
And of course we've got freaking Undertale as the go-to example of a game going "hey, if you keep killing stuff just because its a game and you can, here's reasons to feel bad and think about what you've done."
And so on. LoU2 isn't the first game to try and attempt this sort of thing so it doesn't get points for being brave or anything if the actual execution is bad.
but the game isn't trying to do that though, it's not trying to make the player feel bad because the player doesn't have a choice at all it's all entirely the characters doing.
and idk if you played the game or not but ellie's choice at the end isn't because she suddenly realized that violence is bad, she's still going to keep killing after that.
-
That's literally what the game is trying to do right down to including dogs that the players have to kill or give names to enemy NPC's in order for the player to feel bad. Do I even need to mention Mel?
Did you even play the game or watched it on Youtube?
Also gotta love the ending. Hundred's of people dead, Ellie doesn't question shit. Timeskip, she now questions it.
Brilliant character-writing, I gotta say. Just use timeskips as a shortcut to skip any genuine character-development. Who needs actual character-study and organic character progressive when you can just jump all over the timeline, show the character "changed", skipped any moment of "growth" and then whack you over the head with "VIOLENCE BAD".
And then the credits roll. Neil personally comes to thank all the players for participating in his fifth-grade survey of "is violence bad?" that he randomly picked as the topic just 5 mins before the class.
Also for the people that care about the LGBT stuff, don't bother. Go instead buy The Missing JJ created by Swery that presents these ideas with much greater respect and ability to explore it frankly and honestly. Support the creators that actually have the balls to be frank and honest instead of just marking the checklist.
TLOU2 is nothing more than a pandering checklist progressive crap that basically uses these elements in the cheapest way to get people to praise it. And LOOK!! Look at the media's reaction. Nobody wants to really talk about Dina's character. But want to mention that this game has a lesbian character so it must be praised. Nobody wants to talk about Lev as a character. Yet the trans stuff is praised. Empty praises because they included a gay and a trans character. PRAISE ND! They broke new grounds!
-
That's literally what the game is trying to do right down to including dogs that the players have to kill or give names to enemy NPC's in order for the player to feel bad. Do I even need to mention Mel?
that's not there to make the player feel bad about their actions bacause again the player doesn't have a choice. the story is about the characters not the player.
Also gotta love the ending. Hundred's of people dead, Ellie doesn't question shit. Timeskip, she now questions it.
Brilliant character-writing, I gotta say. Just use timeskips as a shortcut to skip any genuine character-development. Who needs actual character-study and organic character progressive when you can just jump all over the timeline, show the character "changed", skipped any moment of "growth" and then whack you over the head with "VIOLENCE BAD".
! the "moment of growth" when she questions shit, happens while she was drowning abby and gave up. ellie was so tired of all the cuttings and shootings that while she was drowning abby. she realized her quest for revenge wasn’t giving her any strength. she knew there was no point. That it wouldn’t make her feel any better. that the nightmares weren’t just going to stop. that it wasn’t going to bring joel back. That her life still meant nothing. so she gave up.
! ellie's character since the first game was about finding meaning in her life, but killing countless people to end up choking the life out of an emaciated women who is actually no worst than her and holds basically no animosity against her in front of a kid who will probably die without her. is that who ellie truly is? did she want to accept that that’s who she really is? that that’s what her life has culminated into? all of these thoughts hit her in that moment so she gave up.
! you'll say that sparing one person after killing dozens doesn't make sense, but i think the ending doesn't work if ellie didn't do all of those horrible things. -
Go read/the videos where the developers THEMSELVES have stated that those aspects exist for players to feel bad about the violence. I'm not sure if you understand the purpose of game-design and mechanics in relation to the narrative.
The problem with that is again the timeskip is used as a means of skipping the moments and then using the passage of time as an excuse for "duh character change". By your own description, the change comes outta nowhere. Why that particular moment and not any time before the timeskip? Even though after the timeskip, the character, as shown in the gameplay section, hasn't really changed much.
Similar technique is used in Vinland Saga after the war arc and before the start of the farming arc. The character does horrible shit in the war arc and then the farming arc is spend entirely on the character questioning his previous actions and then coming to terms with it/growing as a person and finding new purpose. Logical character progressive and the trajectory that makes sense for the character from everything that has been build up since the beginning.
In TLOU2, Ellie stops because….the plot demands it but then we find out that she actually hasn't stopped (even though somehow her character seems to be perfectly over it) because again the plot demands and THEN she stops again because the plot demands it. There is no consistent logical character progression. It's stop-start-stop like the way the plot demands it rather than the character itself changing or behaving in an organic manner. You don't see Ellie questioning her previous actions, you don't see her flinching or being disgusted by the sight of violence and yet somehow during the final battle, she just finally starts doing that?
You are trying to argue that Ellie changes but the problem is that Ellie is clearly a plot-device here. She does whatever the plot dictates and not whatever makes sense for her.
The "change" here is basically like Sasuke randomly deciding he wants to be the Hokage. No logical reasoning, no progression, no build up, just a random "oh but" moment.
-
i haven't seen any developer interviews, but what i'm trying to say is that the game isn't trying to make you feel bad about the violence in the sense of "oh look what you are doing" but " oh look at what the characters are doing"
ellie stops the first time because abby got away and everyone she cares about almost dies. but she still hasn't achieved any peace of mind and still wants revenge as evidenced by the nightmares so she starts again as soon as she learns where abby is then right as she is about to achieve her revenge she realizes it won't solve her problems so she gives up. seems logical to me.
The "change" here is basically like Sasuke randomly deciding he wants to be the Hokage. No logical reasoning, no progression, no build up, just a random "oh but" moment.
i don't want to start an argument about naruto, but this makes complete sense
-
Sometimes you have to admire the simplicity of a game like Doom compared to this. You are the Doom Slayer, Demons are bad, now rip and tear.
-
I mean you could if this were still the 90’s and some FPS’es didn’t still cause motion sickness:ninja:
-
I mean you could if this were still the 90’s and some FPS’es didn’t still cause motion sickness:ninja:
Not a fan of the new game?
-
Last Doom game I played would’ve been a rerelease of the 2nd game on Xbox Live wasn’t too fond that.
Did play Wolfenstein New Order and the New Colossus and liked them (the former more so than the latter).
-
but the game isn't trying to do that though, it's not trying to make the player feel bad because the player doesn't have a choice at all it's all entirely the characters doing.
