TLOU2 Review Thread

[SilentPony]

No, they've just released a sequel to that game.
Did you say the same for Doom Eternal? "Like, what is this, 1993?' Or Star Wars? "Like, what is this, 1977?"
People are excited for things that are continuations of things they previously enjoyed. Weird, but true.

Which I still find baffling considering how rare a decent sequel is, damn near impossible a good one, and the overwhelming majority of sequels are hacked-together rushed committee fucked garbage.
Like the Last of Us...its been 6 years! Kids who were born during the LoU launch are going into 1st grade. Who keeps a torch burning for anything for that long?! How many brain-cells go to fan theories or hopeful ideas? How long has it been going on? Was there ever a lull in the anticipation?
I will never understand why anyone thinks something can be equally as good the second time. The fact the Last of Us was popular was unexpected. The writers didn't know, the VAs didn't know, the programmers didn't know. They all hoped, but they didn't know. Now with a sequel the bare-minimum is exactly as good as the first one. Even one breath of a whisper of a shadow of an iota worse and its a disappointment.
At best its a recipe for disaster that people get way, way, way too invested in.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Seems like a lot of baseless conjecture at this point. That they try to appeal to the semi-trans audience by turning the trans character more buff doesn't even make any sense. Instead you could argue the opposite; by not making idealized representations they actually turn them into *gasp* actual people. And, as is pretty obvious in the game, with serious flaws and all.

I've noticed a big big push in western video games lately to try and "uglify" the female characters. Which is detailed in that polygon article above.

But here is an image from the article as well (see attached)

I understand you want to be inclusive, but why are you masculine-izing a real person?

There has been arguments online about the depiction of women in comic books and video games as unrealistic, a beauty standard that is impossible for real women to hit. Yet here is Naughty Dog actively downplaying a "real" woman to fit a completely different audience.

My problem is that they seem to want to appeal to smaller and smaller audiences to be viewed as inclusive. However by doing so you alienate the lots of fans who liked things from before and then when those people complain, they are DEMONIZED for being homophobic or transphobic or whatever.

People shouldn't be shamed for what they like, nor should they be shamed for asking for what they like. These companies take it too the extreme though. The CW's batwoman show is an example of this where every female character in the show is a lesbian.

Being inclusive to the LBGTQ community doesn't mean appealing to ONLY the LBGTQ community. Like all things there should be balance, have gay characters and straight characters and trans characters all together in a story organically.

I mean they made Ellie a lesbian when she was like fucking 12 or some shit in that DLC. Why? There is no problem making her a lesbian but why as a child? Let her grow but and discover herself as a lesbian in a more interesting fashion. Meeting a girl in a community, finding herself attracted, battling with it a little, and giving into her sexuality as a bit of character growth.

The majority of the Last of Us 1 players did NOT play the DLC, so when they launch this game it's gonna be like "By the way Ellie's gay now because we said so." Fucking why? You could have told that story as a character growing arch in this game and made it feel good and natural. Instead you just flip a gay switch.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I've noticed a big big push in western video games lately to try and "uglify" the female characters. Which is detailed in that polygon article above.

But here is an image from the article as well (see attached)

I understand you want to be inclusive, but why are you masculine-izing a real person?

There has been arguments online about the depiction of women in comic books and video games as unrealistic, a beauty standard that is impossible for real women to hit. Yet here is Naughty Dog actively downplaying a "real" woman to fit a completely different audience.

Which western games are those exactly? I'd like some actual games where the female characters were made purposefully ugly.

As for that image, what am I supposed to be looking for on the left that's either uglier or more masculine? The slightly more muscle toned shoulders?

My problem is that they seem to want to appeal to smaller and smaller audiences to be viewed as inclusive. However by doing so you alienate the lots of fans who liked things from before and then when those people complain, they are DEMONIZED for being homophobic or transphobic or whatever.

Why would having a gay main character alienate people? Does playing as a robot, shark, or alien alienate people from playing a game? No, right?

I mean they made Ellie a lesbian when she was like fucking 12 or some shit in that DLC. Why? There is no problem making her a lesbian but why as a child? Let her grow but and discover herself as a lesbian in a more interesting fashion. Meeting a girl in a community, finding herself attracted, battling with it a little, and giving into her sexuality as a bit of character growth.

