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For all the hullaballoo about Abby's muscles they really didn't factor into things that much. Yeah, she can throw some killer haymakers but I was expecting her to be doing some Hancock poo poo, tearing off a fridge or car door as a shield or crushing people with couches, it's the same co-op actions you've got to do in every game to open a door! I was hoping that her Anchor Arms would mean she'd be Atlasing some of this poo poo on her own. Also how the hell did she lose every gun she owned before fighting that Haven Brute? You're telling me the pistols in her holsters just sprung out of there too?
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Jul 10, 2020 09:54
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the wood was very splintery and the splinters just caught on the guns (her firearms, not her actual arms), i don't know what to tell you
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Jul 10, 2020 09:57
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Abby also has the Rat King sequence which was legitimately terrifying on my 1st playthrough.Sassy Sasquatch posted:Would you mind elaborating on that ? (genuinely curious) Parallels -Both deaths take place suddenly, so suddenly that there is no chance for goodbye. -Both deaths are used to immediately create and elevate the tension from “we as a team will defeat this enemy” to “oh gently caress now I’m alone and clearly facing off against a superior enemy”. -Both deaths are immediately after the male characters assure the female lead that they will take care of them/have their back, in order to demonstrate their emotional bond and to provide maximum emotional whiplash. -Both of those sequences feature the PC going up against a legendarily terrifying opponent. Tommy is waging a merciless one-sided war with his sniper rifle and Ellie is genuinely depicted in the same light as the Rat King boss fight (literally red emergency lights and Abby whispering to herself about how hosed she is). -Both of their deaths are used to generate an instant atmosphere of isolation so that the main characters can feel even more overwhelmed and afraid. -Manny eating the bullet to the back of the head symbolizes the past catching up with them for their crime, Jesse eating the bullet to the face symbolizes the Jackson crew going looking for trouble and meeting it head-on. There might be others but those were the ones I noticed at the time. The message is to really hammer home the idea that Abby & Ellie are simply on the same path, revenge, and all revenge leads to sacrifice.
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Jul 10, 2020 10:07
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Thanks, that was interesting. 
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Jul 10, 2020 10:16
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Sassy Sasquatch posted:Abby's segments introduce Yara and Lev who are by far the best new characters in this sequel so she wins hands down for sure. I think they are also the only characters who visually call out enemies they spot with icons. I didn’t notice Dina, Jesse, Manny, Alice, or Mel do it.
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Jul 10, 2020 10:29
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Dina does it for sure, i think i've seen it happen at the gas station fight maybe which would mean either mel or manny
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Jul 10, 2020 10:44
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Sassy Sasquatch posted:Yup, and to get back to the ski lodge escape scene, they could very easily frame it as:
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Jul 10, 2020 11:44
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Pulcinella posted:I think they are also the only characters who visually call out enemies they spot with icons. I didn't notice Dina, Jesse, Manny, Alice, or Mel do it. I also like how they updated the sideckicks AI to actively take down targets when in stealth. Feels pretty badass. Anyway, that earlier discussion got me thinking about what if Abby had to ride with J+T back to Jackson. She would have to pretend and stay there for a bit, try and make contact with her group outside, getting to know Joel and maybe Ellie before carrying out her vengeance and clear off. That could have made for some incredible tension if done right. 
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Jul 10, 2020 11:45
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I don’t think creating additional tension between Tommy & Ellie helps the story and that creates a window for Ellie to blame Tommy which fractures the storyline and dilutes both the message and the momentum. It’s wild because the opening sequence and the way Joel and Tommy handle it didn’t even remotely occur to me as a controversial sequence. I bought all of it, easily, and without reservation, because I was too emotionally invested in the characters to pause and go “hey wait, that doesn’t make sense! Joel is way too tough and smart and strong to be nice to strangers!” The entire “Joel went out like a loser and it disrespects the character” argument seems completely mired in bad faith and honestly feels like people just trying to find anything at all to complain about. Everyone is acting like it’s a total betrayal of Joel’s character for him to not be an elite Spec-Ops commando with perfect situational awareness and honestly that’s not ever what he was. Remember when he almost died because Bill caught him in a snare? Remember when he fell off a balcony and got impaled on a rusty pipe? Joel is human and makes mistakes! (Hell isnt that, like, the entire point of the first game, lmao?)
