Last of Us - Game discussion with spoilers

[Fuzz]

Since no one else is bothering...discuss the game here, keep it out of the show thread.

[Buff]

I suck at it. I'm stuck trying to kill the bloater in Chapter 5... I'm on easy level. I used to be good at gaming now I'm just too old to figure out these new fangled darned gadgets.

[timun]

^I finished TLOU2 recently, and I'm not ashamed to admit I changed the difficulty from 'moderate' to 'very easy' about half-way through the game. I wanted to see the end of the narrative more than "enjoy the challenge of the gameplay", and I'm too ####ing old and busy to "git gud" at games anymore. I started a replay on 'hard' a few weeks ago, and will slowly finish it.



That said, w.r.t. the bloater in the hotel basement: 1) use Molotov cocktails, as they're far more susceptible to damage from fire than from bullets, or 2) just run up the stairs, past all the infected, and use the keycard at the door to exit the area! The latter is how I eventually did it.

[pseudoreality]

I just finished this game. So now I might get around to watching the show. I'll play part 2 come Christmas. Although it was grim, nothing in the game story shocked me.

[Hemi-Cuda]

TLOU2's gameplay is fine, the story and themes of the cost of revenge are fine, and anyone complaining about Ellie's sexual orientation are simply losers. The problem I had with the game is that it's absolutely joyless. I realize TLOU is a really dark universe, but at least the first game broke up the depression with some light moments. Playing as the hardass Joel with a young and naive Ellie who's seeing the world for the first time was a great balance. But in the second game Ellie is stripped of any happiness she had and is more hate filled than Joel ever was and there's nothing to balance that out. In the first game the really dark moments (Sam & Henry, cannibal camp) hit hard because of that balance, but in the 2nd game it's just execution after execution and they lose any emotional weight

I've played the first game twice through and will make it 3 whenever the remake goes on a good sale, but one time through TLOU2 is more than enough

[getbak]

Is this for discussing the second game or discussing how the show will handle the storylines from the second game?

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by getbak

Is this for discussing the second game or discussing how the show will handle the storylines from the second game?

It's for keeping all the game talk out of the show thread, becuase people are incompetent.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

It's for keeping all the game talk out of the show thread, becuase people are incompetent.

So, game only? No show talk?

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by getbak

So, game only? No show talk?

LOL, talk about whatever you want in here, it's to keep the game conversation out of the show thread, becuase people can't follow simple instructions. The only reason i even came back in this thread is to see WTF is being talked about here, since Corsi is having trouble with the concept. Talk about the show, game, cereal box collectibles, I don't care.

[timun]

Copied from the TV series thread:

Originally Posted by Shazam

What did people not like about the second game? I watched the cutscenes and it's fine.

Originally Posted by CroFlames

I haven't played it but the main character is part of a marginalized minority community that incels don't appreciate.

So they flooded the internet with comments of disdain.

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Hard to discuss without talking about the 2nd game but I think the hate has more to do with various factors:

[...] The story is about interpersonal hatred and how far you would take vengeance for just about everybody involved with massive kill counts. The first game had a glimmer of hope that you were trying to make an effort to make the world a better place in the end. I don't care for this at all. It's clever but I'd rather play almost anything else than to go home and play something depressing and emotionally disturbing.

I have heard the first and second game's themes being contrasted as "what one man would do for love" and "what two women would do for hate (or vengeance)".

I had this to say about the second game's conclusion in the TV series thread:

Originally Posted by timun

I recently completed Part II, and I won't lie: I didn't even want to finish the game's final conflict. I think that's why, at least in part, the second game was received somewhat controversially. Ellie makes regrettable decisions that I as player did not want to carry out.

The whole point of the two games is ultimately, to me, to be left wondering "is the decision this character chose 'right'?" Joel's choices in the first one to mow down the Fireflies, save Ellie, and lie to her about it are interesting ones because it begs questions like "could he have found another way to go about this and not kill all those people?" and "if he truly loves Ellie, can't he find a way to tell her the truth rather than straight-up lie about it?", and of course "what would I have done if I was in that situation?" And I liked that the second game's narrative tied directly into this and showed that even in a post-apocalyptic world these sorts of choices have consequences.

But that said, the second game consists of a series of choices that I—and I think a lot of other players—absolutely would not have made. Or at least eventually, after a certain point, I wouldn't have made them. Joel's choices were somewhat limited in that he had few options, and critically I felt like he never would have had the option to walk away. Ellie and Abby could have walked away from their respective vendettas at pretty much any time, and quite purposefully didn't. I as player didn't want to go through with the game's actions and story near the end, because I would have walked away. And I think that's really bad storytelling, when you put a controller in a player's hands and make them go through with something they are half-heartedly doing for the sake of the game's completion.

