Topic: The Chit Chat Thread

It’s probably important to note that Druckmann has lost a lot of people who defended him around about TLOU2’s release due to his stance on Palestine. Intergalactic was always going to get sh*t on by the anti-woke lot regardless, it gained more hatred from the less militant but still fairly childish lot because of the protagonist looking like Tati Gabrielle, plus there’s a fairly large section of younger gamers who instantly switched off when Druckmann’s involvement was revealed due to the general negative attitude surrounding him in the years since TLOU2’s release. The difference is that there are much fewer people defending him because of the intersectionality of Palestine support with other causes like anti racism and LGBTQ+ advocacy, who would traditionally go to bat for people like him because of the sort of people that attack these projects. This time around, I’ve seen people calling out those who’re spouting rubbish about woke and such, without actually defending the project or Druckmann at all. Sort of a multi-pronged assault by different people for different reasons.

I love Uncharted 4 and I sort of actively disliked TLOU1’s story so it was always going to be a mixed bag personally but that trailer didn’t do much for me. The downright silly product placement and reliance on an A list cast reaffirmed my belief that Naughty Dog are caught in a trap where they’re having to push that it’s a ‘premium cinematic experience’ due to Druckmann clearly just wanting to do movies and Sony’s reliance on this particular brand of game to justify the whole £700 PS5 Pro approach, which I think was a testing ground for PS6’s inevitable Apple style brushed metal and >£1000 price tag approach. Premium product demands shiny cinematic game (and of course Sony sells TVs, speakers, headphones to make the cinematic experience even more expensive too). Unless Druckmann does a ‘subverts expectations’ and the game is actually a clever dig at nostalgia being a creative graveyard, with the brands and music being a metaphorical comfort blanket holding the main character back from the ‘new’ experience waiting down on the planet below. But I personally don’t think he’s clever enough to pull that off as Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us are both obviously patchworks of classic film tropes. I really do hope it turns out to be great, the whole Guardians of the Galaxy/Concord/Marathon/Arc Raiders retro-sci-fi thing desperately needs a breath of fresh air.

I’ll add that the product placement thing rankled mostly because for the first time you’re ever showing the game off, with a trailer in the pimp slot at The Game Awards, you choose to have the camera linger over a Porsche logo and pan up from Adidas trainers. It felt a bit gross. There’s an entire universe of things they could have shown off but the branded stuff was ready for the in-engine trailer which means it was modelled and polished by staff specifically to be shown off in this one trailer. The Sony stuff, yep absolutely fine as they’re the parent company, quite like that sort of thing with the Walkman in MGS V and such. But this felt like NBA 2K with the Sprite Play of the Game and Gatorade being everywhere, clearly money has exchanged hands. And this is coming from someone whose main takeaway from The Getaway was how incredible it was to have London satellite mapped for the game including the million shopfronts with real brands and dubious levels of consent from the companies, that’s cool and makes London feel like a crazy snapshot of a specific period of time.

@Th3solution well said bud… and glad you didn’t take my rant personally. I tried my best to ensure it didn’t come over that way but I’d had a fair few vodka-tonics by that point, so I had no idea if any of my ramblings made any sense least of all my assurances that my frustrations were general rather than pointed.

@themcnoisy agreed mate… on almost every level. I say ‘almost’ as… well… I still want boobs… lots of boobs 😉.

@nessisonett this guy’s perspective on the product placement fits more with my take on what Naughty Dog are trying to achieve with its use:

Skip to around 7:10

@themcnoisy "Playing fully immersed, for the full experience makes all of the listed negatives moot"
I'm rereading the review and I don't think that's what the author experienced. He clearly stated that he didn't find the more stealth like gameplay varied enough and felt levels overstayed their welcome, versus the relatively fast paced movies.

It's fine if you disagree, and I can totally see your point, but I don't think it's fair at all to conclude that because the reviewer has a different viewpoint from you they didn't make enough of an effort.

I do recognize the feeling of reading a review and thinking to myself that the author is reviewing the game versus his own wishes for such a game, instead reviewing the game for what it actually is.

And in that way I can understand your frustrations when reviewers 'bash' a game that does something extraordinary for not being ordinary enough. I want Intergalactic more than I want Uncharted 5, I want Project Century more than the next Yakuza. Which is why I read PureXbox' review of Indiana Jones and thought to myself "oh, this sounds like a game for me!" I love love love Uncharted, but an archaeology adventure game that takes a subversive approach sounds exciting.

