jiggles wrote:I’d feel more than a little aggrieved if I worked for ND and read that, tbh. The sheer amount of effort that appears to have gone in to providing unique environments for the user to poke around in as they follow the story’s path. Tons and tons of bespoke interiors that add lots of environmental storytelling hand waved away by “all the locations look the same” and all the little unnecessary, inconsequential sub-routes that they provide the user just completely ignored to make some point about a narrative game’s linearity.
Players have been complaining in this very thread that they have often proceeded with the story accidentally while they were looking to keep exploring, while Rob says all you ever do is follow a fixed path to the obvious crack in the wall over and over. It just feels borderline disingenuous.
Also feels the need to criticise Naughty Dog's style directly..
The game’s operatic tone and length can’t obscure the simplicity of the themes it repeats to exhaustion, and its grandiosity is poorly served by a Naughty Dog house style that has become less a signature than a straitjacket.
Yeah okay then.
Should also point out while not directly the review has no issue with hinting at things that would be considered spoilers, or at least would lead you to expect certain things to happen, so probably shouldn't read it unless finished.
Man, what a game it is. I loved the story. A masterpiece in my eyes. I still felt that the original is the better game in terms of story though. Loved Abby’s side of the story.
The people who hating this game before they could play can go strawberry float themselves. It’s not their story to write.
Man, what a game it is. I loved the story. A masterpiece in my eyes. I still felt that the original is the better game in terms of story though. Loved Abby’s side of the story.
The people who hating this game before they could play can go strawberry float themselves. It’s not their story to write.
I’m in the lower floors of a hospital and I have to turn the power on and strawberry float oh strawberry float oh strawberry float oh strawberry float I *really* don’t want to
Good lorrrd, the first encounter with the Stalkers had me on EDGE. The sound design, the level layout and lighting all contribute to the tension and fear you could slice with Ellie's knife. The way they behave really mess with you and the fact they can react to you catching them only makes it more terrifying. The area after that where you hear the footsteps above you also had me shook to the point I didn't want to progress lol. I legit swear you could hear all kinds of sounds in the sewer section after which had me dart out of there as fast as I could. But nah, the game won't let you take a breather because you delve into your first Scar encounter which honestly was intense as heck. The way stealth is designed here is flawless because you can weave in and out of eyesight using the trees and foliage. Bow is pretty op here tho. I had to call it a night there, so many emotions being experienced in a short 2 hour session ">,>
jiggles wrote:I’m in the lower floors of a hospital and I have to turn the power on and strawberry float oh strawberry float oh strawberry float oh strawberry float I *really* don’t want to
Ahh, the ol' noisy-generator-in-the-basement trick.
If it ain't broke, eh ND?
HaruKazuhira wrote:Good lorrrd, the first encounter with the Stalkers had me on EDGE. The sound design, the level layout and lighting all contribute to the tension and fear you could slice with Ellie's knife. The way they behave really mess with you and the fact they can react to you catching them only makes it more terrifying.
The very first stalker you encounter, when you turn round and catch the briefest glimpse of it in the doorway was the worst. My arse fell right out!
Saint of Killers wrote:This was one of my favourite areas to strawberry float about in over and over. And not once did I do anything close to approaching this:
DaveDS wrote:I think polygon need to be ignored here as they clearly have some strange agenda. One paragraph in particular claiming Neil druckmann decided to pop into a twitter discussion to wag his finger at a journalist criticising a distasteful post comparing the last of us part 2 to Schindler’s list.
Right there you have all the proof anyone should ever need.
A couple weeks back when someone made a post in here about that Schindler’s list thing I responded because I found out it was Jeff Cannata who is an awesome person who’s podcasts I listen to for years. So I decided to look into it. He didn’t compare the game to Schindler’s list, he compared the style of filmmaking where one is to entertain and the other is challenge you emotionally, he used shindlers list as his example of that kind of film. Despite clarification a bunch of Twitter warriors trying to make themselves look great decided to criticise him, the whole time basing it all on something he never actually said or even suggested.
Neil Druckmann eventually responded to Jeff simply saying I understand the comparison you were making and feel its clear you weren’t comparing our game to shindlers list. Then in response to a pretty childish response from the original twitter warrior journalist about his opinion being invalid because Jeff was praising his game, all this despite Jeff saying he didn’t find the game “fun”, Neil simply said something along the lines of “to make it clear I don’t think our game has anything on shindlers list”.
That was the beginning and end of what polygon has decided to report as Neil Druckmann wagging his finger at some journalist who was challenging a distasteful post comparing ttou2 to shindlers list. In reality he did nothing of the sort, and simply briefly offered his support to someone who was receiving hate for something he never said.
