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I don't know whether this is really good or bad- the stuff in between is more important than the plot summary, especially in this context.
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Apr 27, 2020 15:44
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Dork457 posted:It seems like games take for granted a lot the idea that because you're given control of something in game, you automatically adjust to the goals and parameters that the game has laid out for you. That bioshock reveal of "whoa what IS choice!?" only goes so far when you're talking in real world terms of you paying 60 dollars to play something. To be constantly confronted with the dollar store psychological bent of "whoa have you ever thought how you never actually questioned what the game was asking you to do?" gets a little old. Yeah it was lame when bioshock did it, when spec ops the line did it, when far cry 3 did it, and it doesn't stop being a lame conceit. I'm still kinda okay with holding my judgement until I can see the story as a whole with respect to Last of Us 2(The original kinda works okay though the limited resource setpieces were way more interesting gameplaywise than the plot ended up being)
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Apr 28, 2020 15:11
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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:They are, because the game says they are, because the game presents them as such and because other characters treat them as such, hardened bandits and smugglers. That have been doing that for twenty years. If they don't appear to be prepared for their jobs, it's a little problem. The problem with the machine gun car isn't the realism of it- the bandit community isn't really portrayed as living much of a life anyway, but that the machine gun car sequences really suck in terms of gameplay- you might have a tense fight with some hunters but then the car comes to usher you to the next cutscene or to do a nice run and talk.
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Apr 30, 2020 01:52
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Cuntellectual posted:Even if this is a joke, which I doubt it is, this is one of the dumbest defences of anything I've ever read and illustrates my point about the sort of people who stan the game quite nicely. A lot of your gameplay complaints about TLoU are "why doesn't ellie arbitrarily get the player killed" which is hilarious coming from someone who heaps praises upon the genius gameplay of.. spec ops, the line.
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May 1, 2020 03:08
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The Last of Us is at its best when it puts you in situations with like 2 bullets, a shotgun shell, a board and you have to fight six human enemies. I think that's pretty solid gameplay and certainly not just uncharted redux. The game doesn't always do this, though, and especially it never really does this on the lower difficulty settings.
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May 1, 2020 14:40
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Stux posted:that isnt an oversight in spec ops and it does sound like in tlou2 completely avoiding these things through stealth is an option. we'll have to see when it comes out but them making note that you can avoid all dog encounters would seem to imply to me that you can also avoid all human encounters too given that theyre part of the same grouping. the oversight in spec ops is that the whole game is generic cover shooter and the text is "war is bad haha you're dumb for doing the violence but it's all we do so shrug", spec ops is just as lame as tlou2 trying to make metacommentary on violence when doing violence on humans is basically the thing you're good at designing gameplay wise is not gonna work and never has
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May 8, 2020 01:21
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Cuntellectual posted:I'd like to point out that the meta part of SO:TL wasn't intended as attacking the people playing it in general so much as it was the specific type of people who'd play generic manshooter games, kill a small country's worth of people while ignoring the story and feeling like they're the good guys with the loading screen messages and such ("Do you feel like a hero yet?" "Do you remember why you're here?" "How many Americans have you killed today?" and so on) not being aimed at people who don't feel that way. For those people it's more intended to think about it in a wider scope sense, like the way war damages people beyond physically or the stress soldiers undergo and such. Yeah i know what the author wrote, but that's kinda the least interesting part of video games when the actual game part is generic manshooter. There's a lot of games that have you do the generic video game shooting mans and then say 'hah, isn't this kinda hosed up?' and the proper response is 'yeah, it is kinda hosed up, but who's the fuckup here? the developer who's only really got fine-tuned game mechanics for shooting tons of people while even dialog-heavy games are still dragon's lair++?' Panzeh fucked around with this message at 10:50 on May 8, 2020 |
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May 8, 2020 10:47
