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Firstborn posted:TLOU is a good game, though. It had some outstanding merits in terms of quality of animation and performance of the voice cast but everything else about it was pretty mundane. Bad is perhaps disingenuous, it was okay I guess
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Apr 29, 2020 16:19
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At least the memes from this are good.
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Apr 29, 2020 16:41
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Fat_Cow posted:At least the memes from this are good. Fungi, son
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Apr 29, 2020 16:57
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Lurdiak posted:I havent played MK10 or 11 so I'm sad to hear the kills got more upsetting. I appreciate gore in a horror movie kind of way, especially if it's presented in a fun way instead of an upsetting one, and MK always seemed to lean towards the Peter Jackson/Evil Dead kind of gleeful gore instead of making people think of war crimes. its absolutely over the top in that manner but for me the fidelity in how its rendered is what pushes it over i think like in a lot of older gory b movies like that its over the top and ridiculous while also being quite obviously very fake. the MK ones for me are simultaneously too realistic and too over the top SIGSEGV posted:TLOU is a game that aggressively demands you take it seriously, this is serious man! It demands to be taken more seriously than anything else, more than If This Is A Man, more than Come And See. So when you actually look at it seriously and it crumbles, it feels like poo poo. Everything is precious, including every single bullet, that's why those bandits move and entire motorized infantry battalion to kill two little shits that are already fleeing, pissing away thousands of rounds of heavy machine gun ammunition. That's why the fireflies start straightaway with destructive testing on their single hope, not ever taking a moment to check if the arm shroom has an effect on some poor shmuck or other unsavory thing they might do from being such assholes as threatening to shoot a guy giving CPR to their one hope of salvation, that's why there has to be some free Rape Peril moment, and not only a black kid dies but another black guy has to die too, that's why people at risk of getting instant killed by being bitten don't wear heavy clothes or bike leathers that would perhaps save them. again, with how the fireflies treat joel at the end, its very justified. they already know hes morally bankrupt and a murderer, if anything their entire failing at the end is in not just killing him. the idea that if they had been nicer to him he wouldnt have ended up massacring them is ridiculous. i dont really see that them turning to destructive testing when having to work out how someones immunity to a fungus that digs itself into the brain in an apocalypse where they probably dont have access to a full suite of testing options anymore is some gaping plot hole. i dont think they want people to see joels decision as understandable or justified at all, its a selfish decision and hes making it with the assumption that they will find a cure. he then refuses to even admit to it to ellie. the entire point is no one is giving ellie agency at all, and even at the end after making a decision that she very likely wouldve disagreed with he cannot even at least be honest about it. hes not justified at all. mad max takes itself very seriously which is why it works, even when you have people playing a big fire guitar and swinging around on poles and spraying chrome on their teeth the movie is taking itself completely seriously while doing so and the actual plot of the movies, especially the first and fury road, are treated with absolutely no levity. i dont think anyone is saying tlou is some masterpiece story telling, one of the best game stories ever told. but its pretty solid for what it is and the character writing holds it together.
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Apr 29, 2020 17:05
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Fat_Cow posted:At least the memes from this are good. going to go with "theres a woman with muscles so shes a man" is a bad meme personally op
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Apr 29, 2020 17:05
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Stux posted:again, with how the fireflies treat joel at the end, its very justified. they already know hes morally bankrupt and a murderer, if anything their entire failing at the end is in not just killing him. the idea that if they had been nicer to him he wouldnt have ended up massacring them is ridiculous. It's not about whether the fireflies are morally good or bad, it's that they are extremely stupid and incompetent, they should have either nicely thanked him or put him in a waiting room and then loving shot him, they are already taking a concrete saw to a teen's head, so why not one more kill for the greater good? The other thing that makes them really stupid is that there is in fact a lot of things you can do to learn what the gently caress without killing your one specimen, such as taking samples from the non vital parts. If you take the situation seriously, as the game demands you take it, and you'd have to make those decisions, they are acting extremely stupid, there's a ton of procedures that aren't as risky as revving up the big circular saw, and not just for Elie, but also for the shroom, they need the shroom to see what makes it non lethal, they have no idea if it'll live as well, or keep its properties outside of Elie, they are acting completely stupid. That's the big problem with TLOU, it wants to be smart so hard and it isn't. And, yeah, you might be right about Mad Max. So I'll take the hit, Mad Max succeeds by not being anger inducingly stupid instead. Also by being awesome.
