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Fallen Hamprince posted:In fact, Ellie would have never actually seen Joel get murdered if Abby hadn't decided to luxuriate in the act of beating him to death instead of just shooting him in the head and bugging out. The insane amount of cruelty Abby displays in that scene is one of the reason Ellie goes so hard after her in Seattle and Santa Barbara; the latter probably wouldn't have happened if Ellie didn't have mega-PTSD from seeing her adoptive father beaten to death in front of her. It would have been a more moving story if Joel just got shot in the spine or intestines and suffered a life of old man misery like most people end up doing and he was trying to stop Ellie going out for revenge because he'd achieved a peaceful life for her whether he's up and about or dead.
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Jul 6, 2020 01:38
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Beat the game, but I feel the ending is missing something. Maybe it needed a baby getting its skull stomped in. An outbreak of airborne super AIDS perhaps. Or heck, go for broke and have the moon collide with the Earth and exterminate all life in the planet. I chuckled when the game informed I could carry over weapons and stats for "new game +" because I am never, ever, playing TLoU2 again. I don't regret the time I spent with it exactly, but it's way too exhausting to sit through again.
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Jul 6, 2020 02:11
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Perfectly Safe posted:To forego killing the guy after a quick "this is for my father" and instead beat him to death with a golf club? To effectively torture someone to death? Perfectly Safe posted:Pretty sure that being 15 and coherent is good enough in what remains of humanity. Who the hell isn't dealing with some sort of trauma at this point? Yeah I don't think that's a fair thing to ask a child to try and handle, and that's why I don't see it as a case of "Joel stealing Elli's agency vs Fireflies respecting Ellie's choice (which they don't even do!)"
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Jul 6, 2020 02:15
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Necrothatcher posted:It depends what you mean by 'understand'. Will you know the events of the story? Sure. Will you have developed the empathy and identification with Sam required for that story to land as intended? Nope. I dunno if I agree with this, mostly in the other direction. I probably played death stranding very differently than most, I never failed a package delivery and basically never dealt with any of the hardships because I'm kinda obsessive about preperation and completionism. In tlou2 I played on survivor and basically was a goddess of death (again, a problem I have with the game is how much fun and power you get in combat). Are the above both different experiences of large parts of the gameplay than someone else. Do I have a different connection with Sam porter bridges because I spent hours making zipline networks to trivialise exploration of the mountains. Also as an aside you get really aggro at people criticising this game. I get you like it but people who disagree with you can perfectly understand the games and media.
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Jul 6, 2020 02:31
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Marlene doesn’t wait so much as another day to try and come up with a non-murder alternative, nor even bother to wait until Ellie’s sedation wears off to present her with the choice. There’s very obviously some hardcore rationalization going on there and neither Joel nor the player have any reason to take what she says at face value.
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Jul 6, 2020 02:37
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Stormgale posted:I dunno if I agree with this, mostly in the other direction. I probably played death stranding very differently than most, I never failed a package delivery and basically never dealt with any of the hardships because I'm kinda obsessive about preperation and completionism. FYI this is how absolutely everyone in the PS4 thread played Death Stranding, very few of them skipped or rushed through things, so your experience seems more in line with how most people seemed to play the game and doesn’t appear to be an outlier.
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Jul 6, 2020 02:40
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Bust Rodd posted:FYI this is how absolutely everyone in the PS4 thread played Death Stranding, very few of them skipped or rushed through things, so your experience seems more in line with how most people seemed to play the game and doesn’t appear to be an outlier. I know a bunch of people talked and wrote about the joy of things going wrong. I'm just saying when you can have a very wide variety of experiences in a game (mgsv with stealth Vs Rambo) the idea that playing it gives you true understanding rings hollow.
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Jul 6, 2020 02:45
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People playing Death Stranding probably got two very different experiences based on whether they interpreted the weight limit as goal or a guideline. If you tried to play it like a videogame and loaded up to within a kilogram of the limit, you would have a Bad Time trying to balance all that poo poo. But if you stuck to sane weights that a human could reasonably carry, it was fairly easy to run around and never stumble.
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Jul 6, 2020 02:48
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Stormgale posted:I know a bunch of people talked and wrote about the joy of things going wrong. I'm just saying when you can have a very wide variety of experiences in a game (mgsv with stealth Vs Rambo) the idea that playing it gives you true understanding rings hollow. But don’t you think either the Rambo player or the stealth player will have a better understanding of the game and how it plays than someone who literally hasn’t played it and just watched someone else play or just listened to someone describe to them what was happening? I think that’s all that’s being said.
