|
God-loving-damnit Jesse.
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 06:36
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 02:57 |
|
|
el oso posted:Is there any way to download the OST to anything that's NOT the PS4 if you pre-ordered the deluxe version? if it's like other games, probably not. you can transfer it to a USB stick though, I think, and get it to a computer that way. at least I did that with the TLOU1 soundtrack back in the day
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 06:46
|
|
|
RatHat posted:God-loving-damnit Jesse. What in particular? Also, is it just me who's noticed just how much more friendly and comfortable and functional Abby's conversations with her friends are, while even talking with her buddies Ellie is melancholic, depressed and unhappy-seeming at seemingly all times? Hell, even Lev, despite being from a faction she's been out to kill the entire game and who were raised to kill her since seemingly birth, is almost immediately Uncharted-level friendly banter. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Jul 6, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 06:56
|
|
Jetrauben posted:What in particular? The way Ellie's game starts all kinds of people in the town happily greet Ellie just like they greet Abbie walking through the base as far as I could tell. Ellie's start is after she had some uncomfortable poo poo go down the very previous night at a party that she seemed possibly hung over from. Also seeing that she wasn't feeling good about what with her making out with her friends recent ex and all, and Joel starting some poo poo after someone made a comment. With Abbie it's just another day where nothing particular has gone down in the last few days except that she had to bunk elsewhere so her buddy could get laid? The townspeople treated Ellie perfectly fine and the one person that made an off screen comment to her got dressed down by his own wife who took Ellies side. The man apologized, and from body language and demeanor seemed legitimately ashamed of his behavior. The two can't really be compared easily when we first met them because the two seem to be waking up from two very different experiences the previous night.
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 07:29
|
|
|
BitBasher posted:The way Ellie's game starts all kinds of people in the town happily greet Ellie just like they greet Abbie walking through the base as far as I could tell. Ellie's start is after she had some uncomfortable poo poo go down the very previous night at a party that she seemed possibly hung over from. Also seeing that she wasn't feeling good about what with her making out with her friends recent ex and all, and Joel starting some poo poo after someone made a comment. With Abbie it's just another day where nothing particular has gone down in the last few days except that she had to bunk elsewhere so her buddy could get laid? The townspeople treated Ellie perfectly fine and the one person that made an off screen comment to her got dressed down by his own wife who took Ellies side. The man apologized, and from body language and demeanor seemed legitimately ashamed of his behavior. Yeah, I think like... Ok, the way I'd put it is this way: It feels like Ellie and Abby inhabit different narrative worlds. Ellie inhabits an even darker descent into damnation than the first Last of Us, where violence is horrific and scarring, clean consciences are a rarity, and everyone is a traumatized wreck. Isolation is constant (because she naturally leaves her supportive community early on!) and damning. Abby - so far - lives in a slightly gloomier post-apocalyptic Uncharted, where folks crack jokes and make friends quickly and violence is just How You Solve Assholes. I've mentioned before how much Abby feels infinitely more empowering and badass than Ellie, whose stealth-oriented gameplay and mostly strictly weaker tools make playing her feel ugly, desperate and frenzied, and facing aggressively humanized and extremely diverse mooks. Abby, by contrast, is a badass shooting at absolutely justified targets: a bunch of transphobic, primitivist religious fanatics who are largely undeserving of pity. Her game opens with an action-heavy badass running shootout while accompanied by friends and even a drat dog. (Now it's possible I'm assuming that their transphobia and child-bride practices are more condemnatory than the game feels they are.) Ellie's interactions even with Dina and Jessie, her close friends, are awkward and uncomfortable throughout the game so far, because Ellie is herself a deeply depressed and insecure person. Abby, by contrast, gets super open and friendly interactions with a large cast of quirky easygoing youngsters. She gets a rapid succession barrage of soft sweet interludes of meet cute/cute dates, and once she meets Lev and Yara she - again, in an almost Uncharted-level turn - immediately decides she needs to Make Up For Her Wrongs, and forms an easy cameraderie with a boy who has Gone Through Some Awful poo poo from a faction who have been practically raised since birth to hate and distrust all outsiders. The end result is an opening that feels far more "optimistic" and good-feeling than even the first Last of Us. And that's obviously deliberate, of course. But it's also weird when you know it's happening. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 07:47 on Jul 6, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 07:45
|
|
|
Jetrauben posted:
I'd really have to disagree here. After discussing this poo poo w/r/t newgame+ on survivor with another TLOU factions veteran, Ellie is the one who comes off more prepared and fleshed out in combat. Mollies, nailbombs, and explosive arrows are an incredible arsenal, and Ellie has skills for quicker stealth kills AND 'last chance' hit survival type scenarios, not to mention she doesn't have to divert parts away from her melee weapon in order to craft shivs for all this business. Ellie hands down has more options and anything to the contrary is just projection imo; Abby was put together the way she is to kind of demonstrate a bit of an accelerating difficulty arc in the 2nd half with fewer options on purpose. Also Owen is completely in love with Abby the whole way through, no exception. I don't think you're reading the room all that well here lol
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 07:47
|
|
|
Hemish posted:Well, what a game. My playthrough took 31 hours and I'm kind of bummed that I don't have more time in this universe and these characters. I read your wall! If you lived near STL I'd go out for drinks so we could chat! Wow, it didn't click for me, that part in the ending, but after reading your post, it hits home even harder. Thanks! I hope there is one more sequel, with an uplifting story to finish the series off with. I'm working my way toward the Platinum trophy now, it's fun seeing the scenes again so quickly after beating the game the first time. They still seem like a lifetime ago though!