It's 100% trying to make you feel bad for al the killing, thats why it spends TEN HOURS with the other character going "see, these were REAL people you killed!And I liked that one particular dog, never mind the dozens you killed before that. Don't you feel like a monster now?" The problem is they completely botched the delivery so it doesn't work at all BECAUSE they spent so long having you kill hoards and mindlessly kill them. And you can't avoid everything and get a no-death run, you HAVE to kill them, so its not even a choice like in Undertale or metal Gear, they just force it on you. .
-
It's 100% trying to make you feel bad for al the killing, thats why it spends TEN HOURS with the other character going "see, these were REAL people you killed!And I liked that one particular dog, never mind the dozens you killed before that. Don't you feel like a monster now?" The problem is they completely botched the delivery so it doesn't work at all BECAUSE they spent so long having you kill hoards and mindlessly kill them. And you can't avoid everything and get a no-death run, you HAVE to kill them, so its not even a choice like in Undertale or metal Gear, they just force it on you. .
but ellie is the one who killed them not you, the story is about the characters not the player, so i don't understand why you should get a choice.
-
You.Control.Ellie.
I think you haven't played the game at all and watched it on Youtube. I refuse to believe someone missed the very obvious point of the gameplay here.
-
you don't control that she kills people. only how she does it.
i don't know why you keep insisting the game is a meta commentary about gamers or whatever. -
Expecting the game to go along with its own tone, thematic and narrative point isn't really meta commentary or whatever the hell you are on about.
The game wants to be a serious take on violence and wants to explore the cycle of violence. Go read the director's interviews and the videos where they clearly talk about what they wanted to convey with the game. This isn't even debatable. The creator (Neil) plainly states that he wanted to explore the cycle of violence and that's why the game is about revenge and is dark, edgy and brutal and he wanted to convey that with the gameplay sections too alongside giving NPC's random names or having the owner of the dog call out to the dog when its dead etc….
The problem WITH that is the killing in terms of gameplay isn't really horrible or attempts to convey anything. The game simply wants to catch you with the killing and the blood but there is no other way of playing the game thus creating this absolutely massive inconsistency between what the game wants to be in terms of gameplay (cartoony violence/gore) vs the narrative that tries its hardest to be seen as a serious commentary of the nature of violence. The two simply don't mesh or flow with each other. This is like combing Fairytail's stupid shit with Berserk's serious tone all in one package that the writer wants the audience to really take it seriously.
Again, I'm genuinely asking if you interacted with the game at all or did you watch it on Youtube? Because literally spending more than 2 hours with the gameplay, you can tell how utterly disconnected the core narrative and core mechanics are. That, from my experience, isn't anything new for ND games. But it is by far the biggest disconnect I have seen from them.
EDIT: It feels like MiyamotoMushashi decided to step away from the conversation the moment anything from the game was brought in and not just blind wankery. Seems like a rather big trend with ND fans nowadays.....
-
Expecting the game to go along with its own tone, thematic and narrative point isn't really meta commentary or whatever the hell you are on about.
you keep bringing up choice and that there isn't other ways to play the game but those things are thematically useful only when you're making commentary about the player.
there is no other way of playing the game thus creating this absolutely massive inconsistency between what the game wants to be in terms of gameplay (cartoony violence/gore) vs the narrative that tries its hardest to be seen as a serious commentary of the nature of violence. The two simply don't mesh or flow with each other. This is like combing Fairytail's stupid shit with Berserk's serious tone all in one package that the writer wants the audience to really take it seriously.
well i just disagree with this, i think it would be inconsistent if you had a choice not the other way around.
is your problem that the gamelplay is fun because it kinda has to be this is a video game after all, even in serious movies scenes of atrocities or brutal action are fun to watch.Again, I'm genuinely asking if you interacted with the game at all
yes lol why are you so baffled by this i'm not the only one in the world who liked the game.
-
Yep, you haven't played the game.
-
lol ok
…................ -
The game is obviously trying to make the player guilty about Ellie killing all those people. The problem with their approach is twofold.
The first being that killing people is super fun and that the game is at its best when it's not trying to be hardcore edgey dark drama.
The second problem is that they go about it in such a hamfisted embarrassingly cartoonish manner that it's impossible to take it seriously. Having random enemies shouting random names, make exaggerated gurgling sounds on death, making you kill people for 15 hours only to switch to the other side and shove their lives and their emotions in your face. How dare I kill them, these were living people with dreams and ambitions goddammit. Yeah well when the game doesn't give you a choice, it's hard to give a fuck is it?
Everything about the execution comes off as an idea the director latched onto from the outset and designed the entire game to revolve around it but lacked the proper understanding of how to make such a concept work and instead gave a delivery of the idea that is frankly childish. And given how much money was invested and crunch was put into this game by hard working people, that it's all brought down by a director high on his own farts whose nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is is kinda sad and awkward.
-
The worst thing about it? It's gonna sell really well, gather shit ton of accolades and awards and Neil practically will be upheld as some ballsy director that broke new grounds. Instead of a director that clearly wanted to be like Zack Synder with fancy storytelling and edgy style but no substance whatsoever. The entire thing comes across as a really shitty CW teen drama. And yet Neil will be given awards for the writing.
I hate it when honest and actual ground breaking game developers get overshadowed by mainstream mediocre developers that still after a decade of being in the industry have learned nothing aside from polishing turds and pumping out gameplay systems that would make PS2 games look decades ahead and then being praised for it.
-
White guy fails upwards, what else is new?
-
@TLC:
The game is obviously trying to make the player guilty about Ellie killing all those people. The problem with their approach is twofold.
The first being that killing people is super fun and that the game is at its best when it's not trying to be hardcore edgey dark drama.
The second problem is that they go about it in such a hamfisted embarrassingly cartoonish manner that it's impossible to take it seriously. Having random enemies shouting random names, make exaggerated gurgling sounds on death, making you kill people for 15 hours only to switch to the other side and shove their lives and their emotions in your face. How dare I kill them, these were living people with dreams and ambitions goddammit. Yeah well when the game doesn't give you a choice, it's hard to give a fuck is it?
Everything about the execution comes off as an idea the director latched onto from the outset and designed the entire game to revolve around it but lacked the proper understanding of how to make such a concept work and instead gave a delivery of the idea that is frankly childish. And given how much money was invested and crunch was put into this game by hard working people, that it's all brought down by a director high on his own farts whose nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is is kinda sad and awkward.
Sounds like a bunch of pretentious bull-shit.
-
You.Control.Ellie.
I think you haven't played the game at all and watched it on Youtube. I refuse to believe someone missed the very obvious point of the gameplay here.
So haven't played this game, nor the first, but they're on my backlog just because all of these discussions make want to try them for myself. But I got an issue with the point you're trying to make here.