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Jul 6, 2020 02:49
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Bust Rodd posted:But don’t you think either the Rambo player or the stealth player will have a better understanding of the game and how it plays than someone who literally hasn’t played it and just watched someone else play or just listened to someone describe to them what was happening? I think that’s all that’s being said. I dunno, I think they will have incredibly vastly different gameplay and thus interpretation of the story and connections. As mentioned I didn't really care about the dogs emotionally in tlou2 because survival necessitated playing heavily around them because getting detected was a bad time. Someone who didn't play like that would probably have a different opinion of the dogs, does that mean me.or them didn't truly understand? I think someone watching a steam is gonna be heavily influenced by the tone, gameplay and ideas of the person streaming sure. Does that mean they don't truly understand the game?
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Jul 6, 2020 02:57
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I mean let’s say instead of watching the movie Star Wars, you were stuck in a car for 3 hours and your friend just described Star Wars in painstaking detail. Would you claim to “get” the film even though you never engaged with it as a movie, only an idea? People who watch someone else playing a game are not themselves playing the game, and games (and their stories) are designed to played, in the same way that films are designed to be watched, not merely explained.
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Jul 6, 2020 03:02
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We run into this problem all the time with game criticism. It’s a medium that requires interaction and a set of skills. It’s possible to misunderstand a movie, but it’s never going to be the case that you simply failed to clear a bar of ability and so couldn’t get to the end credits. This happens in games all the time. Most players do not finish most games. For narrative games there are difficulty levels and accessibility options to make as many different people as possible access all the game has to offer. But I think that someone who has truly understood the fine details of Dark Souls combat gets something different (and better) out of it than I do, as someone who has stumbled through many boss fights relying on summons. For competitive games we really see this. Players are constantly complaining about balance in the game and the fact is that most of them are not qualified to have an opinion about balance. Because most players are bad at the game and worse at game design. The point is that even within a game as constrained at TLOU2 there are countless ways to experience the game. You can play Ellie as John Wick or as a ninja or as a clumsy idiot who can’t really fight. None of those players have the same experience. Most reviewers have to rush through the content to hit the deadline. Some players will take weeks of short bursts of play, others will finish it in a long weekend they’ve set aside. I don’t think it makes a ton of sense to gatekeep who gets to have an opinion about the game. Any standard will be arbitrary.
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Jul 6, 2020 03:10
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Bust Rodd posted:Ellie is a dumb kid in TLoU1 and there is no way you can sit a little girl down, no matter how mature they appear to be, and say “we have to kill you in order to save the planet.” See, if this had been a JRPG, Ellie would've torn her head off herself and handed it to them if they'd asked her there.
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Jul 6, 2020 03:12
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Fallen Hamprince posted:Marlene doesn’t wait so much as another day to try and come up with a non-murder alternative, nor even bother to wait until Ellie’s sedation wears off to present her with the choice. There’s very obviously some hardcore rationalization going on there and neither Joel nor the player have any reason to take what she says at face value. Marlene isn't even a doctor or a mycologist or whatever expertise the surgeon has that allows him to make that decision, and Marlene didn't show up the same time as the player did. She was there for months i would guess, during which time she presumably did seek alternatives. And you can't even blame her for any decision the fireflies made. She was locked out of decision making because they blamed her for entrusting the cure for zombies to some random guy. Im pretty sure she made this known to Joel. Joel saw Marlene in a position she didn't want to be in, only somewhat agreeing with a tough choice he didn't agree with, one that he knew Ellie agreed with. And when she had a gun on him, she dropped it. Other than hiding Ellie being infected, Marlene acts honestly to Joel. Her motivations are completely understandable and she explains them upfront, surely?
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Jul 6, 2020 03:17
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I wonder if people would have felt differently if Abby was Marlene's daughter instead, since I haven't seen a lot of people switch and suddenly be supportive of Jerry.
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Jul 6, 2020 03:32
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bobjr posted:I wonder if people would have felt differently if Abby was Marlene's daughter instead, since I haven't seen a lot of people switch and suddenly be supportive of Jerry. This has been suggested before and it would have made more sense narratively yeah. One issue with this though is that Ellie kind of became Marlene's surrogate daughter after her biological mom died. Maybe it would have been jarring to introduce someone new as her actual child? (remember Nate's brother in UC4?  ) Although thinking about it I don't remember Ellie confronting Joel about murdering Marlene specifically so maybe she didn't matter all that much to her.Honestly, I think simply telling the story in chronological order would go a long way toward giving Joel's death more gravitas and setting everything in motion. The current narrative structure is kind of a mess with its flashbacks within flashbacks.
