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The Last of Us Part II


DisturbedSwan
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I honestly don't know where @DisturbedSwan is getting these hours from. I'm playing it very slowly, I think, stealthing most areas now (after admittedly being a bit trigger happy earlier, before I got to grips with the gameplay) but I'm still 12 hours behind Blakey, while being a good way ahead in the game.

 

He'd be rubbish at Majora's mask.

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Now I've just

Spoiler

stealthed my way thru a ghost ship, which I thought was going to be like resi revelations, but was over a bit too quickly. I love ghost ships.

Abby and Ellie are sort of cut from the same cloth, aren't they, determined and driven almost to the point of sociopathy, with no real sense of the big picture, or collateral damage.

 

I don't know who I'll be rooting for come the end. Maybe that's the point.

 

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@DisturbedSwan Just moving this out of news

 

2 hours ago, DisturbedSwan said:

It's because Politics have and always be everywhere and ingrained in pretty much everything we do in daily life and every form of entertainment. 

 

Games have been political for years. ND put a 'Mexican, Jewish, Lesbian character' in the game because they thought those characters were interesting and key to the story they wanted to tell, they didn't do it just to piss the nut jobs off or just to put them in there for the sake of it like there's some kind of diversity quota to tick off, that's utter bollocks. 

 

It's a trigger point for a load of cunts, so fuck 'em if they get triggered by it, that's the story that ND wanted to tell. Politics are in all games man to a lesser or greater degree and have been for donkeys years, you've just missed it or don't think games are 'funnelling their political bullshit through' unless they feature LGBT folks or folks with diverse ethnic backgrounds as characters in their stories. 

 

I don’t feel like this game is actively political. At least on gender/race/sex level.

 

Maybe I only think something is political in a larger, more directed sense but at best this game just seems to have a general sense of inclusiveness about it without any kind of overall statement. Which is great. It’s encouraging that some big AAA title is ballsy to have the characters it has (Despite you know, things like Mass Effect already kind of doing it) but for me it’s hard to find any kind of political agenda in TLoU2. The characters are just all kind of there because they’re there. Being Jewish is localised to a couple of quick optional conversations, being trans is dealt with so off-handedly in one sentence I missed it the first time. Obviously being Lesbian is clearly prominent throughout, but the game never comes across as trying to educate, correct or meaningfully talk about. The characters are just gay. They do manage to squeeze some extra drama out of the character relationships because of this, but does it feel necessary to the overall story themes of violence, obsession, trauma, etc that the characters had to be lesbian? I don’t think so. 
 

This is why I said before it feels like the character’s are the way they are because why not. It’s different and juicy so let’s do that. 
 

The only thing the TLoU2 really does that I think could be considered Agenda-like is it tries to normalise some of these issues with its characters. That’s why they’re dealt with so quickly with no extra special focus given to an actual conversation about them. And this is what I’m saying when the game is “technically political” and not “actively political”. The only statement I came away from the game with on this level is different people exist in the world. We are showing you some. Which is just so general and the opposite to a strong stance. If you’re an idiot you can use this to funnel your racism/sexism/homophobia through but the game is so not really about these things in my view I think you have to be very sensitive to be triggered by it. 
 

Of course everything has politics in it to some degree. People even take Pokemon and try to politicise that into conversations about animal cruelty and free health care. But just because a piece of media has something “technically political” in it I don’t think it actually makes it political. Even though some people try to leverage it to be when really it just has things from the world in it. Basically I think people who are angry about the characters or relationships in this game are insecure try-hards, is my overall statement.

 

If the response is just showing these things on screen automatically makes this game political and controversial just because it has these things in it then fair enough but it doesn’t strike me that way. I didn’t come out of this game feeling like my politics had been supported/challenged one way or the other. 

 

I think there’s a big event that happens in the back third of this game that might be trying to talk about something political but different to these issues. I had tuned out by then, though, so I don’t know. 

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I'm around 16 hours in and so far I'm very impressed. I'll wait until I've seen everything before I post anything more than that but those first 16 hours were some of the best I've had with a game this year. I haven't played much on PS5 outside of Street Fighter V but this totally made the purchase of the console worthwhile.

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57 minutes ago, Nag said:

I see a lot of people bemoaning the fact the game is too long

 

I think I'm 23 hours in and I'm not feeling that at all. 

 

Some games feel unnecessarily bloated - those interminable horse rides in RDR2, the sheer empty vastness of Xenoblade Chronicles - but I'm not finding any fat on these tLoU2 bones at all. Every session is a stealth masterclass.

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To me it didn’t feel too long in terms of gameplay. The game plays great so that was always good. Just for me I felt like the story was over extended and I had got where it wanted me to get too before it was finished trying to get me there. It just got boring.

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I finished this last night, and now can't stop thinking about it. Extraordinary on multiple levels. A masterpiece.

 

I've just watched this Girlfriend Reviews video on the game, which is good viewing for those who have played through the story.

 

 

 

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To each their own, but I do personally feel the game is too long. It drags its heels for much longer than it should in the second half. 
The story in the first game is just superior. They spent far too long trying to make you feel bad about the horrific violence you were causing. Yet, you had no other choice. It was kill or be killed. 
 

Is it “The Schlinders List of gaming”. Course it bloody isn’t, as that’s a ridiculous statement. Does it do anything story wise that hasn’t been done before? Not really. 
Is it a good game? Yes, absolutely. But I was relieved when it finally ended, as it was beginning to tread water.