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Apr 29, 2020 17:39
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Stux posted:its absolutely over the top in that manner but for me the fidelity in how its rendered is what pushes it over i think I think this was a trend started by Dead Space, where they used car crashes as reference photos for how gross the necromorphs should be. The new MK games seem like they're going for the tone of Evil Dead etc, but using real gore as a reference makes it almost more realistic than they're aiming for. Stuff like the Mortal Kombat crunch effect on artists and how some of the TLOU2 devs feel about it really makes it seem like a process change is a good idea for gore effects in games. Maybe have like, a practical effects team make a bunch of physical stumps and gore or whatever so that at least your CG artists don't have to sit and watch Liveleak videos all day. They've got the budget for it at least.
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Apr 29, 2020 17:48
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SIGSEGV posted:It's not about whether the fireflies are morally good or bad, it's that they are extremely stupid and incompetent, they should have either nicely thanked him or put him in a waiting room and then loving shot him, they are already taking a concrete saw to a teen's head, so why not one more kill for the greater good? yeah the fireflies were stupid in not just killing him, but the reasoning there is valid. its marlene believing that actually she can connect with joel on a human level over their shared caring for ellie, and its in there to show that no, joel is actually an absolute monster. but the actions taken arent inconsistent, i think its a completely human decision that someone could make in that situation. i think just nicely thanking him wouldve ended the same way and even just going up to him when they knocked him out he was very likely to just turn and kill them if they didnt. i think the decision to do that is justified enough within the game, the infamous log mentions that they have run the tests they have available but havnt been able to determine where the immunity is coming from and this is the only other method they have left at this point. also iirc she specifically doesnt have the mushroom actually growing in her brain which is the rationale for them inspecting it. whether it is morally justified or correct or fair is the issue not the medical side i dont think. i think that people feel its stupid because of the connection with the characters and not wanting ellie to die, within the logic of the world the procedure is very likely to produce an effective vaccine and there isnt any reason to believe it wont, and if we're going to start knocking things on absolute medical accuracy in writing over dramatic concerns outside of medical dramas then that opens up an extremely large amount of media to being called stupid and bad, because its relatively common. i dont think its trying to be particularly smart at all, it seems to be specifically being pretty straight forward and just leaning on good character writing. Dewgy posted:I think this was a trend started by Dead Space, where they used car crashes as reference photos for how gross the necromorphs should be. The new MK games seem like they're going for the tone of Evil Dead etc, but using real gore as a reference makes it almost more realistic than they're aiming for. yeah its utterly abhorrent the idea of anyone making artists and animators do that for any reason, theres no need. its morally disgusting and even beyond that, if your artists are having to look at this stuff to get it realistic because they dont know what realistic gore looks like then neither does your audience so just make it up. its completely inexcusable and needs to stop.
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Apr 29, 2020 18:06
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Graphics and presentation are the only things where tlou shines imo. Mgsv, a game that i dont like, was better in this category. The story Is good but as some dude say it starts to fall apart when you start thinking about it but its not Westworld levels of loving stupid The gameplay sucks and disco elysium finally proved that if you are bold enough and trust your story you can totally remove the "shoot shoot" parts of your game
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Apr 29, 2020 18:09
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Hello friends, There have been a number of troubling reports made recently about this thread, and I have been asked to stop by to investigate because VG does not want to be spoiled. I have read the posts in questions, and I would like you to imagine someone drawing some very large frownie eyebrows on my avatar. VideoGames and I have been in discussion, and he has already issued a probation to one of the posters reported. We would both like to take a moment to state that Transphobia on SA and in Games will not be tolerated Failure to adhere to this rule will see more of you going on an extended vacation. There have been some, what I would describe, 'spicy hot takes' regarding a trans character involved in the leak and their body. I feel that discussion of this character is fine, and how well or poorly written they are, but consider your comments wisely. I see for the most part you have been following the thread guidelines, and I appreciate that. Please continue to report posts you consider problematic, so that they are brought to our attention. Thank you.