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Jul 6, 2020 04:09
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Gentleman Baller posted:My memory of TLOU is probably a little bit hazy, but for the Joel Was Right people, why exactly did Joel kill Marlene? I feel like I must be missing something because nobody seems to talk about it but he just straight up kills Ellie's surrogate mother because he is scared that she will track them down and tell Ellie the truth right? once joel decides to save ellie killing marlene is the only "sensible" thing to do, she's the leader of the fireflies, she knows who and what ellie is and she knows both joel and tommy and yeah, your memory is more than a little hazy, just rewatch the tlou1 cutscenes involving marlene
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Jul 6, 2020 09:02
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Stormgale posted:I dunno, I think they will have incredibly vastly different gameplay and thus interpretation of the story and connections. As mentioned I didn't really care about the dogs emotionally in tlou2 because survival necessitated playing heavily around them because getting detected was a bad time. I don't think it's that hard to understand. It's a game. Whichever way you play it you have interpreted its mechanics and can talk about your perspective of them. There's no 'right' way to play a game - as TLOU2 proves with its dizzying amount of granular customisation options. Even if you explicitly set out to play in a way the designer obviously doesn't want you to, that's still your gameplay choice and it can be interesting to talk about whether the design accommodated that. There's clearly nothing stopping anyone offering their thoughts of a game they haven't played, but they should recognise that they're uninformed and their opinions carry less value as a result.
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Jul 6, 2020 09:03
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am0kgonzo posted:once joel decides to save ellie killing marlene is the only "sensible" thing to do, she's the leader of the fireflies, she knows who and what ellie is and she knows both joel and tommy I was already pretty cool on the first game, but Joel killing Marlene is when the whole thing jumped the shark for me. Not that he killed her, that was totally in keeping with his character, but that she tried to talk him down after he'd just mulched half her loving army. I remember rolling my eyes when she put her gun away because I knew exactly what came next. The game had already spent hours unsubtly showcasing how much of a ruthless prick Joel was, but it just couldn't resist one more blatant contrivance to hammer down the point. I was dumbfounded that said point still managed to evade some people.
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Jul 6, 2020 09:16
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Necrothatcher posted:I don't think it's that hard to understand. It's a game. Whichever way you play it you have interpreted its mechanics and can talk about your perspective of them. There's no 'right' way to play a game - as TLOU2 proves with its dizzying amount of granular customisation options. Even if you explicitly set out to play in a way the designer obviously doesn't want you to, that's still your gameplay choice and it can be interesting to talk about whether the design accommodated that. This feels like having two separate discussions, one about the effectiveness of gameplay integration with a wider narrative and the second as opinions on they narrative. I sincerely don't think you gain any unique understanding at all from having pushed the buttons to do the things in tlou2 especially around it's themes of revenge. If someone had only read the leaks sure but does my partner who watched me play from start to finish uninformed cause I was the one pushing buttons and having the controller vibrate?
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Jul 6, 2020 10:22
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Skippy McPants posted:I was already pretty cool on the first game, but Joel killing Marlene is when the whole thing jumped the shark for me. Not that he killed her, that was totally in keeping with his character, but that she tried to talk him down after he'd just mulched half her loving army. I remember rolling my eyes when she put her gun away because I knew exactly what came next. The game had already spent hours unsubtly showcasing how much of a ruthless prick Joel was, but it just couldn't resist one more blatant contrivance to hammer down the point. If half her army just got turned to mush is getting into a one on one gunfight with Joel the most sensible option though? Especially with unconscious Ellie in the line of fire. Capping Joel in the back could have worked I guess but it's not as emotionally impactful as him owning his decision to the end no matter the cost.