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Now that I've hit the 

Spoiler

unnecessary but rather enjoyable epilogue chapter, I get the feeling that ND introduced these slavers to show that people exist in this world who are even worse cunts than Abby and Ellie?

 

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Spoiler

 

People have a weird and unhealthy attachment to these pretend characters.

 

One of the people in that tweet wrote a reply which is basically 'sorry my psychological state deteriorated when [MASSIVE SPOILER]'

 

Like come on. There's a weird possessiveness these fuckers have over the story and having it play out exactly as they want with no negative consequences for any character that they happen to like. I don't know how you grow up with such a baby brain about this type of thing.

 

 

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Finished early this morning.

 

I absolutely fucking loved it. It’s genuinely the most powerful and emotional experience I’ve had in a game. The gameplay loop is just perfect IMO too, it has some of the most intense stealth,  horror and action which is nicely book ended by more quiet exploration, flashback and story sequences which just always made me want to see more and just gave me enough time to breathe. Enough whereby even though I’d feel exhausted by a certain section to the point where I’d feel I need to turn it off (in a good way), the immediate part afterwards would always relax me just enough to go “I’ll just do one more encounter” or “explore this next part” & keep playing far longer than intended. 
 

Speaking of that, it’s a very long game for a linear story experience. Personally I enjoyed every minute though, I never felt bored. It probably could have had 5-10 or so hours trimmed out without losing too much but I was enjoying the gameplay and story so much that the length of it never bothered me and I enjoyed getting new parts and locations to experience throughout. Near 30 hours of this felt far shorter and was far more interesting to me than your average 20+ hour open world game. 
 

I will say though, I think I may prefer the Joel and Ellie’s story in the first. There was just something so fresh, unique and new with that experience. It was also the first time a game ever to make me so invested in it’s world and its characters that I don’t think any other game will be able to match it. One of those 1st time experiences which is unfair to everything after it. I’m thinking of returning to it to see if it’s my memory playing tricks on me but I’m also scared of ruining that memory so may not... The gameplay is vastly superior in this too which may make it even harder to go back to..
 

After saying originally I didn’t want TLOU to have a sequel, I’m so fucking glad they did. Which speaks volumes as far as I’m concerned. 


10/10

 

If you’ve not played the original, I strongly recommend playing it before this. I very much doubt it’d have the same resonance with you otherwise. 
Similar to playing FFVIIR, I think playing the original adds a huge amount to your enjoyment of these games. 
 

Just as a little footnote - I hate people. Ive managed to avoid all spoilers and discourse around this game while I’ve been playing it. So I went on a bit of a dive watching videos and reading stuff regarding it this morning. WTF is wrong with people?

Spoiler

Threatening voice actors, homophobes, trans haters, mardy children kicking off because they had the guts to kill Joel (which is necessary for this games themes and stories), being children again about controlling Abby for so long - necessary again IMO for its themes and obviously done well as I wanted nothing more than to rip her throat out but by the end really didn’t want Ellie to go through with it etc. 
The discourse around Lev is particularly shitty, particularly by people who don’t seem to have even played it or are just thick.


There’s some good criticism out there, a lot I understand completely, if it doesn’t click with you there is some things I can see why you’d dislike it. But the amount of whining seems to be on another level. 

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 I'm done, and I'm in the 'flawed masterpiece' camp on this game.

 

A unique experience for me, which is a strange thing to say about a sequel, but it felt so different to me, a sense of place so deep it raised itself above the norms of the medium, even though I'd done a lot of these things before, in terms of gameplay.

 

I won't say much. Everything has been said. But I would just mention the flaw, as I perceived it.

 

Spoiler

Why did ND feel the need to augment that near perfect ending, the camera rising over the prone, defeated Ellie, as Abby walks away, both women finally having a sense that there are other people in this world, people worth more than than their own myopic, driven urges. 

I simply cannot justify anything that happened in the epilogue to this game. For me it betrayed a lack of courage on the part of the developers, as though they feared being misunderstood by the player, us morons, who cannot be trusted to draw the proper conclusion unless we draw it from the bloody perspective of our 'hero.' A misstep as far as I'm concerned in an otherwise flawless masterpiece.

 

As a tribute to this new classic I've dusted off my (fully functional, and strangely quiet) PS3 and will be taking an horrifying trip through the original. Will probably seem like a piece of short DLC after that monster.

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With what @bellow is talking about I don’t think it’s a lack of courage I think it’s just hyper pretentious and vanity. I think they had a bunch of ideas that were all so good and couldn’t bring them selves to cut any of them, so you get a really stuffed ending. It reminds me of when I was a kid and I would sit around and draw really cool pictures or cartoons and knew that it was really good and then I couldn’t stop adding to it and ended up making it worse. 
 

Not that my pictures were as good as The Last of Us Part 2 just the principle of the lesson lol
 

Singularly I admire the art of each part and can see why they want all of them but altogether it’s like Ok wrap it up.

 

Especially because I’m still in the camp that a significant amount of that second half could be cut as I stopped getting anything out of it from a story perspective. I was very much like really, there’s more?

 

Spoiler

One thing I want to say about a story telling technique they do in the game that is overused is the sudden death. People are mad about Joel dying, at least he gets a proper death scene. Everyone else just catches a bullet from off to the side and I get that this is their way of showing how hard this world is and no one is safe but I actually found it comical by the end. When Manny died I actually laughed and was like again?!


It is a perfect example of diminishing returns.


EDIT: For the record I really, really like this game but I’m just sitting at an 8 where as most other people are at a 10 it seems so it might seem like I’m negative on it, when I’m just a bit more negative on it. 

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