Topic: The Last Of Us Part II - OT (No Spoilers)

@LieutenantFatman I find crazy that some people finished it in something like 15 hours. I did start trying to blaze through it but wasn't finding it enjoyable, so reverted back to type soon after Seattle day 1. I think that is where I missed most of the collectables and stuff.

I was late starting the game but my save file says I've played 8 hours and I'm on Seattle day 1 and just spotted the tv station when I stopped. I've pretty much been scouring every inch for stuff though as I don't like to miss stuff even if it's just for crafting. I've definitely missed a journal entry early on though as I have a half page gap under an owl drawing.

And now there’s an article on NLife for Naughty Dog hate! I don’t even understand the arguments they’re making, it’s all ‘woke’ and ‘political pandering’ and stuff.

@nessisonett Sounds like an article i should flat out avoid!

@nessisonett because they haven't played it, I've seen so many similar comments on Facebook. One guy today was telling people to F off because they were discussing how they liked the story. He said the story is horrible, woke and has an agenda and then his very next comment was "I'm not giving them my $60"

My favourite one has got to be ‘it’s propaganda’. Like, in order to think that surely you must have a few screws loose. I genuinely don’t understand the mentality that would believe something so inane.

Online gamer communities are often hives of groupthink. They see other people repeating the same judgments over and over ("it's propaganda," "it's poorly-written," "it's woke," etc. etc.) and then proceed to parrot the same mindless sentiments, regardless of them having no real experience with the game. It's all rather cultish for my liking.

I've actually been kindasorta tempted to nab it. Games that p*ss off the angry right-wing contingent of the community this much usually end up being pretty good, and, frankly, I love that the focus of the series shifted from typical post-apoc material to a brutal deconstruction of the revenge thriller genre. I also like when the developers of big budget games (and this is about as big budget as games get) have the courage to challenge an established fan base instead of giving them what they think they want.

@Ralizah I agree, I’ve never played the original and always thought they were a bit grim for my tastes. However, every other big project that annoys incels to this degree usually ends up being pretty good. I just find it all a bit silly when these ones get annoyed about games suddenly being ‘political’ because when it’s stuff they agree with, they won’t bat an eyelid. The Call of Duty games absolutely love to revise history in favour of Americans, whether that’s attributing war crimes to the Russians that they themselves committed, or getting Oliver North to cameo in and pitch Black Ops 2, a man deeply involved in the Iran-Contra affair. People like David Cage, Obsidian, Ubisoft etc, they all say their games aren’t political. However, Detroit is very clearly political with its racial undertones, The Outer Worlds is clearly a criticism of capitalism and the Ghost Recon games actually provoked the Bolivian government to make a formal complaint with the French government. Apparently games are only political if they’re liberal or if there’s visible LGBT/ black characters.

Just look at the big sellers in the industry though. You’ve got Call of Duty, a military shooter, Grand Theft Auto Online and its endless pursuit of money and material objects, Fortnite which is a Darwinian pursuit of resources with only one winner (I can already imagine libertarians salivating) and sports games, which provide even more money towards the oligarchs in control of the sports world. When these are the games making the big bucks, no wonder games that dare to make waves get review-bombed. It’s bizarre as well because the first one wasn’t but I just can’t help feeling that if Joel never existed and Ellie was the main character of that game too, it would’ve been.

Not gonna lie I'd be very interested to hear what you make of it @Ralizah should you ever succumb to the temptation of purchasing it.

Though I'd sincerely hope the positive hype & praise surrounding this (in the forums here at least) doesn't end up souring the experience for you and not live up to expectations like the first unfortunately did

@nessisonett In theory, I get it when people talk about not wanting their games to be "too political." They don't want their games to end up like recent seasons of Doctor Who, which have systematically stripped away everything charming or fun about the show in favor of obnoxious plot lines that try too hard to be socially relevant and boring characters with no real dimension to them. That's a far cry from the deeply embedded political themes of something like Bioshock or The Outer Worlds, which almost nobody takes issue with. I understand not wanting political ideology stuffed in where it doesn't really belong.

In practice, 90% of the time, it seems like when someone is crying about a game being political, it's because an "alphabet person" showed up, or the cast is majority non-white, or something else stupid and bigoted like that.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy If anything, my expectations from the first game are so low that it'd be very difficult for me not come away with an at least slightly positive impression of it. The gameplay changes from TLOU to Part II remind me of the improvements in Uncharted 4, actually, with the wider level design and more dynamic combat. Those improvements massively helped UC4, and I expect they'll contribute to making Part II a significantly better game as well.

I don't really care about the praise it's receiving. But the sort of criticism it's the target of makes me think it'll be much more my type of game. Although, unfortunately, I am basically spoiled on the plot already.

If I do get it, I'll definitely be gabbing about it on here. Probably when it drops in price a bit.

@Ralizah ‘Alphabet people’ always makes me think of those wee spaghetti letters in the tomato sauce. Plus I once knew a guy called J, like just the letter J.

@Ralizah
I think you've hit the nail on the head here. The game has a very diverse cast and that is seemingly a big issue for many of these very toxic bigots.

