No more pallet puzzles: THE LAST OF US PART II

i'm with Josh on this one, the majority of negative takes (as i recall at the time) were generally not well-argued criticism

even the "yes, murder is wrong!" snark is incredibly reductive of what the game puts you through

i remember the "type of game: misery simulator" bit though, still love that

i don't remember if it was that review or another one that talked about how ugly and loud the gun sounds are but otm in any case, it's p brutal

i still cackle though whenever ellie gets her neck chomped by a clicker, i can't help it

Ugh, I still try and pause the clicker chomping scenes to quickly “restart encounter” so I don’t have to hear it. Yet every time, the game says, “no, you WILL watch this”. I don’t attempt to pause because it’s offensive or “bad”, but because it’s intense. That intensity seems to be at the root of most “good-faith” criticism, but I really don’t see it as a point against. It’s the key ingredient to the magic of the game, its commitment to truthfully following out consequences. Those ugly and loud gun sounds are the best damn thing about this game. The sound design is incredible. Every gunshot is a consequence. Even the resource management goes into it. I unloaded a full clip of my pistol into one WLF’er yesterday and was in dread about how I was going to deal with the next one I ran into with no resources lol.

This game has sucked me in far more than others do, and it’s because of the exact things it gets critiqued for.

The sound design *is* nuts. You can hear how close or far the enemies are, or where the bullets or arrows are hitting, that sort of thing. You can hear the baddies yelling to one another from different spots. It's amazing and scary.

I take back all praise. I just reached Abby section and met the dog……… wtf why did they have to bring dogs into this mess :(

My Swiss Shepherd is lying next to me while I’m playing and I’m feeling her harsh judgement. Time to turn the tv off, touch grass, and heal my soul with some doggy time

Speaking of truthfully following out consequences… I know it’s a non-issue in the end but you cannot tell me Mel and her baby were simply fine with very bumpy car chases, gunshots, climbing a rope, pressing one’s belly against steel beams to climb platforms, etc. like wtf, I don’t know much about pregnancy but I know those activities typically don’t align with a pregnant woman’s lifestyle for good reason.

Also also, confused as to why “Abby” is typically referred to as the villain in reviews/dialogue about this game. From pretty early, really as soon as you find out why Abby’s party was going for Joel (even before you find out it’s Abby’s dad), the game changes. I think it’s when you’re in the flashback scene where Ellie’s listening to the tape saying an immune person would be pointless now since we don’t have the doctors to make a cure anymore. Abby’s story seems a lot more justified than Ellie’s from that point

That's what I'm talking about. Reveals the limitations/laziness of the then contemporaneous discourse that she was often described as a villain just because she did a (the) bad thing, in a game full of people doing equally bad things. You can tell who the villains are in this game because, like most fodder, they don't have names (whistling crazies, Santa Barbara dudes).

It’s not even that it’s grey, it’s that Abby is genuinely more justified that Ellie (not to say Abby is right, she’s just lesson the wrong than Ellie).

Joel kills Abby’s dad with the add on bonus of dooming humanity. Abby kills Joel which really doesn’t even make things even on the eye-for-an-eye scale due to that aforementioned bonus. Ellie then kills everyone she can in response, again as opposed to Abby’s gang where only a single person gets offed (well, minus Jesse, but still, the math stacks against Ellie)

If there’s a main character that needs to be called a villain in this game, it goes to Ellie/Joel by default.

*less in the wrong

If your ethics are utilitarian, Joel is the villain, if they are deontologist then Ellie is the villain. It’s only if your ethics are “don’t kill the dude I played as last game!” That Abby can be the villain.

If your ethics are based upon who kills the most dogs (the correct ethical theory), well, I’ve said enough

I think that's call deondoglogism.

They didn’t teach that one in my intro to philosophy course

I'm imagining railroad tracks split into two paths, one in which a single human is tied up on them and another in which five dogs are tied up. Here comes the trolley...