The majority of the Last of Us 1 players did NOT play the DLC, so when they launch this game it's gonna be like "By the way Ellie's gay now because we said so." Fucking why? You could have told that story as a character growing arch in this game and made it feel good and natural. Instead you just flip a gay switch.

Are you implying people are born straight and become gay as they grow up? Because that would be a very, very silly thing to say. If Ellie is gay that means she's born gay, and likely only realized this when she was 14 (not 12 btw). Let me ask you this, if Ellie gave a quick peck on the lips of a boy in Left Behind, would you be as vocal about it? Would you ask 'Why, she's just a child'?

And just because she's (what you preceive to be) 12 and gay doesn't mean she's having sex at 12. If a 12-year old straight girl can be in love with a boy and share a simple kiss, what's wrong with a 12-year old lesbian girl being in love and sharing a simple kiss with a girl?

 

[CriticalGaming]

Why would having a gay main character alienate people? Does playing as a robot, shark, or alien alienate people from playing a game? No, right?

No it isn't just having the main character be gay. It's the politics of having every character being gay (as in batwomen) or having it all over the product like it's the only thing that has any relevance. Politics alienate people. They always will and I get that sometimes it will chase people away, but if done well you can have your message and your audience together. The problem is when you bash people over the head with it, like what Naughty Dog has been doing since they fired Amy Hening for not wanting to write the shit into her stories.

What was wrong with the normal Indiana Jones-like story about traveling around the globe looking for treasure. No sexuality needed. Just running around chasing bad guys trying to find some maguffin and that's that. Everything has to have a fucking message now and I hate it honestly. It's so on the nose that it makes me actively discredit the message on purpose.

If the message is subtle, it's fine, but when you see it plastered through out the game or the show it just becomes eye-rolling. That might make me a shitty person, but I am starting to not give a shit.

Are you implying people are born straight and become gay as they grow up? Because that would be a very, very silly thing to say. If Ellie is gay that means she's born gay, and likely only realized this when she was 14 (not 12 btw). Let me ask you this, if Ellie gave a quick peck on the lips of a boy in Left Behind, would you be as vocal about it? Would you ask 'Why, she's just a child'?

And just because she's (what you preceive to be) 12 and gay doesn't mean she's having sex at 12. If a 12-year old straight girl can be in love with a boy and share a simple kiss, what's wrong with a 12-year old lesbian girl being in love and sharing a simple kiss with a girl?

No, absolutely not. If ellie is gay then she's gay from day 1 and just discovers her sexuality along the way. The issue I have is that they snuck the fact into her character in a DLC which many many people will have missed, when instead they could have done it as a good character arch in this game.

You telling me you'd rather it just happen quickly in a DLC as opposed to having a full story arch in a fleshed out game where you see Ellie grow as a character as she learns who she is and what matters to her?

And yeah, you're right, if Ellie kissed a boy as a teenager it wouldn't be a big deal. Because like it or not, that's the normal and normal usually isn't a big deal. However it would become a big deal if she kissed a boy in the DLC then was gay in the sequel, but again that could have been a great plot device as Ellie starts to find these feelings for Dina and their relationship builds up as the game progresses. Hell make it a kidnapping where Dina gets taken and Ellie rushes to save her as a play on the "save the Princess" Trope. That would have been GOOD.

A story about love, instead of vengeance that treats the characters with a complete lack of respect.

Seems like a missed potential.

And I would point out, that my point is the emphasize Ellie's homosexuality in a better way, not remove it, or "it would be better if she were straight". I'm not trying to remove the homosexuality, I'm trying to see it be better.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Everyone is biased, I don't get what the point of calling a review bias is. Regardless of who the reviewer is, I want their completely honest opinion of something, which I feel these 2 guys do give, and I feel Jim Sterling does as well (even though his and my tastes are pretty different, I respect him for being honest). I pretty damn sure the boat gameplay isn't going to make TLOU2 much better if at all and too much of it could easily become annoying. I definitely was never looking forward to more boating in GOW4. At best, it can be used as a pacing mechanism providing some character moments between 2 characters during some downtime. From Skillup's review, it seems like you hardly need any of the new transversal mechanics and instead of making those ladder, box, and platform "puzzles" better, Naughty Dog just basically took them out for the most part. I feel both of the reviews showed video of the rope at least. It's not like you can use the rope like you could in UC4.

