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I agree that scar is a dehumanizing term. I'm just on mobile and don't want to type the big words. Autocorrect doesn't like Seraphite.
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Jul 1, 2020 17:45
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smoobles posted:Any video game (well, specifically AAA shooters) where the bad guys aren't aliens, robots or nazis, is going to involve an immoral protagonist, TLOU2 just leans into that and winks at the camera. I don't see the big deal with playing a horrible character as long as their motives are consistent in the universe. Because its during a time when we are seeing a democratic city being turned to a dictatorship, month after month of lovely events with no lube to help make it smoother and pretty much everything that can give positive vibes is cancelled. So when the only new circus in time is a tragic clown performing sad acts and being shoved down the throats of a depressed society there is going to be an extremely averse reaction to all the depressing poo poo going on. It takes a stoic mind to appreciate this game and very few have the mental strength to do this right now. And this comes from someone who liked the game
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Jul 1, 2020 17:51
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a new study bible! posted:Idk maybe it's coincidental that Abby learns that scars are also human after loving Owen, learning that he feels insanely guilty about killing children, and discovering that he and Mel will be leaving Seattle and she can't come. She helps the kids before she finds Owen, and she very clearly wants to save them because she feels guilty.
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Jul 1, 2020 18:11
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smoobles posted:Yeah sure but being disappointed that a AAA shooter involves killing lots of people without remorse is weird to me, it's like being disappointed that a point & click adventure has too much pointing and clicking Trying to imagine a point & click game that would beat you over the head for 30 hours that puzzles are pointless time-wasters.
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Jul 1, 2020 18:14
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stev posted:She helps the kids before she finds Owen, and she very clearly wants to save them because she feels guilty. At the end of that first encounter she is clearly done with them. After she talks with Owen she is far more invested.
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Jul 1, 2020 18:16
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Sassy Sasquatch posted:Trying to imagine a point & click game that would beat you over the head for 30 hours that puzzles are pointless time-wasters. Isn't that kinda The Witness?
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Jul 1, 2020 19:19
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I can’t believe ellie loving killed the last gamer girl
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Jul 1, 2020 20:55
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Gay Rat Wedding posted:I can’t believe ellie loving killed the last gamer girl The Vita was still working though, there's still hope. Also all of these PS3s in houses and no one in Jackson or WLF thought to plug one in? They're missing out on some hot Jak 3 action.
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Jul 1, 2020 21:05
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Lol at the absolute empathy people here expect for a group of creepy cultists that go around pulling the intestines out of any outsider they run into. Also arguing whether or not it's ok to call them scars is peak internet.
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Jul 1, 2020 21:07
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veni veni veni posted:Lol at the absolute empathy people here expect for a group of creepy cultists that go around pulling the intestines out of any outsider they run into. hell yeah the sarcasm understander has joined the thread
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Jul 1, 2020 21:22
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Necrothatcher posted:Isn't that kinda The Witness? Aw man I loved playing The Witness.  That was a while ago but if I had to remember the ending and the interpretation I made of all the material in there it was ultimately more along the lines of "don't endlessly look for meaning/truth where there is none". So more "just enjoy the game -or anything else- for what it is". That game was pretentious but far from sanctimonious.
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Jul 1, 2020 21:23
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Really, the Scars heavily undermined the game for me. Druckman makes all this noise about giving everyone their own name, does that silly manipulation with the dog and so on, but still gives us a cheerfully evil group that nobody minds you killing. Ludo narrative, etc, but it makes the tugging at my heart strings so heavy handed something kind of snapped. However you think Spec Ops handled its subject matter, there wasn't a point you start fighting irredeemable, cackling villains.
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Jul 1, 2020 21:37
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smoobles posted:I think you have to suspend your disbelief because video games, to a degree... Think about the Uncharted games where Drake murders far more people with far less cause than Joel. I’ve never really understood the “Drake murders so many people” thing because all of the henchmen he kills in those games are pirates or mercenary war criminals and are also invariably trying to kill him. They’ve signed up for a “murder people for money” job and don’t really get to complain when the swashbuckling treasure hunter shoots back.
