The Last of Us Part II

[Skorpionss]

This basicly. I think its pretty strong writing. To see both sides of the story antagonist and protagonists. One could argue Ellie is the evil one here. Abby actually seems to care about certain people whereas Ellie is basicly a goth chic without the make up trying to avenge a serial murderer that put his own selfish feels over curing the world.

such a big brain take, I'm surprised your head hasn't exploded due to the pressure.

[Gelannerai]

This basicly. I think its pretty strong writing. To see both sides of the story antagonist and protagonists. One could argue Ellie is the evil one here. Abby actually seems to care about certain people whereas Ellie is basicly a goth chic without the make up trying to avenge a serial murderer that put his own selfish feels over curing the world.

The cure wouldn’t have happened/mattered regardless of Joel’s choice. The cordyceps infection rate was far too high for a cure to make much of a difference. You aren’t going to cure someone who’s head has exploded into a fungal bloom. A cure isn’t going to save you from getting your jaw ripped off by a bloater. A cure was never on the table. A vaccine? Maybe, but there again chances are you aren’t going be able to vaccinate against a fungal infection. Even if they did create a vaccine, the Fireflies were also “serial murderers” so to trust them with a vaccine is laughable. Joel may not have been a hero, but the Fireflies were most certainly villains.

[everydaygamer]

The cure wouldn’t have happened/mattered regardless of Joel’s choice. The cordyceps infection rate was far too high for a cure to make much of a difference. You aren’t going to cure someone who’s head has exploded into a fungal bloom. A cure isn’t going to save you from getting your jaw ripped off by a bloater. A cure was never on the table. A vaccine? Maybe, but there again chances are you aren’t going be able to vaccinate against a fungal infection. Even if they did create a vaccine, the Fireflies were also “serial murderers” so to trust them with a vaccine is laughable. Joel may not have been a hero, but the Fireflies were most certainly villains.

It's irrelevant, they could have been a group of saints with 100% guaranteed chance of saving the world, Joel would have still done the same thing. That's what makes his actions so questionable, they were completely selfish because the only thing Joel cared about was not losing Ellie.

[Fencers]

Finished the game. I thought it was pretty good and had fun playing it for the most part.

I do not think anything surpasses gameplay in video games in terms of importance or consideration. Games are inarguably about and intended for gameplay. That which does not serve gameplay is not important to the accomplishment of the game whatsoever.

One may like and enjoy the music, story, or aesthetic of a game, certainly. No matter any other aspect of a video game, it must be played, however.

When I talk about video games I am ultimately talking about gameplay as the most important aspect in the end.

I'll do some Positives/Negatives in spoiler tag.



Positives---

+ General gameplay feels good. Shooting, sneaking, listening mode, controls et cetera all work well. Great customization options in the game too.

I did feel some of the guns were a little floaty in aim mechanics. I never got the hang of the varying projectile velocity vs. gravity with some weapons at long range. That could be entirely personal though.

+ The "acting" both in voice work and visual display of characters is phenomenal. Perhaps the best I have seen in a game including every exhausting David Cage affair. There were great scenes where characters informed the player of complex thoughts and emotions with just facial reactions alone. That was all terrific.

The amount of money, talent, and time it took to create these scenes really showed. For example, the grimaced smile of Abby finding out Owen impregnated Mel, Ellie making the decision to forsake Tommy to Jessie or Dina asking Ellie to go back to bed are so well done I was captivated and completely suspended my disbelief.

Those scenes when the characters were given to “act” were “cinematic”. Not some of this other silly shit touted in video game press as cinematic or movie-like; lens flares, swooping dolly-like shots, or deep focus angles. Rubbish! Cinema is equally My Dinner with Andre, Jules & Jim, Wild Strawberries, etc.

+ Story was solid for the most part. I didn't get hung up on too many plot inconsistencies that were not immediately paid off. Great themes in the story and it was appreciated. It is refreshing to approach a video game story with intentionally mature and adult themes; not sex and violence strictly, but as Sexuality and interpersonal relationships. Or violence and societal acceptance of violence as the preservation of order.

That is not to say these themes were delivered on each in a manner super meaningful and important, however. Though those themes are present in the narrative and it seems clear the intent of the creators was to create a narrative orientated around complicated themes. Again, for the sake clarity, does not mean I am saying this story was a profound exploration of any of those themes. I just appreciate that they tried for the most part.