I know polygon have had a bad rep for years but seriously, are people actually falling for their crap?
it’s shocking how little has changed. Seattle feels much the same as Boston did in the first game, which was not too dissimilar to Pittsburgh, and so-on. Once again you are navigating fairly uniform urban ruins in the process of being reclaimed by nature. Your path is clearly laid-out before you as you traverse areas that are meant not to impose obstacles, but suggest the idea of obstacles. Your character overcomes one challenge after another through wit and strength… but all you actually do as a player is follow an obvious path to a clearly-marked crack in the wall leading to the next area.
It is as if its only inspiration is the original game, and the well of pop culture it was drawing from. There is practically nothing here we haven’t seen and done repeatedly throughout previous Naughty Dog games.
Never heard of the site or reviewer. Makes me wonder if he’s making claims just for publicity. But yeah, awful review. Sounds like he wanting a completely different game, maybe a flight sim?
Ha! (Spoilered because I know some people don't care)
I don't think there's a huge amount for me to respond to, to be honest. The Polygon article is a well put together piece examining the current discourse around the game that doesn't have a strong agenda one way or the other. Druckmann has been name searching for the past week and gently-gently suggesting that people shouldn't be criticising his game. Troy Baker has done the same, although far less subtly. However the piece also points out that a subset of fans have been awful too, with that ridiculous petition to change the story. The conclusion of the piece is that the discourse is messy and horrible, and it is. The fact that a reaction to this article on here is that it "should be ignored" is, you know, proof of the strong emotions surrounding it.
I don't want to dissect Dave's post itself because yeah, he's obviously invested in the game and the reaction to it. There's a lot there I disagree with, but me pointing out how "wrong" he is isn't going to further anything.
For those who don't know Colin Moriarty is an openly racist, openly homophobic games commenter who was forced out of Kinda Funny for his comments. He then tried to start an alt-right politics podcast which failed, but is now one of the highest earning Patreon game "journos", surpassing even Easy Allies. His new podcast is still littered with alt-right politics. Druckmann has consistently shown, in public, that they are friends.
I put this here simply for context. I'm not suggesting Druckmann is alt-right, just that he doesn't care enough about his friend's destructive politics to, you know, not engage with them publicly.
OrangeRKN wrote:I did not know you could do a backwards slide like that. It does look a little dumb though
Heh. Yeah, I thought it looked a bit clunky. Almost reversed.
People asking if anything is tweaked: as far as I know, all his gifs are made in game. He may stitch things together, but he doesn't manipulate the characters in a way that isn't available in a regular version of the game.
DaveDS wrote:I think polygon need to be ignored here as they clearly have some strange agenda. One paragraph in particular claiming Neil druckmann decided to pop into a twitter discussion to wag his finger at a journalist criticising a distasteful post comparing the last of us part 2 to Schindler’s list.
Right there you have all the proof anyone should ever need.
A couple weeks back when someone made a post in here about that Schindler’s list thing I responded because I found out it was Jeff Cannata who is an awesome person who’s podcasts I listen to for years. So I decided to look into it. He didn’t compare the game to Schindler’s list, he compared the style of filmmaking where one is to entertain and the other is challenge you emotionally, he used shindlers list as his example of that kind of film. Despite clarification a bunch of Twitter warriors trying to make themselves look great decided to criticise him, the whole time basing it all on something he never actually said or even suggested.
Neil Druckmann eventually responded to Jeff simply saying I understand the comparison you were making and feel its clear you weren’t comparing our game to shindlers list. Then in response to a pretty childish response from the original twitter warrior journalist about his opinion being invalid because Jeff was praising his game, all this despite Jeff saying he didn’t find the game “fun”, Neil simply said something along the lines of “to make it clear I don’t think our game has anything on shindlers list”.
That was the beginning and end of what polygon has decided to report as Neil Druckmann wagging his finger at some journalist who was challenging a distasteful post comparing ttou2 to shindlers list. In reality he did nothing of the sort, and simply briefly offered his support to someone who was receiving hate for something he never said.
I know polygon have had a bad rep for years but seriously, are people actually falling for their crap?
it’s shocking how little has changed. Seattle feels much the same as Boston did in the first game, which was not too dissimilar to Pittsburgh, and so-on. Once again you are navigating fairly uniform urban ruins in the process of being reclaimed by nature. Your path is clearly laid-out before you as you traverse areas that are meant not to impose obstacles, but suggest the idea of obstacles. Your character overcomes one challenge after another through wit and strength… but all you actually do as a player is follow an obvious path to a clearly-marked crack in the wall leading to the next area.
It is as if its only inspiration is the original game, and the well of pop culture it was drawing from. There is practically nothing here we haven’t seen and done repeatedly throughout previous Naughty Dog games.
Never heard of the site or reviewer. Makes me wonder if he’s making claims just for publicity. But yeah, awful review. Sounds like he wanting a completely different game, maybe a flight sim?