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Jul 6, 2020 10:26
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That's kind of my point. The game too often treats its characters as props in an attempt to create an emotional punch, but because the manipulation is so bald-faced it doesn't land, at least for me. No sane person could think that talking Joel down was still on the table, but Marlene still stupidly tries because the game wants one more big reminder that Joel is a Bad Dude(tm). A better way to spin that same scene would be that she does try to cap him in the back but misses, or her gun jams, or whatever, and then Joel delivers the gut-shot and following coup de grâce. You lose some of the fabricated drama, but it reads more like something an actual person might do. Edit: TLoU 2 is even worse about this. Nearing the end, I'd started to laugh at how many times main characters died from—Surprise Gun Shot! Too much of the tension feels... artificial, so much so that it impairs my suspension of disbelief. Skippy McPants fucked around with this message at 10:38 on Jul 6, 2020 |
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Jul 6, 2020 10:35
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Stormgale posted:This feels like having two separate discussions, one about the effectiveness of gameplay integration with a wider narrative and the second as opinions on they narrative. Its just bullshit gatekeeping. I went ahead and pressed more buttons (initially played it, wasn't that into it, watched a full playthrough while working on poo poo, tried again) and it hasn't really changed my opinion at all. Like its a pretty as hell game but i can't imagine telling someone "no, you personally didn't shoot this guy in the leg and then set him on fire, you don't understaaaaaand, man". Skippy McPants posted:Edit: TLoU 2 is even worse about this. Nearing the end, I'd started to laugh at how many times main characters died from—Surprise Gun Shot! Too much of the tension feels... artificial, so much so that it impairs my suspension of disbelief. Weirdly enough, this didn't bother me, but I was also rooting for most of the characters to just die, anyway.
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Jul 6, 2020 10:45
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I think the final scene with Marlene is meant to call back to that early scene, when Joel approaches the soldier with Sarah in his arms. She lowers the gun, but the situation doesn't actually change, at least for Joel. The scene's there to emphasise how this is a do-over for him.
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Jul 6, 2020 10:50
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Marlene deciding to shoot joel in the back and it not working would be an absolute contrivance
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Jul 6, 2020 10:55
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Skippy McPants posted:That's kind of my point. The game too often treats its characters as props in an attempt to create an emotional punch, but because the manipulation is so bald-faced it doesn't land, at least for me. No sane person could think that talking Joel down was still on the table, but Marlene still stupidly tries because the game wants one more big reminder that Joel is a Bad Dude(tm). I definitely see your point but she has imperfect information in that scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKEEvEY6DhI&t=56s Joel is hiding the gun, she likely would have taken the shot otherwise.
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Jul 6, 2020 10:58
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Stormgale posted:I sincerely don't think you gain any unique understanding at all from having pushed the buttons to do the things well I fundamentally disagree, but I guess we're not going to convince one another so let's leave it.
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Jul 6, 2020 11:05
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Sassy Sasquatch posted:I definitely see your point but she has imperfect information in that scene: He just finished killing everybody and their cousin, people we know Marlene was close to. Would you take your gun off him in that situation? Would you even hesitate before dropping him? Pocky In My Pocket posted:Marlene deciding to shoot joel in the back and it not working would be an absolute contrivance It totally would. I said better, not good. There was almost no way to set that scene without some level of contrivance, but they went for the clunkiest option. In any case, I feel like I've explained myself and I don't think we need to relitigate that end of TLoU 1 for the billionth time so I'll drop the issue.
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Jul 6, 2020 11:09
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Skippy McPants posted:He just finished killing everybody and their cousin, people we know Marlene was close to. Would you take your gun off him in that situation? Would you even hesitate before dropping him? I mean, Marlene is making the argument that Ellie is unique and incredibly important, I doubt she wants to open fire on her.
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Jul 6, 2020 11:11
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Stormgale posted:I sincerely don't think you gain any unique understanding at all from having pushed the buttons to do the things in tlou2 especially I’m not trying to sound like a broken record but this is really where the cinematic nature of video games mires the discussion a bit. Is just reading the lyrics of a new song on the radio the same as listening to it? Or reading the Cliff Notes of a novel the same as reading it? Is listening to someone explain the plot of a movie the same as watching it? I would argue NO OF COURSE NOT ABSOLUTELY NOT because in all 3 examples you have absorbed the content of the narrative without getting to experience what essentially makes it special, the pieces that forms around the narrative, the sights and sounds, melodies and harmonies, prose or clever turns of phrase, etc. When it comes to a video game with a deeply cinematic storyline, yes, I am willing to totally concede the lines begin to blur. Your partner watching over your shoulder IS getting more out of it than if someone had simply explained the narrative to them, but they are absolutely getting less out of it than you are, the player, because the gameplay is literally what makes it different from a movie or a TV show. There are emotional elements of the game that are designed around things like “surviving this encounter” or “planning your escape route” that will only impact the pilot holding the controller and that passive observers would literally never notice by simply watching over your shoulder, because all these important gameplay decisions that help draw you in to the story and characters more are happening under the hood. Not to mention that unless you are gaming democratically and each of you are voting on what to do and where to loot and who to kill, the moment to moment gameplay decisions are still only happening to one of you, and those are another component of “video games” that seek to help you feel more immersed, and this story looks and feels very different to an outside observer than someone who is immersed in it. I think someone could comprehend TLoU2’s storyline without playing it, because it’s not that complicated. I just don’t think it’s going to effect them the same way as it hits the person with the controller in their hand. Bust Rodd fucked around with this message at 12:52 on Jul 6, 2020 |
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Jul 6, 2020 12:43
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Bust Rodd posted:I don’t think someone couldn’t comprehend TLoU2’s storyline without playing it, because it’s not that complicated. I just don’t think it’s going to effect them the same way as it hits the person with the controller in their hand.