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Apr 29, 2020 18:14
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Zeta Acosta posted:Graphics and presentation are the only things where tlou shines imo. Mgsv, a game that i dont like, was better in this category. yeah i hope ive been clear but i will restate it if i havnt: i think tlou is solidly good, but not groundbreaking. its a pretty unsurprising and predictable story told competently, brought up a bit higher because of some good character writing and acting. the reason its brought up a lot is because even that low bar for storytelling is often not hit by a lot of AAA games, and it especially stood out at the time because the 360 and ps3 generation was completely dire for games in general until very late in. story telling in games has gotten a lot better pretty quickly since then, especially due to indie games really pulling a ton of weight for making good narratives in games, which recontextualises it as well. i definitely felt the story was a lot better when i played it than i do now because of that.
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Apr 29, 2020 18:16
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Infinitum posted:Hello friends, i do just want to point out that the character in question isnt trans, what has happened is she is modelled on a woman who is muscular and people have gone in very gross directions with that which has included transphobia.
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Apr 29, 2020 18:19
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Stux posted:yeah the fireflies were stupid in not just killing him, but the reasoning there is valid. its marlene believing that actually she can connect with joel on a human level over their shared caring for ellie, and its in there to show that no, joel is actually an absolute monster. but the actions taken arent inconsistent, i think its a completely human decision that someone could make in that situation. i think just nicely thanking him wouldve ended the same way and even just going up to him when they knocked him out he was very likely to just turn and kill them if they didnt. The thing is that the medical need to give her a circular saw haircut is stupid and doesn't exist in any remotely responsible fashion, because there are ways to get samples of all the shroom including the brain shroom that only minimally threaten her life. If they can't do that, they also can't guarantee the shroom they need to study will survive. The part where what they are doing is unethical is not only towards Elie, it's toward themselves and their research, they are willing to make sacrifices that can only damage them, the setup is stupid, in an obvious way if you think about it, and the game demands to be taken seriously and therefore invites it. The fireflies are idiots on all levels and they justify Joel, while he's obviously meant to be a violent gently caress. quote:yeah its utterly abhorrent the idea of anyone making artists and animators do that for any reason, theres no need. its morally disgusting and even beyond that, if your artists are having to look at this stuff to get it realistic because they dont know what realistic gore looks like then neither does your audience so just make it up. its completely inexcusable and needs to stop. IIRC, the dead space team looked at car crashes independently to get design ideas for how to make not quite human anymore shapes that were all hosed up, for their hosed up horror monsters, not to get exactly the color of freshly exposed guts. The death scenes are gory, but they are still white sticks coming out of red chunks, there aren't any lovingly rendered intestines coiling around. They still ate poo poo when it came to crunch time though. Although they did cut stuff instead of overdoing it, IIRC. And the modern MK are pretty unpleasant to watch.
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Apr 29, 2020 18:23
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Stux posted:i do just want to point out that the character in question isnt trans, what has happened is she is modelled on a woman who is muscular and people have gone in very gross directions with that which has included transphobia. I will keep this in mind for the the future, thank you.
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Apr 29, 2020 18:29
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Fat_Cow posted:At least the memes from this are good. drat, what if the lady with muscles... was a man? This is the height of comedy, my dude.