@Th3solution Have you watched The Mandalorian? If the game ends up having a structure like that series, and it thematically seems very well like it could, there will be enough character interactions. I'm actually a bit sick of space games following the tired "space crew" trope. I think the Mandalorian has way more interesting character interactions, because its him interacting with people on different planets, instead of the superficial crew banter a la Guardians of the Galaxy.

Haven't been as hyped for a game in a long time based on a reveal trailer alone.

@Th3solution Well, I think we can rest assured that the character development will at least be on par with past Naughty Dog efforts! As an aside, congrats on wrapping Dark Souls II. I’d still call it my favourite Souls game (of the 3), in that I just enjoyed my time with it the most.

@nessisonett I couldn’t begin to judge an Israeli’s “stance on Palestine.”

@colonelkilgore Awesome video, thanks for sharing! It unfortunately seems like so much art these days is like pearls before swine. It was refreshing to see a considered and critical breakdown of the trailer, in a sea of overwhelmingly ignorant and asinine gut reactions. Hope the team isn’t too discouraged.

@PorkChopExpress @colonelkilgore

The "can sometimes be a bit grumpy in general, but actually generally fairly well rounded in terms of seeing things from all angles, giving things a chance, and not just jumping on the bandwagon club"

I don't think it's as rare as you think, it's just the internet is filled with the exact opposite in much greater numbers, and they are much, much louder 😅

I made my thoughts on Intergalactic known on the main article. And i'm happily going to ignore any of the vitriol that will come in it's waves until it releases and we can play the damn game for ourselves. Overall, I saw a cool trailer and want to learn more, eventually. I'm not sure how it can go much further than that right now, and yet people always find a way.

You should see The Witcher reaction comments from around fair internet way. Half of people are screaming at the character design for being ugly, half are screaming in retaliation, all are reduced to analysing a woman's face on the internet. At some point this sh** will get old, you'd hope.

I'm just there thinking, it'll be cool to carry on with a character I know well, even if they have to tweak some elements for game reasons.

And then there's the overreaction to the fact Ciri even underwent the trials of the grasses. With the main thought of shouty internet being "SHE CAN'T!"

But the reality is: She can if they write it that way. The same way they wrote monsters back into a world that didn't really have any, because in the books they'd all but gone, but in a game about a monster hunter that might be a bit boring for the general public. Or the same way they wrote Geralt back into existence as a Witcher on the continent. Changes can be made as it is following the events of the books, not bound by the events of the books. Especially by people that respect the source material to the level they do.

And eventually we will also get to see if CDPR succeed with it, once more, for ourselves.

There in lies the problem, I suppose. Being normal and waiting to see doesn't generate anger, hate and clicks. And people need that sh** to breathe.

From what little we know of Intergalactic, I'm not sure how anyone can be hyped or concerned about the game. I'm interested to see what Naughty Dog do with a new IP, and I guess we will see how it shapes out.

Maybe it just me, but I long ago grew fed up of knowing every little detail of the game before it was released. I think you lose a lot of the magic from playing a nee game by doing that. Great for those that want to do that, but I choose to ignore most of what developers/publishers spew out these days.

@JohnnyShoulder TLOU2 is one of my favourite PS4 games, and Uncharted 4 was great too. I have no doubt it will be worth playing when it comes out, hopefully not too long from now.

I also think ND has done trailers really well in the past, in such a way that they don't really spoil the game. So I'm more than happy to watch a few more. Other than that, I don't really watch all the trailers if I know I'm buying a game regardless. For some studios their track record is enough.

I have made a few bad purchases this year, so maybe I should reevaluate my criteria though haha.

@Jimmer-jammer Thanks, bud! DS2 was definitely a major investment and a great ride. I’m glad I didn’t skip it like I was tempted to.

And yeah, agreed on the faith generated for ND to come through after their consistent track record.

@Herculean I watched the first two seasons of Mandalorian and never kept up with it. I did like the vibe and enjoyed many aspects of it but just got bogged down with trying to keep up with all the supplementary Disney Star Wars shows and how they related with one another. But that’s a whole separate topic 😅. As for the ‘Lone Ranger’ wandering gunslinger approach to character development and storytelling, I actually really liked that. Intergalactic might be something similar, we’ll see. I didn’t get that from the trailer, but it’s definitely a very small bit of info to judge from. Like I mentioned, first impressions were more of a Returnal / Selene going rogue and investigating a planet she wasn’t supposed to go to, and then running into a bunch of enemies and a weird psychedelic story behind the planet Atropos. Again, a great game (actually one of my favorites this gen) and an intriguing tale for its open-ended and trippy nature, but definitely a whole different approach from a traditional story and characters.