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Jul 1, 2020 21:38
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Fellatio del Toro posted:hell yeah the sarcasm understander has joined the thread Oh it's all sarcasm  sureThere's been someone saying this stuff for like 3 days now.
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Jul 1, 2020 21:40
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I'm not sure any of the posts in this thread are sincere.
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Jul 1, 2020 21:46
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Four-Eyes posted:Really, the Scars heavily undermined the game for me. Druckman makes all this noise about giving everyone their own name, does that silly manipulation with the dog and so on, but still gives us a cheerfully evil group that nobody minds you killing. The individual Scars are humanized despite being part of a profoundly evil society. There’s a difference between “these enemies are still people” and “these enemies have done nothing wrong and by killing them You Are The Real Monster actually”. The real irredeemable enemies are the Santa Barbara slavers, of whom the game is pretty clearly messaging “OK I know we said violence is bad but you can make an exception for these guys, go ahead and cut their faces right off”.
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Jul 1, 2020 21:46
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ThisIsACoolGuy posted:I'm kinda getting hosed up by the thought of actively hunting someone for *four years* when there's almost no communication you can take advantage of outside your group. The podcast I was listening to said they really found her entire motive contrived because it's horrible Joel killed evil dad, but the flame of hate would probably die down after a handful of months. Not go away but not be so strong as to march into zombie world and rampage for years looking for a guy. Ultimately killing Joel doesn't really bug me, but the way that scene played out with nary the slightest hesitation or dialog was one of the earliest moments where I felt something was 'off' in terms of the character interaction as compared to TLOU1. btw what was the podcast? Happy_Misanthrope fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Jul 1, 2020 |
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Jul 1, 2020 22:14
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Four-Eyes posted:However you think Spec Ops handled its subject matter It's the stupidest loving game on planet Earth, it makes David Cage look nuanced, and literally everyone that likes it is a moron. But other than that it's fine.
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Jul 1, 2020 22:15
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Happy_Misanthrope posted:Yeah, I mentioned earlier I found that immediate reaction by Abby to be not wholly believable for various reasons, including the timeframe, but especially as she knows all about Joel second-hand - contrasting her mental image of him after discovering the healthy and relatively prosperous community he's living in and also how he just saved her life would perhaps prompt a few questions instead of immediate shotgun/torture. Why would she hesitate? She'd been building herself up to that moment for years. If she stopped long enough to question the situation or examine the man in front of her as a human being she wouldn't have gone through with it. It's human nature to blindly push forward in that situation - otherwise you have to admit to yourself that you've been living a lie.
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Jul 1, 2020 22:20
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stev posted:Why would she hesitate? She'd been building herself up to that moment for years. If she stopped long enough to question the situation or examine the man in front of her as a human being she wouldn't have gone through with it. It's human nature to blindly push forward in that situation - otherwise you have to admit to yourself that you've been living a lie. Ah I see, it's science
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Jul 1, 2020 22:25
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Ellie second guesses herself at the last minute, but Abby displays zero hesitation. And I keep getting the slavers and Scars mixed up. I think my point still stands, though - guilt free murder targets run contrary to these Big Themes IMO.
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Jul 1, 2020 22:26
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Happy_Misanthrope posted:Yeah, I mentioned earlier I found that immediate reaction by Abby to be not wholly believable for various reasons, including the timeframe, but especially as she knows all about Joel second-hand - contrasting her mental image of him after discovering the healthy and relatively prosperous community he's living in and also how he just saved her life would perhaps prompt a few questions instead of immediate shotgun/torture. I found it pretty believable, Abby is pretty clearly characterized as having a strong inclination towards vengeance; how she reacts to learning that Dina is pregnant being the strongest example. The murder of a parent is something even pretty forgiving people would have a hard time letting go of and it’s just as easy to imagine that kind of emotion festering and growing more intense with time as opposed to fading.