Just because you control Ellie (or any other character in any other game) it doesn't mean you are her or that you have to make decissions for her. This is not a western rpg, where you get to create your avatar from scratch, this is a story-driven game so you're going along with the story, Ellie makes the big decisions and you, as a player, just need to figure out what's the best or funnest away to acomplish them so you can see the next little bit of story.
From what i know, Ellie was raised in a very violent setting in the fisrt game so that's all she knows, when all you have is a hammer every problem starts to look like a nail. So from a narrative stand-point it makes sense you spend the sequel killing everyone, even if the game is trying to tell you that's not the best thing you could have done. It doesn't need to give you an option to play the game without killing everyone if the point it's trying to make is that Ellie is already broken and/or unfixable.Now, you are more than free to have your opinion in how well or how poorly that was handled. If they missed the mark by a little or alot. If other games tackled this issue much better. All of that is up to you, but critizing a story-driven game because it doesn't let you "create" your own character is not fair, imo. The character is not supposed to be you, you're the one who should embrace their point of view to try and see the world that way.
If you're reading a book you don't complain about how it doesn't let you change the character's actions because you know you're just follwing a narrative. A game doesn't need to let you do anything you want, it just needs to give some leeway so that you can embrace the character you're playing a little bit more. -
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but if a game doesn't want me to play it, and wants me to feel bad for making it's choices, then I'm not gonna play it. That Spec-Ops: The Line game was horsehockey.
-
So haven't played this game, nor the first,
So why are you even trying to comment on something that you clearly haven't even played, know about or even understand?
Like shouldn't you be familiar with the source material to even start the discussion? But let's ignore that for a second.
it doesn't mean you are her or that you have to make decissions for her
Yes.
Because a story about petty revenge shouldn't at least attempt to show the character descending into madness through natural progression rather than forced "MUH REVENGE" where the character goes from 0% to 100% in the matter of minutes. You know how you would portray an complex topic like cycle of violence? Through the use of complexity. Through the means of making the gameplay be approachable from multiple means and give player choices thus ALLOWING PLAYERS to witness how bad violence can be and THEN giving them the option to try something else instead.
And yes, that would require the game developers to approach the story and game-design with much more open mind. And that is just one of the ways that you can actually begin to tackle the issue. Creating a very linear movie-like story with very clear shortcuts and cliched approach doesn't exactly work for the game.
The narrative and the gameplay here are intertwined. They are not separate entities but rather the driving force behind what the game wants to really convey.
This is what you get when people spend more time watching games on Youtube rather than playing it themselves and even understanding WHY the gameplay sections exist. Which, if you don't realize, is more insulting to the game developers because their aim here was to portray/explore the cycle of violence by making it the driving force behind every enemy encounter.
you are more than free to have your opinion in how well or how poorly that was handled
I have an opinion from playing both games.
You don't.
So….......
So from a narrative stand-point it makes sense you spend the sequel killing everyone
You did that in the first game regardless anyway.
Ellie already killed many people in the first game. Same with Joel. Yet NOW is when the game wants to bring those actions through a super lazy plot-device.
And THEN uses one major character as another plot-device for the sake of kick starting the entire cliched revenge plot AND THEN once again uses that as a plot-device to just resolve it.
If you're reading a book
This is not a book. This is not a tv-show. This is not a movie.
Trying to apply the rules of those particular medium is completely irrelevant here. Video games are interactive medium that are capable of conveying variety of complex topics through different means and approach because they aren't limited by anything aside from the creator's own imagination.
Try playing games that actually use the form properly and doesn't just exist as a filler.
Starting point: MGS series. A series that has been dealing with similar themes with much more creative approach, means and execution.
funnest away to acomplish them
Maybe you are under the impression that gameplay only exists to be fun.
But it's not. Every game, when the developer has really thought about it, will have different things to convey with the gameplay. And yes, there are games that fundamentally don't care and only make the gameplay side of things to be fun. Yakuza is a pretty big example of a series where the gameplay and the story are fundamentally separated and the devs don't care. And it works for them.
It doesn't work for TLOU2 because the entire gameplay is designed around portraying violence and brutality of it going as far as to have you kill dogs in order to make the point more and more obvious. While at the same time, the gameplay isn't really that hard, or conveys a true sense of violence. It makes the gameplay fun. Not real or brutal or exhausting but fun. The game WANTS me to care about each individual NPC and question my actions as a player and Ellie as a character. But then turns around and says "beating the shit outta people is fun, isn't it? Here kill everyone :)"
And then there is the fact that you are already doing the same exact thing you did back in the first game. Joel and Ellie already killed crap ton of people in the first game.
It's not like the first game had the player making different choices and THEN used the sequel to put these characters into different situations and showing how bad violence can be in contrast to the first game.
But here; in the first game, character's first logical choice is to kill everyone. And then in the second part; the character's first logical choice once again is to kill everyone again. There is no contrast. No highlighting one method or choice over the other and using that as a way to comment on the whole thing.
And that's why director's interviews and words are important because this is what they were hoping to accompolish with this game. They WANTED you to question Ellie. They WANTED you to question yourself and your actions. But you can't because it's literally the same shit you have been doing since the first game. You can't expect people to take it seriously and question shit when you mindlessly throw NPC's for the player to kill.
It doesn't need to give you an option to play the game without killing everyone
Spec Ops the line already did this much much better and more organically. Hell, it uses lots of the same techniques but with much greater understanding and execution.
You know why? Because the game's fundamental plot resolves around a Black Ops squad heading to Dubai on a investigation/rescue mission and then slowly by slowly start getting involved in the conflict with other people and then start committing atrocities as the toll of the causalities become huge for the main cast. It doesn't rely on cheap revenge tale. But rather showing how a squad of Black Ops group lose their minds as they descent deeper and deeper into the conflict in Dubai.
The entire game is setup to be a commentary on how other military shooters use real warfare type scenarios but never have a correct representation of the war experience, or express the psychological changes that some combatants experience after participating in a war. And the commentary of gamers that "enjoy" playing war games or first person shooters where you are made out to be the hero.
And here is the big big thing that separates the approach of Spec Ops and TLOU2; Spec Ops never makes the gameplay sections "fun" or use excessive amount of violence to get the message across. Instead, the gameplay is repetitive, raw, dull and doesn't glorify the act of killing someone. It becomes mindless as the game goes along and the focal point of the gameplay in latter sections isn't what you are doing but rather how the characters respond as their language, vocal performance and their character models become more and more aggressive on the verge of losing their shit.
Look at this gif here just to show the transformation of the main protag's model:
!