But like others have said, Factions 2 aside, Naughty Dog doesn’t really miss and I can’t imagine them straying too far from their strengths.

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But in general, I think that a trailer exists to create some hype and start people talking and theorizing. I don’t see the harm in talking about the game in an open-minded way. Obviously no studio wants to tip their hand too soon, but they absolutely make these trailers to be talked about. And the fact that ND (and all of Sony’s first party) have been so quiet for so long about what they are working on has certainly placed this trailer under a microscope even more. But if they’ve been working on it for 4 years, then we are probably in the home stretch on development and so new information will be trickling out in the next few months, now that the cat is out of the bag. It would be really a bummer if they release that trailer then say nothing else for another 2 years and then just shadow drop it. 😆

@colonelkilgore I finally got around to watching that video and he really did a much better job of interpreting that trailer than I did! 😂

Maybe this is Uncharted in outer space.

@Ravix I will only say one thing about the whole "trial of grasses" nonsense: ***** LORE.

Lore/world building is great but it should be overwritten tastefully if the story requires it. Ciri was literally a "Chosen One" or a "Sword of Destiny" in Witcher language so they really don't need to overwrite much.

@JohnnyShoulder I only want to see the gameplay reveal after that it will be a Media blackout for the game. I've learned to never watch Launch Trailers because those are filled with Spoilers.

Great discussion all!

I’m incredibly excited about Intergalactic and I haven’t got a buzz off of a teaser trailer in many a long year. I may check out a gameplay reveal but other than that it’s a media black out on this one for me, I trust Druckmann and ND implicitly. Oh and Trent and Atticus on board for good measure.

Happy gaming all 👍

@breakneck what gets me is how deeply offended people seem to have become about a change that can probably be written in competently to a game and story set many years after the books ended, in a series of games that have already included some 'quite large' changes for the sake of making a game out of it, whilst still respecting the books in a way we rarely see.

It's not like it's going to s*** over the lore in the books for the heck ofnit, it's going to make an exception for one character with new knowledge after the fact in a way we dont even know yet, and we can learn why/how when we actually play the game.

Wheras, something like the tv adaption, which is supposed to follow the lore and events of the books to a greater degree: Well... that incompetently brought changes for no real reason and led to an overall decrease in the quality, it lessened the impact of events, and missed the actual point of a lot of the things that were happening. There were even clear signs that they had written the script for the earlier series before actually finishing reading the novels, which meant they didn't really know about future character arcs, so didn't know how to really set up the characters in a way that can lead to those arcs being fulfilled 😅

R.I.P Cahir

Recently I've been listening to a lot of the hip hop artist, Jay Royale, the jazz guitarist, Max Light, (apparently he is influenced by Coltrane, Davis and Meshuggah in equal measure!) playing jazz guitar, watching a bit of the multi-format cricket series between South Africa and Pakistan, and playing Sekiro. In Sekiro, I recently obtained 'Flame Vent' for my shinobi prosthetic and am looking forward to gaining the ability to set my katana ablaze during battle.

@colonelkilgore Oh this guys vids are usually great. Loved his deconstruction of villainy vids.

@breakneck I’ve only just stumbled upon his stuff tbh but have liked what I’ve seen. I’ll have to have a dig through his library

@Th3solution awesome chrimbo-avatar 👏

@Th3solution I'm still puzzled how you came to the conclusion that Intergalatic was even remotely like Returnal?!

Speaking of Returnal, I watched a WatchMojo video which had it as one of their top 20 hardest games of all time. Ha! it really isn’t that difficult.
Of course they aren’t the most creditable source of info.

And regarding The Witcher 4, there was a video with the devs and they were mentioned that they have greatly (might not of used that word) expanded the combat repertoire which is what I wish to hear as that was where W3 was lacking imo.
I reckon the old Ciri moves have gone (ie no lightning dash) and she has what you would expect from a Witcher game plus a few more in a similar vein/class/tree/whatever you wish to call it.
Looking forward to it.