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 07:48
|
|
|
BeanpolePeckerwood posted:I'd really have to disagree here. After discussing this poo poo w/r/t newgame+ on survivor with another TLOU factions veteran, Ellie is the one who comes off more prepared and fleshed out in combat. Mollies, nailbombs, and explosive arrows are an incredible arsenal, and Ellie has skills for quicker stealth kills AND 'last chance' hit survival type scenarios, not to mention she doesn't have to divert parts away from her melee weapon in order to craft shivs for all this business. Ellie hands down has more options and anything to the contrary is just projection imo; Abby was put together the way she is to kind of demonstrate a bit of an accelerating difficulty arc in the 2nd half with fewer options on purpose. Is it weird I largely find Abby's toolkit a lot more useful, and doubly so given it encourages stand-up fights over ugly knife-murdering from bushes? And yeah, I know Owen loves Abby, I just think it's pretty scummy of him and undermines his whole moral putting on airs, heh.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 07:49
|
|
|
Jetrauben posted:What in particular? Yes, this is the point.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 07:49
|
|
|
Jetrauben posted:Is it weird I largely find Abby's toolkit a lot more useful, and doubly so given it encourages stand-up fights over ugly knife-murdering from bushes? I mean, it's not exactly weird. The themes of the story are woven with the mechanics, but you are projecting.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 07:50
|
|
|
BeanpolePeckerwood posted:Yes, this is the point. I'm aware, as I said above, it's just... It's an interesting trick, and one I simultaneously admire the craft of and also actually kind of resent to see the strings pulling me. As I said above, it feels like it tries to get you to like Abby and forget the monstrous thing she started the game doing - betrayal and torture of a man who saved her life, even leaving aside my requisite gently caress The Fireflies and Jerry Too opinion - by basically submerging you into more comfortable narrative universes than Ellie inhabits, because it can't do so otherwise. It's switching the trappings of its moral universe rather than actually breaking it down into a complex set of discussions of comparative ethical or emotional stances. Like, it's a neat bit of storytelling shorthand and masteful ludonarrative synthesis, but I'm really not sure I agree with what it's trying to get me to feel, and it does end up leaving a weird bad taste in my mouth. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Jul 6, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 07:51
|
|
|
I mean for sure the game is using Von Trier levels of provocation at times; audience manipulation often engenders varying degrees of respect and resentment depending on the individual and their particular relationship with both cinematic language and narrative symbolism.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 07:58
|
|
|
Jetrauben posted:ludonarrative synthesis omg, I'm like weirdly happy to see this term I have no idea why
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 08:00
|
|
|
BeanpolePeckerwood posted:I mean for sure the game is using Von Trier levels of provocation at times; audience manipulation often engenders varying degrees of respect and resentment depending on the individual and their particular relationship with both cinematic language and narrative symbolism. Basically, so far... It feels as much that the game is condemning Ellie's understandable reaction to a horrific murder, and her general depression, because she inexplicably lives in a world about three steps further down the Grimdark Spectrum than Abby, as it does because of the actual moral standings of the respective women, because Abby only seems healthier and more pleasant because she's got a larger and more supportive community during the course of the game. She and her friends absolutely deserve payback, under the very laws of vendetta they themselves followed to kill Joel. Abby is seemingly just more "morally superior" because she's less depressed, in the eyes of the game, and happened to acquire an objective moral good of a quest in protecting Lev from bigots. BeanpolePeckerwood posted:omg, I'm like weirdly happy to see this term I have no idea why Hey, I appreciate good design-as-storytelling-tool. It's just harder to be entirely on board with it when you're cognizant of the manipulation and feel ambivalent about the conclusion. But the craft? Masterful. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Jul 6, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 08:02
|
|
|
Welp, finally reached the hospital as Abby. I'm sure the game *wants* me to have felt real bad about having killed these dudes, but joke's on you, game, my Ellie stealthed by these guys and their dog! Yeah, that's right game, you got NOTHING on me, you can't guilt me with a dog-with-the-same-name-as-my-old-dog's adorable face as Abby pets him, you jerks, because *I* cunningly snuck by the entire patrol with great difficulty. I feel NO guilt! Bear LIVES in my playthrough!