Ha! (Spoilered because I know some people don't care)
I don't think there's a huge amount for me to respond to, to be honest. The Polygon article is a well put together piece examining the current discourse around the game that doesn't have a strong agenda one way or the other. Druckmann has been name searching for the past week and gently-gently suggesting that people shouldn't be criticising his game. Troy Baker has done the same, although far less subtly. However the piece also points out that a subset of fans have been awful too, with that ridiculous petition to change the story. The conclusion of the piece is that the discourse is messy and horrible, and it is. The fact that a reaction to this article on here is that it "should be ignored" is, you know, proof of the strong emotions surrounding it.
I don't want to dissect Dave's post itself because yeah, he's obviously invested in the game and the reaction to it. There's a lot there I disagree with, but me pointing out how "wrong" he is isn't going to further anything.
For those who don't know Colin Moriarty is an openly racist, openly homophobic games commenter who was forced out of Kinda Funny for his comments. He then tried to start an alt-right politics podcast which failed, but is now one of the highest earning Patreon game "journos", surpassing even Easy Allies. His new podcast is still littered with alt-right politics. Druckmann has consistently shown, in public, that they are friends.
I put this here simply for context. I'm not suggesting Druckmann is alt-right, just that he doesn't care enough about his friend's destructive politics to, you know, not engage with them publicly.
The article should be ignored because it has twisted things to suit its original agenda, as I provided proof of myself. Feel free to find the actual tweets and compare them to how I presented them, I probably even did Druckmann a disservice. The way polygon portrayed that shows everything you need to know about the article. If the truth is enough why the need to completely twist it to suit an agenda? Like I said easy to research, compare real life to the words they use and you can clearly see an agenda to justify their article.
Call me wrong all you want but one thing I’ve always had problems with, whether it’s on here, with game culture in general or simply in life, is people making up gooseberry fool to try and fit their narrative, and then followers blindly taking it on as fact. It’s why I hate politics. People don’t be sheep, find out facts for yourself them compare them to pieces like this. All I keep seeing is hearsay about Neil Druckmann, and now an example of him congratulating someone on Twitter. OMG. Seriously if you have things about this guy post them here, because all I’m seeing is a twisted agenda and a few people openly embracing it. He’s doing this and this which means he’s this...Where is it?
Please prove me wrong.
EDIT: Actually thinking about this a bit more, you had ample time and space to post things about Neil Druckmann in your post. You decided to post a tweet of him congratulating someone on a business accusation. Your argument he shouldn’t be friendly with this guy.
That’s the best you could do. I’d be foolish to expect anything to actually back up the claims.
EDIT 2: I’ve just gone back and looked over every single Neil Druckmann tweet from mid June to now, so before release date, just on the off chance I might have missed something that in anyway relates to some of your accusations. Literally nothing, he hasn’t been commenting on any reviews, the only thing is a fairly recent article which clicking through to was both positive and negative in equal measure. His response was “Love these thoughtful articles, criticisms and all.”
Looks like will have to dig a little deeper to find where this is all coming from....maybe my original point stands.
I read the Vice review. He is way to dismissive of what is great about the game and does in places read like he’s trying to spoil stuff, making it seem like he has an agenda, but it’s not a terrible review. A lot of the points he makes are perfectly valid and the line about the house style becoming a straight jacket I feel is pretty on the nose. Also the stuff about the game having some motifs of survival horror but none of the push back is completely true and has been mentioned elsewhere. I agree with him on the story issues he has too, about the vindictive compulsion or what sustains it not being explored. It’s a point of preference so I would say your opinion goes either way but when he talks about the performances being great and motivations clear however the story becoming increasingly less interesting is exactly how I felt about it.
Captain Kinopio wrote:I read the Vice review. He is way to dismissive of what is great about the game and does in places read like he’s trying to spoil stuff, making it seem like he has an agenda, but it’s not a terrible review. A lot of the points he makes are perfectly valid and the line about the house style becoming a straight jacket I feel is pretty on the nose. Also the stuff about the game having some motifs of survival horror but none of the push back is completely true and has been mentioned elsewhere. I agree with him on the story issues he has too, about the vindictive compulsion or what sustains it not being explored. It’s a point of preference so I would say your opinion goes either way but when he talks about the performances being great and motivations clear however the story becoming increasingly less interesting is exactly how I felt about it.
The review is terrible for a number of reasons, some of which you mentioned. Any review of a narrative heavy game that structures itself in a way that pretty much gives away everything about the direction the game will go and what emotions you will be feeling at certain points and how it all plays out by the end is a complete disservice to genuine fans that are interested in a genuine review. Summarising the gameplay as you do certain things then go to the point where you move on and that's it is also incredibly transparent. The only way such a comment could make any sense would be if this person had never heard of or played games before in his life, and was expecting a real life simulator, has suddenly realised how game design works and will use it as a criticism. Why?
I highlighted the second part because I'm genuinely wondering what you mean by that? Do you feel there is something fundamentally wrong with ND games? Genuinely wondering.
FFS I didn't even know you could do two of the things you see here!
