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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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 Posted: Sat Jun 15, 2013 9:54 pm Post subject: A Blast of Fuss: Naked, Raw Babality |
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Here is a thread so I can stop shitting in the Games You Played Today thread.
My journey this far:
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In the Dark Future of The Last of Us, there are only shivs THAT CAN ONLY STAB ONCE BEFORE THEY CRUMBLE INTO DUST
...and guns that do the same after you beat/stealth an any enemy to death, so you can't harvest any bullets |
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Game tries to be subtle, present thoughtful, low-key setting. Kills verisimilitude over and over with poor attention to detail.
So far the plot is Cyborg by way of Children of Men and lesser McCarthy, sans the virtue of JCVD doing the splits.
Pull-start-a-generator-to-run-single-platform elevator thing rhythm mini-game.
Game of All Time |
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three pages of notes
tweet @ Albert Pyun
I need to sleep
I have to work to do today
help |
| shrugtheironteacup wrote: |
I finally stopped playing at what seemed to be the end of their remix of the sewer canal run from HL2 and the last thing I wrote down before collapsing was "sidekick to a distaff Nathan Drake in a world without soap"
CAN'T WAIT TO TURN THE PLAYSTATION BACK ON
| another god wrote: |
| shrugtheironteacup wrote: |
In the Dark Future of The Last of Us, there are only shivs THAT CAN ONLY STAB ONCE BEFORE THEY CRUMBLE INTO DUST
...and guns that do the same after you beat/stealth an any enemy to death, so you can't harvest any bullets |
I hear you can get upgrade kits to learn how to make better shivs. |
I imagined that would happen, since you can make new shivs from shit you find lying around and titles tell you weapon-improvement is possible in general. CRAFTING!
This is really dumb/destructive to their precious setting. 8) |
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| succumbing to hatin' toxicity |
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I didn't mean to imply it was the crafting itself that's the problem. It's proven to be pretty restrained as these things go nowadays, and some of it is appropriate to the game's setting. Its specific application to stabbing weapons is a bit dumb, though. Making the shivs single-use makes limited sense as a balancing mechanic (still early in the game, and they're the only way to stealth-kill one of the more powerful not-zombies) but breaks verisimilitude for a game that's trying to traffic in just that. It tries to be very grounded, very "realistic" within limits. It tries to paint a real space and put relatable characters in it, but the way those character interact with that space divorces them from it and shows the gap between the developers ambition for setting/story and their execution.
Also: I think it ends up less "balancing" than "needlessly, artificially frustrating" in some of the set pieces.
Meanwhile people with unfired pistols out that I stealth kill yield no bullets. Give me one, for God's sake. Just one. But don't make the gun disappear into nowhere. It's scarcity for the sake of balance that clashes with the game world. It's lame.
At one point I used a shiv to open a stubborn door. In that case its loss made sense: half of a pair of scissors is not a good pry bar, and it would break. Its disappearance upon stabbing it into some soft fleshy bits is dumb. Make me take a moment to retrieve my shiv. Whatever. Just don't stick a dumb thing in there that artificially inflates difficulty.
This probably seems like nitpicking but this is a game with ten-thousand nits all acting together in concert to make me suicide. It's the same melange of genre tropes/set pieces ripped from other media as Uncharted, but instead of dumb sociopathic fun its painfully serious and self important. |
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# of gun-toting soldiers I've killed in a row without salvaging a single bullet:
15?
There are ways in which it's a really strong game. The atmosphere seems to be getting better as it progresses and there's real tension in some of the exploration and gun fights (occasionally destroyed when the dude who's flanking me shouts FLANK 'IM so I know he's by the door to my side before he even tries to shoot me and I rush and punch him to death). A predictable plot event has left my party lighter and me less reliant on them for pace-destroying gating shit. Screwed with my expectations a few couple to decent effect. It's just filled with dumb fiction-destroying detail that's especially silly in light of its grasping for unearned weight.
Probably best enjoyed in the context of a world in which no one has publicly, earnestly said the Citizen Kane thing about it.
In conclusion I now have five pages of notes :( |
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I Am Alive manages to be dumber in other core ways and can't coast as far on production values.