And that is what TLOU2 is fundamentally missing. It knows that it wants to be serious and wants to comment on violence but then also wants it to be "fun". Spec Ops The Line is committed to it's premise and its intentions and doesn't compromises that for the sake of being "fun". It's not fun. It sticks with that game-design philosophy. That, to me, is more gutsy then anything I have seen from TLOU2.
TLOU2 wants to be mature but also wants to pander to casual gamers that just want to shoot the shit. No amount of blood, or gore is going to make me take it seriously when the devs themselves don't. "Violence is bad but it's ok when it's fun" is what I got out of the game if I'm analyzing both narrative and gameplay together.
-
@Johnny:
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but if a game doesn't want me to play it, and wants me to feel bad for making it's choices, then I'm not gonna play it. That Spec-Ops: The Line game was horsehockey.
But the game wants to be played, and wants to make you feel bad, or sad, or angry or whatever.
The same way not all movies are meant to end on a high note. Image a scary movie ending in a big party, that's usually not the intent.
You're free not to like scary movies, but saying they're a wrong form of cinema or a bad story just because they're not comedies is not a proper review/opinion on the art work.I feel like sometimes people forget that a videogame is different than a game/sport.
For several decades now, videogames are also narratives and so they need and want to mix the feelings you get from completing a task to the feelings you get from getting into a story.
Spec Ops is also on my backlog, for like 10 years now I really gotta play it sometime, but from what I understood of the premise, it's meant to be the opposite of a Call of Duty. Where in Call of Duty you get a game/sport, with high-scores and rewards for killing and obeying orders, Spec Ops was meant to put you trough the soldier experience but be dissatisfied with those orders and actions you are forced to take. I can't speak for how well that was handled, I haven't played the game, but the premisse is solid.The lastest God of War also ponders these questions a bit. Kratos went to the north of the world to leave behind all the killing and destruction he was responsible for, but in the game you're forced to kill everything in your path, and the game confronts you for it. You have characters calling Kratos a monster, to which he replies, Yes, I am, but now I'm not anyone's monster anymore.
He still has to kill a ton of creatures but now he's not doing it for revenge or hatred or by being pulled by the leash of someone else. He's doing it to fulfill the last wish of his wife, that he teaches and takes care of their son. -
Image a scary movie
If we are comparing it like that then TLOU2 would be your typical found-footage film that exists purely to scare you through cheap jump scare devices and means and has nothing to convey beyond cheap scares.
Yes, it might scare you but that doesn't mean there is some talent or skill behind the scare. Anyone can be scared with jump scares.
Just like how anyone can chuckle or laugh at a joke about piss or shit. Not because the joke is good but because it's fundamentally catered towards the lowest common denominator.
And that my friend is what TLOU2 is. A scary movie about pure jump scares. A comedy movie about fart and piss. While the director thinks it's Taxi Driver or Apocalypse Now. So to speak.
Also on a side-note; GoW is far far superior to both TLOU1 and TLOU2. It's basically similar premise but without cutting any corners and taking the time to establish and explore character relationships and arcs. Atreus is a much much better child character that actually goes through actual character development whose character isn't just limited to saying "FUCK YOU" like Ellie 90% of the time.
-
So why are you even trying to comment on something that you clearly haven't even played, know about or even understand?
Like shouldn't you be familiar with the source material to even start the discussion? But let's ignore that for a second.
You kept saying other people just aren't understanding yet you also fail to understand the first couple of phrases I put out…
I said I haven't played the game, so I did not comment on any specifics because I do not know them. I talked about the medium and what we should expect of it. You can replace any of the names from TLOU2 in that quote and I'm still making the same point.Yes.
Because a story about petty revenge shouldn't at least attempt to show the character descending into madness through natural progression rather than forced "MUH REVENGE" where the character goes from 0% to 100% in the matter of minutes. You know how you would portray an complex topic like cycle of violence? Through the use of complexity. Through the means of making the gameplay be approachable from multiple means and give player choices thus ALLOWING PLAYERS to witness how bad violence can be and THEN giving them the option to try something else instead.
And yes, that would require the game developers to approach the story and game-design with much more open mind. And that is just one of the ways that you can actually begin to tackle the issue. Creating a very linear movie-like story with very clear shortcuts and cliched approach doesn't exactly work for the game.
The narrative and the gameplay here are intertwined. They are not separate entities but rather the driving force behind what the game wants to really convey.
This is what you get when people spend more time watching games on Youtube rather than playing it themselves and even understanding WHY the gameplay sections exist. Which, if you don't realize, is more insulting to the game developers because their aim here was to portray/explore the cycle of violence by making it the driving force behind every enemy encounter.
You are talking alot about these games in particular, I'm not. I don't care about your opinion on them, when I get to play them, I'll make my own.
But I disagree that just because a game tries to discuss violence it has to give you a choice on it or not. Your opinion seems to be that you should bring your judgement into the game, and I think that works on alot of games, mostly RPGs, but this is a narrative driven action game, you do what the screen tells you and then you see how that's meant to play out.
In real life people react to a bunch of things, you're not thinking about every little step you can or need to take, because you've been raised and conditioned to do things a certain way, same as your character. Your character should act according to it's own personality and backstory, so if the game says she's going to act like this because that's how it's meant to be then that's how it's meant to be, if at any point you stop finding the story engaging or the character to disagreeable just stop playing.I have an opinion from playing both games.
You don't.
So….......
I've yet to express my opinion on the games.
So…......
You did that in the first game regardless anyway.
Ellie already killed many people in the first game. Same with Joel. Yet NOW is when the game wants to bring those actions through a super lazy plot-device.
And THEN uses one major character as another plot-device for the sake of kick starting the entire cliched revenge plot AND THEN once again uses that as a plot-device to just resolve it.
So you agree that it makes sense for the game too keep it's violent streak, you just don't like how after a while the other characters start telling you you're too violent?
Sounds fair to me. Both the characters opinions and yours.This is not a book. This is not a tv-show. This is not a movie.
Trying to apply the rules of those particular medium is completely irrelevant here. Video games are interactive medium that are capable of conveying variety of complex topics through different means and approach because they aren't limited by anything aside from the creator's own imagination.
Try playing games that actually use the form properly and doesn't just exist as a filler.
Starting point: MGS series. A series that has been dealing with similar themes with much more creative approach, means and execution.
But it's still a story. Just because this type of story gives you a little leeway to change a couple of details or explore this and that doesn't mean it has to give you full control.