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Apr 29, 2020 18:47
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SIGSEGV posted:The thing is that the medical need to give her a circular saw haircut is stupid and doesn't exist in any remotely responsible fashion, because there are ways to get samples of all the shroom including the brain shroom that only minimally threaten her life. If they can't do that, they also can't guarantee the shroom they need to study will survive. The part where what they are doing is unethical is not only towards Elie, it's toward themselves and their research, they are willing to make sacrifices that can only damage them, the setup is stupid, in an obvious way if you think about it, and the game demands to be taken seriously and therefore invites it. The fireflies are idiots on all levels and they justify Joel, while he's obviously meant to be a violent gently caress. but there isnt a shroom in her brain, thats the crux. her blood will sprout but theres nothing in her head which is the entire justification for specifically needing to see why, because they dont have the non-invasive tests they would need available anymore. i think the justification is good enough for their actions, and also i dont think you have to agree with their actions for their internal justifications to work. this is very literally the last chance for humanity to not go extinct, and they have medical professionals making the decisions. its desperate but the game never indicates this is the wrong course of action on a medical level. and even if that justification isnt completely valid in a true hard scientific manner i think its ok? this is fiction and its not even science fiction, its ok for stories to prioritise drama over accuracy if they are not selling themselves on that. tlou isnt about medical accuracy or science its about character drama and i think digging too hard into the mechanics of like, fungal zombie brain infection science, veers into cinemasins level of prioritising the wrong things. the specifics of the medical science, while i think are plenty justified anyway personally, are irrelevant, within the logic of the story the tests are the only option left and the doctors genuinely believe this will create a vaccine. it kind of reminds me of shin godzilla, because that film is entirely focused on the politics and character interactions, but within the context of godzilla stomping around and shooting lasers. the resolution of the story is rooted in a scientific justification, but if you actually think about what happens it doesnt make any sense really, its completely made up. they pay service to the scientific angle, but only in context of the actual focus and to enable the story. and thats fine. i think the idea that all works must be absolutely objectively scientifically accurate is a falsehood. there are stories and fiction where thats true, but in many cases the story and drama are primary and its fine if other things are bent to serve that. and regardless of that it doesnt justify joel. nothing justifies joel. there is no possible way to read the story where joel is justified in his actions. he isnt even the focus, its ellie. its about ellie having no choice over a life and death decision, with people fighting over it without ever considering her agency, and it ends with one side "winning" in an extremely violent manner, and its probably the side she wouldnt have chosen if she had been able to. and then he cannot even face up to his actions and simply tell her the truth, even though she knows the truth, because he has no humanity and his care for ellie is entirely selfish and superficial.
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Apr 29, 2020 18:53
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The whole ending to TLOU was a contrived farce and when I got the room with ellie I gleefully shot the doctors because I was so done with the game
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Apr 29, 2020 19:15
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Stux posted:mad max takes itself very seriously which is why it works, even when you have people playing a big fire guitar and swinging around on poles and spraying chrome on their teeth the movie is taking itself completely seriously while doing so and the actual plot of the movies, especially the first and fury road, are treated with absolutely no levity. Yeah the Mad Max movies are absolutely more successful in building compelling emotional experiences through their action than The Last of Us (and from what we've seen, Last of Us 2)
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Apr 29, 2020 19:15
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yeah im not saying tlou is anywhere near the level of fury "legitimately one of if not the best action film possibly ever" road dw lol
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Apr 29, 2020 19:16
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Stux posted:I do just want to point out that the character in question isn't trans, what has happened is she is modelled on a woman who is muscular and people have gone in very gross directions with that which has included transphobia. Yeah unfortunately this bullshit was spawned because multiple net-nazi poo poo rag ~news~ sites pushed it, because it's not good enough to use it to be mad at women, gotta contrive a reason to get our evil transes quota met too.
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Apr 29, 2020 19:20
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Stux posted:but there isnt a shroom in her brain, thats the crux. her blood will sprout but theres nothing in her head which is the entire justification for specifically needing to see why, because they dont have the non-invasive tests they would need available anymore. i think the justification is good enough for their actions, and also i dont think you have to agree with their actions for their internal justifications to work. this is very literally the last chance for humanity to not go extinct, and they have medical professionals making the decisions. its desperate but the game never indicates this is the wrong course of action on a medical level. and even if that justification isnt completely valid in a true hard scientific manner i think its ok? this is fiction and its not even science fiction, its ok for stories to prioritise drama over accuracy if they are not selling themselves on that. tlou isnt about medical accuracy or science its about character drama and i think digging too hard into the mechanics of like, fungal zombie brain infection science, veers into cinemasins level of prioritising the wrong things. the specifics of the medical science, while i think are plenty justified anyway personally, are irrelevant, within the logic of the story the tests are the only option left and the doctors genuinely believe this will create a vaccine. I thought she also had a headshroom going from the x ray picture they have of her skull (which looked kinda like poo poo, IIRC, but that's another thing. Then it's even stupider, they are destroying the one example they have instead of just doing a spinal fluid tap for the secret sauce. In fact destroying the one specimen they have and that they can't reproduce was always the problem. The fireflies are still stupid. And I think that if the game works so hard to present itself as Real Except With Mushroom Zombies, we can afford to take it that way and confront it with its problems.
