The Last of Us (Part) 2 [PS4]

[orangpelupa]

Love how they pay homage to Jurassic Park and The Lost World, as a JP and dinosaur fan this couldn't please me more.

i really like the psychology manipulation ND did on that level! its amazing! from the suspense from fake anticipation (nearing the end of the level) that wrap things up from the whole level design and ellie x joel dynamic in that level.
Thats what i like from ND games. I really liked when they are psychologically manipulating me, the player, thru gameplay elements.

 

[PSman1700]

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/the-last-of-us-part-two

Wired review is out!

 

[London Geezer]

I must be pretty close to the end and for the life of me, I cannot understand what the huge outrage (and the stupid user reviews on metacritic) was about with this game? It's crazy how trolls and the internet in general amplify 'things', but honestly... What was the problem?? Spoiler free please? Was it just about the thing that happens in the first 2-3 hours of the game? Fake outrage, amplified by social media, really gets on my tits.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

This is the future of gaming. Here are the game fundamentals, tweak it as you see it to get the maximum enjoyment out of it.

Yes, so long as gamers are smart enough to adjust things to their preference. I can tell you from experience that you can make a game that's too easy to start with so gamers get bored instantly, or too hard and gamers reject it for being too tricky. The more experience tailoring options you have, the more time the player needs to invest in tuning the experience to make it 'just right' and I don't think that's a question anyone can ask out right. Basically, "here's a game. You may think it's a bit crap to begin with*, but trust me, once you've played around with the settings, you'll love it!"

As more games do this, gamers (by which I include the billion+ people who play games) may get used to it and be willing to spend time on it.

* ridiculously easy and unchallenging or impossibly difficult and frustrating.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

in one of the flashback

Spoiler: weird inconsistencies?

in a flashback where joal and ellie gonna go to a music store, they meet bloater. Ellie knew its a bloater.

but in the main story, in the current time, ellie didnt know a bloater, it was the first time she's seeing a bloater. She even complains why nature keeps making new zombies.

maybe the flashbacks were a late addition pretty late in development?

Are you confusing bloaters (which were in the first game), and stage 4 infected (which are new)? That sequence takes place after the first game ended, i.e. after Joel and Ellie have returned to Jackson and settled into life there.

I must be pretty close to the end and for the life of me, I cannot understand what the huge outrage (and the stupid user reviews on metacritic) was about with this game? It's crazy how trolls and the internet in general amplify 'things', but honestly... What was the problem?? Spoiler free please? Was it just about the thing that happens in the first 2-3 hours of the game? Fake outrage, amplified by social media, really gets on my tits.

No, this is a head-scratcher. But to be fair - and acknowledging we've not finished the second-half of the game yet - I am not understanding all the crazy praise for the story-telling. I think several reviewers were simply hyperbolic and raised my expectations into the stratosphere. Now the story may go somewhere amazing but thus far it's been a very competently and interesting tale of motivated hate and revenge. I think I can see where it's going.

I do really like what they've done though and as with the first game, the characterisations and writing is fantastic. There are no superfluous or frivolous characters; no comic relief characters, no obvious 'redshirts', nobody is behaving stupid. Everything is just grounded.

Yes, so long as gamers are smart enough to adjust things to their preference. I can tell you from experience that you can make a game that's too easy to start with so gamers get bored instantly, or too hard and gamers reject it for being too tricky.

Theres nothing you can do with gamers who when faced with aspects of a game they don't like, will just quit rather than check for gameplay options or change difficulty options. The crazy option settings in TLoU2 are not for those people, they for everybody else. Work on the problems you can solve, ignore those you can't.

 

[orangpelupa]

Yes, so long as gamers are smart enough to adjust things to their preference. I can tell you from experience that you can make a game that's too easy to start with so gamers get bored instantly, or too hard and gamers reject it for being too tricky. The more experience tailoring options you have, the more time the player needs to invest in tuning the experience to make it 'just right' and I don't think that's a question anyone can ask out right. Basically, "here's a game. You may think it's a bit crap to begin with*, but trust me, once you've played around with the settings, you'll love it!"