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Jul 10, 2020 11:53
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Sassy Sasquatch posted:Anyway, that earlier discussion got me thinking about what if Abby had to ride with J+T back to Jackson. She would have to pretend and stay there for a bit, try and make contact with her group outside, getting to know Joel and maybe Ellie before carrying out her vengeance and clear off. That could have made for some incredible tension if done right.
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Jul 10, 2020 11:54
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In It For The Tank posted:Yes, that's the point of contention: it would be possible to script and direct the scene in such a way that the same outcome happens (Joel gets kneecapped, Tommy is knocked out) while avoiding any contrivances that feel like the writers were trying to get the scene over with and just had Joel (and Tommy) behave in a bizarrely incongruent way to speed things along. Anyone can be blindsided - if, say, Henry from TLOU had secretly had a murderous beef with Joel, then he would have been able to kill Joel. Hell, Joel's blindsided by Ellie the first time he meets her - if the whole thing had been a trap and you replace Ellie with "two dudes with shotguns" then it's goodbye Joel. Anyone can, through circumstances out of their control, find themselves in a position in which they're outnumbered and outgunned. I didn't mean to write another essay here but that ship has sailed so let's quickly go through your list. In It For The Tank posted:- Kept his pistol tucked into back pocket rather than completely disarming. So: - We have no reason to think that he completely disarmed. He's presumably got his sidearm somewhere. - The whole group wanders into the room and then stops. He does not know that they're stopping in that room until people stop walking. The only way he could have stood by that doorway would have been if he'd conspicuously walked back across the room, turning his back on most of the room's occupants as he did so. - This is wishy washy. He was pleasant without being overly trusting. Overly trusting would have been to not ask questions and to sit down. Tommy is, arguably, overly trusting (although I feel that "trusting" is a loaded term here - I trust that people who have shown no intention of causing me harm will continue to do so all the time, and I trust that I won't get struck by lightning when I go outside. Tommy's pretty relaxed). If you want to point out something in Joel's behaviour that doesn't make sense in a world in which Joel doesn't get caught off-guard, then...he's living under his own name in a town founded by his brother (who is known to the Fireflies because he used to be one), and his wife. So Joel Miller, who is a fairly well-traveled and well-known character, lives in a town founded by Maria and Tommy Miller, run by Maria Miller, with a girl called Ellie, in a place not a million miles from Salt Lake City (the fact that it took Abby years to find him does not reflect well on her). It would have been notable for being one of the first free settlements to have plentiful electricity, and word would have spread about it because it's not a hostile or particularly territorial settlement and people pass through. This is the thing that does not make sense if you're all "it's out of character for Joel to put himself in this position". In that room, he behaved exactly as he's behaved many times before around people who don't turn out to want to kill him.
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Jul 10, 2020 11:59
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Sassy Sasquatch posted:I also like how they updated the sideckicks AI to actively take down targets when in stealth. Feels pretty badass. Ooh, Lion King 2 but they actually murder him does sound really cool when you put it that way.
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Jul 10, 2020 11:59
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I feel strongly that any future TLOU games should be walking simulators.
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Jul 10, 2020 12:01
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Maybe I need to readdress my personal biases but “Abby successfully sneaks into Joel’s house, kills him while he sleeps, and escapes Jackson before anyone realizes what happened” seems infinitely more far fetched than what we got. Also part of Ellie’s singular fixation in Abby is due directly to the brutality of the execution. I don’t wanna call other goons out or suggest that not everyone has the same relationships with their parents, but like I’ve said before in my life and my community, someone hurting your family is enough reason to hurt them. Someone killing your dad? That’s a Hatfield & McCoy intergenerational Blood Feud until it’s resolved. Ellie doesn’t need any more reason to hate Abby.