I think most everyone knows what the gameplay is going to be if they've ever played a Naughty Dog game in like the last 15 years. The only thing the reviews of TLOU2 have done for me was that I probably moved this game slightly down in priority on my list of games to play; I was already getting Desperados 3 over TLOU2. For a Naughty Dog game to really work for me, it has to be firing on all cylinders because the gameplay alone isn't anything must-play; the pacing, the setpieces, and the characters/story all have to be well-executed and I'm getting the feeling that they just weren't in TLOU2. Only really UC2 and TLOU have accomplished that in past Naughty Dog games so they have a higher miss rate than hit rate.

It just comes across as confirmation bias sometimes, especially with a lot of these home-brew youtube channels. Even the footage they use to talk about certain aspects is too often designed to support their opinion vs give a detailed rundown of everything the game really does. I could never base a decision to play something or not based on “reviews” like that, because there’s clearly too much cherry picking going on.

Everyone’s free to have personal tastes of course, but what people like Rurikhan or Skill Up do is tell their audience whether or not a game is worthwhile to them based on their own personal feelings about it. How does one even accurately assign a universal value to something like “story” anyways when it could mean something different for everyone? It’s not like pointing out a broken mechanic or other technical flaw that makes the game less playable or functional, which is what reviews should be placing front and center.

As far as gameplay, other people have said the game reminds them more of MGSV than a typical Naughty Dog game, so is saying TLoU2 is typical Naughty Dog gameplay truly accurate?

 

[Casual Shinji]

No it isn't just having the main character be gay. It's the politics of having every character being gay (as in batwomen) or having it all over the product like it's the only thing that has any relevance. Politics alienate people. They always will and I get that sometimes it will chase people away, but if done well you can have your message and your audience together. The problem is when you bash people over the head with it, like what Naughty Dog has been doing since they fired Amy Hening for not wanting to write the shit into her stories.

No, gender politics alienate certain people. Politics didn't alienate people in Kojima games or Ubisoft games, but if it's about gender a certain amount of people turn rabid. And can I get some actual proof Amy Henning was fired for not bending to Naughty Dog's woke will. Otherwise I'm taking it as another BS claim, like how Henning also wrote TLoU.

What was wrong with the normal Indiana Jones-like story about traveling around the globe looking for treasure. No sexuality needed. Just running around chasing bad guys trying to find some maguffin and that's that. Everything has to have a fucking message now and I hate it honestly. It's so on the nose that it makes me actively discredit the message on purpose.

No sexuality apart from, you know, Nathan and Elena, and Nathan and Chloe. Because Nathan and Chloe totally didn't bang in Uncharted 2 or have numerous flirtatous moments, like Nate talking about her ass, saying maybe he was just happy to see her when she remarked on feeling a dagger in his pocket. Ooh and nothing in Uncharted had any message whatsoever, sure.

No, absolutely not. If ellie is gay then she's gay from day 1 and just discovers her sexuality along the way. The issue I have is that they snuck the fact into her character in a DLC which many many people will have missed, when instead they could have done it as a good character arch in this game.

You telling me you'd rather it just happen quickly in a DLC as opposed to having a full story arch in a fleshed out game where you see Ellie grow as a character as she learns who she is and what matters to her?

I'm saying I don't care anymore than I do about the game exploring Joel's sexuality. Joel's straight, which means he's romantically attracted to women, the end.

And yeah, you're right, if Ellie kissed a boy as a teenager it wouldn't be a big deal. Because like it or not, that's the normal and normal usually isn't a big deal. However it would become a big deal if she kissed a boy in the DLC then was gay in the sequel, but again that could have been a great plot device as Ellie starts to find these feelings for Dina and their relationship builds up as the game progresses. Hell make it a kidnapping where Dina gets taken and Ellie rushes to save her as a play on the "save the Princess" Trope. That would have been GOOD.