In other news: forest animals are bullet proof.
edit: I guess I should be grateful they're not part of the crafting system |
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Last of Us also has a Ravenholm (but in daylight, sans circular-saw-blade antics and other balms of goofiness)
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I got a recipe for improved shiv out of a hotel safe
now they can stab twice
More accurately: it is a combat training manual. You're not making stronger shanks, you're just reading about how to stab with them so they don't break until the second throatstick. |
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game got pretty good for a while when I was separated from my surrogate daughter and just creeping/killing
I have stopped for a time because I want to put off meeting up with her again
put off the return of the story and its desperate reach for humanity and depth
naughty dog look I have laid your strengths and weaknesses bare call me
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The little girl came back as soon as I returned to the game and tried to leave the area. Shortly after, I let her have a rifle and she killed the last enemy in an area so it could lurch straight into a cut scene and all the bodies/dropped items I was planning to pick up after I had killed everyone were gone when it ended.
I found another manual. It taught me knots so my reinforced w/ scissors melee weapon will now instant kill *twice* before the scissors get stuck irretrievably in a body.
Last edited by shrugtheironteacup on Tue Feb 17, 2015 4:06 pm; edited 6 times in total |
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sat Jun 15, 2013 10:41 pm |
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The gaminess is fine when the gaminess isn't actively getting in the way of the game. Some of the gamier decisions are just bad and affect the mechanics negatively while simultaneously being super-dumb in the context of the fiction they're trying to construct (see: shivs).
It's this, and when it tries to transcend its gaminess with measured human weight, that it's annoying.
If it was content to just be a game where I snuck around and killed stuff, things would be cool. The long stretches where that is all there is are alright.
But, especially at the beginning, it is filled with dumb speed bumps and those dumb speed bumps are filled with dumb details.
I use "pretentious" sparingly. The Last of Us is one of the most pretentious games I've ever played.
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 2:22 am |
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So there's a bit where you have to creep your way from house to house down a broad street, at the end of which is a sniper, while everyone else hangs back. You tell them "I'll see if I can get the angle on him."
As you creep, the sniper shouts. I SEE YOU, I KNOW WHERE YOU ARE, THINK YOU CAN HIDE IN THAT HOUSE, HUH?!
etc.
As I crept, I kept looking for good shot with my hunting rifle from some upstairs windows. He always saw me within a few seconds and killed me.
Finally, I poked my head up and he didn't see me. While I watched through my scope, he shouted and the barrel moved. Occasionally it fired. I was still a long way off and my scope was weak, so while I couldn't make out a distinct shooter I figured he had to be on that gun in the wide-open window. I took a couple of shots, the ducked as he began firing at where I'd been. No effect.
So I snuck closer.
When I was close enough, I learned: there was no one holding the rifle. The rifle was firing itself while a disembodied voice shouted.
If you're going to make me creep through the house so I can have a scripted shanktussle and then get on his rifle to cover my companions as they make their way toward me maybe you should have just given him really good cover so I can't see there is no dude to shoot and don't feel like you're the jerks when I waste the rarest ammo in the game Naughty Dog :(
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 2:23 am |
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REI I SAW WHAT YOU DID
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 4:07 am |
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You also flee the house in a cut scene, without taking the better rifle you've been using.
| Winona Ghost Ryder wrote: |
| Shrug you should have made this thread for when you played Tomb Raider. I couldn't because I would be permabanned. |
There have been several points that remind me of Tomb Raider D:
I hope this ends in a battle with the spirit of an ancient, immortal Japanese empress.
That would make up for Pyun ignoring my tweet ;__;
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 4:15 am |
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| Reed wrote: |
would you call this game... McCarthy-esque?
( ﾟ∀(・－・) |
:|
Other than its huge screaming debt to The Road the lead is obviously supposed to be Llewelyn Moss with more scruff. The opening conversation with his daughter (R.I.P.) even seems to be modeled after the first conversation between Moss and his wife in the movie.
I haven't met a mountain necrophile yet, but I only just got to Wyoming. And my surrogate daughter has run off on her own into the wilderness... D:
Not only is the basic plot an obvious riff on Children of Men, but it lifts the push-start-the-car scene. Only now with zombies, and at the end of their second extended section based on Half Life 2.
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 4:40 am |
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"WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF JOEL?!"
