shrug stepping up! big respect
4 Likes
Shrug has the heart of a revolutionary
shrug doing the things that need to be done.
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god this is like the spirit of our 2006 bullshit modernized without blinking an eye itās beautiful
the first thing you do as Ellie in this game is walk to a bar so someone can apologize for calling you an anti-lesbian slur the night before
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D:
I should mute this thread; Iām gonna play this.
Soā¦
Joel is dead, Ellie wants revenge and Dina is just like āsure Iāll follow you to the ends of the earth on a suicidal vengeance plot against what is likely a paramilitary groupā. This game simultaneously feels like itās in a massive rush to get things going whilst also having very little actually happen to the player. The best thing so far is just looting rooms. Thereās not even very much combat so far (about 6 hours in). Also Naughty Dog have really got stuck in a rut with journals, landmarks and safe combinations.
so i played through this because i had already ordered it before the embargo broke and all the gross transphobic shit came out.
i think overall this game is pretty bad! but as with all naughty dog games i get caught up in how they actually use the tech (and unethical labour and money involved in that) to tell a story, even though the story they are telling is incredibly stupid at every big ~important~ point (but pretty good on some of the smaller ones).
the one thing that really stood out for me is how totally empty Joel and Ellie were as characters. the first gameās minimalism works in a really solid way, that game has nothing it doesnāt need, and despite me not caring about the story in that one either, it functions in a really efficient way. at every big emotional moment with Ellie in this one iām just like wow Dina could get a way better girlfriend
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Extremely this. I really donāt feel anyone is a strong character and it makes the game so much more of a slog when lengthy character-focused scenes are half the game.
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like, iām not sure any of the new characters are strong either, but they at least have a depth that Ellie and Joel lack. which makes scenes with them together so much more jarring.
[mid game onwards spoilers]
i really think this game would be so much better if it was only the Abby section. with Ellie just turning up towards the end as the actual villain, rather than the seraphites
the final act of this game is so fucking bad.
they literally spend half the game being āyou gotta hear both sidesā and then thrown in some half assed fourth faction whose only characteristic is āslave ownersā so we can all agree some people are objectively bad
2 Likes
Typically I see the long cutscenes as a break from the murder festival of these cinematic games but thatās inverted for me here with how little I care about these people. Echoing that the accessibility options are really well done though. I left one of the high contrast options on and thought I either broke the console or TV or unlocked some retro flat-shaded cheat mode.
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god, the high contrast mode slays. it literally just rips all textures out of the game.
10 Likes
The Last of Us: VR Missions
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itās impressive how every few years a new aaa video game comes upon the idea that violence is bad and is then treated as the most profound and original artistic statement in the medium by the enthusiast press.
11 Likes
The funniest shit in the world is that this game has new game plus.
Thatās why video games are a deeper medium that movies: play through the guntwrenching narrative again, but this time with maxed out upgrades!
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you would not believe the amount of new game plus-begging a high budget game gets these days
I didnātā¦but now I do!
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Each weapon upgrade has its own realistic minicutscene of your murder person sawing off stocks or lubricating springs on their murder implement and Iām just thinking about the money and labor that went into each one, itās overwhelming. Well, the whole game is or tried to be I guess.
2 Likes