Take the latest Spider-Man game, as you go along the story mode you'll get a couple of "missions" where you have to meet MJ or aunt May and Pete keeps telling us Boy, I sure should go meet with them before I'm late!, but that mission is there wating for you until you do it. You can fuck around the city for as long as you want you'll never actually be late, you can't ruin your relationships on pourpose because the story does not want it.Maybe you are under the impression that gameplay only exists to be fun.
This shit is a big no-no. You cherry picked half a sentence. The full quote is "figure out what's the best or funnest away to acomplish them".
Gameplay needs to leave you with a sense of acomplishment, that's where you derive half of the fun. Take a Tony Hawk game, half the gameplay is just having fun rolling around pulling whatever trick you want and the other half is figuring out the best away to complete the challenges, and maybe for that you'll have pull a trick you don't really like or find fun but in the end you feel rewarded.But it's not. Every game, when the developer has really thought about it, will have different things to convey with the gameplay. And yes, there are games that fundamentally don't care and only make the gameplay side of things to be fun. Yakuza is a pretty big example of a series where the gameplay and the story are fundamentally separated and the devs don't care. And it works for them.
It doesn't work for TLOU2 because the entire gameplay is designed around portraying violence and brutality of it going as far as to have you kill dogs in order to make the point more and more obvious. While at the same time, the gameplay isn't really that hard, or conveys a true sense of violence. It makes the gameplay fun. Not real or brutal or exhausting but fun. The game WANTS me to care about each individual NPC and question my actions as a player and Ellie as a character. But then turns around and says "beating the shit outta people is fun, isn't it? Here kill everyone :)"
And then there is the fact that you are already doing the same exact thing you did back in the first game. Joel and Ellie already killed crap ton of people in the first game.
It's not like the first game had the player making different choices and THEN used the sequel to put these characters into different situations and showing how bad violence can be in contrast to the first game.
But here; in the first game, character's first logical choice is to kill everyone. And then in the second part; the character's first logical choice once again is to kill everyone again. There is no contrast. No highlighting one method or choice over the other and using that as a way to comment on the whole thing.
And that's why director's interviews and words are important because this is what they were hoping to accompolish with this game. They WANTED you to question Ellie. They WANTED you to question yourself and your actions. But you can't because it's literally the same shit you have been doing since the first game. You can't expect people to take it seriously and question shit when you mindlessly throw NPC's for the player to kill.
Spec Ops the line already did this much much better and more organically. Hell, it uses lots of the same techniques but with much greater understanding and execution.
You know why? Because the game's fundamental plot resolves around a Black Ops squad heading to Dubai on a investigation/rescue mission and then slowly by slowly start getting involved in the conflict with other people and then start committing atrocities as the toll of the causalities become huge for the main cast. It doesn't rely on cheap revenge tale. But rather showing how a squad of Black Ops group lose their minds as they descent deeper and deeper into the conflict in Dubai.
The entire game is setup to be a commentary on how other military shooters use real warfare type scenarios but never have a correct representation of the war experience, or express the psychological changes that some combatants experience after participating in a war. And the commentary of gamers that "enjoy" playing war games or first person shooters where you are made out to be the hero.
And here is the big big thing that separates the approach of Spec Ops and TLOU2; Spec Ops never makes the gameplay sections "fun" or use excessive amount of violence to get the message across. Instead, the gameplay is repetitive, raw, dull and doesn't glorify the act of killing someone. It becomes mindless as the game goes along and the focal point of the gameplay in latter sections isn't what you are doing but rather how the characters respond as their language, vocal performance and their character models become more and more aggressive on the verge of losing their shit.
Look at this gif here just to show the transformation of the main protag's model:
! https://orig04.deviantart.net/4caf/f/2016/133/8/8/spec_ops_the_line_face_by_digi_matrix-da2bpmp.gif
And that is what TLOU2 is fundamentally missing. It knows that it wants to be serious and wants to comment on violence but then also wants it to be "fun". Spec Ops The Line is committed to it's premise and its intentions and doesn't compromises that for the sake of being "fun". It's not fun. It sticks with that game-design philosophy. That, to me, is more gutsy then anything I have seen from TLOU2.
TLOU2 wants to be mature but also wants to pander to casual gamers that just want to shoot the shit. No amount of blood, or gore is going to make me take it seriously when the devs themselves don't. "Violence is bad but it's ok when it's fun" is what I got out of the game if I'm analyzing both narrative and gameplay together.
From what you keep saying you're pretty dissatisfied with how the gameplay and the narrative don't really intertwin, and I can get behind that. I've had experiences with games where I engaged with with the story but found the gameplay just okay, some where I engaged with the gameplay but found the story meh, and of course the best tend to be the ones where I engage with both.
Again, I was never trying to oppose your opinion on the game itself, just on the premisse that because the game talks about violence you should be giving the choice to whether you should apply it or not. The ending has to be the same every time.
Personal example, Infamous 2 evil ending. In order to complete the game as an evil character the last thing the game tells you to do is to kill your best friend. That's a character with many qualities and flaws and you spend both Infamous 1 and 2 having ups and downs in your relation, so he's a character you're attached. And at that point the game doesn't let you choose the good side anymore, you can't spare his life, you already went too far as an evil bastard and you can't stop your plan now, you can't have your cake and yet it too, even if you're the most powerfull character in the game. You either stop playing the game altogether or you see the end of that story.
So even if the narrative falls flat because it was poorly done it doesn't mean it would be better if you were given a choice or a chance at redemption. They have a violent character, you play violently or you don't. From what I remember from the trailers and such, they never lied about what the game was gonna be, they never said you could choose how to interact with the new characters. They said Now you play as Ellie and she still sneaks around killing people. -
You can replace any of the names from TLOU2 in that quote and I'm still making the same point.
Ah, you aren't familiar at all with the titles.
But somehow you are making a point.
For titles that you haven't played.
Makes sense.
I don't care about your opinion on them
So why are you even responding to me again?
Just to prove some point while utterly exposing yourself as someone who doesn't know shit about the medium being discussed here? Who also haven't even played the games but is trying to talk about the thematic point of them? Who is using very limited story-driven games that aren't even doing the same thing as an example?
In real life
Please stop bringing irrelevant shit to the discussion here.
Go play games, understand the very medium and then attempt to comment on something.
Right now, it comes across as you talking outta your ass for the sake of proving some irrelevant point that EVEN THE DIRECTOR HIMSELF has already destroyed by plainly stating the game's thematic and game-design philosophy and what they wanted to convey. You wouldn't know this because A.) you haven't played them B.) aren't familiar with Neil's work at all and C.) are clueless about the difference between a Video Game Narrative and a novel/tv-show/movie narrative.
Learn the difference and come back.