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 09:07
|
|
|
I honestly can't wait to hear your thoughts at the end of the game. Not being sarcastic or anything I just want to see where someone who hates Abby this much lands when all is said and done.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 09:34
|
|
|
veni veni veni posted:I honestly can't wait to hear your thoughts at the end of the game. Not being sarcastic or anything I just want to see where someone who hates Abby this much lands when all is said and done. I wanna make it clear here: It's not even that I hate Abby, I don't. I think what she's doing for Lev is admirable, and I respect her basic humanity. In the abstract she's pretty likable in her own right, partly because whereas Ellie is a traumatized wreck of a teenage girl, Abby is basically a wisecracking Uncharted protagonist. This is not incompatible with my observing that she absolutely deserves to suffer for what she did! Or even my belief that she's kind of abruptly making a massive switch from "the woman who tortured a man to death and wanted to torture prisoners for fun" to "heroically daring absolute nightmares for the sake of two people she literally just met." I just also feel like Abby's moral actions towards Lev, and the construction of her scenario, are constructed in such a way as to rapidly pull a radical trick on the player. It's basically less an "I hate Abby!" and more "I see what you're doing, game. I see how you're deliberately constructing this to shift my allegiances through indirect and subconscious means. And I respect it, but I'm also not forgetting what you kinda want me to forget." It's fundamentally a bit of a bait and switch, even if it's in service of a thematic point. Edit: Basically, we're shown Abby mostly on some of the most admirable days of her life, as contrasted with some of the worst days of Ellie's life, and sort of expected to flip our perspectives of protagonist and antagonist based entirely on this. Also, just faced the Rat King. That was, well, awful, and took me a few tries. But that said: what the gently caress are the WLF doing? Seriously, what have they been doing with their years, aside from pointlessly picking fights with another faction? Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 10:07 on Jul 6, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 09:53
|
|
|
veni veni veni posted:I honestly can't wait to hear your thoughts at the end of the game. Not being sarcastic or anything I just want to see where someone who hates Abby this much lands when all is said and done. Regarding this is gameplay terms for the big shakeup Abby has the best guns and the power wrestling moves so gently caress everyone else she's the best.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 10:12
|
|
|
JBP posted:Regarding this is gameplay terms for the big shakeup Abby has the best guns and the power wrestling moves so gently caress everyone else she's the best. If they really wanted to make players like Abby, they should have given her a Leon Kennedy style suplex
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 10:19
|
|
|
RatHat posted:God-loving-damnit Jesse. Same
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 10:20
|
|
|
JBP posted:Regarding this is gameplay terms for the big shakeup Abby has the best guns and the power wrestling moves so gently caress everyone else she's the best. I found her choking out movie way less satisfying then stabbing someone with a knife. I know you can eventually craft shivs but it wasn't the same and that doesn't happen til way later anyway
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 10:23
|
|
|
Jetrauben posted:What in particular? For me at least i was just mad he was killed off. He was ride or die with Ellie. He seemed like a general good character out of the last of us universe. They regressed Tommy from his TLoU1 arc so it made me sad they killed off Jesse.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 10:25
|
|
|
Macaluso posted:I found her choking out movie way less satisfying then stabbing someone with a knife. I know you can eventually craft shivs but it wasn't the same and that doesn't happen til way later anyway It's weird, but I actually found it a lot less squicky. The sheer ugliness of Ellie's knife being used to dispatch someone - how weirdly drawn out it is compared to the equally tiny shivs - horrifies me. Rabid Snake posted:For me at least Yeah, it did kind of feel cheap to be honest, but I mean, that's the sort of narrative they're in. That said, Tommy doesn't have to have positive growth to be a regression. He was never actually a dynamic character in the first game. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 10:46 on Jul 6, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 10:25
|
|
|
Jetrauben posted:What in particular? Just when he first shows up on Day 2 and the fuckin' car plan.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 11:16
|
|
|
Jetrauben posted:That said, Tommy doesn't have to have positive growth to be a regression. He was never actually a dynamic character in the first game. I find it weird that people found this way out of left field for Tommy- once you see what happens to him at Dina and Ellie's, I think it makes sense that when he was trying to convince Ellie not to go, he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince her, and he does the same death ride to Seattle, destroying his marriage to do it. He was absolutely hosed up by his brother's death and the hunting down of Abby's location and his manipulation at Ellie seems reasonable for a guy who's got nothing else left after his wife left him.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 12:58
