The Last of Us - it's the time of the season

One thing that annoys me though about the game is the compulsive scavenging mindset it forces on you, because of which I missed the giraffe petting part.

Oh and BTW, Tommy is IMO definitely modeled after a lesser Baldwin brother (Stephen?).

always seemed more like sawyer from lost to me

For Part II, it'd be great if Ellie knows how to swim, it'd be even better if she only knows how to dog paddle.

https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/the-last-of-us-and-the-post-apocalypse-by-darran-anderson

Great longform article on post-apocalysm by the Invisible Cities author.

i played the first 3 hours or so of the remastered ps4 version and just wasn't into it at all. but does it get better after that? i'm assuming that i continue helping the girl get to wherever i was supposed to be taking her, but then something happens and i end up having to be her guardian more or less full time, and i don't want that and neither does she, but then we go through some shit together and we slowly bond while learning that in this terrible land of zombies and death and terror, the capability to love and be loved is ultimately the thing worth living for? meanwhile solving little puzzles, moving ladders around, and judiciously saving ammo and going through lots of cutscenes where the little girl is moody and hates me but is slowly starting to respect me? and at one point i get really injured (or maybe just straight up die) and end up playing as her for a significant portion of the game? i'm just making all this up and would like to be very wrong and surprised. so many people adore this game, so it makes me think that there must be something more to it.

That was a really assholey way to ask that question, sorry. I guess it’s better phrased as something like “is this more of a really well polished action-adventure game, or is there something really innovative about it that I haven’t seen yet?” That sounds assholey too. Maybe I’m just an assholey. It didn’t help that I played through the first hours of the game with someone who was adamant that it was the greatest game of all time, so I was naturally kind of inclined to pick it apart (internally) as I went, which is kind of an assholey tendency, I know

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTSGp4UdEvQ
in my mind your two posts were spoken aloud in this voice
but tbf and answer your question, no, there isn't really a great innovation you're looking for. it's just really exceptionally well done

good article brocc

xp
your plot guesses are pretty much otm haha
as you suspect it's a well polished action adventure game
I remember someone (on here?) calling these sort of games "content tourism", being led thru a linear path of set pieces while giving you the illusion of agency

xpost Weird, that Family Guy clip briefly was replaced by a Last of Us 2 trailer for me, then reverted back to Family Guy after I reloaded the page. .

hahaha, uuugh, i'm sorry. i would prefer that my posts be read in the voice of the crystal river boy on the right from 3:35 on in this video, but i brought that on myself.

i'm sure we've already discussed stories + videogames before, but i can't find it at the moment. in the spirit of being the ilx i want to see, i'll start a thread on it

As someone who feels that story is not inherently but in actuality an afterthought (at best) in most videogames, I was surprised to find myself getting a lil emotional during the opening portion of this game.

(I never got too far beyond that, though.)

They've made a point of emphasizing that story is an important context for the apparent ultra violence of the sequel. Likewise, as discussed elsewhere, there is apparently more emotional payoff to Uncharted 4 if you've played the previous games. Most games and esp. game series have mere scenarios or setups for action, or boast pretty elliptical/confusing/optional narratives. But as graphics get better and better and more and more "realistic," and games intersect and overlap with the qualities of feature films - and as feature films become more and more like video games - I assume there will be a gradual but still ever greater emphasis on story.

Has there been a high profile (or low profile) collaboration with a game developer and A+ author or screenwriter yet?

Pretty sure whoever did this has won at least a Pulitzer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAhG9D9UO7c

i'd say there was plenty of context for the ultra-violence in the first game (at least, beyond the first Uncharted, for instance). the second one looks even more violent, but that world has already been established as pretty sickening so i wasn't that taken aback. Plus The Walking Dead has been on for like eight seasons now and has really normalized this kind of thing, for better or worse

if anyone cares to join me on the story tangent:

storytelling, plots, and narratives + videogames

http://www.thelastofus.playstation.com/outbreakday#sf198111575

Damn this sounds like a Plastikman track (spoiler-free!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn50VaRva0s

Not TLOU2 news, but still:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LivestreamFail/comments/ae2ug8/the_last_of_us_in_a_nutshell/

this is probably a good thread to say that i didn't realize until last week that life is strange 2 came out!

