CharlieFoxtrot posted:

Yeah I have doubts because how would it even come up in the story as outlined

Yardbomb posted:

Sassy Sasquatch posted:

I got you fam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIa-AKax2xw&t=31s

For just $150 you too can roll up Joel's sleeves

Oxxidation posted:

JustaDamnFool posted:

Having that one collectable mentioning the past subjects was a huge mistake because it turned the finale into a dumb numbers game when that poo poo clearly didn't factor into Joel's decision at all.

Ruflux posted:

I forgot this game had some absolutely terrible DLC

JustaDamnFool posted:

Having that one collectable mentioning the past subjects was a huge mistake because it turned the finale into a dumb numbers game when that poo poo clearly didn't factor into Joel's decision at all.

CharlieFoxtrot posted:

Pay 99 cents to get a new revolver execution animation where your opponent flails around for an extra second

Stux posted:

youre arguing the title with the made up zombies is less grounded while also apparently saying mad max films arent bleak which is a wild swing to take lol

most of the people in tlou1 are pretty physically fit. noticeably. especially the enemy humans, and joel is in good shape and his physique doesnt change from the time skip at all. she doesnt look like shes on roids unless you have literally no concept of how humans work.

people notice and question because of gross reasons because if it was a guy literally no one would mention it, and its never a knock against any post-apoc settings, which with shocking regularity use extremely large buff men as characters.

Yardbomb posted:

Nah, the fireflies were just some more terrible wannabe jackboots, Joel was correct in blowing them away.

"In most uprisings, rioting citizens have done more of the fighting than actual Firefly members, leading to feuds that typically resulted in the citizens turning on their city's Fireflies after the revolt was finished, fearing a reign of oppression by the Fireflies, rather than the Military. The Fireflies lost control and were executed or forced to flee, allowing the citizens to take over."

Oxxidation posted:

This is why pessimistic fiction is needed

Oxxidation posted:

The human race is self-terminating; even its virtues come from a poisoned root. It cannot, should not go on after the end of its civilization

Brother Entropy posted:

yeah the world definitely needs more sociopathic 'humans are poo poo and we all deserve to die' postapoc stories by aging white gen xers

Dewgy posted:

I mean, if your argument is it just shouldn’t exist whatsoever, maybe your best option at this point is to play other games?

am0kgonzo posted:

I'm saying mad max is intentionally over the top while tlou goes for "what if mushroom zombies + real world"

there is a difference between fit and colleen fotsch, for example the only female mma fighter I can think of that is close to her physique is cyborg santos who tested positive for roids

I disagree and not every post apocalyptic setting is the same

Stux posted:

if you werent interested in a pessimistic zombie game i dont know why you would think a sequel to the last of us 1 would be optimistic and joel in tlou is absolutely horrible by any measure. he massacres a bunch of people who, as far as he knows, are legitimately going to find a cure purely because of his own cowardice in actually handing over ellie instead of just running, and then breaks ellies trust out of continued cowardice because he refuses even basic honesty about what hes done and has no qualms about just murdering anyone in his way. hes awful.

Brother Entropy posted:

an optimistic sequel to tlou would genuinely be more daring and subversive and a challenge to write than the game we're getting

Brother Entropy posted:

an optimistic sequel to tlou would genuinely be more daring and subversive and a challenge to write than the game we're getting

Brother Entropy posted:

an optimistic sequel to tlou would genuinely be more daring and subversive and a challenge to write than the game we're getting

Stux posted:

maybe, idk. i personally dont want a sequel to tlou to suddenly be optimistic. but then i also dont feel like theres a dearth of pessimistic games in particular and i dont know if thats just because im unwittingly avoiding them or what, so i dont have such an issue with this one being pessimistic. maybe its just a AAA thing or something cos i mostly just play indies at this point. i wish i hadnt spoiled now but the one strong rumor that wouldve destroyed it for me wouldve been killing off the gay couple which apparently has been avoided.

Oxxidation posted:

but instead most of its audience kept blithering over whether joel or the fireflies were the bad guys

Yardbomb posted:

Nah, pessimism sucks poo poo and all it's come from for a while is tiring to listen to defeatists and we've had enough of it for a while, punch etc. the nazis.


Also this is stupid sounding as all hell.

Stux posted:

i mean its probably not g oing to be some masterpiece of writing but its hard to say where itll land without the full context of the game. and i guess it is? i feel like the main flood in western media has been like, marvel movies though, so maybe this is just down to me and what ive actually watched or engaged with.

and i dont think either optimistic or pessimistic is more or less serious or adult than the other and i like both for different reasons and in different moods. pls look at my av and tell me i think optimistic and kind media is bad lol

Brother Entropy posted:

marvel movies are pessimistic in a different kind of way, but i was thinking more about the big tv shows of the past decade. walking dead, breaking bad, got, even when they're good shows it's just a big loving carousel of human misery leading to more human misery

Oxxidation posted:

everyone in tlou is scum and that includes ellie

Stux posted:

the only one of those ive watched is breaking bad so ill have to take your word for it

Oxxidation posted:

the relative value of optimistic/pessimistic media aside, going by those spoilers i still wouldn't give credit for tlou2 for any kind of grander artistic merit even if it is relentlessly grim, no more than i would for something like outlast 2

at least the first game had something to say about the human condition even if it wasn't breaking any new ground, this one's just using the studio's clout to dial up its r-rated imagery as far as it can go

Oxxidation posted:

i wouldn't consider breaking bad pessimistic by any stretch. if you want better-known examples you'd want something closer to mccarthy's Blood Meridian or The Crossing, or herzog's Aguirre the Wrath of God. i'd sort of consider von trier's Melancholia to be another semi-popular one but that's more of a paean to the benefits of depressive realism which makes it hopeful in its own way

thomas ligotti said in the intro of The Conspiracy Against the Human Race that actual philosophical pessimism does not have much of a niche in popular discourse because it's so repellent to dominant modes of thought, which imo is the same reason it's more daring and also more valuable where it can be found. the pressure to go bittersweet instead of committing to your tone is overwhelming, especially for larger collaborative productions with higher budgets. one example i read elsewhere on these forums was True Detective's first season, which actually quoted entire passages of ligotti's writing almost verbatim and had a tone to match, until the very end where it whipsaws back into the sort of vague generic humanism that's been done a thousand times before. "i think the light's winning," geddafuckouttahere

Oxxidation posted:

this is why pessimistic fiction is needed, because the lack of it leads to blinkered, facile readings like these

the whole point of the last of us was that all the actions that converged in the final chapter - joel's protectiveness, marlene's desperation, and ellie's sacrifice - all came from the same need to find fulfillment in their lives after they'd lost everything else, hence why marlene and ellie both say almost verbatim "this can't be for nothing" at the beginning and end of the sequence. it's the culmination of the game's larger theme that everyone's efforts to survive, physically or spiritually, ironically brutalize everyone around them and accelerate their own immiseration. joel destroys humanity's (faint, futile) hope for a cure because he's protecting his own reason to live, and the ending strongly implies he's also destroyed his relationship with ellie by lying about it. the human race is self-terminating; even its virtues come from a poisoned root. it cannot, should not go on after the end of its civilization

but instead most of its audience kept blithering over whether joel or the fireflies were the bad guys so now we get a sequel that just tapes the original game's point to a half-brick and treats us to a fifteen-hour sequence of it lovingly bashing in a woman's skull. well done!