Gameplay needs to leave you with a sense of acomplishment
Nibba, go look at Pathologic 2 and see your "game" definition crumble before your eyes. This is what happens when people play the big triple A titles and ignore the indies and every other game that fundamentally doesn't stick with one definition of game-design.
Your definition of gameplay fundamentally showcases your lack of any real understanding beyond playing some popular mainstream shit.
-
This is some of the most laughably smug shit I've ever seen.
-
when all you have is a hammer every problem starts to look like a nail. So from a narrative stand-point it makes sense you spend the sequel killing everyone, even if the game is trying to tell you that's not the best thing you could have done. It doesn't need to give you an option to play the game without killing everyone if the point it's trying to make is that Ellie is already broken and/or unfixable.
The problem is its trying to make YOU feel bad about all the killing. Its a game, not a movie.
That you had zero choice means that when the game finally tells you "hey, you should have chosen differently, don't you feel bad now?" that isn't your fault, or Ellie's, its about the game railroading you.
Undertale works really hard to make you accidentally kill the first boss in the game. You have to NOT fight her for a long time before you can pass her peacefully. The first attack only hurts her a little, and so you might end up thinking "Oh well I guess like most games I have to whittle her down before she lets me pass" but then the second attack instant kills her. That is ENTIRELY your choice and your fault. ANd you immediately feel bad about it, reset the game, and try again… only for the villain character to then tell you "hey, I know what you did. You killed a person. And you felt so bad you reset the game" and that stays with you. Because the game gave you a choice, it makes you feel bad for making the wrong choice, and emphasizes it in a way you can't ever escape the consequence of that first time, even if it was an accident. And it manages that within the first five or ten minutes. Then throughout the entire rest of the game, almost every scenario is easier if you just slash a guy and get some exp to get some more health, but the challenge is to figure out their quirks and NOT needlessly kill anything and you KNOW the game is keeping track.. Even a flawless mercy run still doesn't get the best ending and requires you to backtrack and be even nicer to a few characters. ANd if you do the full blown murder route, it depopulates the world, changes the music, and huge chunks of the game are missing and it throws you up against basically unfair bosses and it really makes you think about having gone down the dark path. There's consequences the entire time and actively makes the game more and more unfun as you go. And you, the player, have to actively choose to do this unfun thing for literally hours just for the sake of getting to one more challenge you heard about, and even up to the very final boss you can still change your mind. It challenges you, makes you think about consequences constantly..
LOU2, there is no choice, no weight, no alternative, you just go on feel good murder sprees with no consequence applied to the entire time. It MAKES you kill the enemies, there is no "stealth past them" option, much like the Uncharted games which have forced body counts in the hundreds. Its not doing anything to affect the player of make you think. it just goes in 15 hours later, and says "well, NOW you're a horrible person I guess! Don't you feel bad after having been desensitized to this for hours? Killing the first 30 dogs wasn't a big deal, but that 31rst sure was traumatic wasn't it? " and that's hollow.
Now, if the game had you play as Ellie for ike an hour or two, then switched to the other character and immediately gave you her victim POV where you saw some of those guys you JUST saw getting killed, and then switched to Ellie for another hour of horrible murder, and then switched to the victim again for a while, it would very quickly become a case where you felt bad playing Ellie and the message would absolutely work. You WOULD start to feel like a monster and that would get through and either you'd start to hate playing Ellie, or you as the player would want to start finding alternate routes to not kill as much as you realized "well in an hour its going to make me feel bad about killing that guy, I'd rather he lived in a better version of the cinema" . And even if it still railroaded you into killing with no stealth options, it'd at least make you think "But I didn't want to kill them..." But of course they didn't actually want that because that might demotivate players early on, they wanted a game where it was fun to kill mindless enemies for long periods, like most games. That one single change would have completely made the difference... intersplice the opposing viewpoint make them actual equals in the story, don't do it in strict halves where you try to add the weight after the fact..
But instead, you play basically the entire game, then it tries to pull a surprise twist. But by that point its too late, its just a shallow twist, not something that was actually in the gameplay, and the first half of the game was too long for any of it to ring true.
The game also has to cheat with flashback sequence to make you think certain things about Joel for the entire game that Ellie herself doesn't think, so its cheating twice. Which is fine for a movie, but weaksauce for a game.
Incidentally, LoU1 you could get through almost the entire game without killing anyone with the exception of one sequence, and the very end. It IS up to you.
-
I just finished TLoU1 again. You have to kill a lot of people. At a minimum.
I feel like people don't remember TLoU1.
-
I just finished TLoU1 again. You have to kill a lot of people. At a minimum.
I feel like people don't remember TLoU1.
Lots of people die but the only place you HAVE to kill people is the sniper section, 1 of the 2 guys that attack Ellie, and the ending.
18 deaths (16 from the sniper section) is still a mass murderer count, but nowhere near the hundreds you can get in a normal play through.
-
Hunter ambush. Hotel. David. Literally torture and kill two. Minimum bodycount has to be mid-20s, at least.
It ain't Dishonored. And it doesn't pretend to be.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
Actually, now I'm curious, can you get through the dam without killing anyone? Feel like that would be weird.
-
Their final count, going by the game counter, is 18. But that counts things like shooting the final doctor in the foot… or leaving problems for other people to deal with... which apparently doesn't count as a kills but acts like one.
Meanwhile you CAN barrell through everyone in the hospital and get like 30 people in that sequence alone.
-
…that's...that's mostly exploits? Like, you find ways to kill all those people, but it doesn't count in the game's tracked kill-count?
Genuinely nifty, but have no idea how that's relevant to the general narrative discussion.
Regardless, I'm out on this until I finish TLoU2. Comes in tomorrow.
also, general take on TLoU1 stayed fairly consistent: a weirdly not-great-to-play game thanks to some super-iffy AI and spawns lifted by some great performances and the usual Naughty Dog wizardry. Neat world development, but eye-rollingly oppressive. Well-done take on the zombie genre but seems pretty much well in line with the rest, so not much for me there.Ending is even less ambiguous than I remembered. Think much of my general ambivalence to the narrative is I have immense trouble buying Ellie as a person that could exist.
I still unapologetically like the Uncharteds. Well, except 3.
[apologies, feel free to move this too]
-
Yes, even with a semi-pacifict route available, its clearly not what the game actually intended you to do as an option, they expect you to mow guys down by the dozens and don't really make it a moral question until the final sequence. And then the sequel does the same thing except the final sequence is 10 hours long.
I haven't played the original since it came out and have no plans to revisit it, and no plans to play the sequel at this point, so I have to take other's word on it at face value for how much or how little you can get by with.