Wow dude, way to discriminate. Quite lovely.

 

[09philj]

What was wrong with the normal Indiana Jones-like story about traveling around the globe looking for treasure. No sexuality needed.

Ah yes, notoriously sexless hero Indiana Jones.

 

[Houseman]

Wow dude, way to discriminate. Quite lovely.

LGBT are in the minority, and one of those letters are even further in the minority than the others. Appealing (pandering) to a small percentage of the population has a chance to turn off those who aren't in that minority. That's not discrimination, that's demographics.

If The Escapist was branded as an LGBT site, like this, a lot of us wouldn't be here, not because we're bigots, but because it just doesn't appeal or apply to us.

 

[CriticalGaming]

LGBT are in the minority, and one of those letters are even further in the minority than the others. Appealing (pandering) to a small percentage of the population has a chance to turn off those who aren't in that minority. That's not discrimination, that's demographics.

If The Escapist was branded as an LGBT site, like this, a lot of us wouldn't be here, not because we're bigots, but because it just doesn't appeal or apply to us.

Fucking thank you.

I think that's the problem with these kinds of discussions.

If you so much as point out a fact that someone doesnt like, you're instantly a bastard.

Notice that the comment is only about the first sentence of my statement, immediately saying im discriminating. Never mind the rest of the paragraph where i talk about how a lesbian love story would have been a better idea than what they actually did.

 

[CriticalGaming]

No sexuality apart from, you know, Nathan and Elena, and Nathan and Chloe. Because Nathan and Chloe totally didn't bang in Uncharted 2 or have numerous flirtatous moments, like Nate talking about her ass, saying maybe he was just happy to see her when she remarked on feeling a dagger in his pocket. Ooh and nothing in Uncharted had any message whatsoever, sure.

Ok maybe i should have used the tomb raider games. Especially the 2nd and 3rd games in which strictly focus on having an adventure and saving the world and sexuality have nothing to do with it. Lara could be gay, straight, who knows, doesnt matter.

And yes technically every story has a message, good versus evil, climate change, corporate greed, but the majority if these messages apply to humankind as a whole. Politics are quite a bit more niche and quite frankly not a lot of video game players are interested in a game trying to push how the patriarchy is evil. Or want to be bombarded with alternate sexualities.

The best messages are subtle and in your face crap tends to get ignored.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

If the message is subtle, it's fine, but when you see it plastered through out the game or the show it just becomes eye-rolling. That might make me a shitty person, but I am starting to not give a shit.

No, absolutely not. If ellie is gay then she's gay from day 1 and just discovers her sexuality along the way. The issue I have is that they snuck the fact into her character in a DLC which many many people will have missed, when instead they could have done it as a good character arch in this game.

You telling me you'd rather it just happen quickly in a DLC as opposed to having a full story arch in a fleshed out game where you see Ellie grow as a character as she learns who she is and what matters to her?

There seems to be a no-win scenario then. You say you want it subtle and then complain it was done in a DLC instead of being apart of a full story arc. What do you want then? Many would complain that Naughty Dog is trying to be all "woke" by having the main story arc being that Ellie is gay. It seems like minority characters have to be perfectly written and implemented into the game and everyone has their own interpretation for how that's done to not appear as some agenda or political statement and thus becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that it's done poorly thus leading to "they're ruining our games" argument. It's not like video games have a history of having good characters in the 1st place and minority characters will probably be as bad as majority characters, what does it matter? Why can't minority characters be as poorly written as straight white characters? Sure, we might get an overabundance of minority characters but that's mainly because we got an overabundance of majority characters before and once publishers start allowing minority characters, you'll have an influx of devs wanting to make a game with character(s) they weren't allowed to use before. At the end of the day, you're either going to feel like the game has well written characters or not and chances are low that forced minority characters will have ruined anything that wouldn't have been ruined already.

It just comes across as confirmation bias sometimes, especially with a lot of these home-brew youtube channels. Even the footage they use to talk about certain aspects is too often designed to support their opinion vs give a detailed rundown of everything the game really does. I could never base a decision to play something or not based on “reviews” like that, because there’s clearly too much cherry picking going on.