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Apr 29, 2020 19:26
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Stux posted:and regardless of that it doesnt justify joel. nothing justifies joel. there is no possible way to read the story where joel is justified in his actions. he isnt even the focus, its ellie. its about ellie having no choice over a life and death decision, with people fighting over it without ever considering her agency, and it ends with one side "winning" in an extremely violent manner, and its probably the side she wouldnt have chosen if she had been able to. and then he cannot even face up to his actions and simply tell her the truth, even though she knows the truth, because he has no humanity and his care for ellie is entirely selfish and superficial. of course there is fireflies don't give ellie a choice she dies joel doesn't give ellie a choice she lives
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Apr 29, 2020 19:27
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Stux posted:yeah im not saying tlou is anywhere near the level of fury "legitimately one of if not the best action film possibly ever" road dw lol I went with my brother to see it and he wasnt so sure. After the desert twister scene we look eachother with a holy gently caress this is awesome. Top tier movie.
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Apr 29, 2020 19:28
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I dont suppose they could have had Ellie like, spit into a petri dish or something before whipping out the bone saw
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Apr 29, 2020 19:29
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Honestly if you're gonna play a setpiece shooter, having the setpieces feature limited resources is a good way to do it- it has a lot of glorified QTE sequences, though, but i don't mind the bits where you have like 2 shotgun shells and a shiv and have to clean up a series of rooms. I think it's generally more interesting than Uncharted's "oh whatever just shoot everything". TLoU isn't very good on the lower difficulties, though.
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Apr 29, 2020 19:31
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SIGSEGV posted:IIRC, the dead space team looked at car crashes independently to get design ideas for how to make not quite human anymore shapes that were all hosed up, for their hosed up horror monsters, not to get exactly the color of freshly exposed guts. The death scenes are gory, but they are still white sticks coming out of red chunks, there aren't any lovingly rendered intestines coiling around. One of the devs that worked on mk11 got ptsd from looking at nasty poo poo during crunch cool industry
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Apr 29, 2020 19:39
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Hacking the skull of the only supposed medical breaktrough on who knows how long doesnt seem really medical to me IMO
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Apr 29, 2020 19:40
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am0kgonzo posted:of course there is yes, both sides are being awful and denying her agency thats the point. the problem comes about where people view the fireflies as bad and joel as good. theyre both denying her a choice, but what compounds it is that from what we know of ellies character its likely she would choose the former. that doesnt justify the fireflies in denying her that choice though, but it does condemn joel even further, and his absolutely unwillingness to even be honest with her because he was never even considering what she wants only solidifies his absolute lack of humanity. his care is entirely for himself and it is a sociopathic level of acting that out. if he was honest at the end, then there could be some claim of some redemption or care in his actions. he isnt and there isnt, he doesnt care and the reason people view it is as "good" is: i like character, she doesnt die. its a flat reading that avoids dealing with joel being a complete monster. SIGSEGV posted:I thought she also had a headshroom going from the x ray picture they have of her skull (which looked kinda like poo poo, IIRC, but that's another thing. Then it's even stupider, they are destroying the one example they have instead of just doing a spinal fluid tap for the secret sauce. In fact destroying the one specimen they have and that they can't reproduce was always the problem. The fireflies are still stupid. so the example i gave of another piece of media which commits this same "error" was shin godzilla, which is even more realistic and grounded in how it handles things. however it also ends with injecting godzilla with a coagulant which causes him to literally freeze into ice. but it doesnt matter because its not the point and it is serving the plot and the drama, the actual focus. the film is about how humanity deals with a potentially existential threat and is realistic in regards to the human drama and politics, but the science is bent while written with trappings of being scientific, but it is wholly subservient to the main focus. fiction doesnt have to approach things with the level of scientific accuracy of something like primer to be valid, unless you are explicitly being hard sci-fi its just not the point and not how many pieces of media approach things, and it shouldnt be expected. its directly what those stupid videos of "everything wrong with x movie" do and its bizarre honestly.
