The Art of the Shocker? Reponsibilities, Violence, Games, Trailers, and Marketing *TLOU2 Spawn*

[iroboto]

- Disappointment of the show: TLOU2. 'Meh'.

Let me take a stab at your feelings here.
Graphics: amazing
Acting: amazing
Modelling = amazing
Cutscenes amazing
Everything = WOW.

But

The content subject matter was off putting ? Sort of went a little too far what a game should be ? A bit of worry that this game is too cutscene/no player interaction focused?

Or were you looking for gameplay? And not more cutscenes ?

 

[Globalisateur]

Let me take a stab at your feelings here.
Graphics: amazing
Acting: amazing
Modelling = amazing
Cutscenes amazing
Everything = WOW.

But

The content subject matter was off putting ? Sort of went a little too far what a game should be ? A bit of worry that this game is too cutscene/no player interaction focused?

Or were you looking for gameplay? And not more cutscenes ?

This. I don't look forward to playing this kind of game. We already knew this world had plenty of very dirty things, why put emphasis on that in the trailer ? Where is the importance ? And TLOU is one of my fav game, the best moments in TLOU were very quiet, peaceful ; almost poetic, like the Giraffe scene. And there was violence, torture and pain in the first game but they weren't the best moments.

Also there is something else that is bothering me. The whole thing was kind of ridiculous and unrealistic IMO. Which wasn't the case in the part 1. Body builded women in charge in a post-apocalyptic world ? That's total fantasy.

 

[milk]

This. I don't look forward to playing this kind of game. We already knew this world had plenty of very dirty things, why put emphasis on that in the trailer ? Where is the importance ? And TLOU is one of my fav game, the best moments in TLOU were very quiet, peaceful ; almost poetic, like the Giraffe scene. And there was violence, torture and pain in the first game but they weren't the best moments.

Also there is something else that is bothering me. The whole thing was kind of ridiculous and unrealistic IMO. Which wasn't the case in the part 1. Body builded women in charge in a post-apocalyptic world ? That's total fantasy.

Yeah, I also found it a bit more fantastical in tone than the previous last of us. The exagerated number of female characters doing overly physical violent acts also has a bit of that sour taste of wishy-washy modern progressivism, but oh well, ND is based in LA and I already got the feel that Neil Drukman is into that kind of deliberate cultural revisionism through media from past interviews. But again, nothing will ever be as unrealistic as the whole cordiceps zombie virus anyway, which was the weakest aspect of TLOU 1 and the reason I wished they made a spiritual successor for that game with no zombies instead of a sequel, but the money was on the sequel...

Fantasy aside, god damn their animation is incredible. And the overall mood is pretty viceral too. Reminded me of Tarantino's hateful eight. Maybe they are going for a different vibe with this game, which is ok in my book.

 

[milk]

The amount of stuff happening on the cutscene was a bit worrying though. It's like those of MGS4. The stuff on screen sure looks cool, but shouldn't the developer be putting their energy on making me PLAY those events be cool instead of watching.

 

[iroboto]

This. I don't look forward to playing this kind of game. We already knew this world had plenty of very dirty things, why put emphasis on that in the trailer ? Where is the importance ? And TLOU is one of my fav game, the best moments in TLOU were very quiet, peaceful ; almost poetic, like the Giraffe scene. And there was violence, torture and pain in the first game but they weren't the best moments.

Also there is something else that is bothering me. The whole thing was kind of ridiculous and unrealistic IMO. Which wasn't the case in the part 1. Body builded women in charge in a post-apocalyptic world ? That's total fantasy.

Yea I feel you.
So just to reiterate a lot of Nesh's points, amazing. Whether pre-rendered, realtime etc, I just hands down think that technically this is a new bar set by ND. The direction was pretty top notch for a video game company I must say. I have strong feeling that the purpose of this trailer was to show everyone that ND is setting the next bar, and this is where they are going.

That said, I think they succeeded. Because I felt a little sick when the trailer was done. I'm not a fan of walking dead, or torture porn, any movies where people are raped/killed on screen and the event is being dragged out, I feel don't feel great, most times I don't want to watch, but for the sake of it I force myself to. I came away from this trailer feeling like that. So I think everything that ND wanted to accomplish, they managed to. That being said, it didn't make want to play this game, because I don't want to play a game this dark. This is actually a big reason why I won't pick up Wolf 2. In Wolf TNO, I didn't expect I'd have to make a choice of which of my buddies would die, and then watch him get his eyes removed and then brain sucked out; that shit, I didn't sleep well at night. So I don't want to be blind sided again, I'm not playing Wolf 2.

Anyway, would love to hear thoughts from @DSoup and @MrFox on this one since I know they love the narrative.