Everyone’s free to have personal tastes of course, but what people like Rurikhan or Skill Up do is tell their audience whether or not a game is worthwhile to them based on their own personal feelings about it. How does one even accurately assign a universal value to something like “story” anyways when it could mean something different for everyone? It’s not like pointing out a broken mechanic or other technical flaw that makes the game less playable or functional, which is what reviews should be placing front and center.

As far as gameplay, other people have said the game reminds them more of MGSV than a typical Naughty Dog game, so is saying TLoU2 is typical Naughty Dog gameplay truly accurate?

I don't feel like either Rurikhan or Skillup has purposefully held back footage that didn't support their views of the game. I'd say the 47 (if I counted correctly) perfect scores on Metacritic are far more likely to be full of confirmation bias and cherry picking than the aforementioned guys. Just look at all the bullshit confirmation bias and cherry picking in the "professional" reviews of Uncharted 3. From the games that both Skillup and I have played, I say he overrates games if anything. I don't at all feel like I was given a poor representation of what the game is by either of them and the less than stellar representation is a lot more due to the embargo than either of them. Hell, Skillup had to use footage from RDR2, Sekiro, and Witcher 3 (for the, you know, boating gameplay footage that he apparently left out purposefully) to try to demonstrate TLOU2 properly.

That's literally what a reviewer is supposed to do, share why they liked/disliked something based on their personal feelings. There's no way to assign universal value to a story and I don't see why one would even try to. Movie reviews have been getting along just fine for well over 50 years. You do just like you do with regards to other mediums and their reviews, find someone with similar tastes or someone that's just good at explaining why they liked/disliked something, then thinking mainly about the "whys" and basically ignoring the fact that they liked or didn't like it. To act like a large chunk of why someone likes/dislikes a TLOU game has little to do with story and characters is being dishonest as well. I definitely want to know what someone thinks of the characters and story in TLOU2, probably more so than the gameplay because I know what the gameplay is already.

TLOU2 plays far more like TLOU than it does MGS5. Just because the linear environments are more open than the last game doesn't equal the game playing more like MGS5 than TLOU1. I believe both Rurikhan and Skillup mentioned there's more routes around levels and encounters (like instead of say 2 routes, there's like 4 or 5). Also, MGS5 has far smoother and arcade-y shooting controls than TLOU.

 

[Casual Shinji]

And yes technically every story has a message, good versus evil, climate change, corporate greed, but the majority if these messages apply to humankind as a whole. Politics are quite a bit more niche and quite frankly not a lot of video game players are interested in a game trying to push how the patriarchy is evil. Or want to be bombarded with alternate sexualities.

Corporate greed and climate change isn't political? What?

You know what would stop different sexualities from being political? If people stopped being mad about them existing, in real life and in fiction.

LGBT are in the minority, and one of those letters are even further in the minority than the others. Appealing (pandering) to a small percentage of the population has a chance to turn off those who aren't in that minority. That's not discrimination, that's demographics.

If The Escapist was branded as an LGBT site, like this, a lot of us wouldn't be here, not because we're bigots, but because it just doesn't appeal or apply to us.

Therefore minorities should stay out of anything with a large budget. You're right, that's totally not discriminating at all.

 

[Houseman]

Therefore minorities should stay out of anything with a large budget.

Out of everything I've written, what makes you think that I think that minorities should "stay out" of anything with a large budget?
Let me be clear: That's not what I said, and that's not what I think.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Out of everything I've written, what makes you think that I think that minorities should "stay out" of anything with a large budget?
Let me be clear: That's not what I said, and that's not what I think.

Just a hunch, considering a gay main character in a AAA action game is being seen as pushing an agenda and pandering. And that this pushing and pandering is regarded as a bad thing. Not a bad thing as in a financial risk, a bad thing period.

And that you specifically commented on my post calling out the claim that being gay and kissing someone of the same gender is not normal and worthy of making a fuss over as discriminatory, which it is.

 

[Houseman]

Just a hunch, considering a gay main character in a AAA action game is being seen as pushing an agenda and pandering. And that this pushing and pandering is regarded as a bad thing. Not a bad thing as in a financial risk, a bad thing period.