@Ralizah @nessisonett Some good points there guys and well made. I'm almost finished with the game and the only problems I envision me having are to do are with some pacing and structuring issues, but nothing to drag my overall enjoyment of the game down too much. I think the story is great, and quite brave for ND to go down the route they chose. I really like it when writers in media take risks and choose not to take the safest option.

I didn't really think there was anything overtly political about it at all, so people who make that argument against it probably haven't even played it.

It's nice to have a majority female cast for a change. I have a young daughter and honestly, it's noticable that the large majority of even kids entertainment is an absolute sausage fest. There are like 3 female characters in Finding Nemo, and they all have mental problems.

I said to my wife as I was playing, look, nearly every major character is female. She didn't seem impressed for some reason. To be fair, I think I might have been strangling someone at the time, and the eyes do bulge with frightening realism.

I'm on playthrough 2, and just past possibly my favourite bit dinosaurs! so many Jurassic Park jokes and it's just an incredible game. It's still a stealth action game, so if you don't like that sort of thing, this won't change your mind. It's my favourite genre, and this perfects it.

I can possibly see why some don't like it if you wanted another swash buckling adventure with Joel, and you do need to have some empathy for Abby by the end. Though the people who still want to kill her at the end worry me..
But honestly, it has so much emotional resonance because of the events that transpire, it wouldn't work without them. It's also not like Joel is gone from the game, his personality and his Pearl Jam cover permeate throughout the narrative .
The ending of the first game wasn't a happy ending, and this builds on that legacy and ends on a more uplifting note than the first in my mind..

"If I ever were to lose you
I'd surely lose myself
Everything I have found here
I've not found by myself
Try and sometimes you'll succeed
To make this man of me
All of my stolen missing parts
I've no need for anymore
I believe
And I believe 'cause I can see
Our future days
Days of you and me"

It will be looked back on as a major acheivement in narrative entertainment.

@nessisonett It's used as a slur against us, but honestly, the phrase is cute enough that it's difficult for me to get mad about it. 😂😂

@LieutenantFatman @JohnnyShoulder I think a lot of people have huge issues with what happens to Joel and the perspective shifting throughout, and I understand being upset about that. There's a game, I won't say what it is so that I don't spoil the surprise, but you begin playing as this cool lady, and then the game offs her a few hours in and you wind up playing the rest of the game as a friend of hers, and I was honestly so upset about this that I had to set it down for a week or so. TLOU Part II is meant to be an upsetting experience, so I understand why it's upsetting people. I just wish... people examined their emotional reactions a little more.

Although some people have been beside themselves since that first E3 trailer when Ellie kissed her girlfriend, and those types will never be able to be reasoned with.

@KratosMD I bet they will make it a very cool death. Kratos deserves it!

Also I do not thing they will ever replace Kratos as a playable character because the game is literally about him and his journeys. Atreus may get a DLC but that is it.

The series will end with Kratos.

@KratosMD I don't know if that's a given, because the point of the game is breaking out of the cyclic nature of the world history. Everything you see on those murals in Jotunheim, is there because it already happened before. It's the reason Atreus can be the father of the world serpent, even though the world serpent was there before them. It already happened once before and the serpent was cast back in time. So I don't know if it's a given. Besides, even if they do it, I expect it won't happen until GOW3, but by then it's mostly for shock value at the end of the game.

@KratosMD They did it with God of War PS4. The story was completely different from the previous games.

Now Kratos normal talking is not angry yelling like in the past entries. He is now a father trying to teach his son life lessons and trying to bond with him.

It is a complete overhaul of the character as we once knew him.

In the other games Kratos will hook up with whores and there was nudity that was totally unnecessary. There is none in the new game and I love it.

The fans loved it as well. Not all of the them ofc. but that is a given. It was brave new taking on the series and it worked perfectly.

@Zuljaras Yeah, I binged the original trilogy before playing the PS4 game as I never had them on PS2 and it’s all a bit naff. Kratos is the most one-dimensional character of all time despite his backstory allowing for all that nuance we see in the new one. The ‘rewards’ for the sex minigame was pretty unnecessary, it’s all the stranger why Hot Coffee got that amount of press considering God of War did the same thing. I really hope Sony keep trying to push boundaries, part of why their early PS3 exclusives feel stale compared to their PS4 offerings is that I do feel they were trying to please everyone back then, there’s none of the cinematic direction you see now. It’s not as if games weren’t around with similar design philosophies either, PS2 proved that with SotC, ICO and the Silent Hill games.

@KratosMD Yes I see what you mean.

However I am not impressed with such things. To include ballsy things for the sake of being ballsy is not my thing.

Shock value in my own opinion is cheap. Never liked it. But that is just me. Probably that is why I loved the first game so much.

But I can see that there are people who enjoy this kind of stuff.

I am not mentioning gameplay but the jump from previous God of War games to the last one and the jump from TLOU1 and TLOU2 is so damn huge! I mean complete redesign. From the camera to the combat customization and the inclusion of companion. That is why I loved it.