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Apr 29, 2020 19:51
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CharlestonJew posted:I dont suppose they could have had Ellie like, spit into a petri dish or something before whipping out the bone saw Zeta Acosta posted:Hacking the skull of the only supposed medical breaktrough on who knows how long doesnt seem really medical to me IMO again they do actually explicitly do a bunch of testing as is mentioned in that one log. this is the last resort. its the last possible chance to make a vaccine and they dont have anything else. like im not even saying i agree with it or i wanted ellie to die but the in game justification is there. they put in the groundwork. i think people just blank on it because of the emotional attachement to the character which is a sign of not completely awful storytelling usually.
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Apr 29, 2020 19:53
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Stux posted:yes, both sides are being awful and denying her agency thats the point. the problem comes about where people view the fireflies as bad and joel as good. theyre both denying her a choice, but what compounds it is that from what we know of ellies character its likely she would choose the former. that doesnt justify the fireflies in denying her that choice though, but it does condemn joel even further, and his absolutely unwillingness to even be honest with her because he was never even considering what she wants only solidifies his absolute lack of humanity. his care is entirely for himself and it is a sociopathic level of acting that out. if he was honest at the end, then there could be some claim of some redemption or care in his actions. he isnt and there isnt, he doesnt care and the reason people view it is as "good" is: i like character, she doesnt die. its a flat reading that avoids dealing with joel being a complete monster. lol it's a parent willing to do anything to save his kid "I know you are just a 14 year old kid, who is probably suffering from survivors guilt, but I had to kill a bunch of people to save you because I'd rather burn the world to the ground than lose another child. PS I shot your surrogate mom"
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Apr 29, 2020 20:23
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yeah i understand now why theyre dropping what little subtlety there was for tlou2
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Apr 29, 2020 20:30
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Stux posted:it kind of reminds me of shin godzilla, because that film is entirely focused on the politics and character interactions, but within the context of godzilla stomping around and shooting lasers. This makes sense to me. Gozilla is dangerous and obviously needs to be dealt with, but it's a lot less of a problem when it's shin sized compared to building sized.
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Apr 29, 2020 20:46
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Stux posted:so the example i gave of another piece of media which commits this same "error" was shin godzilla, which is even more realistic and grounded in how it handles things. however it also ends with injecting godzilla with a coagulant which causes him to literally freeze into ice. but it doesnt matter because its not the point and it is serving the plot and the drama, the actual focus. the film is about how humanity deals with a potentially existential threat and is realistic in regards to the human drama and politics, but the science is bent while written with trappings of being scientific, but it is wholly subservient to the main focus. fiction doesnt have to approach things with the level of scientific accuracy of something like primer to be valid, unless you are explicitly being hard sci-fi its just not the point and not how many pieces of media approach things, and it shouldnt be expected. its directly what those stupid videos of "everything wrong with x movie" do and its bizarre honestly. Who knows what weird poo poo is going on with the big lizard's biology? The thing si that the game began with people acting stupid despite having years to unfuck themselves, bandits being stupid, the premise being that everything is precious now and every object counts not being respected by random bandits somehow bringing down entire divisions of armed men on you with limitless vehicle and HMG support while living entirely off ambushing travelers that carry at most a plank and two chewing gums, and so on, and so on, so you get out of the groove the story wants you to be in, then you reach the end of the game and people are still being stupid and contrary to reality, it sticks, the game hosed up long before that and keeps loving up then and it's just too much. Shin Godzilla is competent, TLOU isn't, that's why it sticks and people read it uncharitably.
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Apr 29, 2020 20:46
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Even ignoring the audiologue, it's REALLY obvious the Fireflies are an awful group. They are pushed out of every city left, often by the people they helped "liberate". Their operation is so slipshod they cannot even escort their own last hope themselves, they have to turn to two thugs whose weapons they stole to do possibly the most important job in their history, and they provide them no help. Their own dumbass scientists got infected by the monkeys they were experimenting on because they are morons. When a man shows up on their base trying to save a young girl from drowning, when they should be on the alert for a man escorting a young girl since Marlene is literally there, their dumbass guards assault him when his hands are clearly in view and trying to resuscitate her from drowning. Now none of this factors into Joel's decision at all, but the Fireflies are hosed from top to bottom, and it casts Joel's actions in a better light. Obviously a non violent solution would've been better, but that wasn't on the table and Joel saved the life of one of the few immune people alive from their dumbass efforts that would've failed given the rest of the text AND ignoring the audiologue.