"Last of Us 2" discourse is trolley vs. trolls.

y'all... got some IRL flashbacks last week:

https://i.imgur.com/Ph4l55A.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/7qjUQwH.jpg

Wow.

A friend of mine who is even less up to date on the last few decades of games came over for a beer the other night. He got a hoot out of the chaos and cartoonish cruelty of "Hitman," so just for balance I had him play the first several playable bits of LoU2. At first he kind of joked around, focusing mainly on the look of the game and his own inept gameplay, but as he got sucked in, and experienced his first enemies/set pieces, he stopped cracking jokes and admitted the game was making really unsettled and anxious.

So my current critical crush Jacob Geller* co-hosts a podcast called Something Rotten (as well as a regular guest on the MinnMax (sic) podcast, also a recommendation), and they're digging into Part II, and it's been worthwhile so far, as it goes beyond the typical "this game makes me feel bad" takes.

* A selection of 'tubes to watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8n2DHiGp8E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQQdnve5fQk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5DqmTtCPiQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS5NeNglQYw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q85l1Fenc5w

Cool, thanks!

Started the podcast episode about LoU2 and think I'm going to go back and listen to the one about Part 1 first. As they say in the second one, it's kind of remarkable how two games and, only recently, a TV show have been enough to sustain this level of discourse for a decade.

I started the podcast episode about the first game. It's good so far, but whoever the hosts are are weirdly catty about it. Like, you know the game is good, you keep saying the game is good, you admit you might be a little tired of it because you've played it so many times, but you've done that because the game is good. So don't sigh and act like watching the TV show was some exhausting experience because it was so familiar to you. Not a deal breaker by any stretch, just a little irritating.

I do find it interesting when they address the 2013 discourse, because as far as I can remember, I had no idea the game existed in 2013. Just totally passed me by. I mean, I didn't have a PlayStation, so there's that. But for a game with so much praise and acclaim, it still managed to go under my radar as a non-gamer civilian.

I listened to the first two episodes of the podcast. The first is about Part 1, and then there are four (I think?) episodes about Part 2. I first guest was fine, the second guest (on the first episode about the second game) was pretty annoying to listen to, since his (Kenneth? A Kotaku writer?) voice kept cracking, which made it sound like listening to a 13-year old boy. I do like Jacob, who is a great moderator, in every sense of the word, which allows him to balance out Blake, who is a little too cynical and cool-for-school for my tastes.

Anyway, they've already brought up some interesting stuff, and keep alluding to a future discussion on race, which is intriguing. I never thought much about the role race plays in the first game, or whether it even matters. On my walk, listening, I started wondering if it would have made a difference if Joel were not a white man, and the conclusion I came to was no. But we'll see where the conversation goes. I do know that this podcast is why I am playing Bioshock Infinite now, not just because I recently played the first two but because they implied it apparently inspired similar sorts of discussions and debates at the time, which I knew nothing about. And indeed, in Bioshock Infinite the issue of race is much, much more explicitly foreground, so I wonder why they would group it in with Last of Us, where race is, iirc, not foregrounded at all. I guess I'll see what they have to say.

Anyway, the discussion makes me feel even more that this (second) game is a masterpiece that will be hard for anyone to surpass. Though you never know.

IDK if you care about podcast spoilers but the gist of the race things is that black characters pretty much all die with a cut to black, and their deaths function taking up pretty limited narrative space (as plot devices for the white characters to react to in the moment) as opposed to e.g. Joel's death as a constant specter that Ellie wrestles with throughout part 2; also, they talk about the dissonance of homophobia and transphobia existing in the world but not racism.

Hmm, I look forward to hearing what they have to say.

Meanwhile, there was supposedly a leak confirming a quietly rumored remaster of Part 2, which seems ... truly unnecessary. I suppose with a live-service multiplayer Last of Us scuttled indefinitely (good) and a potential Part 3 years and years away (expected), a remastered Part 2 seems like a logical stopgap, especially if it's been in the works already. But again, no idea what it might entail, the PS4/PS5 version looks and plays incredibly as it is. I assume they'd tie it to the return of the TV show, though last I heard the TV show had been delayed until maybe 2025.