I'm pretty sure he's afraid to love, Ellie ;__;
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 4:58 am |
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I think I may have found remote's house earlier
RIP remote
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 6:26 am |
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In Colorado, at a University, on a horse.
The horse adds nothing to the exploration of the campus. Fortunately I can dismount and run around and the girl follows me on it.
I can only assume I'm holding onto it for some sort breathless escape sequence?!
Found a flame thrower in the auto shop. Short-range low-ammo WIN button.
On the lookout for Kilroys and neggys.
edit:
| Wall of Beef wrote: |
| I had no idea it was a Zombie game. I mean, of course it is, but what would have replaced the zombies had this game been made 10 years ago before the Rise of Zombies in Everything? |
The zombies are called "infected", people who have fallen victim to some sort of mold plague*. Their deployment in the game is very headcrab-zombie, one of the several ways in which the game recalls HL2. I imagine that even if zombie hadn't become the go-to in wider culture the developers might have ended up in the same place because of that.
*YES THE GIRL YOU'RE ESCORTING IS IMMUNE AND THUS POSSIBLY THE SAVIOR OF EVERYONE EVERYWHERE
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 6:35 am |
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MONKEYS
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 7:37 am |
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Girl when I met you, you were packing a switchblade. Within hours you were using it to stab soldiers in the ankle to aid our escape. As our bond has grown I've had you provide sniper cover in firefights and even given you your own walther "for emergencies only" which you shoot every time you're startled by a stray dust mote. You've killed men before. I was there for your first big cutscene about it. Quit saying JESUS JOEL! every time I hack someone to death with a remarkably fragile axe.
| Adilegian wrote: |
I went over to a friend's place this weekend for a The Last of Us retreat. We got an indeterminate way through it.
I'm now off to buy it. |
It is a lot like someone took a Resident Evil and tried to make a V. Sirius Vidyagame out of it and I've wondered what you would make of it.
I imagine something less mean.
Haven't really had a major complaint for a while. It's kept itself to eerie atmosphere + desperate combat, and away from extra characters + the high drama they bring with them. The girl and the dudeman's relationship has been kept to a subtle simmer.
I can tell when I'm going to have to fight back through an area I'm exploring, because the geometry obviously is arranged for flanking and cover.
THIS IS A LONG GAME
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Last edited by shrugtheironteacup on Sun Jun 16, 2013 8:11 am; edited 1 time in total |
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 7:55 am |
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THIS LONG GAME JUST sort of did the thing I wanted it to do with the plot/pov 400 years ago.
But not quite.
It was almost an interesting thing.
FINALLY
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 9:01 am |
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I think they're aware that they're setting up the expectation, since they had a Special Event that made me bypass about half that shit on the way down in the last area like it.
Or maybe it just seemed that way because I took my sweet time foraging on the way up.
I actually really like this thing they did as a result of the Special Event
I hope they don't take it in exactly the direction I think it's going though
blindside me with another weird development game
please
It feels like they made the first half of the game by bolting different movies together wherever they'd touch, then ran out of movie so they had to start actually thinking about the story they were trying to tell.
I'm going to bed
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 9:24 am |
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I haven't fallen asleep yet :(
There is a SUPER MOLDZOMBIE whose intro is a BOSS FIGHT. This is SILLY.
They crop up later, but so far I've been able to avoid instead of waste bullets on them. (I liked this use and would list it among the game's pluses)
edit: you also get harassed by an armored car for one section of the game and have to take it down at a specific point by shooting its weak spot, signalling the end of that section
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 9:10 pm |
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Turns out their attempt at moral complexity is actually a lot more boring than the direction I thought it would take.
Does facilitate more human murders though.
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 9:17 pm |
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Also, said attempt is recalling Dickey more than McCarthy, right now, in this moment, to me.
Perhaps it was #adipunk all along
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 10:32 pm |
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a girl alone
stabbing dudes in the neck in a ruined video arcade
the death of vidcon innocence~
EDIT: Oh look there are broken plates in strategic places all over this restaurant but no enemies and only one exit. I wonder if when I try the door I will be forced to remain inside while enemies pile in and have an extended sneakfight.
EDIT EDIT: yep, bossfight! (...that would be over in ten seconds if the game hadn't confiscated my brick as well as my gun)
EDIT EDIT EDIT: that would have been over right there if the game hadn't subtly changed the mechanic of sneakstab prompt for this setpiece alone
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2013 10:55 pm |
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I am forced to conclude that cannibals get superpowers.
