Mattya wrote:shangrila wrote:packforfreedom wrote:Only a couple of days until The Last of Us 2
I hope you enjoy it. Honestly.
I'm not touching it with a 10ft pole.
I don't get it? Is there something wrong with the game i'm not hearing about?
There's a few issues for me. Personally I wasn't a fan of the original to begin with (didn't hate it, just thought the idea it was one of the best games of all time was laughable) and following the leaks I found that a lot of my problems with the original weren't going to be fixed in the sequel. And, in some cases, they seem to have gotten worse.
My main problem was always with the narrative. As someone who studied storytelling I probably have a higher bar than other people, to be fair, but I still just found it all disappointing. They tried to create a world with a grey morality but either didn't achieve it or undercut themselves for god knows what reason. I'll give you examples.
First, Joel. He's an interesting character, to be sure, presented as an anti-hero, a ruthless survivor who's done and seen all the bad things in order to continue living. The issue? We're only ever
told those things. You never
see them. And that is a cardinal sin in story telling; you show, don't tell and never the other way around. If they wanted to present him as an anti-hero they should have shown it. Show him betraying someone to further his own ends, show him robbing some poor sap for their supplies or killing someone pre-emptively because he thinks they
might be a threat. That would have solidified him as a clear anti-hero, rather than just some throwaway dialogue like that "I've been on both sides of this trap" scene. And before anyone mentions the final act; he did all that for Ellie. Even if he doomed mankind you as the player are rooting for him because you're attached to Ellie, so it's a moot point. The whole point of grey morality in story telling is to leave the reader conflicted. If you don't achieve that it's pointless and, at least personally, they didn't. I didn't hate Joel or think him murdering the Fireflies was bad because I cared more about Ellie than Nameless Goon #658.
Secondly was the other group of survivors they encounter midway through the story. This had SOOOOOOOOOOO much potential that it just annoys me that they screwed themselves in the end. I'll explain.
Imagine this scenario; a few guys are wandering through a university, at the same time that Joel and Ellie are there. These guys spot movement and, thinking it's a zombie, decide to take the shot...narrowly missing Joel, who they've mistaken for a zombie. So now Joel is getting shot at and defends himself against what he assumes are raiders. And those other survivors? Well now
they're getting shot at by Joel, so they try to defend themselves because they assume some raider heard the shot and is trying to kill them for their stuff. Joel kills them all, in self defence.
Right there you have a pretty compelling situation. A mistake has led to a misunderstanding that led to violence and no one is truly at fault. You continue on. As Joel was winning he's wounded and Ellie has to nurse him back to health. She finds some non-violent survivors who talk about their missing friends, who were scavenging the university looking for equipment or something (could even throw something on top, like the equipment they needed was a ventilator for a dying friend). Again, you're left with tragedy that no one is at fault for.
And if you continued and had those survivors going after Joel for revenge, you would have had a great scenario; one where everyone is justified in their actions and the reader, even as they're experiencing things through Joel, can actively empathise with the other side. It would have been perfect.
Instead ND made those other survivors cannibals, instantly making them villains without redeeming features and so you killing them all turns into a good thing, rather than a moral challenge.
And after reading/watching the leaks, I found a lot of these issues hadn't been fixed. There's still tons of telling and not showing, if anything it's gotten worse, and I got the vibe that these characters weren't very likable. This was further compounded after I watched SkillUp's spoiler free review, where he confirmed that he felt the same and added that he felt a lot of characters made stupid decisions simply in order to move the plot along. Which I honestly can't stand, given my background. It's crappy writing and just pisses me off.
I also found that the way Sony and ND reacted to the leaks was pathetic. Sony illegally copyright claimed numerous different videos, some of which were only talking about the leaks in an abstract way (which, regardless of how they talked about it, Sony had no right to do) and it just left a bad taste in my mouth. I'd rather not support behaviour like that. And ND, or the game lead Druckmann, just did the standard "oh you don't like me thing with gay people in it? You're a homophobe then." Which, sure, there was some of that. But when you use that to try and bury all criticism, even the legitimate stuff...that annoys me. And, again, I don't want to support that kind of stuff, so I vote with my wallet.
Finally, I think the gameplay is outdated. It doesn't seem to have changed much from the original and even that was sort of stretching my tolerance back then. The melee combat, while visually appealing, is simplistic and repetitive. Guns were and apparently still are unwieldy and more annoying than fun to use. And the stealth system was as basic as possible, something that they've changed a little I'll admit with the introduction of sniffer dogs, but it still seems like something I've played before a few hundred times (which, I'm a hardcore gamer, so my experience might be different to yours).
If anyone wants to enjoy it, I'm happy for them (as I said in my original post). But as I've detailed above, I just don't think this game is for me so I'm avoiding it. Also, sorry for the long post but there's a lot I need to say about this game. Especially nowadays as my dislike of this game is instantly branded as homophobia by some unless I explain this stuff specifically.