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Jul 1, 2020 22:27
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Fallen Hamprince posted:I’ve never really understood the “Drake murders so many people” thing because all of the henchmen he kills in those games are pirates or mercenary war criminals and are also invariably trying to kill him. They’ve signed up for a “murder people for money” job and don’t really get to complain when the swashbuckling treasure hunter shoots back. I think its a quantity thing, Indiana Jones kills like 5 people in Raiders of the Lost Arc, Drakes running that clock up into the hundreds. There's also the power differential; when Indy kills someone it's often after a protracted fight scene where he seems genuinely threatened, while for Drake the act of killling is pretty fast and inconsequential; the average mook barely comes of as a threat at all, its like Drake is just swatting flies. Both these things are simply due to gameplay demands and the critique has been so overdone that its pretty facile at this point, but the premise can still elicit some discomfort.
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Jul 1, 2020 22:28
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Fallen Hamprince posted:The murder of a parent is something even pretty forgiving people would have a hard time letting go of and it’s just as easy to imagine that kind of emotion festering and growing more intense with time as opposed to fading. Happy_Misanthrope fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Jul 1, 2020 |
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Jul 1, 2020 22:33
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Happy_Misanthrope posted:Again, it's not that she goes through with it, of course she has to at that point. It's that what she knows of Joel is through intermediaries, and in her first face-to-face encounter, he's just saved her life. Some very slight recognition of internal conflict at juxtaposing the devil the knows with the one she just experienced would have been appreciated, but then again seeing as how heavy-handed ND is with this game in other aspects perhaps it's good it wasn't attempted. Honestly the scene as is seems perfectly fine to me. It feels like you wanted the hesitation to happen, but you’re not Abby. She basically ignored the last couple of minutes of running from infected, went “this is him, it’s go time, we do this now or never” and pulled the trigger. That’s an entirely realistic take on the situation. You can argue she made a mistake or acted irrationally, but character flaws aren’t a sign of bad writing.
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Jul 1, 2020 22:38
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Now I'm imagining her stopping mid swing to turn to the audience and sing a song about the conflict brewing in her heart.
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Jul 1, 2020 22:46
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Perhaps this was a story illsuited to be told in a game, but a muscial however...
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Jul 1, 2020 22:50
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JustaDamnFool posted:Perhaps this was a story illsuited to be told in a game, but a muscial however... oh man TLOU the musical would loving own. dancers dressed as clickers tap dance on, clicking their fingers jazzily "clickety click, clickety click / our fungi makes you sick"
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Jul 1, 2020 22:53
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The real hosed up part of this and the last game is that people are still having kids in the post apocalypse.
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Jul 1, 2020 22:53
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Yara does not get enough love. Girl leaves her community in the face of certain danger to save her persecuted brother, toughs it out after having her arm completely destroyed, takes becoming an amputee like a champ, travels back to save her brother who has made a mistake (though emotionally understandable one) to return to the island and continues to fight one-armed, and goes out in her dying moments giving Abby and Lev a moment to escape
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Jul 1, 2020 23:40
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Gologle posted:The real hosed up part of this and the last game is that people are still having kids in the post apocalypse. Condoms and birth control are likely a luxury.
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Jul 1, 2020 23:43
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BOAT SHOWBOAT posted:Yara does not get enough love. Girl leaves her community in the face of certain danger to save her persecuted brother, toughs it out after having her arm completely destroyed, takes becoming an amputee like a champ, travels back to save her brother who has made a mistake (though emotionally understandable one) to return to the island and continues to fight one-armed, and goes out in her dying moments giving Abby and Lev a moment to escape Her death definitely sold me on Abby’s turn from “somewhat rebellious” to full on  . Tied for biggest gut-punch together with Mel and Owen’s deaths.