As more games do this, gamers (by which I include the billion+ people who play games) may get used to it and be willing to spend time on it.

* ridiculously easy and unchallenging or impossibly difficult and frustrating.

Maybe because I'm also a pc gamers, so I never find more option = bad. Heck, one of the fun was finding the best option.

But yeah, from a perspective of Nintendo Switch owner that plays Nintendo games, where it's full of "just download / plug the cart and play", it can be overwhelming.

PS4 already full with options (boost mode? Suoersamlling? System level hdr setting? Game downloads that took ages and double disk space? Etc)

 

[orangpelupa]

Are you confusing bloaters (which were in the first game), and stage 4 infected (which are new)? That sequence takes place after the first game ended, i.e. after Joel and Ellie have returned to Jackson and settled into life there.



No, this is a head-scratcher. But to be fair - and acknowledging we've not finished the second-half of the game yet - I am not understanding all the crazy praise for the story-telling. I think several reviewers were simply hyperbolic and raised by expectations into the stratosphere. Now the story go somewhere amazing but thus far it's been a very competently and interesting tale of motivated hate and revenge. I think I can see where it's going.

I do really like what they've done though and as with the first game, the characterisations and writing is fantastic. There are no superfluous or frivolous characters; no comic relief characters, no obvious 'redshirts', nobody is behaving stupid. Everything is just grounded.



Theres nothing you can do with gamers who when faced with aspects of a game they don't like, will just quit rather than check for gameplay options or change difficulty options. The crazy option settings in TLoU2 are not for those people, they for everybody else. Work on the problems you can solve, ignore those you can't.

I mean the boss battle where Joel and ellie fight a zombie that throws acid haze

Edit
You are right https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.an...part-2-list-infected-and-their-weaknesses?amp

 

[London Geezer]

No, this is a head-scratcher.

I even read that there was a huge FAKE outrage at Ellie liking girls... Like that's a surprise to anyone?? So very stupid.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

You are right https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.androidcentral.com/last-us-part-2-list-infected-and-their-weaknesses?amp

I know!!! How did you manage to forget the bloaters from the first game? There was a bunch of the them and they were bastards to take down. Your best case scenario was the first encounter in the school gyn which was both large, and had places to hide behind. The one in the dark college dorms though, that was a right pain in the arse.

I even read that there was a huge FAKE outrage at Ellie liking girls... Like that's a surprise to anyone?? So very stupid.

You must have forgotten the 'controversy' when Left Behind released. It wasn't as bad as this but it was still pretty toxic.

 

[orangpelupa]

I know!!! How did you manage to forget the bloaters from the first game? There was a bunch of the them and they were bastards to take down. Your best case scenario was the first encounter in the school gyn which was both large, and had places to hide behind. The one in the dark college dorms though, that was a right pain in the arse.



You must have forgotten the 'controversy' when Left Behind released. It wasn't as bad as this but it was still pretty toxic.

I am a forgetful person hahaha

Btw the more I play the more I prefer the zombies than humans.

At first, killing humans feels really bad. Now, they are just frigging annoying.

Oh I cleared an area and no alarm was raised? Here's the next wave for you. Blergh.

I'll just stick to stealth.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I loved Joel's present to Ellie.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I must be pretty close to the end and for the life of me, I cannot understand what the huge outrage (and the stupid user reviews on metacritic) was about with this game? It's crazy how trolls and the internet in general amplify 'things', but honestly... What was the problem?? Spoiler free please? Was it just about the thing that happens in the first 2-3 hours of the game? Fake outrage, amplified by social media, really gets on my tits.

Never followed the spoilers so don't know myself but since the game has been released it seems apparently people are against the outcome of Joel. Apparently it hurts their own narative feelings and the fact that you play another character other than Joel and Ellie and it pisses people off.

People need to grow up. You would think they would be mature and accept the story but alas seems a lot of people are just stupid and immature.