It was also quite difficult for me to sympathize with Abby in the first place, not just because of the narrative jumping back and forward in time and thus not presenting as cogent a storyline as they could have, but because of the choices she makes being... awful. With Joel I felt like he was ultimately a 'good' guy who did 'bad' things, whereas there was a lot to dislike about Abby aside from her actions against Joel/Ellie. Even within her own friend group she was a bit of a POS, especially her relationships between Mel and Owen.

[Locke]

Look at you....starting threads like they're free!

[Minnie]

I would like to have Catalina Island DLC, to see what happens to Abby & Lev.

I've done a run through of TLOU2 with a LOT of help from my daughter. I'm replaying it now, trying to do as much of it on my own as I can. I'm impatient though, I don't much care about the cut scenes, I just want to blow up/murder the infected. That amuses my daughter to no end, apparently.

[photon]

I played TLOU on PC and really enjoyed it. Now I can watch the show to compare.

[I_H8_Crawford]

I enjoyed TLOU 2, except I just couldn't play through as Abby. Credit to the writers for making me care so much about the other characters, but really - f*** Abby. Was loving Ellie's quest for revenge so much, then to pull a switch like that... just couldn't do it.

I didn't want to keep Abby alive. Ended up watching the cutscenes on YouTube to see how it ended. I am curious to see how it plays out on television, I wonder if the reaction to her won't be so visceral since you didn't get to PLAY as Joel up until that point.

[Minnie]

Yeah, when I played, I hated Abby from start to finish. My daughter said she grew to like Abby by the end. The only props I can give Abby is her relationship with Lev. That part of the storyline seems unfinished, which is why I'd like to see DLC for Catalina - I don't like hanging threads, but I don't like Abby at all.

[devo22]

I ended up liking Abby a lot as a character. Obviously the game sets her up as the villain as much as possible before it shifts to her point of view, but that changed for me with time. And that cutscene where she finds her dad always gets me.

it's all about perspective. We love Ellie because we spent so much time with her in the first game and we hate Abby because she kills Joel and Jessie. But if you look at it through a different lens, Ellie goes on a bloody rampage and kills everyone in her path, whereas Abby spares Ellie and Tommy in Jackson and later spares Ellie and Dina again in Seattle (at the behest of Lev, but still).

I know a lot of people didn't like that Ellie spares her in the end, but it makes sense to me. It's about finally getting to make a choice (whereas pretty much all the choices in her life had been made by somebody else up to this point), it's about ending the cycle of violence and revenge, and it's about forgiveness. Not even forgiving Abby necessarily, but Joel and herself.

[PepsiFree]

I do feel like I owe the second game another shot given how many people enjoyed it while I found it absolutely miserable.

I think a part of that is probably the timing of it coming out right when COVID was in full swing and the world really just seemed depressing and bleak (despite the beautiful renditions of “Imagine” or whatever).

[btimbit]

Yeah I do think giving it another go might do the trick Pepsi. I think I benefited from not playing it right away, and knowing that some people hated it and being armed with the knowledge that it was intentionally written to make you hate aspects of it at first made it easier for me to come around on those same things.

[devo22]

I do think I benefitted from going into it completely blind. I had never played the first game before right when the second one came out, and I played them back-to-back with no previous info but "it's a game about zombies".

I will also say that I'm very thankful I hadn't even seen any trailer because that one trailer for the second game where they switched characters was an absolute dick move. I certainly would have been pissed if I had seen that and played the game afterwards. Knowing they did that, I now just avoid "story trailers" completely for any upcoming game I'm interested in.

[timun]

Originally Posted by devo22

it's all about perspective. We love Ellie because we spent so much time with her in the first game and we hate Abby because she kills Joel and Jessie. But if you look at it through a different lens, Ellie goes on a bloody rampage and kills everyone in her path, whereas Abby spares Ellie and Tommy in Jackson and later spares Ellie and Dina again in Seattle (at the behest of Lev, but still).

Abby "sparing" Ellie and Tommy was no big favour, and made her out to be a complete idiot to me. She goes on this vendetta trip to Jackson to assassinate Joel because he killed her father... and she expects that Joel's brother and 'daughter' would be thankful that she deigned to spare their lives after she brutally murdered Joel? Of course they're not going to be okay with it; if Abby wasn't 'okay' with Joel killing her father, why would she expect Tommy and Ellie to just let it go?

I know a lot of people didn't like that Ellie spares her in the end, but it makes sense to me. It's about finally getting to make a choice (whereas pretty much all the choices in her life had been made by somebody else up to this point), it's about ending the cycle of violence and revenge, and it's about forgiveness. Not even forgiving Abby necessarily, but Joel and herself.

I felt like it was as much Ellie relenting only after the satisfaction of knowing she was capable of beating Abby. Of course we know this was an entirely pyrrhic victory that cost her physical scars she'll never recover from, and she ruined the relationship with Dina. She has nothing left to live for.