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MeatwadIsGod posted:I never used a lethal weapon against humans in the entire game because I was too invested in it, but I appreciated that the game gave you the option of lethality but it came with an admittedly weak disadvantage beyond the bog-standard one of "now you have less ammunition." I don't really have a problem with the game shooting for realistically graphic depictions of violence. The problem is that it's only applicable to enemies (and maybe the player character in a cutscene or two). Everyone harped on Uncharted having a ludonarrative dissonance problem but it doesn't. Last of Us does because mechanically it basically is Uncharted. Yeah Death Stranding shot itself in the foot a lot- DS is definitely trying to be commentary on violence and video games and its casualness but it falls on its face a lot, whereas I don't really care that much that Uncharted had a lot of violence because lots of violence is sort of part and parcel of rip-roaring adventure stories. DS gives you lethal weapons at a mid point in the game but, much like in Kojima's other games, aren't really superior to non lethal weapons in any way- there's no temptation to be a killer unless you actively decide to. Kojima also put in a bunch of sequences where all you can really do is shoot mans just like the games he's trying to criticize, but then that's part and parcel of the AAA 'violence is bad' bylines in stories for games that heavily feature violence. (see: farcry 3)
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May 9, 2020 19:20
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Zongerian posted:The lethal weapons in MGS are way better than the non lethal ones Past 1 that is not true in the slightest- pretty much any time you use a lethal weapon you actually then have to consider the body at the very least. Lethal weapons are more advantaged as MGS goes on and their action controls get better, but it's still almost always better to use non lethal means because they're much more effective in stealth situations.
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May 9, 2020 19:31
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One of the things i'll say is that the combat in the context of the more open areas is piss-easy. Honestly even in the setpieces they really don't pressure you very well. Giving the player a lot of ways to approach a combat is nice and all but it also means it's pretty trivial to win. I think it might've been a bit better to have the side areas in seattle be more like the bank than 'here have some free stuff' but i get trying to keep the tension low before you come across the WLF for real.
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Jun 20, 2020 16:05
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SIGSEGV posted:People made that game, I think, it used the Decima Engine IIRC, and even had Kojima involved. That game was also extremely up its own rear end and dumb, just in a different way. Also playing through the game it's very much uh "you're bad for doing the only thing i let you do in the game(mass murder), isn't this bad and evil?" in the same way far cry 3, spec ops the line, etc are. They're all terrible because they can't do anything but the thing they're trying to poo poo on.
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Jun 20, 2020 16:20
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The synagogue sequence is not subtle, but i didn't mind it too much in its context- a really slow part at the beginning of Seattle.
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Jun 20, 2020 16:41
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That's kinda stretching it- the stuff about comparing the zombie apocalypse to the Inquisition or the Holocaust is supported by the text of the game, though a bit reductive of the scene, but "there's possibly gas in the synagogue(which was being used by the WLF)" being turned into "haha the jews are hoarding gas in the apocalypse" is kinda bizarre to me.
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Jun 20, 2020 17:04
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RottenK posted:A thing I remember about trainwrecks like Andromeda or Anthem is that they would have defenders and detractors before release, but after coming out they'd sell like hotcakes at first because most gamers aren't actually online nerds like us and don't follow any of the news or online discourse, but then the games would quickly drop off as these people would start playing and see the game sucks. I think different people look for different things from their games and that's fine. The things that I found incredibly grating and ok boomer in Death Stranding other people found really profound. That's just how it is.
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Jun 20, 2020 18:27
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LostRook posted:So I know Neil thought the message was "revenge is bad," but is the actual message "revenge is so good that you need to be really thorough with it" because that's what it seems like. Honestly that's most of my problem with the game as i'm playing it. The situations are always conceived where they have a deliberate choice to finish it but they let the loose ends live which is why things keep going. It really muddies whatever point the story's trying to make. They actually added in some difficult fights which is nice.
