Does anyone else just not care about this game or is it just me

All right, I beat the first game, so here's some thoughts on it. Gonna leave spoilers untagged.

Gameplay was aggressively mediocre and repetitive. Not unserviceable, but not very fun. None of the guns feel great to use, and you don't get rewarded enough for headshots (which should always be an instant kill, as far as I'm concerned). The gunplay in general is really bad before you start getting better weapons and good upgrades for them. Non-combat sections where you're just walking around, climbing ladders, and floating rafts over to Ellie (because she can't swim) are all very dull and tedious.

There's somewhat of an emphasis placed on realism, which is fine, but it also draws attention to the game's less realistic elements and put my suspension of disbelief to the test on a number of occasions. Working with limited resources is the game's bread and butter, yet there are still parts of the game where you have infinite ammo. The stealth mechanics are also undermined by the game's terrible AI for ally characters, who seem enjoy recklessly zipping around all over the goddamn place in situations that would almost certainly fuck you over, but conveniently, they're set to never get caught, even though it's super distracting, super silly-looking, and takes me right out of the experience every single time it happens.

The story is okay at best. I like how cinematic it feels, but the only two characters I actually cared about (for the most part) were Joel and Ellie. They're decently likable, possessed a pretty good dynamic, and shared some well-written, believable, and occasionally funny dialogue. The top-notch performances given by their VAs also helped in this regard. I could take or leave basically everybody else, though. I don't even know anyone else's name.

I've seen this game referred to as a "cinematic masterpiece," though, and "the Citizen Kane of gaming," and to be perfectly honest, I find both of these statements to be utterly preposterous. When strictly considered from a moment-to-moment basis, this game is a slightly above average movie at best. If you genuinely think it could go toe-to-toe with some of the best films ever made, then you probably just haven't seen very many movies.

My favorite parts of the game have more to do with specific scenes, rather than the story as a whole. The outcome of each and every ensuing death scene is highly predictable, but nonetheless manage to be emotionally effective somehow. The game's tragic intro, for example, is probably one of my favorite prologues to any game I've played in the past ten or so years—when I first saw those explosions from outside the window, I could feel my heart sink. Very powerful opening. The long and drawn-out scene where Joel gets near-mortally wounded is excellent. Having to control an injured and stumbling character in a gun fight is one of my favorite tropes, and the music that plays during the part where he collapses off the horse after escaping is probably the best in the game. Other moments that stood out to me include Henry and Sam's deaths, as well as Ellie's killing of David, which was the most viscerally satisfying and cathartic scene in the game.

On the whole, though, I honestly didn't really like where the story went. In spite of the game's premise and genre, you actually end up killing about five times more non-infected humans than you do zombies, which is a little uncomfortable, even if it's ultimately justified because they're "bandits" or whatever. This discomfiting theme sort of comes to a head in the game's ending, where Joel goes full psychopath and shoots up the hospital that Ellie was left at in order to save her, because in order to create the vaccine they've been gunning for this whole time (you know, in order to save the fucking world), Ellie essentially has to die, and because she's basically become a daughter to Joel at this point, he decided that he's having none of that. The game even forces you to kill a (practically) helpless and unarmed doctor just for standing in your way, which made me feel really gross.

I'll just come right out and say it: I don't agree with Joel's decision at all—which would be fine, because the protagonist doesn't always have to do the right thing every single time, and it's perfectly within Joel's character to make such a crude and selfish decision. But in this specific case, considering how it was executed, I think the story is ultimately worse off. There was a point where I was honestly getting into the story for a little bit, but the ending sort of ruined that for me. If Joel's decision was framed in a morally ambiguous way, rather than purely heroic, I'd have less of a problem with it. In fact, Joel probably should've died trying to save her, or something. That would've been more satisfying, because the gesture of his actions (and however you personally interpret them) remains intact, and Ellie's death (however you'd feel about it) would still have resulted in hope for a cure. That kind of ending is bittersweet—the ending we got instead is just bitter, especially when Joel had to lie about what had happened.

Overall, I'm feeling a 6/10 on this. You can feel however you want about the story—it has some praise-worthy moments, but I wasn't impressed with how it panned out. In any case, I think it would be tough to deny the mediocrity of the gameplay.

For my money, this is the most overrated game of all time, knowing how many 10/10s it got when it first dropped. I can't imagine what kind of normie state of mind you'd have to be in to consider this game anything more than "okay," even if you do love the story, but I've never really been into zombie games in the first place, so I'm definitely biased.

Quote from: Ingy on June 18, 2020, 11:44:27 AM

Quote from: Fedorekd on June 18, 2020, 03:42:33 AM

Quote from: Ingy on June 17, 2020, 07:04:23 PM

Quote from: Fedorekd on June 17, 2020, 04:42:03 PM

Quote from: Ingy on June 17, 2020, 04:36:40 PM

Michonne being black subplot

erm


what

I don't remember exactly but she started to feel isolated from the other community members as well as her checking out the slavery section of the DC museum and watching a black walker that was lynched

She shut Alexandria off to outsiders (including Hilltop and Kingdom) following a traumatic experience that happened within the six year timeskip following Rick's disappearance, which she gets over towards the end of the season.

Oh yeah
Maybe I misread the imagery

Funny how much clearer season 1-4 are in my head compared to the later seasons
I’m halfway through season 6 and literally nothing has happened

I remember the first half of season 6 dropping off after the first three or four episodes and not getting better until the second half.

Haven't watched it in ages though, waiting for the show to finally end before going through all the seasons again.

Quote from: Ingy on June 17, 2020, 07:04:23 PM

Quote from: Fedorekd on June 17, 2020, 04:42:03 PM

Quote from: Ingy on June 17, 2020, 04:36:40 PM

Michonne being black subplot

erm


what

I don't remember exactly but she started to feel isolated from the other community members as well as her checking out the slavery section of the DC museum and watching a black walker that was lynched

She shut Alexandria off to outsiders (including Hilltop and Kingdom) following a traumatic experience that happened within the six year timeskip following Rick's disappearance, which she gets over towards the end of the season.

just playing games and watching anime. the usual

my last quarter is coming to an end soon, i just need 2 finals and an essay and im done. next time i go back to school, ill have to adapt to the new semester system

Quote from: Ingy on June 08, 2020, 02:07:57 PM

So is this guy http://sep7agon.net/profile/15878/

too obvious, dude, too fucking obvious.

Quote from: Ingy on June 07, 2020, 09:14:52 PM

Quote from: Aether on June 07, 2020, 08:41:32 PM

Kemonomimi>furry

I didn't realize they had a name

https://www.instagram.com/p/CA-115XKVO2/