My own opinion is that ND had a story to tell and they told it no matter the outcome. I am thankful to ND for the story, it was amazing. The graphics and gameplay was amazing.

 

[MrFox]

I went in knowing nothing other than the trailers, the official gameplay segment, and the interview describing the factions we will meet: So it's a revenge spree with consequences, multiple factions at war, everything you can expect from sectarian atrocities, cruel indoctrination, psychological trauma, religious brainwashing, individuals being the product of their respective society (subtle metaphor with the trained dogs? can we not kill them? is stealth an option?). So okay, those are the themes. Shit it's going to be troubling. I started my game immediately trying to play each character they way they're supposed to be acting in their mental state and level of knowledge as described by the story.

It's been a reliable perspective so far, but I'm worried about how far it will go... I don't think I'm even at a third of the game, it's supposed to be 30h+ and I'm about 10h going slowly around every level. Any good story will hit rock bottom at the end of the second act, the third act starts resolving the themes. And it really feel like I'm still far from that point despite some very traumatizing scenes. The multiple storylines/timelines makes it difficult to figure out how close of far there is yet to go.

 

[Strange]

Spoiler: weird inconsistencies?

in a flashback where joal and ellie gonna go to a music store, they meet bloater. Ellie knew its a bloater.

but in the main story, in the current time, ellie didnt know a bloater, it was the first time she's seeing a bloater. She even complains why nature keeps making new zombies.

maybe the flashbacks were a late addition pretty late in development?

Spoiler: in regards to your infected question...

you're getting stuff mixed up. Bloaters were present in TLOS1 , new thing is Shambler.

Bloaters are armored hulks that throw toxin around.
Shamblers are new in TLOS2. They are really similar to Bloaters but they differ in some ways, first they still have eyes, they blow up when dying (just a gas cloud for bloaters), and don't have the strength of bloaters. Call it a weaker version of a the bloater if you like.

 

[Strange]

I went in knowing nothing other than the trailers, the official gameplay segment, and the interview describing the factions we will meet: So it's a revenge spree with consequences, multiple factions at war, everything you can expect from sectarian atrocities, cruel indoctrination, psychological trauma, religious brainwashing, individuals being the product of their respective society (subtle metaphor with the trained dogs? can we not kill them? is stealth an option?). So okay, those are the themes. Shit it's going to be troubling. I started my game immediately trying to play each character they way they're supposed to be acting in their mental state and level of knowledge as described by the story.

It's been a reliable perspective so far, but I'm worried about how far it will go... I don't think I'm even at a third of the game, it's supposed to be 30h+ and I'm about 10h going slowly around every level. Any good story will hit rock bottom at the end of the second act, the third act starts resolving the themes. And it really feel like I'm still far from that point despite some very traumatizing scenes. The multiple storylines/timelines makes it difficult to figure out how close of far there is yet to go.

I can tell you guys about what percentage you've gone through but I need to know where you're at. Put it in spolier tags and I'll respond in spoiler tags too.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

We just played another couple of hours. We clearly still have a lot of game to go, but yeah.

Fuck!

So did you and your GF finish the game and what did you think? You can PM me if you want. I'm interested to know what your GF thought since she's a psychologist. And what you think of course.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

So did you and your GF finish the game and what did you think? You can PM me if you want. I'm interested to know what your GF thought since she's a psychologist. And what you think of course.

We're still playing it, a few hours each day. Assuming the second half is around the same length as the first, we have quite a way to go. We're both really enjoying it.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

We're still playing it, a few hours each day. Assuming the second half is around the same length as the first, we have quite a way to go. We're both really enjoying it.

Oh! Let me know when you get to the "Oh damn!" moment. You will know when you get there.

 

[London Geezer]

Oh! Let me know when you get to the "Oh damn!" moment. You will know when you get there.

There's a few Oh Damn moments

 

[Unknown Soldier]

There's a few Oh Damn moments

Tbh, the end is really a

Fuck!

Moment!