|
|
|
Well I beat this over the weekend. I can't remember how quickly I turned against a game. It definitely lost all of the good will I had after the climax. After the fight in the movie theater, Ellie and Dina bleeding out I was pretty high on the game. A good if not great "boss" fight and a real sense of "what comes next", just like the ending of TLOU. Then the game kept going, and going. The farm sequences were a pretty big tonal whiplash from that climax. Sixty to zero in one cut to black. Still they had their moments, it was good to establish Ellie as a quasi mother figure, someone trying to move on. Then Tommy arrives. Tommy arriving and pulling Ellie back in (while I can understand from a character perspective) was basically the last straw gameplay wise for me. The whole rest of the game was me not giving a poo poo about Ellie or the game. I was on board with the character needing to complete this cycle of vengenance but I had no more desire to play it. The game even realizes this by giving you a goddamn silenced SMG and slavers. All pretense of storytelling goes out the door and it turns power fantasy. Ellie gets a punctured side, Ellie gets bit, but she keeps going. Ellie slows down as her wounds catch up to her (but she still loving lives somehow). Having another boss fight against Abby was the biggest gently caress you. The melee only boss fights suck, flat out. It should have been a cutscene. Here's the thing, when Bioshock did the forced to make bad decisions in 2007 it was novel. Here the game just wants you to feel bad. I already felt bad, I don't need a loving poorly made fistfight I have to win to then "lose". So great, Ellie's on a beach having spared Abby. Well, great game, that's an ending. But wait, there's more. We get the guitar playing (which while a cool mechanic to show what Ellie lost had zero effect on me because the game wouldn't loving end) and the Joel/Ellie scene. So Joel and Ellie made up and the entire premise of the game (Ellie's crazy murder rage based upon the fact she never got to make amends to Joel) is based on editing lies. Ellie did make up with Joel! Their last interaction they make up. They're in a good place and ready to watch more movies and have a life together. Losing that's terrible, but not murder 200 people terrible. Playing the game pre- this knowledge I didn't agree with Ellie's murder spree, but I understood that rage of losing someone and not getting closure. At the end you get "Nah, Ellie's just a piece of poo poo, even more than you already knew." The game had a really good ending moment and decided that adding in more and making things explicit was better than "what ifs" or "what's next". Unfortunate I think the answers it provided were medicore at best and ruined an otherwise enjoyable game.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 15:05
|
|
|
Ellie most certainly did not have closure. She was just making her first steps towards forgiveness but both characters acknowledged that she had a long way to go. The fact that she'd made progress towards closure only to have had it ripped away was much worse for her.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 15:19
|
|
|
stev posted:Ellie most certainly did not have closure. She was just making her first steps towards forgiveness but both characters acknowledged that she had a long way to go. The fact that she'd made progress towards closure only to have had it ripped away was much worse for her. If it made things so much worse you show that at the beginning of the game, to ramp up the emotional tension, not at the end when Ellie's getting closure. I can buy your thought process here, if the editing supported it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 15:23
|
|
|
Belial42 posted:
have you just never watched anything where you find out something tragic at the end or e: like the whole editing of Ellie's arc is "why is she fighting so much for this when it's clear their relationship was on the rocks/over?" based on the scenes you see with her finding out the truth about SLC, and then you find out it's because she finally decided to try and get him back in her life after two years and he was murdered by Abby the next day morallyobjected fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Jul 6, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 18:31
|
|
|
So I rewatched a couple cutscenes from early parts and the end of the original game just out of curiosity, I meant to replay it before 2 came out but couldn't find the time in the end so wanted to refresh my memory of a few things. So the initial Ellie/Joel meeting, she seems a lot closer to Marlene than I remember, genuinely concerned about her injury and Marlene mentions that she was close to Ellies mother and promised to look after her. I'd completely forgotten that. It's weird how little any of that gets brought up in the rest of 1 (spoilers for 2 I guess) or in 2, the fireflies in general obviously do but Marlene doesn't really get mentioned beyond the cutscene she is in with Abby's dad which sort of ties into my below point. Also, the fireflies really treat Joel like poo poo when he turns up, they knock him out, which almost gets Ellie killed and then wake him up just to tell him Ellie is gonna have to die. Like...... why do that? Just leave him out cold for a couple more hours and then tell him she died from drowning or an accident with the procedure which "oh man that definitely shouldn't have killed her, how did that happen?" or something. Or just shoot him while he's out since Marlene seems to be pretty fine with that given she tells the soldier guy "walk him out of here, shoot him if he tries anything" and that dude is like a massive prick who is clearly aching to shoot Joel. Probably should have given how that goes for him and the rest of them really. thebardyspoon fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Jul 6, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 18:52