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Jul 10, 2020 12:04
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Bust Rodd posted:Maybe I need to readdress my personal biases but “Abby successfully sneaks into Joel’s house, kills him while he sleeps, and escapes Jackson before anyone realizes what happened” seems infinitely more far fetched than what we got. Oh no that's not what people are suggesting. They're saying that the scenario of Abby asking to be let into Jackson, playing the role of a displaced survivor and inserting herself into the community for months on end and then in a final spectacular Order 66 maneuver, killing Joel while out on patrol with him before escaping back to the WLF, Joel's head hurled off a cliff in triumph is way more ripe for drama and tension than what we've actually got now.
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Jul 10, 2020 12:17
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Bust Rodd posted:I don’t wanna call other goons out or suggest that not everyone has the same relationships with their parents RareAcumen posted:Oh no that's not what people are suggesting.
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Jul 10, 2020 12:18
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Bust Rodd posted:It’s wild because the opening sequence and the way Joel and Tommy handle it didn’t even remotely occur to me as a controversial sequence. I bought all of it, easily, and without reservation, because I was too emotionally invested in the characters to pause and go “hey wait, that doesn’t make sense! Joel is way too tough and smart and strong to be nice to strangers!” That's fine, we don't all react to things the same way and I do appreciate your reading on a lot of this stuff.  For me that moment was a bit of a head scratcher but I'll be honest with you it's really not my biggest gripe with that sequence. I'm much more annoyed by the fact that it didn't convey any impact -for me- beyond shock value. Unless you can point me to stuff that I missed there's basically no buildup to Joel's death in the game, it's only made retrospectively more impactful by a series of flashbacks but those do too little and too late to really get emotionally invested in his fate. So you end up with this main character getting pummeled to death on screen and the reaction is not anger, it's not sadness or fear, for me it was just "I guess we're doing this huh". And from that you end up being completely disconnected from Ellie's quest for revenge. Ellie obviously doesn't need more reason to go after Abby, but as the player... it doesn't work as well. Leyburn posted:I feel strongly that any future TLOU games should be walking simulators. You joke but TLoU part 1 was a pretty big departure from ND's previous games in a lot of ways, it would have been fine to try something a little bit different again. RareAcumen posted:Oh no that's not what people are suggesting. If anything she should go for a predator style kill and rip his entire spine out before bashing Ellie's face in with it.
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Jul 10, 2020 12:19
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Sassy Sasquatch posted:You joke but TLoU part 1 was a pretty big departure from ND's previous games in a lot of ways, it would have been fine to try something a little bit different again. I'm not fully joking, sifting through Joel's house and the Museum section are two of the best bits in the game. Same thing goes for when you're poking around the old house in one of the the Uncharted 4 flashbacks. Also if it's a walking simulator no one else needs to get hurt 
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Jul 10, 2020 12:22
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i like the violence, games aren't violent enough these days. We've got all these graphics and this is one of the few games to use them. Like i blew up a dude and his arm stuck to the ceiling and fell down a little later.
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Jul 10, 2020 12:29
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Leyburn posted:I'm not fully joking, sifting through Joel's house and the Museum section are two of the best bits in the game. Same thing goes for when you're poking around the old house in one of the the Uncharted 4 flashbacks. I feel you. I mean my favorite bit by a mile was just this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKeU1twQYX4
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Jul 10, 2020 12:40
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I’m not trying to be flip but the build up to Joel’s death was The Last of Us part 1 Joe’s house is a really beautiful bit of video game design and I hope that people learn to appreciate all of the sweet things hidden inside of it. When Eli’s getting ready for her patrol in the morning I noticed there was this beautiful carving and I thought myself “oh that’s a cute little trinket or trophy she must’ve found out on patrol” and then you find Joel’s woodworking station in his room and you realize that it’s something he made for her and I just started crying all over again Bust Rodd fucked around with this message at 12:49 on Jul 10, 2020 |
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Jul 10, 2020 12:45
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That's not really what build-up means. The event that motivated his killing happened in TLOU 1, but the game also ended pretty much right afterwards. That's not build-up, at least not in a narrative sense.