+ The brutality of violence. Wowee zowee! You mess people UP in this game. Awesome kills and great feel to a lot of the animations of melee and ranged attacks. Fish hooking a dude with a sickle, cracking a skull open with a tire iron, or splattering the head of a zombie with a shotgun is brilliantly animated and sounds gruesome. Family members watching me play the game frequently said around, "Whoa!" or "Holy shit!" every time one of the animations kicked in of Ellie slitting a throat or Abby smashing someone's head like a watermelon.

Considering the number of times combat occurs over 25-27 hours of gameplay violence it still provokes a reaction that is impressive. When we got Doom Eternal out here ripping eyeballs out of skulls and banana splitting demons; TLOU2 really takes the cake in terms of visceral violence. I loved it!

+ Great dialogue. When NOT handing out Columbian Neckties and pipe bomb salad, I greatly enjoyed the characters chatting with each other. I felt a lot of the dialogue was relatively realistic and an emphasis on their lives helped informed a lot of what was left out in actual narrative drive. Dina and Ellie through Seattle were the best dialogue exchanges I heard between women and partners in a long time in video games. Maybe ever? I am not sure.

+ Every person in this game is a piece of shit. I admired the willingness to have characters that are unlikeable and not respectable. ND does a decent job of showing various aspects of their personality for the most part. At least from their own perspectives.

+ Great music. I liked the score and the use of diegetic pop songs and music. I thought it was really lovely.

Also, once again a video game tricked me into thinking I really know how to play guitar. But it was a lie. A lie I told myself.



Negatives---

- Collecting “bits’ of scrap. This is fucking garbage. This trend in video games is over. There is no meaningful metaphor, which is the justification of all gameplay possible, to players constantly collecting bits & baubles in games endlessly.

It means nothing to the narrative that I am micromanaging my inventory of processing rags and bottles into bombs, scrap into shivs, etc. Backtracking to make sure one is maximizing their arrow supply and so on, makes exploration just an opportunity to collect more bits. Bits & baubles, bits & baubles, bits & baubles.

Could you ignore this stuff? Sure. But it is present as a gameplay mechanism and is intended to be important as resources are limited in-game. If collecting all these bits are not necessary; why have depleting ammo counters; why have limited healing packs you carry with you, why have an inventory?

One would be playing this game worse choosing to not engage with the survival element of gameplay. So, if any portion of gameplay is ignorable; why have it?

- This game takes forever. “How can I miss you if you never leave?” There were at least 4 times when I thought the end of a chapter was the end of the game. Yet it kept going and going.

This worked against the poignancy of many scenes but most damning, there was nothing new to gain in gameplay with each false break. The gameplay remained homogenous throughout most of the endgame. Nothing new happens to justify another 1-2 hours of slowly creeping up to shiv a zombie or paramilitary dude as you had done the last 25 hours.

The overall effect is you want to rush through gameplay sections because they undermine your inventory management up to that point. So, all you did up to here really meant nothing to the gameplay or how you played the game to get there.

- The transparency of being a game is really ‘Gamey’.

I had a lot more negatives but erased it because really the major problem with the TLOU2 is the parts that aim to be serious or meaningful are completely erased by the fact the act of playing TLOU2 is very transparent in its video game conceits.

For example, ND made the effort to write and record dialogue for the whistling goons, WLFs, and para-military. They tried to make the human enemies communicate to the player they are “people too”. Admirable. Cool.

So much so, killing an enemy often is followed with comrades lamenting their demise; “Oh no, someone killed Mark!” / “Trespassers killed Susan! NO!”

Now just typing that out should be obvious the inherent and implicit problem with that implementation from the human enemies; besides the South Park “You killed, Kenny” aspect. But I’ll tell you why it is at best pretension and worst stupidity; players kill A LOT in this game. You kill in glorious high-resolution detail with careful animation & SFX of blood splatter, bone-breaking, and, detected limbs.

Both Ellie and Abby are walking death. The sheer amount of combat and endless goons hurdled at players renders the supposed cries of humanity utterly ignorable. Who cares if I killed Susan by caving in her chest with a perfectly timed R1 Dodge Press Square with anoversized Warhammer or gutted Mark with a rusty machete with the Triangle prompt?

I killed hundreds of Susan and Mark goons by the end. In fact, by doing so, I was playing rather efficiently and rewarded by maximizing resources; bits & baubles!

By the time Abby is introduced, the game just became absurd in your character’s ability and presentation. Abby runs around with a battle rifle to start. Is jacked to holy fucking hell, bare-knuckle boxes zombie mini-bosses and, crushes windpipes with her massive biceps.