 

[Jupiter]

Was this a trailer for The Last of Us movie? There were no interaction possibilities for several minutes. In the video game medium a story has to be narrated in an interactive way and not in the film language. What they have shown was weak for a video game.

With their DLC on The Last of Us 1 where they made as much interactive as possible Naughty Dog went in the right direction. This trailer shows too much drama in the form of a movie instead. At least qualitatively the cutscene is excellent.

 

[Karamazov]

10-15h long game. 5min cutscene. Don't worry there will be plenty of gameplay.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Was this a trailer for The Last of Us movie? There were no interaction possibilities for several minutes. In the video game medium a story has to be narrated in an interactive way...

Has it been confirmed this is from the game? Because plenty of trailers show what the game is 'like' while just being videos - this keeps Laa-Yosh employed. Could be a video representing a section of the game that can be played out in different ways, for all we know.

 

[Scott_Arm]

The Last of Us 2 looks like the Walking Dead, which is a huge negative for me. Any story with gratuitous human suffering better be otherworldly good in terms of having something enlightening to say, otherwise it just ends up being bleak and gratuitous. I would be shocked if the Last of Us 2 fits the bill, because videogame writing generally sucks, and the best of game writing doesn't reach that bar. It's also boring at this point. Eight season of the walking dead, plus all of the other apocalypse/zombie stories and we've pretty much seen it all already.

Spiderman looks fantastic though. I would play the hell out of that game. Very curious about the Sucker Punch game. I'd like to see some extended gameplay. But I'm glad studios are sticking to pick some different historical settings for their games. I've never been a fan of God of War, so I'd pass on that one.

 

[mpg1]

Was this a trailer for The Last of Us movie? There were no interaction possibilities for several minutes. In the video game medium a story has to be narrated in an interactive way and not in the film language. What they have shown was weak for a video game.

With their DLC on The Last of Us 1 where they made as much interactive as possible Naughty Dog went in the right direction. This trailer shows too much drama in the form of a movie instead. At least qualitatively the cutscene is excellent.

Same with the Detroit: Become Human footage....looks like an interactive movie. This one of my critiques of Sony games...they'd seem to make better movies than games.

That being said from a technical perspective the visuals of that TLOU:2 footage was impressive. Supposedly it was an in-engine cutscene. Curious to know how close gameplay will be to that.

 

[milk]

Any story with gratuitous human suffering better be otherworldly good in terms of having something enlightening to say, otherwise it just ends up being bleak and gratuitous.

Well, that could be said of enything. Any comedy that just makes you laugh without something enlightening to say or relevant social comentary is just gratuitous humor. Any love story without any intelligent observation of human behaviour is just romantic masturbation. Any adylt drama without intelligent observation of the human condition is just gratuitous storytelling and etc...
All genres are just exercises in triggering different human rmotions with the potential to say something else along the way and transcend simple entertainment, or not. That has more to do with the quality of the writing than what initial emotion it chose to use to get there in the first place. Torture horror taps into many very real and relevant parts of our psyche. If TLoU2 will use that to anythjng actually intelligent is yet to be seen (personally, I too doubt it), but there is nothing intrisically more gratuitous about the use of violence than any other emotion. You are just squeamish.

Eight season of the walking dead, plus all of the other apocalypse/zombie stories and we've pretty much seen it all already.

Totally agree.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Well, that could be said of enything. Any comedy that just makes you laugh without something enlightening to say or relevant social comentary is just gratuitous humor. Any love story without any intelligent observation of human behaviour is just romantic masturbation. Any adylt drama without intelligent observation of the human condition is just gratuitous storytelling and etc...
All genres are just exercises in triggering different human rmotions with the potential to say something else along the way and transcend simple entertainment, or not. That has more to do with the quality of the writing than what initial emotion it chose to use to get there in the first place. Torture horror taps into many very real and relevant parts of our psyche. If TLoU2 will use that to anythjng actually intelligent is yet to be seen (personally, I too doubt it), but there is nothing intrisically more gratuitous about the use of violence than any other emotion. You are just squeamish.

...

Call me squeamish, whatever. I don't want to feel miserable for no reason. Watching people brutalized in graphic ways is not entertainment, so if I'm going to suffer probably 15-20 hours of it in a game, it had better serve a purpose that's interesting to me. I can watch pretty much anything without an issue, but I'm too old to waste my time with dark cynical half-assed perspectives on humanity.

Also, I don't care about gratuitous comedy, because laughter is a positive experience.

 

[bunge]

...I'm too to waste my time with dark cynical half-assed perspectives on humanity.

How do you ever leave the house?

 

[Scott_Arm]

How do you ever leave the house?

Pretty easily.