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Apr 29, 2020 20:56
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I enjoyed TLOU as a video game enough that even if the second one's story was about Ellie trying to get to a donut shop, I'd still buy it eventually at some discount price. It was always going to be a discount price. I bought the original as a $20 PS4 port, and somehow spent that whole time not being spoiled. So I read the spoilers, and I'm okay with Joel dying because he was a flawed character who kinda condemned the world to a zombie apocalypse so he could have a second chance at being a Dad. I'm not wild with the game presupposing Joel killed the Doctors at the end because I thought it was very cool that you could just point your gun at them and they'd back away. I think killing everyone is stupid and bad and generally very "lol nothing matters". I still think there's a lot of people who are going to call this THE WORST STORY EVA who would have been perfectly cool with it if all the queerness was erased, because that's what media criticism looks like now. I actually liked the way the first game slipped Ellie's sexuality in there near the conclusion, in fact I called it the best representation in video games after I played. Of course the character is going to be more open about it in a game when they're older, but all the uncomfortable subtext here just reminds you that this game didn't need to happen from a narrative standpoint because the first game was perfection.
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Apr 29, 2020 21:05
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The game would be without a doubt 9000% cooler if it were just about ellie trying to get to a donut shop
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Apr 29, 2020 21:22
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SIGSEGV posted:Who knows what weird poo poo is going on with the big lizard's biology? The thing si that the game began with people acting stupid despite having years to unfuck themselves, bandits being stupid, the premise being that everything is precious now and every object counts not being respected by random bandits somehow bringing down entire divisions of armed men on you with limitless vehicle and HMG support while living entirely off ambushing travelers that carry at most a plank and two chewing gums, and so on, and so on, so you get out of the groove the story wants you to be in, then you reach the end of the game and people are still being stupid and contrary to reality, it sticks, the game hosed up long before that and keeps loving up then and it's just too much. Shin Godzilla is competent, TLOU isn't, that's why it sticks and people read it uncharitably. the film goes into more depth about the big lizards biology than tlou does with its zombies, and more in depth about the way they stop it. and its nonsense science in reality, but its irrelevant to what its trying to do. its not a fatal flaw of a piece of work to depict humans being stupid. in fact thats basically how you write a pessimistic scenario: you write about how stupid humans are because humans are stupid. they act illogically. they disregard reality for their own biases. its not a complex concept and its fine if that kind of pessimism is offputting or you dont want to interact with media like that, but its not a flaw to write humans being stupid because humans are extremely capable of being fatally stupid. Eimi posted:Even ignoring the audiologue, it's REALLY obvious the Fireflies are an awful group. They are pushed out of every city left, often by the people they helped "liberate". Their operation is so slipshod they cannot even escort their own last hope themselves, they have to turn to two thugs whose weapons they stole to do possibly the most important job in their history, and they provide them no help. Their own dumbass scientists got infected by the monkeys they were experimenting on because they are morons. When a man shows up on their base trying to save a young girl from drowning, when they should be on the alert for a man escorting a young girl since Marlene is literally there, their dumbass guards assault him when his hands are clearly in view and trying to resuscitate her from drowning. i might be wrong on this, but iirc the fireflies are pushed out of cities without actually having done anything. in those cases they helped people get rid of the military and then were thrown out or executed and most of the places that did this then devolved into chaos and fell. their operation by the end is slipshod because they are dying because theres no vaccine and the military that is left keeps killing them. scientists doing stupid stuff and dying while experimenting in an apocalypse with a lack of basically everything isnt wrong i dont think. in fact scientists misunderstanding something or being overconfident and dying leading to increased controls is pretty normal, stuff like the demon core attests to very intelligent people doing stupid stuff and dying because they were overconfident even with full knowledge of the dangers and access to all possible safe guards they could need if they wanted to use them. the way they react to joel is because they are pretty sure that its the guy theyre looking for: a violent murderer. the entire plan was probably to just kill him as soon as he got there but marlene wrongly assumed he would have some humanity left and not just massacre everyone. they shouldve just killed him then, thats the part that is stupid in what they did. the fireflies are fatally fundamentally flawed, they clearly have no qualms about killing someone without them fully making that decision in order to make a cure, but from everything we know: this is the last option, and it will likely work. as far as joel knows, who knows less than us: this WILL work. people only view his actions in a better light because it happens to end up with an outcome people want because ellie is a good character. as far as joel knows he has just stopped a vaccine from happening and has doomed all of humanity. he couldve gone in and stopped it, and insisted on having ellie be able to properly and honestly talk about it and make her own decision. he doesnt. he kills everyone. he makes that decision for her, permanently, and then wont even do her the smallest kindness of at least being honest about it because he isnt even doing it for her, its just for him. the fireflies were also clearly going to make that decision permanently for her, but there was at least the reasoning of saving others, even if that still doesnt justify it at all. joels motivation is absolute selfishness to the highest degree and a complete abandonment of humanity. he is a sociopath who doesnt care about other humans and he doesnt care about ellie as a person, he only cares about her as a stand in for what hes lost.