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Jul 2, 2020 00:46
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stev posted:Now I'm imagining her stopping mid swing to turn to the audience and sing a song about the conflict brewing in her heart. Then as the song ends, after the final beat, she swings the golfclub down. "nooooooooooooo!"
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Jul 2, 2020 00:56
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Nail Rat posted:Then as the song ends, after the final beat, she swings the golfclub down. The more people post about this the more I want it to happen, but for both games. Sad Joel solo to open, Tess gets a dance number, Bill and the corpse of his old lover sing a duet, there’s endless possibilities and they’re all hilarious.
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Jul 2, 2020 01:00
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Dewgy posted:The more people post about this the more I want it to happen, but for both games. Sad Joel solo to open, Tess gets a dance number, Bill and the corpse of his old lover sing a duet, there’s endless possibilities and they’re all hilarious. Robert....look down, look down, you're standing in your grave
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Jul 2, 2020 01:02
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stev posted:Now I'm imagining her stopping mid swing to turn to the audience and sing a song about the conflict brewing in her heart. Jump to 30:45 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJJfUTVIE98
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Jul 2, 2020 01:17
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Gologle posted:The real hosed up part of this and the last game is that people are still having kids in the post apocalypse. Kind of love the way the other characters response to both people in this game announcing their pregnancies was more or less "Are you loving serious you loving idiot?"
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Jul 2, 2020 02:10
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I... can't really like this game. It's ambitious as all get out, it genuinely tries to break new ground, and I like the idea of... well, a lot of things ND tried to do. Viewed objectively, there is nothing wrong with any of the story beats- any of the things that happen, any story thread could work... when given its own game and the proper focus it needs to get happened. Focus... that's the thing. If you wan't to tell a story about pain- about hatred, and the kind of violence that destroys lives- you have to take one person's pain, and use the time you have to explore it fully, to get at why it happened, how it affects the person(s) involved, and what they are doing about it. Generally in such stories you have one horrible act to serve as the core of the story which then happens around it, and if the story has told itself well, there is no question about why these characters do what they do, and the audience is affected by these actions and how the characters develop as a result. But you don't have one journey related to one pain- you have three: Ellie, Abby, and Lev. They all deserve their own separate game to tell their stories well, and not only does the inclusion of all of them distract from the focus of the others*, but the attempt is made to make every single NPC "matter", down to the dogs. And it's just... a morass. It's exhausting in ways I don't believe the makers intended, it commands too much attention to all of the pain, everywhere. And if it worked for you, fine, great, I celebrate your joy, but I just felt empty. Not the cathartic emptiness of having thoroughly explored a difficult story, but the more serious kind where you get to the end of the story and realize you didn't connect to any of it. Not the chracters, not the themes, or the moral- it's just a lot of time you won't get back. But the thing is, I don't think it had to be that way for me. I know what I am supposed to feel at these things, and I think with some different handling, a tighter focus on things, I might have felt them too. But I don't and I feel sad. *Particularly Lev; given the ground that is covered in his story and the kind of things he is called upon to do, it is absolutely insulting that his trauma is inserted and used for little more than giving Abby something to be heroic/"woke" about. Representation /= respect, or quality.
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Jul 2, 2020 03:47
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Gologle posted:The real hosed up part of this and the last game is that people are still having kids in the post apocalypse. If people can rationalize having kids on the precipice of undeniable climate disaster now(within their lives, let alone their kids lives), there'll always be people who choose to have kids. Not saying it's good or bad.
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Jul 2, 2020 04:12
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Happy_Misanthrope posted:Yeah, I mentioned earlier I found that immediate reaction by Abby to be not wholly believable for various reasons, including the timeframe, but especially as she knows all about Joel second-hand - contrasting her mental image of him after discovering the healthy and relatively prosperous community he's living in and also how he just saved her life would perhaps prompt a few questions instead of immediate shotgun/torture. Was castle superbeast, Pat and Woolie uploaded a segment on it and was just listening to it off youtube.
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Jul 2, 2020 04:30
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