Bro, Abby even gets a fucking flame thrower.

No doubt, I sure felt really sad about humanity after nailing the 100th Susan through the neck with a crossbow while horseback through a burning city in the middle of a war. After which I dismounted and ripped a man’s jaw off in a series of button prompt mini-games!

What in the fuck? All this meant nothing.

There is no pretension in trying to weave serious themes in a game or presenting a complex narrative. Though as I said up top, video games are about gameplay. I am likely to take you more seriously if the gameplay, the reason for a game's existence, does not undermine that narrative.

Summation: This is just an action game at the end of the day. Decent enough story. This isn’t a bad thing; I enjoyed Resident 4, Tomb Raider reboots, Uncharted, and so on. I had fun playing TLOU2 in the same spirit as the aforementioned.

[PaladinSum]

-snip-

@Fencers

Now that I can respect. If the story's whatever but you're in it to watch humans dead space stomp zombie heads out of existence and shoot whistling goons who shoot arrows at you from Horseback in your truck, I can respect that. It definitely does absurd action movie violence well.

[Verdugo]

Guys, mystery solved, the real reason why the game got such high ratings right here:

[Gelannerai]

It's irrelevant, they could have been a group of saints with 100% guaranteed chance of saving the world, Joel would have still done the same thing. That's what makes his actions so questionable, they were completely selfish because the only thing Joel cared about was not losing Ellie.

This is true, but you can’t say his actions were “completely selfish” because:

1) The potential vaccine could’ve helped him too.

2) Ellie is still a separate entity from Joel (regardless of how he viewed her as a surrogate daughter), and saving someone else is inherently a selfless act, especially considering the amount of danger it immediately put Joel in.

Joel is not a hero, but by no means is he this villainous figure that doomed humanity like so many misguided people continue to spout seven years later.

[PaladinSum]

Guys, mystery solved, the real reason why the game got such high ratings right here:

Slightly off topic, but when the concept of walking a little back and puzzle solving is this hard, you gotta make game options that can make it that easy or you'll get a 2/10 because someone can't figure out where a ladder goes.

[everydaygamer]

This is true, but you can’t say his actions were “completely selfish” because:

1) The potential vaccine could’ve helped him too.

2) Ellie is still a separate entity from Joel (regardless of how he viewed her as a surrogate daughter), and saving someone else is inherently a selfless act, especially considering the amount of danger it immediately put Joel in.

Joel is not a hero, but by no means is he this villainous figure that doomed humanity like so many misguided people continue to spout seven years later.

An action can only be considered selfless when it only negatively impacts the person making the action. Joel's choice affected more than just himself so it can not be considered selfless.

[Gelannerai]

An action can only be considered selfless when it only negatively impacts the person making the action. Joel's choice affected more than just himself so it can not be considered selfless.

I disagree. Joel was more concerned with Ellie’s safety than his own life, so he took actions that instantly put his life in danger. I can grant that Joel’s personal emotional attachment was at play, but you can’t say that he was 100% selfish.

[Stormdash]

An action can only be considered selfless when it only negatively impacts the person making the action. Joel's choice affected more than just himself so it can not be considered selfless.

Genuine selflessness is pretty much impossible - since if you even derive moral satisfaction from the act, you have done it with demonstrable and intended benefit to yourself.

[Tech614]

but you can’t say that he was 100% selfish.

"You keep finding something to live for"

Joel's actions post Sarah death where all selfish and for him to simply find reasons to survive for. Just because you can sympathize with them, and he isn't evil doesn't change the fact they are selfish.

[Gelannerai]

"You keep finding something to live for"

Joel's actions post Sarah death where all selfish and for him to simply find reasons to survive for. Just because you can sympathize with them, and he isn't evil doesn't change the fact they are selfish.

I didn’t say they weren’t. In my previous post I granted that Joel’s emotional attachment to Ellie added selfishness to his motivation. My point is that to claim that selfishness was his sole motivation is dishonest.

If selfishness was Joel’s true and only motivating factor he simply would’ve “found something else to live for” after letting Ellie be murdered.

[everydaygamer]

I didn’t say they weren’t. In my previous post I granted that Joel’s emotional attachment to Ellie added selfishness to his motivation. My point is that to claim that selfishness was his sole motivation is dishonest.

But it is, his entire reason for doing anything was his attachment to Ellie and unwillingness to let her go. There's a reason he just took her instead asking to get consent, it's because he knew that she would happily sacrifice herself if it meant her immunity could save others. So he took the choice out of her hands and it's important to remember that while Joel viewed himself as her father he wasn't actually her father, he wasn't even her guardian he was only hired to deliver her to the fireflies.