THIS MIGHT BE A SEQUEL TO RAVENOUS
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2013 12:19 am |
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I can't use this shiv to pry open a door because it's a two-murder shiv and I only have one murder bar left on it and it has to be at full murder to work on a door
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2013 1:26 am |
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| Adilegian wrote: |
| Hey shrug, do you want to multiplayer this? |
I redboxed it and can't afford the online pass.
Videogamin' in 2013
| TXTSWORD wrote: |
| So what I gathered that this is a game about shivs, which is why shrug would like it - because of his home made knife fetish. |
They fucked up the whole knife aspect of the game DID YOU EVEN READ THE THREAD
I AM A PROFESSIONAL KNIFE FETISHIST AND THIS GAME IS KNIFE TRASH
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2013 1:28 am |
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Why don't we talk about why you like Tomb Raider, CoSo >:|
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2013 2:47 am |
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Well that ended exactly how I thought it would
exactly how dracko predicted it would, days ago, in IRC D:
...
In conclusion The Last of Us (2013) earns my coveted Neck Violence of the Year (TRIGGER WARNING) Award
I look forward to liking it more when I play it again in five years.
My Pro Review forthcoming PROBABLY NEVER
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2013 5:15 am |
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The core mechanics are good. I would imagine they'd translate well to multi. Thanks Sony + my budget.
Single player is RUINED BORING GREY SHIT then it goes outdoors for a while to tease you before RUINED BORING GREY SHIT before finally sticking to greenery for a nice stretch.
| Reed wrote: |
shrug please rate this on a scale from ~~~ to +++
would you go back in time and recommend this to yourself? ~ for would not, + for would |
I rate it 8====D~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ out of D:
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2013 5:49 am |
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When you play as the girl (SPOILERS!!!?!??!) she has her switch blade. Since she's a 14 year-old girl the melee shit is done through stabstab instead of punchpunch, and she has lower health and fewer weapons so I found it best to sneak and stab as much as possible. Her knife can stab forever.
(this might actually be my favorite part of the game, its desperate and tense and only spoiled by the big dumb arbitrary shit in the "boss" encounter)
Meanwhile, Our Hero is doing some morally questionable cutscene things to aid his relocation of said girl. He is doing them with a pocket knife.
You never see this knife again. He sticks to 1-2 use stabbing devices made out of scissors.
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2013 9:15 pm |
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| costel wrote: |
SHRUG please recommend the best Knife Fetish game. If you do, I will unload a list of firearm fetish game. |
I-I can't think of anything D:
| The Blueberry Hill wrote: |
| http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/1057 |
I guess this is the default.
There are many recognizable guns and they can be sorted into clearish functional roles and they go bangbang and flashflash and parts might move and shell casings fly and they hit things at a distance. Their use can be roughly approximated w/ point + click and the proper animation. The bullets can then have whatever path/effect they're programmed to without affecting the character using them. They lend themselves well to simulated weaponsporn.
Knives are just sharp things probably made of metal and while there are many shapes/sizes suited for different purposes they're all short-range (unless you're throwing them?!) and abstract down to a slash or a stab with an area of effect defined by your avatar's animation.
I always sort of liked the knife fight in RE4. The combo of realish technical-complication + anime superpower + knife designs that weren't offensive was alright.
By the end of The Last of Us I could at least find it funny that the way you get two more murders out of hour 3-murder-then-breaks machete was by tying reinforcement scissors to the side of the handle.
| Ni Go Zero Ichi wrote: |
| This game sounds a little bit on paper like the kind of game I have wanted to play for a very long time, but at no point in its long PR cycle have I managed to muster even a little bit of hype because of my total lack of faith in Naughty Dog's ability to include gameplay and plot elements in their games that don't clash horrendously with each other (making the prospect of a Naughty Dog game that's selling itself on plot and narrative pretty hard to get excited for). Good to know my misgivings were justified (and also that I don't have to spend time and money playing it). |
This is a big game. I felt like I actively enjoyed about half this big game. Maybe more, since the the engaging parts must have gone by faster than the non. I came to it with little knowledge other than a few Greatest Game of All Time videos courtesy IRC, and tend to be a bit reactionary about these things. I think it begins awkwardly (with a relationship dynamic I thought was interesting as fiction, but got in the way of playing the game as I want to for the first several hours), and while it steadily improves has a habit of throwing in some new character/story complication when it starts hitting its stride, which turns a stretch from effective sneak + murder to some fresh heavy-handed shit breaking in every five minutes.