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Jul 6, 2020 12:47
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Skippy McPants posted:That's kind of my point. The game too often treats its characters as props in an attempt to create an emotional punch, but because the manipulation is so bald-faced it doesn't land, at least for me. No sane person could think that talking Joel down was still on the table, but Marlene still stupidly tries because the game wants one more big reminder that Joel is a Bad Dude(tm). I always thought that the subtext with Marlene was that she doesn't want to stop Joel. She tells him about Ellie thinking that he might do something that she won't, he does it, she goes through the motions of trying to stop him but is actually disinclined to do so. It could absolutely be nonsensical character actions - the whole final segment is based on absurd decisions being made - but I like to think that this is actually Marlene, the idealist, hitting rock bottom and saying "gently caress it".
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Jul 6, 2020 12:59
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I think not playing the game would obviously exclude you from making worthwhile comments on the gameplay aspect of the game and certainly you wouldn't be getting the full experience as intended, but to say that you couldn't form a valid opinion on the narrative even if you had witnessed the narrative in it's entirety seems really fucken dumb
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Jul 6, 2020 13:17
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Perfectly Safe posted:I always thought that the subtext with Marlene was that she doesn't want to stop Joel. She tells him about Ellie thinking that he might do something that she won't, he does it, she goes through the motions of trying to stop him but is actually disinclined to do so. It could absolutely be nonsensical character actions - the whole final segment is based on absurd decisions being made - but I like to think that this is actually Marlene, the idealist, hitting rock bottom and saying "gently caress it". This is backed up pretty well by the additional Marlene scene in the second game
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Jul 6, 2020 13:17
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fridge corn posted:I think not playing the game would obviously exclude you from making worthwhile comments on the gameplay aspect of the game and certainly you wouldn't be getting the full experience as intended, but to say that you couldn't form a valid opinion on the narrative even if you had witnessed the narrative in it's entirety seems really fucken dumb Especially since, for some of us, the gameplay is kind of removed from cutscenes in a lot of story based games. As much as this game attempts to force you to play the game the way the characters in the story act (ie. making stealth pacifism near impossible on a first playthrough because new sections are gated with the protagonists jumping over a fence or falling/sliding directly to the middle of a bad situation, making it almost inevitable that you end up killing to survive), there still can be a large amount of disconnect. Some won't feel sad for killing dogs and will instead see them as annoying obstacles, while others may super empathize as one example I often see going back and forth.
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Jul 6, 2020 13:43
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Yeah, that's another problem with that whole idea: people don't all take the same thing away from the gameplay even when they're all playing the same game. I personally didn't think the gameplay of TLOU 2 was all that great (not bad, but very "I have seen this before about half a million times") and while it certainly made some things more exciting, in another way it just made them more frustrating especially when I failed at a section and had to replay it, because the gameplay wasn't really what I was there for after a point. It's one thing to talk about tension and loneliness and anger and empathy when it comes to the way the game presents the world and its enemies, but for not a small fraction of players, the feeling is really a lot closer "oh, loving hell, another one of those?"
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Jul 6, 2020 13:48
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Stormgale posted:I sincerely don't think you gain any unique understanding at all from having pushed the buttons to do the things Jesus loving christ lol
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Jul 6, 2020 13:50
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Yeah people who genuinely enjoy the stealth-action hybrid gameplay are gonna enjoy the game more than people just playing through it to experience the story, I don't think that's controversial at all. The Last of Us 2 isn't a game for everyone, and a lot of people will want to be part of the conversation even though they aren't the intended audience and that will obviously color the discourse. Also releasing a Post-Apoc survival game in the middle of a global pandemic means the reactions are all gonna be a little headspun no matter what, the planet is going crazy.
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Jul 6, 2020 13:52
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You can save a lot of time by reading the plot summaries of movies on imdb instead of watching them
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Jul 6, 2020 13:53
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Zongerian posted:You can save a lot of time by reading the plot summaries of movies on imdb instead of watching them A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers. Congrats, you just saw The Matrix. Its exactly the same as watching it. My favourite part was when the camera spun around the lady who was kickin' the cop dude.
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Jul 6, 2020 13:58
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