And that you specifically commented on my post calling out the claim that being gay and kissing someone of the same gender is not normal and worthy of making a fuss over as discriminatory, which it is.

Well I'm sorry to say, but your hunch, in this case, was wrong. I only meant what I said, and I said what I meant. Pandering to a certain demographic is going to be a turn-off for another demographic. That's not discrimination.

 

[Dreiko]

Why would having a gay main character alienate people? Does playing as a robot, shark, or alien alienate people from playing a game? No, right?

A robot, shark or alien do unique, different, interesting things that a generic human protagonist doesn't do. A lesbian does what I do; find women hot. How is that any more unique or creative than just having a guy?

That's kind of the issue here. They go "*drumrolllllll*....aaaaand the big thing you were waiting for is here! sheeeeee's a lesbian!, wooooohoooo!!!!"
"And?"
"Lesbian, the child you saved, she's a lesbian!"
"is she a magic lesbian?"
"She's a lesbian!"
"Does she shoot ice from her lesbian tits?"
"SHE IS A LESBIAN, what more could you want?!?!"
"Well, anything would be good for a start..."

I had no issue with the last of us 1 dlc (loved that bit where they played pretend videogames and found it charming, also they had you do real fighting game inputs lol) but it definitely didn't actually add anything to the char development. I felt exactly the same about the game as I did before I played it. Nothing added nothing lost. People who act as though anything of notable value was added are the problem here. They're the other side of the coin with the people who now hate the game cause it has a lesbian. Both groups are putting identity politics over games.

 

[Ezekiel]

I don't care that Ellie is a lesbian, but I don't wanna play as the other ridiculously muscular trans-friendly character who does something to someone. I think transgenderism is a delusion, and I don't want it shoved in my face like this. That's not to say I can't like representations of transgenders in fiction. That long chapter in Sandman was beautiful, and Funeral Parade of Roses is a very good movie. But I don't expect something like that from some woke douche from California. Probably never going to play this.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Well I'm sorry to say, but your hunch, in this case, was wrong. I only meant what I said, and I said what I meant. Pandering to a certain demographic is going to be a turn-off for another demographic. That's not discrimination.

Well then a) why even comment on it, since my post was in regards to CriticalGaming saying being gay isn't normal, and b) that's straight-up false. Pandering to minorities (if we can even call having a minority main character 'pandering') didn't turn-off the majority to Black Panther. And that movie even had politics regarding the marginalized position of black people in America (from what I've heard anyway). And TLoU2 is going to sell perfectly fine, too. Now you might say 'well that's only because it's Marvel, and only because Sony AAA exclussives have a tendency to sell well anyway', but if pandering to minorities was really such a turn-off to the majority they would flop regardless. But they don't.

And sorry, but if someone refuses to either watch a movie or play a game because the main character (or any other character) is a minority, and soley for that reason alone, that's discrimination.

 

[BrawlMan]

And sorry, but if someone refuses to either watch a movie or play a game because the main character (or any other character) is a minority, and soley for that reason alone, that's discrimination.

 

[Houseman]

Well then a) why even comment on it

Because you called it discrimination, and I disagreed with that assessment.

Pandering to minorities (if we can even call having a minority main character 'pandering') didn't turn-off the majority to Black Panther

It's not as if a movie or a game exists in a vacuum. There are always multiple different factors at play. People who came for Captain America might sit through Black Panther or Captain Marvel so as to not miss out on important plot points that will be used in sequels, like Infinity War, and Spiderman: Far From Home.

So that doesn't disprove my argument.

You think that a disconnected Black Panther movie that isn't part of the connected cinematic universe would do as well?

You think that white people regularly flock to Tyler Perry movies? Of course not. Why not? Discrimination? No, demographics.

This seems a little ridiculous to even explain. It seems like common sense that games are made for, and marketed towards, specific target audiences. Games about Barbie are aimed at little girls. Tyler Perry is aimed at black people. Shounen is aimed at teenage boys. Rom Coms are aimed at women. The further away you are from the target audience, the less likely it is that you'll ever consume that media. This is all common knowledge, isn't it?