The core mechanics are strong. There are some really great straight-up gameplay sequences, great enough that I had no trouble ignoring the narrative bullshit that wove them together.
I would say that, given its length, there is a standard-length modern AAA game worth of quality pure game here.
They do manage to work some pretty subtle storytelling in, eventually. I like the way they develop the relationship between our two leads w/ elisions (it's implied that he finally tells her about his late daughter in one of the narrative gaps, for example), though the big sequence where it all really comes together and he EMBRACES HIS LOVE OF THE DAUGHTER REPLACEMENT is shrill and seems constructed to shove any real sense of moral ambiguity (and thus, to some degree, the reality of the characters/setting) aside, making Lead Dude into a Jack Bauer doing awful stuff for what washes out as absolutely the right reasons.
Basically they tease you with HEY EVERYONE HERE IS JUST SURVIVING YOU DON'T KNOW THEIR STORY THESE PEOPLE MIGHT HAVE A LEGIT BEEF WITH MURDERDAD so they can go GOTCHA HERE ARE SOME CANNIBALS/AN IMPLIED RAPIST BETTER KILL ALL OF THEM FOREVER.
This is when it struck me that there is not a single female enemy in this game that isn't a turned moldzombie.
Cool snowstorm murdersneak though.
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2013 9:24 pm |
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| Rei wrote: |
If we're supposed to be engrossed in the story, well, it was hard for me to get into The Last of Us when Adilegian was playing it because after the prologue, the characters get pissed about someone stealing their guns and sending two people to kill one of them. By the end of the day they've murdered over two dozen uninfected people and the game keeps going like they're just people trying to survive when they're actually pretty horrible. I guess the only ending possible for these people is the one Dracko predicted, as if that's some way to redeem themselves. |
The lead is acknowledged as having a pretty terrible past. He acknowledges at one point he was just like one of "hunters" that try to kill them and take their stuff, and another character later on says pretty much the same and speaks of that part of their lives as being traumatizing for them.
I mean, they ultimately don't do much with this other than frame his violence as noble and good so long as its aimed at preserving this one girl's life because Fathers & Daughters or some shit, but they manage to set up a world/scenario where the violence makes better sense than Uncharted.
They do this by filling the world with other desperate homicidal maniacs that just want their loot, and it's contrived + dumb sometimes (often), but I never thought "shit, why don't they just go home?" like I sometimes thought in the Uncharted games before they escalated to World Saving. Twenty people just tried to murder you, so you had to murder them, Nathan. Is the Iron Phallus of Am-Ratha really worth all this trouble?
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2013 9:25 pm |
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OH MY GOD THREAD I'M (KIND OF) DEFENDING (PARTS OF) THIS GAME
PLOT TWIST
INCREDIBLE REVERSAL
MAKE THIS THREAD A MOVIE
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2013 9:29 pm |
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2013 6:17 pm |
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| Adilegian wrote: |
| well-written, that features good characterization, tasteful and even novel execution of familiar tropes, |
IT'S OVER
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Last edited by shrugtheironteacup on Tue Jun 18, 2013 6:22 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2013 6:28 pm |
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Seriously bothers me to have my complicated (if leaning toward the negative (esp. in its beginning because it was more fun for me that way/it honestly took me a long time to start liking it)) reaction to this game lumped with "SB hive mind lol". The things that bother me about it bother me more because I think there's a seriously strong game underneath all the awkward, pace-destroying missteps (which are still there for me after replaying the first few hours following completion).
