Anarchic Fox on 23/8/2020 at 02:45
Quote Posted by icemann
Angry Joe for example received that kind of treatment.
Angry Joe's chill. He can shrug off just about anything. We're talking about the man who tore Richard Garriott's studio to pieces on camera, after all.
Mr.Duck on 27/8/2020 at 00:26
Finished it last night. Enjoyed it from start to finish, even if I do have niggles with the pacing, a few story beats and the final act does feel a bit forced (and no, I don't really mind Ellie not killig Abby, same goes about playing as Abby and all the other bullcrap controversial stuff).
Gameplay was same ol'2012, but refined; nothing extraordinary, just more polished with large environments that gave me room to pick'em one by one quietly or go ham on their asses or both.
In short: fuck the haters.
Love,
Me.
<3
Thirith on 8/9/2020 at 12:37
Over the weekend I made it to the farm and beyond, and I'm really enjoying the hugely different aesthetic and atmosphere in California. In general, in terms of creating a world that looks and feels real and tactile, yet it also evokes specific moods, Naughty Dog is second to none. They've again created a set of environments that feel unique while also forming a cohesive whole, and I love how they do so without being showy about it.
Thirith on 11/9/2020 at 07:57
Just finished the game this morning. It's definitely fantastic craftsmanship and great character-driven storytelling by Naughty Dog, but I don't think it tops the first game. I don't even think it comes near that perfect final scene between Ellie and Joel with all its ambiguities. Basically, I come away from it feeling I've played An Eye For An Eye Makes The Whole World Blind: The Game. Differently from the first game, I felt like the game was being very obvious about what I was supposed to feel throughout. It does so very well, but in the end I don't think that what TLOU2 added was all that essential. It was good, certainly, it was engaging and effectively presented, but it lacks the thing I like best about the first game, which that scene between Joel and Ellie and her last line, "Okay", and cut to black did so brilliantly.
henke on 11/9/2020 at 08:32
Yup, same.
Tony_Tarantula on 11/9/2020 at 11:42
Tried to rent this and play it.
I hate it. The character so far are unlikeable assholes. Not in the “He's an asshole, What the hell made him this way?” Type like a Guts or Cloud but more of an “You're just awful” way like the cast of a sitcom where they really want you to think these people being awful makes them cool.
Sulphur on 12/9/2020 at 13:23
Quote Posted by Thirith
It was good, certainly, it was engaging and effectively presented, but it lacks the thing I like best about the first game, which that scene between Joel and Ellie and her last line, "Okay", and cut to black did so brilliantly.
I get where you're coming from, but would anyone really appreciate a sequel that repeats that sort of narrative beat?
I finished it today, and I'm certainly not going to praise it as a classic or hyperventilate over it being a crowning glory of the generation. What I can say is going to take some time, so maybe for another day; but all in all I found it valuable for a couple of things it did, not least of all at the surface level: its absolutely insane OCD-level attention to graphical detail. People probably talk about the graphics as, 'yeah, they're great as expected', but that's unfairly minimising the amount of work that's gone into it. The sheer visual heft and density of every area is possibly unparallelled in gaming at this point right now, from both the micro scale and the macro scale. I certainly can't think of a game on console or PC that implements these tiny details like having you travel beneath a bridge during a rainstorm, and the rivulets of water trickling from underneath it blowing in the same direction as the gusts of wind triggered during the squall. But then there's the
rest of it. It's ridiculous. It's amazing. This game has the most lovingly crafted visuals I've ever seen, on any gaming machine ever.
Thirith on 12/9/2020 at 13:43
I don't think they needed to repeat that narrative beat, but what we got instead was simply less interesting IMO. We got *less*, narratively speaking, less ambiguity and nuance. What we got instead was IMO a pretty good continuation of the plot, and I'm okay with that, but I can't help but be somewhat disappointed in that respect. For me, the first game set a very high standard against which I compare the second game, and that's why I come away thinking that this didn't do quite as well in one or two key aspects as the original The Last of Us. Though even here I would say that Naughty Dog is one of my favourite companies when it comes to characterisation. I thought they did some pretty impressive things with the last Uncharted as well, even while they were somewhat hampered by the retcons that tend to come with "How on earth can we continue this story in interesting ways?"
I fully agree with you about the graphics, and in general the game's use of visuals and of sound. It's not just surface-level bells and whistles: the world feels *real* in a way that I've never seen before. And it doesn't even do so in a showy way, by and large; I've found myself being quietly awed by interiors that manage to come across as lived in, real places while genuinely feeling like they've been abandoned for many, many years. There are so many details on so many levels of the game's graphics and audio that don't stand out if you don't look out for them, but that add to just how amazingly tactile TLOU2 feels.
Sulphur on 12/9/2020 at 13:59
Agreed on the less interesting. I have a strong suspicion that the entire game was a reaction to the whole ludonarrative dissonance conversation that traces back to Uncharted 2. Uncharted 4 started a terse acknowledgment of Drake not being such a sunny guy, and TLoU 2's entire narrative conceit works as an examination of what all these bullets in games are being traded for. I don't think it succeeded particularly well in that goal, but even within this slightly contrived framework there are some undoubtedly strong bits if you look at them from the perspective of commentary.
SubJeff on 11/12/2020 at 18:04
I've just finished this.
I love it. Love, love, love it.
The first one had a great story but this is was, to me, something else. The different perspectives were fab and I'm gonna say it - I love Abby. What a direction to take it. I've a friend who loved the first one who won't play this as he sees it as some sort of bowing to a SJW agenda. I disagree. I thought it was bold, exciting, unexpected and thoroughly refreshing.
Note: I avoided almost all the spoilers and only got the briefest impression of the backlash (by asshats, I'm sure now) over Abby.
It's crushingly tragic, in every way, but I thought it was so well told. I really think they nailed this and I'm struggling right now to thing of any game, or game series, that has such a mature story. The end of the first one was tremendous. The end of this tops it, imho. Yeah Sulphur, it doesn't have that stark fade to black, but it's an evolution not a re-attempt at the same thing.
I haven't even mentioned the gameplay. Yeah, it's well crafted and of course the graphics and design are indeed "the most lovingly crafted visuals I've ever seen" (thanks for that Sulphur). Every part of it - every part - is gorgeous. I just wonder what other environments, real or not, realistic or fantastical, these artists could make.
I see it's just won some awards and that Abby's and Ellie's voice actresses were up against each other. Abby winning is pretty cool, because a lot of (incels? assholes?) moan about her but she's obvs popular enough to win. She was so badass and so well fleshed out. At the start I had a very different impression/feel about her (natch) but by the end... I'm not sure which character I was really rooting for.
I'm playing Uncharted 1 Remastered on PS4 in parallel. Gawd it seems weak af in comparison.