[Gelannerai]

But it is, his entire reason for doing anything was his attachment to Ellie and unwillingness to let her go. There's a reason he just took her instead asking to get consent, it's because he knew that she would happily sacrifice herself if it meant her immunity could save others. So he took the choice out of her hands and it's important to remember that while Joel viewed himself as her father he wasn't actually her father, he wasn't even her guardian he was only hired to deliver her to the fireflies.

Then we are at an impasse. Defining Joel by selfishness alone is a gross mischaracterization. It’s as black and white a depiction as simply calling him good or evil.

You are correct in that he wasn’t her real father, and that dynamic and the decisions it caused Joel to make showcase both selfish and selfless motivations on his part.

[Stormdash]

Then we are at an impasse. Defining Joel by selfishness alone is a gross mischaracterization. It’s as black and white a depiction as simply calling him good or evil.

You are correct in that he wasn’t her real father, and that dynamic and the decisions it caused Joel to make showcase both selfish and selfless motivations on his part.

EDG's real mistake is the fallacy of arguing that if he can prove something is selfish he has also proven that it was wrong. But that premise is, in finest terms, horse shit.

To wit: Joel selfishly didn't want to lose his surrogate daughter. AND it's right to stop people from murdering a child, it's wrong to stop people from doing lethal medical research on a human subject without specific consent. And those things are wrong regardless of their intention. So Joel did both A) the thing he selfishly wanted and B) the thing that was morally right, and they were the same in that instance.

- - - Updated - - -

"You keep finding something to live for"

AKA the best advice anyone will ever get or give in most circumstances?

[Tech614]

B) the thing that was morally right

lolololololololololol

If Joel had any intention of being morally right he would of told the doc to wake up Ellie and let her choose. Morally right was never the reason. Awfully good morals Joel has to lie to his "daughter figure" for years about the entire situation.

[Stormdash]

lolololololololololol

If Joel had any intention of being morally right he would of told the doc to wake up Ellie and let her choose. Morally right was never the reason. Awfully good morals Joel has to lie to his "daughter figure" for years about the entire situation.

I didn't say Joel had the "intent" to be morally right. I said the intrinsic quality of the act was morally right, for whatever reason anybody felt like doing it. It's right to stop someone from killing a child. It's right to stop someone from conducting unethical medical research. The motive for doing it doesn't make a thing right or wrong, that's actually pretty ridiculous.

[Tech614]

I didn't say Joel had the "intent" to be morally right. I said the intrinsic quality of the act was morally right, for whatever reason anybody felt like doing it. It's right to stop someone from killing a child. It's right to stop someone from conducting unethical medical research. The motive for doing it doesn't make a thing right or wrong, that's actually pretty ridiculous.

This is why intent matters in the court of law my friend. Trying to sit here and hand wave intent like it doesn't matter is quite hilarious and shows how far you're reaching just for the sake of doing so.

[Stormdash]

This is why intent matters in the court of law my friend. Trying to sit here and hand wave intent like it doesn't matter is quite hilarious and shows how far you're reaching just for the sake of doing so.

Intent matters as an element to a crime or tort, yes. It's integral to the act. We're kinda talking about the level above that, the meta. Like, killing Ellie in surgery is murder - unlawful killing of an innocent human being. The intent is that it is being done purposefully, willfully. The motive is something else altogether (and not an element at all in criminal law or torts).

Gonna try to see if I can get this difference across another way.

Let's say some young and lonely, awkward guy is at a college party. While wandering the house he hears a sexual assault being attempted. He opens the door to see that some guy has apparently drugged a woman and is trying to force himself on her. And the guy notices - it's the girl he's had a crush on for two years.

Thinking it over, he comes to the realization "hey, if I help her right now, maybe later she'll be so grateful she'll sleep with me!". And then he intervenes and saves her from her attacker.

Now: was saving her from an attempted sexual assault wrong?

...

...

Of fucking course it wasn't! It doesn't matter if he had a completely venal and opportunistic motive! It's wrong to sexually assault people (a crime that has an intent element), and it's right to save them from it. It doesn't lose it's inherent moral virtue, saving this person, because of a selfish motive.

So what is it called if you want to murder a child for your own motive and someone with a particular set of skills doesn't want to for his own motive? "your bad fucking luck" is what it's called. But what that act of rescue isn't called? "wrong"