Should probably get off the internet for a while or something.
edit: OR I should really say: just to have everyone's potential negative reaction lumped together a symptom of a place rather than, I don't know, a genuine reflection of their taste and experience? I LIKE THIS AND IT WORKS FOR ME so IF YOU DON'T LIKE THIS AND IT DOESN'T WORK FOR YOU it's probably BECAUSE YOU ARE INFECTED WITH THE SELECT BUTTON BRAIN FUNGUS
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Last edited by shrugtheironteacup on Tue Jun 18, 2013 6:38 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2013 8:38 pm |
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I guess some of us can feel like Nietzschean ubernerds lording over all the nerds because of our superior taste in video games, and others of us can feel like Nietzschean ubernerds lording over all those *other* nerds who are obviously expressing their tastes in X way because they want to be Nietzschean ubernerds above all other nerds
round and round
everyone wins
forever
until the last of us
has perished from the internet
D:
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2013 9:17 pm |
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| shrugtheironteacup wrote: |
Seriously bothers me to have my complicated (if leaning toward the negative (esp. in its beginning because it was more fun for me that way/it honestly took me a long time to start liking it)) reaction to this game lumped with "SB hive mind lol". The things that bother me about it bother me more because I think there's a seriously strong game underneath all the awkward, pace-destroying missteps (which are still there for me after replaying the first few hours following completion).
Should probably get off the internet for a while or something.
edit: OR I should really say: just to have everyone's potential negative reaction lumped together a symptom of a place rather than, I don't know, a genuine reflection of their taste and experience? I LIKE THIS AND IT WORKS FOR ME so IF YOU DON'T LIKE THIS AND IT DOESN'T WORK FOR YOU it's probably BECAUSE YOU ARE INFECTED WITH THE SELECT BUTTON BRAIN FUNGUS |
I want to clarify, for the stotelheims of the world, that I'm aware Adilegian indicated he did not read the thread so his post was not some personal attack on me and my ideas/their expression.
It was someone dropping in just to say "people expressing negative opinions about this thing are probably just suffering from hivemind I'm pretty confident of this despite not actually reading their expression of these opinions because some other people made snarky comments watching me play"
...a casual dismissal of other's opinions sight-unseen which is impersonal but still troublesome.
This was the point of my typo-laden edit.
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2013 11:21 pm |
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You know what they say about authorial intent :twisted:
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 7:35 am |
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| parker wrote: |
| Rei wrote: |
| If we're supposed to be engrossed in the story, well, it was hard for me to get into The Last of Us when Adilegian was playing it because after the prologue, the characters get pissed about someone stealing their guns and sending two people to kill one of them. By the end of the day they've murdered over two dozen uninfected people and the game keeps going like they're just people trying to survive when they're actually pretty horrible. I guess the only ending possible for these people is the one Dracko predicted, as if that's some way to redeem themselves. |
I didn't see the game as trying to say Old Drake and Tess were supposed to be "good" guys or portrayed as better than the smugglers, I got the impression Tess was some kind of boss lady of her own and Old Drake was her enforcer. |
Yeah, this is the dynamic I've referred to as enjoying as fiction but not as gameplay. It's kind of cool that they're partners, but she's obviously the one who makes the decisions while he just goes with it. She's proactive and he's the strong laconic dude that backs her action up, okay, whatever. You play the sidekick. (There's a few moments that imply their relationship has a romantic element, but it's never leaned on.) But I thought it affected the gating in certain ways (sometimes you just have to wait for her to take the lead) that compounded with my already-present impatience.
Also, I really wanted him to die, and her to be the one that keeps going, but OH WELL
I think their casual attitude toward murder is supposed to show their amoral pragmatism in a world WHERE THAT'S THE ONLY WAY TO GET BY (MAYBE (I GUESS)).
Jarring but, like I said, it fits better than Drake's escapades. There were a few points where the game seemed to start leaning toward community/cooperation/trust not being so bad, but then more murders would be the answer again. That's when it started seeming weird to me.
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 4:33 am |
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It occurred to me multiple times that I would like the narrative elements of the game more if I didn't recognize 3/4 of them (along with many of the big setpieces) as being lifted directly from movies that (in my opinion) did them better.