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Jun 21, 2020 01:16
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Meme Emulator posted:Theres a deeper and more fundamental problem in that the third person shooter well has been tapped but thats all anyone knows how to make anymore yeah i guess if you only play the games on the top of the shelf in gamestop lol
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Jun 21, 2020 01:18
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Endorph posted:the issue i think is trying to have it both ways. the characters are meant to be driven by only revenge and thus violent sociopath (thats bad) but also the plot only keeps going because they show mercy or let people get away (this is good, going by the former being bad) but then more bad things happen because of that, so the message becomes that the bad things could have been prevented if theyd been more violent sociopaths yeah i would buy the idea that killing is tough enough as is if there wasn't so much dehumanizing behavior on display, especially in the gameplay- characters casually talk about mass executing their enemies which doesn't jive with the idea Meme Emulator posted:My bad dude!!!! I guess I have to painstakingly write out "In the AAA Gamespace" every time I make a statement like that so I dont get sniped at. After all functioning humans with brains will definitely think im talking about celeste or spelunky with that comment there's like a zillion games coming out every year, there's tons of choice
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Jun 21, 2020 01:23
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ErrEff posted:Imagine if Abby had also killed Ellie and Tommy when she's captured Joel. Both to finish up loose ends (nobody coming after you for Joel's murder) and to torture Joel even more (remember that she has someone bandage his first wounds, so her angle is very much "I will make you suffer" and this would fit into that very well). Yeah, it seems like that's something that logically should've happened given what that scene was like, though i don't mind not doing that, but they should've had Tommy out taking a piss and Ellie catching the aftermath and maybe killing one of them for the seattle clue.
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Jun 21, 2020 01:32
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I always found it bizarre that people thought that Joel ended the world in tlou1 when the game pretty much says it straight up that a vaccine wouldn't solve what's happening in pittsburg or baltimore or any of the other communities. It would make the world a better place, yes, but the stakes in that decision were not that high- they were interpersonal more than anything else. I do kinda feel like the beginning of seattle day 1 was insanely slow in an attempt to let joel's death marinate and it could easily have been interspersed with abby's day 1 to make it less tedious.
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Jun 22, 2020 12:18
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Onmi posted:That is really the lesson of this game. It's not that a cross-country revenge trip is a pointless murder grind that'll destroy you and cost you everything you love and hold dear. Yeah, I think that's by far the weakest part of the story. ND drew these societies and these people who have absolutely no problem killing the poo poo out of whoever they percieve to be their enemies but this is a discussion that happens in that room. I think the story construction would've been a lot better if the SLC crew had basically just shot Joel and ran off skittishly instead of trying to have the visual of the killing be an emotional beat. I'd find that a lot more believable if they're really worried about 'being like joel' than having a big philosophical argument. Then it'd be way easier to justify Tommy and Ellie living, just have Tommy out pissing and Ellie just finding the corpse- maybe she and Tommy go and kill a straggler for the clue to go to Seattle or something.
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Jun 22, 2020 13:55
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Dan Didio posted:That would be hugely deficit of drama. The drama of the scene generally comes from a place of character and there really wasn't much drama in it in the first place, mostly just shock value. This game over and over again in so many cutscenes basically says "if you try to spare someone they will come back and kill you" and not just in the big story moments, but, for example, whenever Ellie relents on killing a WLF she has a knife to the throat of, said WLF tries to kill her anyway.
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Jun 22, 2020 14:03
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Dan Didio posted:So? It would not have strained my credulity that people who are good beating a guy to death with a golf club would have all these qualms about killing someone they have at their mercy who's clearly not cowed by this display.
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Jun 22, 2020 14:09
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Oxxidation posted:that streamer is an idiot and you're none too sharp yourself for trying to use them as an example of a reasonable reaction to a scene in a video game yeah i kinda agree with that- there's things i don't like about it but i got through it and that's a bizarre reaction to have to it
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Jun 22, 2020 14:12
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Dan Didio posted:The whole 'Ellie kills a group of people, but not Abbie' thing would feel a lot more like a valid criticism if they were Fireflies or WLF or something rather than slavers who are actively trying to kill and enslave Ellie from the jump. Yeah the Rattlers are basically characterized as ruthlessly evil assholes from the start and if that's the gist people get from it, it can't be from what's actually in the game. Dan Didio posted:They don't know what's going to happen, they make a choice based on their moral code and their position and it ends up costing them sometimes. See, I buy Ellie going out to Seattle on a revenge run because she does not discriminate the same way(though the game never really gives her a chance to in any moment while she's in Seattle). I do not buy people with this kind of moral code going all the way to Jackson to get Joel and make it slow with a golf club in the first place.