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Apr 29, 2020 21:31
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Eimi posted:Even ignoring the audiologue, it's REALLY obvious the Fireflies are an awful group. They are pushed out of every city left, often by the people they helped "liberate". Their operation is so slipshod they cannot even escort their own last hope themselves, they have to turn to two thugs whose weapons they stole to do possibly the most important job in their history, and they provide them no help. Their own dumbass scientists got infected by the monkeys they were experimenting on because they are morons. When a man shows up on their base trying to save a young girl from drowning, when they should be on the alert for a man escorting a young girl since Marlene is literally there, their dumbass guards assault him when his hands are clearly in view and trying to resuscitate her from drowning. I think a lot of the judgment of how competent and rational people are in this world is odd, because it's a lot of assumptions and presumptions that apply to a world that isn't literally mostly dead. Ellie was born after the infection started, so poo poo has been hosed up for a good long while. The Fireflies strike me as wanting to do the right thing, not entirely confident they can manage it, and just desperate to even have a chance to try. Voice memo pickup or not, I wouldn't have any confidence in their ability to succeed in developing a cure, but it's hard to fault them for wanting to push for it even with it being likely hopeless. The TLOU2 spoilers seem pretty consistent with that, because regardless of intent, Joel hosed with a very desperate and dangerous group of people. Not the kind you'd want to have a blood feud with.
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Apr 29, 2020 21:32
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Stux posted:its not a fatal flaw of a piece of work to depict humans being stupid. in fact thats basically how you write a pessimistic scenario: you write about how stupid humans are because humans are stupid. they act illogically. they disregard reality for their own biases. its not a complex concept and its fine if that kind of pessimism is offputting or you dont want to interact with media like that, but its not a flaw to write humans being stupid because humans are extremely capable of being fatally stupid. There's acting stupid because of credible human condition and then there's acting stupid because the author's a hack. Joel and Tess are stupid because they don't wear basic protection and have at least knives after years of being seasoned zombieland smugglers and bandits, the fireflies are stupid because they are literally unable to do at least one single thing without loving up, the bandits are stupid because they survive off ambushing two smugglers a month well enough to feed the whole thousand of them you fight and then, in a world were ammo and guns are rare and where vehicles are rarer than hen's teeth, they respond to two fuckers going through them by rushing at them backed up by jeeps with machine guns and shooting tens of thousands of rounds at them and then chasing them more and more while losing hundreds of members. After that, everything feels manipulative and overly set-up, of course the back kid and the black guy die, of course there's a cannibal cult led by a probably rapist that's way into the teenage main character, of course everything. It feels artificial as hell, I guess that the reality around us also feels artificial as hell but we're in it right now, so we can't really complain about that, can we? But the one the game presents is eye-rollingly stupid, too much to allow suspension of disbelief after so pretentious a presentation.
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Apr 29, 2020 21:52
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| # ? Jun 1, 2024 06:28 |
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Stux posted:the film goes into more depth about the big lizards biology than tlou does with its zombies, and more in depth about the way they stop it. and its nonsense science in reality, but its irrelevant to what its trying to do. I never got the sense that this was the last hope for humanity. Rather that the Fireflies see this as a last hope for humanity because they can't envision a new world or anything but a return to the old. Things like the sewer community and Tommy's place seem like what the game presents as the way forward. Not that it will be easy, but that those structures will work better than clinging to the old world or old order. So the vaccine didn't feel as essential the survival of humanity as it does to the Fireflies.
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Apr 29, 2020 22:07
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