Which is to say that I don't have any illusions that I'm approaching this game objectively. As with the shiv thing, my prior experience led to a lot of incredulity. I think they do a lot of great, subtle character work in the gameplay that was undermined when a too-close echo of another piece of fiction took me out of the game. I know this is video games, and video games have been parasites on film since their inception, but these moments clashed with the subtler stuff I knew they could do. That I had just seen them do.
| Quote: |
| shrugtheironteacup wrote: |
| Some of the gamier decisions are just bad and affect the mechanics negatively while simultaneously being super-dumb in the context of the fiction they're trying to construct (see: shivs). |
I think that this is personal technical knowledge interfering with the necessary task of eliding over material nuance for the sake of effect. Instead of being someone with a networking background watching Sneakers, you're an actual smith playing a survivalist game. And--
| shrugtheironteacup wrote: |
They fucked up the whole knife aspect of the game DID YOU EVEN READ THE THREAD
I AM A PROFESSIONAL KNIFE FETISHIST AND THIS GAME IS KNIFE TRASH |
Oh you get what I mean.
Fully acknowledging that I know nothing about blades, I got the impression that the shivs broke because the binding that held blades onto the handles gave out. The booklets that Joel finds along the way are basically instructions on how to bind better.
So, you know, you grab a clicker and stab it deep in the abdomen. If the binding breaks, you're probably not going to fish through the infected body to get the materials back. Getting two uses out of the shiv struck me as more an indication that the binding let you pull out the blade than an indication that the blade actually broke. |
The thing that gets you an extra murder-per-shiv is a "combat manual" for better stab technique. You learn better knots to secure scissor-reinforcement to melee weapons.
I admit that as a PROFESSIONAL KNIFE FETISHIST I've put way too much thought into this, but it doesn't *just* bother me because of a lack of "realism" in contrast to everything else. It bothered me because I didn't think it added much to my experience (aside from the frustration at not being able to unlock that one door because my shiv wasn't at full murder). I get behind plank and pipe breaking because they provide such an easy way to take out foes in certain situations without much skill. You could seize a moment to rush from cover/out of hiding and just wail on someone. They encourage run and beat. Similarly the scissor-reinforcements are INSTANT DEATH being swung on the end of a lever so of course they run into trouble when they impact a skull (a situation that would be traumatic to both your average pair of scissors and athletic tape roll). Likewise machetes/axes provide different degrees of "kill with general proximity + square" so it could be game-breaking if they lasted forever. You'd pick up your first machete or axe and skip through the game (at least on normal) Voorheesing everyone who gets too close. (Handily it's also pretty plausible that a cheap machete swung w/ as much english as Joel puts into it would break; likewise an axehead that's poorly seated coming loose).
Shiving is just the punctuation at the end of your sneak. I find the shiv thing both diegetically dumb and ineffectual at adding to tension, because I know exactly how much shiv murder I have stocked, and if I don’t have enough I just plan my approach around the lack. I would embrace randomized shiv breaking, shiv breaking based on the struggle of my enemy, shiv breaking when using the ESCAPE THE CLICKER skill and shiv breaking when I pry open doors. The way it is just meant I spent about 3 real-time hours watching the choking animation instead of getting on with my sneaking life at my convenience.
It probably wouldn't have bothered me if the game otherwise worked for me as well as it did for you, but it didn't, so it became one of many hooks to hang my irritation on.
| Quote: |
| Again, I think that the plot's turnout is less important than what, exactly, Ellie was agreeing to when she said, "Okay." |
If the story is a tool that gets me to a place, like a shiv is a tool to get this thing dead already, I similarly don't think I would have cared about it being predictable if the way they executed it had resonated with me. It didn't. Oh well.
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 5:07 am |
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D:
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 6:43 am |
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kids w/ guns
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 6:25 am |
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Ambiguity starts to happen at least once.
Then it turns into more homicide.
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 8:37 pm |
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| The Troops wrote: |
That was a hell of an ending, wasn't it? |
If only every piece of narrative media would lift the final shot/line from The Road for its own.
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 4:37 am |
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| CubaLibre wrote: |
Whoa Holdypaws, you are saying all the things I would say if I could put sentences together any more.
shrug now that I finally done beat it I got to call you out on the alleged story dissonance, the non-twist twist, and the way you claim the game justifies everything Joel does because Dad. I think it's way more ambiguous than that, in fact it's so obviously ambiguous that I'm wondering where you even get that criticism from. |
It was a knee-jerk reaction.