 

[AlNom]

Call me squeamish, whatever. I don't want to feel miserable for no reason. Watching people brutalized in graphic ways is not entertainment, so if I'm going to suffer probably 15-20 hours of it in a game, it had better serve a purpose that's interesting to me. I can watch pretty much anything without an issue, but I'm too old to waste my time with dark cynical half-assed perspectives on humanity.

Also, I don't care about gratuitous comedy, because laughter is a positive experience.

Food supplies are running out. An ingenious enterprising fellow by the name of Jack John McJohnson starts a human-infected mushroom farm.
$5 card packs for chance of spices and fertilizer boosters.

 

[DrJay24]

Games? Who cares about games, everyone is

The Last of Us 2 looks like the Walking Dead, which is a huge negative for me. Any story with gratuitous human suffering better be otherworldly good in terms of having something enlightening to say, otherwise it just ends up being bleak and gratuitous. I would be shocked if the Last of Us 2 fits the bill, because videogame writing generally sucks, and the best of game writing doesn't reach that bar. It's also boring at this point. Eight season of the walking dead, plus all of the other apocalypse/zombie stories and we've pretty much seen it all already.

Spiderman looks fantastic though. I would play the hell out of that game. Very curious about the Sucker Punch game. I'd like to see some extended gameplay. But I'm glad studios are sticking to pick some different historical settings for their games. I've never been a fan of God of War, so I'd pass on that one.

It is a sequel, so if you want a hint at what is to come, play the first game.

 

[ultragpu]

I really love the dark and brutal direction TLOU 2 seems to be taking at this stage. It's all about the intense escalation, high stakes, take no reservation and then rewarded with the satisfying payoff. Not saying the game has it nailed 100% guaranteed since we've only seen so few of the footage but it's good to see the medium is tackling this side of the story telling. TLOU has always been about an emotional journey so violence and sensitive themes are only natural if not integral part of the game. It's not like ND is advocating for violence, they're merely adopting the necessary ingredients in order to fulfill their vision, to create impact. You need to break new ground to shock the audience, that means getting out of the critic's comfort zone, otherwise you would just be like hundreds of others treading on the same path with nothing exciting to show.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You need to break new ground to shock the audience, that means getting out of the critic's comfort zone, otherwise you would just be like hundreds of others treading on the same path with nothing exciting to show.

Everyone's trying to break new ground by shocking the audience. It's passed into bad taste now, watching the most horrific acts in graphic detail. The aim should be to tell a story. You don't need gratuitous sex and violence to achieve that. All you achieve in the long run is a mass desensitisation, where nothing shocks. I can watch any amount of torture and gore whatnot without the slightest emotional response, the complete opposite of what the media is going for because they've overdone it.

I'm somewhat sided with those saying 'same old same old zombie story', although having not watched any of the popular zombie nonsense, nor having played TLoU 1 yet, there could be scope for playing a zombie survival game. But I'm sick of the whole dark, gritty culture we have now and would probably prefer something more entertaining and fun.

Article seems related. Gotta run so can't read it.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...sts-we-need-a-new-way-to-show-difficult-games

 

[Nesh]

Everyone's trying to break new ground by shocking the audience. It's passed into bad taste now, watching the most horrific acts in graphic detail. The aim should be to tell a story. You don't need gratuitous sex and violence to achieve that. All you achieve in the long run is a mass desensitisation, where nothing shocks. I can watch any amount of torture and gore whatnot without the slightest emotional response, the complete opposite of what the media is going for because they've overdone it.

I'm somewhat sided with those saying 'same old same old zombie story', although having not watched any of the popular zombie nonsense, nor having played TLoU 1 yet, there could be scope for playing a zombie survival game. But I'm sick of the whole dark, gritty culture we have now and would probably prefer something more entertaining and fun.

Article seems related. Gotta run so can't read it.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...sts-we-need-a-new-way-to-show-difficult-games

I couldnt agree more.

 

[Jupiter]

Has it been confirmed this is from the game? Because plenty of trailers show what the game is 'like' while just being videos - this keeps Laa-Yosh employed. Could be a video representing a section of the game that can be played out in different ways, for all we know.

When Naughty Dog wants to bring the medium forward then such dramatic and exciting scenes should be realized in an interactive way. By playing five minutes long movies in video games one can not achieve that in my opinion.

Maybe they do not have any gameplay at the moment because it's very early in the development.

With such pre rendered cinematic trailers like the one from AC: Origins it is clear that they are not part of the game.

Same with the Detroit: Become Human footage....looks like an interactive movie. This one of my critiques of Sony games...they'd seem to make better movies than games.

That being said from a technical perspective the visuals of that TLOU:2 footage was impressive. Supposedly it was an in-engine cutscene. Curious to know how close gameplay will be to that.

In Detroit it is unlikely that the player has to do nothing for five minutes in a row.

Technically it was ineed really good.