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Jul 10, 2020 12:47
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The build up is the title "the last of us"
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Jul 10, 2020 12:49
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Cardiovorax posted:That's not really what build-up means. The event that motivated his killing happened in TLOU 1, but the game also ended pretty much right afterwards. That's not build-up, at least not in a narrative sense. It depends on the nature of the sequels. when you look at something like say the “Empire strikes back” and “return of the Jedi” one of those is absolutely building up to the next one narratively and cinematically I don’t wanna be disingenuous and the last of us two absolutely plays with chronology and nonlinear storytelling, but I’m also a huge fan of movies like Memento or the first season of Westworld Bust Rodd fucked around with this message at 12:53 on Jul 10, 2020 |
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Jul 10, 2020 12:51
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Bust Rodd posted:It depends on the nature of the sequels. when you look at something like say the “Empire strikes back” and “return of the Jedi” one of those is absolutely building up to the next one narratively and cinematically
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Jul 10, 2020 12:54
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Cardiovorax posted:Man, that really would've helped so much with getting me actually invested in Ellie's personal quest for revenge. There's something a lot more personal about someone inserting themselves into your life, connecting with you (even at only a shallow level) and then betraying you by hurting someone you care about. Something about Ellie's obsessive hatred for Abby always seemed almost strangely impersonal to me, like she's more of a stand-in for Ellie's general grievances against the world than anything. beating someone you love to death, in front of you, seems like enough at least for me
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Jul 10, 2020 13:04
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I really don't know if it's in Abby's character as written for her to secretly infiltrate a society over the course of many weeks while secretly planning to betray them. Everything about her seems to be hit 'em fast, hit 'em hard and get the gently caress out. She's emotional and impulsive rather than a schemer. You could write a character like that to take out Joel, but that'd be a very different character than we got.
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Jul 10, 2020 13:09
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Caesar Saladin posted:i like the violence, games aren't violent enough these days. We've got all these graphics and this is one of the few games to use them. Like i blew up a dude and his arm stuck to the ceiling and fell down a little later. it's soldier of fortune levels of violence in a triple a 2020 game, it's really impressive
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Jul 10, 2020 13:12
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am0kgonzo posted:it's soldier of fortune levels of violence in a triple a 2020 game, it's really impressive At one point I was in a combat encounter where four enemies were in the same room at the same time. I chucked a molotov in and then, as they ran around screaming, fired an explosive arrow at them. The mess inside was... considerable.
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Jul 10, 2020 13:14
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There’s also the fact that Tommy was a firefly. we’re not really sure how long but if Abby slipped up and referenced them or even alluded to them even one time the jig would be up immediately.
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Jul 10, 2020 13:15
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RareAcumen posted:Oh no that's not what people are suggesting. Yeah. I'm no video game designer, but it feels like this would have been much better (not necessarily the head-hurling). Get to know and like Abby for a bit, have the sense of betrayal of trust be the twist of the knife rather than a brutal beating that seems out of step with what we're supposed to understand about Abby's character. Also, a plot that doesn't rely on serendipity - that's the plot for me. They hung so much on the big switcheroo moment and it wasn't worth it. They sacrificed a whole bunch of storytelling in favour of what is essentially a loving gimmick (which, as I've mentioned before, is probably cracking for the people it worked for; for the people who, for no fault of their own, weren't in the right mental place for it when it happened, it was a bit poo poo).
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Jul 10, 2020 13:16
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Necrothatcher posted:I really don't know if it's in Abby's character as written for her to secretly infiltrate a society over the course of many weeks while secretly planning to betray them. Everything about her seems to be hit 'em fast, hit 'em hard and get the gently caress out. She's emotional and impulsive rather than a schemer.
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Jul 10, 2020 13:17
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Bust Rodd posted:It depends on the nature of the sequels. when you look at something like say the “Empire strikes back” and “return of the Jedi” one of those is absolutely building up to the next one narratively and cinematically The game does retains critical information from the player with regards to Joel and Ellie's relationship for the longest time. I'm of the opinion that part 2 would have been stronger narratively for playing these vignettes in chronological order, -probably fleshing them out a bit- and in turn maybe cutting into the the 3 + 3 days in Seattle that everybody agrees drag on for too long. Necrothatcher posted:I really don't know if it's in Abby's character as written for her to secretly infiltrate a society over the course of many weeks while secretly planning to betray them. Everything about her seems to be hit 'em fast, hit 'em hard and get the gently caress out. She's emotional and impulsive rather than a schemer. For the record I never said that. My spur of the moment idea was simply that if Joel and Tommy were to escort Abby back to Jackson like they probably would with a regular survivor, it would be a nice setup to have her have an actual conversation with Joel or Ellie. I don't think she would stay more than a couple of days tops, just enough time to get access to a weapon, figure out her assassination plan and get the hell out of dodge. I just liked the way ND introduced her to Joel and Tommy by having them save her and was building on that.