I agree it plays the finale for ambiguity, but my experience was informed by my reaction to the whole "Winter" chapter (simultaneously my favorite and least favorite part of the game), which seemed to have been specifically structured to get my (MY MEMEMEMEME) hopes up about things getting morally not-boring only to go NEVER MIND MURDER EVERYONE. I think they were trying to draw clear parallels in badness between Joel and the Hunters, but it's lost in the noise BUT THESE HUNTERS WANT TO EAT THIS LITTLE GIRL which works with the emotional catharsis of their reunion to just make him Better?
He is Us, after all. When he's doing terrible things we know there's the Other Us struggling to not be murdered by grown men nearby. Our glancing blow off the side of our generic enemies' reasonable reactions to Our (anti)Heroes' violence is drowned out in cannibalism and implications of future rape ("just another one of [whoever]'s pets"). It cements the characters' bond and leaves me more sympathetic to the necessity of Joel's actions.
Do I agree that Joel is a creepy, damaged, unsettling character? Yes. Was that intentional? Sure, probably. Did the sum total of the end read to me as weighted on the side of "hey this is kind of fucked up?" No.
I experienced it as a creepy, damaged, unsettling character who did a thing that was tentatively OK because Kids, Man.
I've read several reactions on these internets which amount to "sometimes you just have to make hard decisions and tell terrible lies to keep your kid safe... that's just parenting for you!" which seems like a valid side of the line to come down on.
| Broco wrote: |
| So, the ending is on one level totally unambiguous (except for those players who are just as blinkered as Joel himself) |
Seriously? Fuck you. \(^_^)/
I see where everyone is coming from and how you got their with The Thing. I might be in a similar place with The Thing if, you know, it had actually worked for me. It didn't. I think it's kind of remarkable for a video game and kind of derivative and lame as a piece of overall storytelling (though, yes, with a whole lot more grace notes than we usually get from Game). I'm glad the Rest of Us found it effective enough to experience the end in a way that didn't make them glad humanity was on its last legs.
Nothing is for everyone.
The fact that this space for interpretation exists is to the game's credit, sure. Doesn't make me like it any more.
WHERE ARE MY NOTES
EDIT: I probably brought baggage from the end of The Road into the experience as well, since they really did lift the final shot/line from the movie version exactly.
plz deploy your "homages" in a thoughtful way vidyagames thanx
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shrugtheironteacup
man of tomorrow
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Location: a meat
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| Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2013 5:43 am |
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| remote wrote: |
| It's just... in the very next scene (after escaping from the hospital) he's telling her he thinks she'd have really liked Sara, ignoring her uncertain, dejected tone of voice. It's weird and very creepy. |
You've described fully half my interactions with my parents over the course of my morose, depressive life.
I don't think it's weird for a "parent" who's feeling particularly chipper to keep the happiness rolling in the face of a kid's mood. Especially if, just over the hill, is the finale of their journey which, in the parent's mind, is going to mean everything's safe and OK forever. Probably knows something is on her mind but waits for her to bring it up in her own time, or finally succumb to the tide of his positiveness and/or the magic of a home with electricity. It's awkward, but not creepy in and of itself.
| Broco wrote: |
| I was thinking about how when Ellie was offered to join the Colorado bandit gang, she should've accepted that offer. Were she thinking more coolly about it, it makes perfect sense in that after developing a bit of trust, she would gain more freedom to escape. And imagine the dramatic possibilities -- it could lead to a scene where Ellie finds herself forced to participate in a raid on a peaceful settlement. But it's worth it because she needs to preserve her life above all for the sake of humanity right? |
In the ideal version of this game that exists only in my head and will forever color my appreciation of The Thing Itself, Ellie joins the group and just maybe they're not cannibals. You actually meet the women and children, and she learns that they're desperate people trying to stay alive w/out succumbing to any signature of OH MY GOD KILL EM. She has to deal w/ her growing comfort with the safety of a large group and the validity of their dislike of her and hatred of her dad figure. She wants to continue her trip, but she likes this dwelling in one place thing and becomes fond/appreciative of the people around her (after all, their banditry isn't much worse than what she and Joel have been doing). Joel "rescues" her and the orgy of violence that ensues is a little less WELL THEY WERE GONNA CUT HER ARM OFF.
They could still Start It when Joel comes, ignorant of the fact that among these people are people who saw him kill their friends, so it's a not a complete What A Monster You Are moment.
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Last edited by shrugtheironteacup on Fri Jun 28, 2013 6:57 am; edited 1 time in total |
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