LIS has such a cool vibe i just recently played it

I bought LIS last month! Haven't had the chance to play it yet, but nice to hear it get the ILG stamp of approval.

there are some cringy parts and it's not for everyone but i overall loved it .

I don't know this game (LIStrange). Is it worth $5 for the "Complete Series?"

yes!

Oh, wait, it's for PS3, don't think I can play it on PS4?

I bought it for PS4! It's pricier than the PS3 version of course: $6.

I got that a while ago, and I need to backlog the other series and the sequel before I can even start the first one right

there's only one episode of S2 out now iirc or maybe I've misunderstood

Nhex, I may be misinterpreting your post but from what I've gathered, LIFE IS STRANGE can/should be played before LIFE IS STRANGE: BEFORE THE STORM which is a prequel.

i should go back to it. i played the first ep (maybe 2) and it was charming but not super compelling to me - maybe it picks up?

xp ...right... also that prequel before LIS2

Hold up, is Life is Strange kind of a choose your own adventure game? Or are there control mechanics? If it's the former seems better suited for something like the Switch. Even then, I got Thimbleweed Park for the Switch way back and haven't really played it because I didn't find the gameplay (as such) compelling. The reviews of Life is Strange are super strong, but without seeking spoiler-y gameplay vids it looks like maybe it's a bunch of cut scenes connected by asking you to pick from a pair of choices?

yes it is a story game where you make choices and walk around - not for everyone but i loved it and feel like it shares a vibe with last of us

Which I haven't played yet, but that (this) one has character mechanics, right? You control the character, fight, hide, explore, right? It just has a strong narrative on top of it, correct?

Last of Us is an action/stealth game

Life Is Strange is a supernatural story game

life is strange is like a telltale game (tho not actually a telltale game)

File under: BUT WHY??

https://kotaku.com/the-last-of-us-is-getting-an-hbo-tv-show-1842124338

seemed inevitable, consdidering how many movies/tv shows were blatantly inspired it since the game game out

hell of a time for this game to come out

yeah, think i’ll be skipping this one for the foreseeable future tbh

is it a tv show or DLC where they convert all the content to COVID-19 carriers?

June 19th!

https://blog.us.playstation.com/2020/04/27/release-date-updates-for-the-last-of-us-part-ii-ghost-of-tsushima/

Oh and apparently there's a massive story spoiler that got leaked over the weekend on Youtube, so beware.

It's gonna be an annoying two months trying to avoid those spoilers.

first review i've seen.

https://kotaku.com/the-last-of-us-part-ii-the-kotaku-review-1844006193

let me just excerpt a few phrases that jumped out at me on first skim...

Everything in The Last of Us 2 takes work. Every weapon reload, killing blow, and crafted item takes time and button presses. At times the game is painfully slow; even in the most action-packed sections you put in effort to move things forward. You’re paid for this work in a grim story and explicit violence. It can be exciting and beautiful, but mostly I just felt like shit.

...This gives the game a sense of effort and scale that make traversing a few city blocks feel like a huge adventure, but it’s also exhausting.

...As suggested by interviews with its creators and its own marketing, The Last of Us 2 is meant to feel very, very bad.

...My playthrough of The Last of Us 2 felt terrible to experience. Over the course of my 27 hours with the game, it grew to the point of feeling nearly unbearable. This wasn’t because it asked me hard questions about my own capacity for harm or revenge, or pulled some Spec Ops: The Line-style moralizing about video game violence. Despite Druckmann’s promised “philosophical questions,” I never felt like the game asked me anything. Instead, it told me “brutality,” repeatedly and louder, until by the end I couldn’t hear what it was trying to say at all. Characters make hideous, irredeemable choices, over and over. Everybody suffers, physically and emotionally, in graphic detail. This is all intended to prove a point, but the only point I got from the game was simply to be required to stare at violence, and play through violence, and then do that again, and more, and again, and more.

BACK OF THE BOX QUOTE
“What if every terrible thing you can think of, but more of it?”

TYPE OF GAME
Misery simulator

honestly i'm sure kotaku is struggling and knows that they'll get more traffic if they run a negative review, because every other outlet is going to give it a 9.0 best new music or above

wow what a difference a misreading makes. at first glance i thought that said "everything in the last of us 2 works" and then i reread and it means practically the opposite.