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Jul 10, 2020 13:23
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Necrothatcher posted:I really don't know if it's in Abby's character as written for her to secretly infiltrate a society over the course of many weeks while secretly planning to betray them. Everything about her seems to be hit 'em fast, hit 'em hard and get the gently caress out. She's emotional and impulsive rather than a schemer. You'd also have to tell a completely different story in the back half of the game.
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Jul 10, 2020 13:25
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Sassy Sasquatch posted:For the record I never said that. My spur of the moment idea was simply that if Joel and Tommy were to escort Abby back to Jackson like they probably would with a regular survivor, it would be a nice setup to have her have an actual conversation with Joel or Ellie. I don't think she would stay more than a couple of days tops, just enough time to get access to a weapon, figure out her assassination plan and get the hell out of dodge. I just liked the way ND introduced her to Joel and Tommy by having them save her and was building on that. I was kinda replying to RareAcumen, but fair point. It would have at least showed us how Jackson deals with new members.
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Jul 10, 2020 13:26
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Necrothatcher posted:I really don't know if it's in Abby's character as written for her to secretly infiltrate a society over the course of many weeks while secretly planning to betray them. Everything about her seems to be hit 'em fast, hit 'em hard and get the gently caress out. She's emotional and impulsive rather than a schemer. So make Abby's character slightly different.
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Jul 10, 2020 13:31
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Perfectly Safe posted:So make Abby's character slightly different. At that point you're rewriting half the game for little gain. I think the Joel death scene is a real masterclass in concise, effective writing. The first time through you empathise with Ellie and instantly hate Abby's guts. By the end of the game you pretty much know everyone's in the room's thoughts as it's going down. You can tell they put a hell of lot of time into getting it right. e: I also think rewriting Abby to be a scheming liar who infiltrates a group would undermine later attempts to get players to empathise with her. I mean, they make a point out of her being pretty honest and straightforward. Necrothatcher fucked around with this message at 13:40 on Jul 10, 2020 |
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Jul 10, 2020 13:36
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Necrothatcher posted:At that point you're rewriting half the game for little gain. I think the brutality and torture of that scene also establishes that you might not completely cheer for either character. Even after you hear about Abby's side.
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Jul 10, 2020 13:46
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Necrothatcher posted:At that point you're rewriting half the game for little gain. The point is that you'd hardly have to rewrite her at all, and we're not talking about rewriting the game - we're talking about writing the game differently. I don't see how any of this would change any of the subsequent story anyway - the only difference would be that the midgame character switch was more telegraphed. You're sort of declaring a character is categorically not a schemer, even though she has mixed loyalties and motivations and lies her way through the story in order to prevail; one who's capable, resourceful and determined, who successfully holds her poo poo together when she unexpectedly meets her target and contrives to have him walk into a trap that hasn't even been set. The idea that Abby as written would somehow either be incapable of or unwilling to use subterfuge to get her target is, I think, misguided as a concept and unsupported by the evidence. I can see why you'd make the assertion, but you've sort of wandered into the realm of character mythology rather than actual character. Human beings generally can, will, and do use subterfuge. All of them. You can write a character who uses subterfuge as sympathetic anyway. Demonstrably. I'd propose that it's actually easier to write a sympathetic schemer than a sympathetic torturer. There's a whole genre of movies with scheming con artists and thieves as the main characters, for whom the audience roots. I don't think you'd have to in this case anyway - Abby's a woman who gets poo poo done, if infiltration's necessary then infiltration it is. But even if it were necessary then it wouldn't be beyond the abilities of a competent storyteller.
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Jul 10, 2020 14:11
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Does Abby really lie her way through the story though? Feel free to prove me wrong on this, but while she might keep stuff to herself at various points I can't remember her actively lying to anyone.
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Jul 10, 2020 14:15
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