|
|
|
morallyobjected posted:have you just never watched anything where you find out something tragic at the end or To me, the tragedy had already happened, Joel and Ellie making up didn't really have an emotional impact, other than what I said earlier, it made me like Ellie even less. I'd also argue the best tragedy comes from the audience knowing the important detail before the character, not vice versa. Oedipus' is tragedy because the audience knows before Oedipus and watches his actions with two different readings of the scene. TLOU2 puts you through a 30 hour game to go "You thought it was this, but it was that". Does changing why Ellie's mad about the death of Joel make for a satisfying ending? Not really, not to me. My biggest issue with that placement is Naughty Dog put me, the player, in a position where I had to go through a lot of bullshit to get an ending. I had to go through a random slaver camp killing people with no backstory other than "lol slavers", I had to slow walk down to a beach, I had to cut down Abby, I had to go through a lovely punch fight twice, since I failed once. The game put me in a state where I didn't care. It took every good thought I had about the same, and I loving raved about this to my friends (pre end of Day 3-2) and threw it down the toilet. If TLOU ended with me asking questions (Does Ellie know? How will they live?) TLOU2 ends with answers I didn't want, and if there are questions (How are Abby and Lev, how's Dina?) I don't really care. I don't need any more of any of these characters.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 19:08
|
|
|
I'll definitely post some more endgame spoiler plot thoughts later, but real quick, regarding the last major playable section of the game (no plot discussion, only gameplay): I reached a moment about halfway through it where I was like "why am I looking for trading cards? why am I looking for ammo and poo poo when nothing is difficult? why am I playing the game this way? Why am I not just ending it? And that was pretty interesting.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 19:11
|
|
|
Belial42 posted:To me, the tragedy had already happened, Joel and Ellie making up didn't really have an emotional impact, other than what I said earlier, it made me like Ellie even less. I'd also argue the best tragedy comes from the audience knowing the important detail before the character, not vice versa. Oedipus' is tragedy because the audience knows before Oedipus and watches his actions with two different readings of the scene. TLOU2 puts you through a 30 hour game to go "You thought it was this, but it was that". Does changing why Ellie's mad about the death of Joel make for a satisfying ending? Not really, not to me. I think you're misreading that scene. Ellie didn't forgive Joel. She tells him she's going to try to forgive him. She's still really pissed at him for what she views as robbing her life of meaning, but part of her understands why he did it and she doesn't want to completely cut him out of her life for it. Abby comes in and violently ends the healing process before it can really begin and that's what Ellie's so mad about. More than just killing her surrogate father figure, Abby robbed her of the chance to reconnect with him and come to terms with what he had done for her. The game is presented as a quest for revenge but by the end it is also a quest for meaning. That ending cinematic does not change her motivation - it clarifies it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 19:27
|
|
|
factions when
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 19:37
|
|
|
Donovan Trip posted:factions when I feel like the NPC name callouts will be in Factions 2 and it'll be hilarious "BEHIND THE VAN! SHE'S GOT A GRENADE LAUNCHER!"
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 19:44
|
|
|
Oh gently caress, I just realized that's probably exactly accurate because those callouts would serve as Accessibility Options for those with poor vision. You will probably be able to turn up or down the frequency of them on your end.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 19:46
|
|
|
Donovan Trip posted:factions when I've been sending Naughty Dog tons of death threats about this and they haven't even responded. Customer service just isn't what it used to be.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 19:48
|
|
|
veni veni veni posted:I've been sending Naughty Dog tons of death threats about this and they haven't even responded. Customer service just isn't what it used to be. It would be masterful if the ultimate rewards for playing a ton of Factions are skins that let you play as Ellie and Abby in that mode
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 19:53
|
|
|
Donovan Trip posted:factions when I’m thinking of checking out TLoU factions to get that sweet plat and I’m intimidated by the time requirement.
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 20:01
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 02:57 |
|
|
veni veni veni posted:I've been sending Naughty Dog tons of death threats about this and they haven't even responded. Customer service just isn't what it used to be. Wow. Class action time
|
|
#
?
Jul 6, 2020 20:18
|
|