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Jun 22, 2020 14:22
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davejk posted:The whole sequence with the Rattlers felt like a really weird inclusion. I assumed they'd do something like have Ellie and Abby work together to escape them and end up realising that revenge isn't worth it in the process, but no, they escape them and then still fight to the death on the beach. The Rattlers are just there to provide another set of combat sequences before you get to the last cutscene and they don't materially affect anything. Yeah. Though, i'll say i feel the game is a bit too long as is.
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Jun 22, 2020 14:45
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Dan Didio posted:I think a big problem is that they don't really have any introduction, and you learn a lot about them really, really fast while there's a lot else going on. Yeah, i don't know, I feel like their inclusion and the way the whole thing played out was the writers wanting you to have something you can feel good about Ellie doing, because going on ride 4 revenge 2 actually did a lot of good for everybody else except Ellie herself.
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Jun 22, 2020 14:53
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RottenK posted:I think that last bit you say is implied if you look at Abby's character during her part of the story. She's not particularly cruel and bloodthirsty outside of her revenge quest aimed at Joes specifically, it didn't feel out of character to me that she'd be uncomfortable with killing people that she sees as uninvolved bystanders and just leave hoping that they won't be crazy (and good at killing) enough to go after their group, especially since they're associated with and protected by a military force. Yeah, it's justifiable in the story, i think, and i'm kinda beginning to get more okay with the conceit, but i guess i just don't see someone who's only willing to kill one person going on this big revenge quest. CharlestonJew posted:I think if by some miracle killing Ellie did yield a vaccine and if they somehow had the resources to make and distribute more, once word got out every raider, warlord, and militia would be gunning for the Fireflies ASAP to take it for themselves. And seeing as how they got wiped out by one angry daddy they wouldn't have lasted long. Yeah, the whole thing is that humanity's largely already adapted to living in the world with the virus and fighting for the vaccine would be almost inevitable as the threat to humanity has more to do with the ineffectiveness of our institutions than anything to do with zombies.
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Jun 22, 2020 23:03
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FalconImpala posted:Would this game have been better if it were told in chronological order? Opens with the dinosaur scene, the resort scene, Ellie getting doubts about Joel, leaving for SLC and stating the central conflict, building the relationship with Dina....then Joel dies (with buildup) and we understand why Ellie is doing what she's doing. Rather than this stupid kind of mystery writing where she dodges every question. Honestly, I think there was too much Ellie in seattle in general.
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Jun 22, 2020 23:28
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I kinda feel like the epilogue in California would've been way stronger in a game where we played Ellie less or none at all- the Ellie parts of the story were the weakest but it would've been neat playing the murder machine against some psychos who had it coming.
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Jun 23, 2020 23:41
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Wulf posted:Does this one have any lore bits about what might be happening elsewhere in the world or what the military/FEDRA are up to except being authoritarian and losing quarantine zones over time? There's an implication that Las Vegas is completely overrun but still walled in effectively in Ellie's journal about heading to California for revenge quest 2.
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Jun 24, 2020 01:13
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Hideo kojima is a dumb writer and the big fanboys are even dumber.
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Jun 24, 2020 04:00
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JBP posted:He makes excellent gameplay to story decisions though. Which is why he makes you fight Cliff several times in his walking simulator or make you wait two hours before you even really get to begin.
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Jun 24, 2020 04:05
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What we need is the dumb hideo kojima thing where there's a blue gun that works exactly like the red gun but they call it 'non-lethal'
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Jul 2, 2020 15:45
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JustaDamnFool posted:Its not like there's even a major demand for the incisive critique of AAA games during release window anyway. What the majority of people seem to want is just a weird mix of product review and a general thumbs up, and stepping outside that invites harrassment from various corners. I remember the reactions when someone gave Death Stranding a less than amazing review for the first time.
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Jul 4, 2020 18:47
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