A Part 2 remaster amid recent layoffs sounds like a major red flag, if that rumor shakes out.

I imagine the layoffs follow ramping down the multiplayer project. Or at least, I could have sworn it was less about downsizing and more returning back to the level they were at before they brought in a bunch of new people for the thing that is no longer happening.

Finished the podcast. Disagreed with a lot of what they had to say, and especially how they said it, but it was still really interesting and full of good insights.

Native PS5 version coming, $10 upgrade, extra content, reportedly.

https://i.imgur.com/tQKPApc.png

They're really putting off working on new IP, huh?

I saw somewhere that this remaster might have been given the the new hires/B-team while the A-team worked on said mystery new IP.

i'm... actually ok with $10

i totally bailed on my Grounded playthrough for LoU II. just too hard. i didn’t even make it to the theatre.

Give it another shot! If I can do it, you/anyone can do it.

And yeah, $10 is totally reasonable. I can't believe TLOU Part 1 is still going for $50+ *on sale*.

Naughty Dog officially pulled the plug on its long-gestating Last of Us online live-service multiplayer game. One one hand, good. On the other, what a waste of time. They've essentially released one game since 2017. Though I guess the same goes for Rockstar.

Yeah from what I hear they are working on a new IP and TLOU sequel. Perhaps they needed to reallocate the team or recycle the assets from the online game to save some time.

Probably spent a good number of cycles on the re-remaster of TLOU 1 and remaster of TLOU 2.

i know one of the multiplayer devs from another forum and he was so excited about it. it had a lot of co-op elements so you’re basically teaming up with players against the clickers etc. to hear him tell it the game was largely finished. i guess there’s an ongoing admin and tech overhead for multiplayer games that naughty dog didn’t want to commit to

essentially the demands of live multiplayer are such that naughty dog would have become a live online company and never make another single player game again

A studio known for its almost oppressively immersive narratives and impeccable set pieces might have benefitted from a 15-year old kid with the handle DiaperDoodie69 hopping around while decked out like Barney the dinosaur and screaming nonsense over a headset mic.

I imagine it's the lure of all that live service money; otherwise it probably would've just been a gradually updated multiplayer mode for TLOU2.
Also - maybe relevant - Sony's acquisition of Bungie was completed in early 2022. Two giant live service bets is probably too much.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/kaitlyn-dever-last-of-us-season-2-abby-1235782912/

TLOU II Remastered out on 1/19, btw

Dever is a great actor. It's too bad that there is no way to keep the plot secret for two years, gonna be impossible for newbies to avoid spoilers. Wonder how that may affect changes or additions they make to the story.

I guess she's got two years to get properly hench, especially since Bella's got a head start on her:

Bella Ramsey begins training for HBO 'The Last of Us' S2pic.twitter.com/zI5fycK3te

— ScreenTime (@screentime) January 8, 2024

Two more casting announcements for Jessie and Dina:

https://kotaku.com/the-last-of-us-hbo-max-dina-actor-isabela-merced-1851159653

Digital Foundry review of the PS4 to PS5 upgrade barely finds any differences from the way the current PS4 version plays on the PS5. Like, next to nothing, even as far as these subtle things sometimes go. I guess there is a touch extra content to justify the $10, which is not a big ask. Still hoping they take $20 off Last of Us Part 1.

Some of the reviews for the roguelike mode have been pretty high: https://www.polygon.com/24036476/the-last-of-us-part-2s-roguelike-mode

Good to hear, since it's likely all you're really getting for that $10. But I've seen it discussed in the context of the recent God of War roguelike DLC, which 1) reportedly contains new plot and 2) was free.

Ah I didn't realize they're offering an upgrade option -- I thought they were making people buy the new version by itself.

(As for the Ragnarok DLC, yes on both counts.)