-
I always thought the main point of this game/franchise was fungi-infected zombies instead of how many people you kill along the way.
-
I don't think it's a game problem as much as it's ND problem.
In all their modern titles, Uncharted 1-4 + Lost Legacy and now TLOU1&2, they always have to rely upon typical third-person shooter mechanics that ultimately only resolves with the player having to kill crap ton of enemies whether human or zombie. The argument that lots of people are making is that all the killing in part 2 is intentional and that you are supposed to question it but I just don't really see it. Their entire modern library of games all showcase/demonstrate that there isn't much thought put into the gameplay side of things and how it connects with the narrative and thematics. The struggle within TLOU2 in regards to thematic point and the gameplay doesn't feel different from any other struggle within ND title. It's just that TLOU2 is the only game that wants to comment on violence while the gameplay is just stupidly fun to play and kill people.
It feels like A.) ND doesn't really have the ability to pull off a game that doesn't force you to kill or B.) they have to stick with the triple A formula and not deviate from it.
Coming off from something like Death Stranding where the game comments on the over-reliance of murder/killing/violence in major video game titles and then creates gameplay systems that fundamentally don't resolve around killing (i played over 80 hours of the game without killing anyone) seemed a lot more creative of a approach. It has a point and it makes that point by offering something that doesn't revolve around killing and shows that gameplay mechanics can still be engaging so long as you are willing to actually put the effort and try new things.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
I always thought the main point of this game/franchise was fungi-infected zombies instead of how many people you kill along the way.
Fungi-zombies in TLOU2 only exist for those cheap Resident Evil-type horror gameplay. Aside from that, their role is pretty much non-existent. They occasionally pop up in favor of boss battles and what not. Even the bite on Ellie's arm is dropped and isn't brought up aside from some Joel and Ellie moments in flashback.
The main conflict of this game take place between the humans and different factions. It's just going for the more traditional "humans were the biggest monsters all along".
-
Even the bite on Ellie's arm is dropped and isn't brought up aside from some Joel and Ellie moments in flashback.
Bringing this up in the interest of fairness, but it was also discussed between Ellie and Dina.
Ellie covered her bite scar with a chemical burn to hide what happened from the people of Jackson.
She opened up and tried to reveal the truth to Dina when they were lying together and telling stories about their scars, but Dina didn't believe her and punched her arm.This changed when Ellie's mask broke later in the game and she could breathe spores without issues.
Dina was in denial for a minute, but everything clicked when she remembered "the chemical burn…" -
Eh, my point was more about how it doesn't really go anywhere plot-wise. Especially considering how important it was for the first game but then here, it's only mentioned at the beginning when Joel, mentioned during Dina scenes and shown again during the flashback scenes but plot-wise it doesn't really go anywhere. Nothing comes outta it aside from writers bringing it up and then lazily shoving it under the rug.
-
Ah, you aren't familiar at all with the titles.
But somehow you are making a point.
For titles that you haven't played.
Makes sense.
So why are you even responding to me again?
Just to prove some point while utterly exposing yourself as someone who doesn't know shit about the medium being discussed here? Who also haven't even played the games but is trying to talk about the thematic point of them? Who is using very limited story-driven games that aren't even doing the same thing as an example?
Please stop bringing irrelevant shit to the discussion here.
Go play games, understand the very medium and then attempt to comment on something.
Right now, it comes across as you talking outta your ass for the sake of proving some irrelevant point that EVEN THE DIRECTOR HIMSELF has already destroyed by plainly stating the game's thematic and game-design philosophy and what they wanted to convey. You wouldn't know this because A.) you haven't played them B.) aren't familiar with Neil's work at all and C.) are clueless about the difference between a Video Game Narrative and a novel/tv-show/movie narrative.
Learn the difference and come back.
Nibba, go look at Pathologic 2 and see your "game" definition crumble before your eyes. This is what happens when people play the big triple A titles and ignore the indies and every other game that fundamentally doesn't stick with one definition of game-design.
Your definition of gameplay fundamentally showcases your lack of any real understanding beyond playing some popular mainstream shit.
Alright, alright, i could've expressed myself better on some points, so my apologies and I'll try to make myself clearer now.
So, this is my first quote "So haven't played this game, nor the first, but they're on my backlog just because all of these discussions make want to try them for myself. But I got an issue with the point you're trying to make here."
What I was trying to say was "I can't engage in a direct conversation/comparission about the TLOU but I disagree with the fundamental point here, not about TLOU only but about the medium in general". This is what I said the following post "I said I haven't played the game, so I did not comment on any specifics because I do not know them. I talked about the medium and what we should expect of it."
I was trying to have a conversation about the medium not this particular game, hence why I said I didn't care about your opinion. I do not care about your opinion on every little detail about TLOU, I was interested about the topic in general, but you kept going deeper into TLOU.
These posts were in the general Playstation Thread, it makes sense to discuss more than just the one game.Now, kid, you need to chill the fuck out.
You are not the only person in the world who has played videogames. Everyone has and everyone has different experiences with them. Your opinion is not absolute and the way you express it still has a way to go. The post where you responded to the comparission to scary movies was great, the others were just mainly you being mad at other people because you don't like a piece of art.The same way we can compare movies to series or books you can compare any of those things to videogames, that's how you push the mediums forward, by trying to emulate what other mediums are capable, finding the limits and either break them, go around them, or turn back to a point where the other art forms can't reproduce what you're achieving.
Videogames did not invent ludo-narratives, telling stories with the imput of the audience is as old as telling stories. So, I tried to talk about the authorship of the character.
Robby, gave the example of Undertale, where you are The Player, so you have all these options in how to beat the game, you are basically the full author of that Player character. In GoW you play has Kratos, he has blades and he kills, if that's not what you want to do find another game, you have no authorship of the character you're just going along for the ride. Some games are in betwen, you aren't playing with a blank slate of a character but you get to decide some approaches to problems or situations.
We can go back further and take the example of pen and paper rpgs where you have an alignment option. You can leave it blanc and develop your character as you play or you can write Lawfull Good right away and play the entire game trying to be the best boy/girl scout there ever was.I checked the trailer for Pathological 2 and found nothing that goes against feeling accomplished.
Did you think I was talking about high-scores and ranking systems? Every game has different things that can make feel accomplished. Take the game The Witness, it's a puzzle game. You walk around a deserted island solving puzzles and with that you unlock doors and get to explore more of the island. So right of the bat you have a simple accomplishment, beat a puzzle -> unlock more puzzles -> feel good about it. But my most endearing experience with that game so far was not a puzzle. You can just walk to the top of the mountain and at the top you find a recording talling about space exploration. And that's it, you can just stay there, see the whole island and listen to pretty words about going beyond. And that makes you feel accomplished, you did something and were rewarded for the experience and with and experience. It's the difference betwen the Yakuza games, with their small maps full of things to discover in every corner, and triple AAA games with huge maps, where going out of your way to find stuff feels like a chore. You need to travel so much for something so little that it's not satisfying.As an ending note: what the fuck is that "nibba" shit?
You either say the word or you don't. You're trying to be condescending but you're not even capable of using the vocabulary you want. Get that weak sauce outta here.The problem is its trying to make YOU feel bad about all the killing. Its a game, not a movie.
That you had zero choice means that when the game finally tells you "hey, you should have chosen differently, don't you feel bad now?" that isn't your fault, or Ellie's, its about the game railroading you.
Undertale works really hard to make you accidentally kill the first boss in the game. You have to NOT fight her for a long time before you can pass her peacefully. The first attack only hurts her a little, and so you might end up thinking "Oh well I guess like most games I have to whittle her down before she lets me pass" but then the second attack instant kills her. That is ENTIRELY your choice and your fault. ANd you immediately feel bad about it, reset the game, and try again… only for the villain character to then tell you "hey, I know what you did. You killed a person. And you felt so bad you reset the game" and that stays with you. Because the game gave you a choice, it makes you feel bad for making the wrong choice, and emphasizes it in a way you can't ever escape the consequence of that first time, even if it was an accident. And it manages that within the first five or ten minutes. Then throughout the entire rest of the game, almost every scenario is easier if you just slash a guy and get some exp to get some more health, but the challenge is to figure out their quirks and NOT needlessly kill anything and you KNOW the game is keeping track.. Even a flawless mercy run still doesn't get the best ending and requires you to backtrack and be even nicer to a few characters. ANd if you do the full blown murder route, it depopulates the world, changes the music, and huge chunks of the game are missing and it throws you up against basically unfair bosses and it really makes you think about having gone down the dark path. There's consequences the entire time and actively makes the game more and more unfun as you go. And you, the player, have to actively choose to do this unfun thing for literally hours just for the sake of getting to one more challenge you heard about, and even up to the very final boss you can still change your mind. It challenges you, makes you think about consequences constantly..
LOU2, there is no choice, no weight, no alternative, you just go on feel good murder sprees with no consequence applied to the entire time. It MAKES you kill the enemies, there is no "stealth past them" option, much like the Uncharted games which have forced body counts in the hundreds. Its not doing anything to affect the player of make you think. it just goes in 15 hours later, and says "well, NOW you're a horrible person I guess! Don't you feel bad after having been desensitized to this for hours? Killing the first 30 dogs wasn't a big deal, but that 31rst sure was traumatic wasn't it? " and that's hollow.
Now, if the game had you play as Ellie for ike an hour or two, then switched to the other character and immediately gave you her victim POV where you saw some of those guys you JUST saw getting killed, and then switched to Ellie for another hour of horrible murder, and then switched to the victim again for a while, it would very quickly become a case where you felt bad playing Ellie and the message would absolutely work. You WOULD start to feel like a monster and that would get through and either you'd start to hate playing Ellie, or you as the player would want to start finding alternate routes to not kill as much as you realized "well in an hour its going to make me feel bad about killing that guy, I'd rather he lived in a better version of the cinema" . And even if it still railroaded you into killing with no stealth options, it'd at least make you think "But I didn't want to kill them..." But of course they didn't actually want that because that might demotivate players early on, they wanted a game where it was fun to kill mindless enemies for long periods, like most games. That one single change would have completely made the difference... intersplice the opposing viewpoint make them actual equals in the story, don't do it in strict halves where you try to add the weight after the fact..
But instead, you play basically the entire game, then it tries to pull a surprise twist. But by that point its too late, its just a shallow twist, not something that was actually in the gameplay, and the first half of the game was too long for any of it to ring true.
The game also has to cheat with flashback sequence to make you think certain things about Joel for the entire game that Ellie herself doesn't think, so its cheating twice. Which is fine for a movie, but weaksauce for a game.
Incidentally, LoU1 you could get through almost the entire game without killing anyone with the exception of one sequence, and the very end. It IS up to you.
Now this is a good response, even though it's still very much around The Last of Us, it tries meet halfway, not in opinion but in finding a way to communicate with the other person.
And this brings me back to the InFamous 2 story I told. When you have to kill your best friend you're doing it face to face, with both of you knowing what you want is "evil". He talks to you, he tells you "I can't let you do that, brother" and that Brother is heartfelt. And you shoot him. I actually shot him in the head thinking "it's faster, it won't be as painful". But still, the motherfucker gets up, coughs up blood and says it again "I can't let you do that, brother" and you shoot him again. And he gets up a third time, choughs up more blood and doesn't even say a word. He doesn't get up a third time. Congratulations, you beat the game, and now you're a son of a bitch.
And that's because the main character o the narrative wasn't The Player, it was Cole. Even when you had to choose the good or bad options throught out the game, until that point, you're still only been given the options Cole considers, you're not allowed to take options outside of his spectrum. And when you get to that ending you're going to feel sad because that's the point of that story, not feeling bad but feeling sad for a while and then move on, because you did what was best, what was the only option, but that still takes a toll.This is one of the reasons I tried to initiate a discussion on how many options a game actually needs to give you. Limiting your options as an agent can create experiences you'd never had if you could take your cake and eat too everytime you wanted.
Still, i gather from all of these opinions and comments that even if limiting your actions to violence and then talking about why are you so violent it fell very far away from it's goal.
It wasn't just a final moment like in Infamous 2, meant to really leave you with that bitter-sweet taste, nor there was a mid way point where the character assumes who they are, like in God of War PS4. -
So despite all the negative things I've heard, I've finished the game.
What the hell was that and how is this writing acceptable is beyond me.
The fact that it caused a divide means that we are looking at a fanbase where half of it has misguided taste in the first place.
Now hey, their cup of tea, their obligation to your rights, sure. But.. seriously?
Like okay, it's not bad if you overlook some flaws as a standalone but as a successor to the first one which did everything right? It bombed terribly.
Did Druckman pick up a zen book or go on a introspection journey or skim the surface of some philosophical facebook posts before writing this?
God forbid any writer nowadays to not be pandering and write anything beyond feel good self-patting crap that makes no sense.
Good riddance.
And fuck Abby.Oh and gameplay wise its hella fun and at least i'm not spending half the time awkwardly stabbing zombies on the ground or running away from zombie daddy with a rocket launcher