Computer games.

Got back into destiny again recently and the game in its current state is fantastic for new players.

There is so much content over the 3 years with more to come. Always something to do, always something casual to play and loads of rewards. They have even upped the loot gain considerably making it easier to play.

Only frustrating thing is that the best things are locked behind difficult tasks. Raid weapons are understandable , I don't think I will ever raid on the game. But playing for a particular gun is locked behind a 20 minute time limit mission that is half jumping puzzle and a nightmare to get a team to do.

Even as a free game it's great for the modes on there.

Bungie are starting to show why they are a great games company after splitting with Activision. Going from sequels to extending the world is a great sign of this. They have planned another 3 years at least of destiny 2 so the game , although chopped and changed will become the destiny experience people expected in the beginning.
 
LostLegend said:


yNlQWRM.jpg
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1 Vagina option... surely that’s technically not an option if there’s only 1 lol
 
Sy- said:
I finished it yesterday and yeah, agree. The arc itself is odd, at one point I think I was in a flashback within a flashback?

The 10 hour Abby section makes absolutely no sense when nothing in that part of the game builds any empathy for her, even remove what she did at the start and she still isn't likable. She's just a rubbish character.

I'd have much preferred to spend 10 hours as Tommy on his rampage, or Lev and his Sister. At least then the story retains this haunting baddie character that you rarely see

On the plus side (literally) in Game+ you keep the upgrades AND the weapons pretty much from the off. Also, if constant rummaging to achieve trophies is getting tedious, there is an advanced listen mode option in the accessibility menu which means you can scan for items with the listen mode button + circle ;)
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My take on the parts of the story of TLOU2 you mentioned. Needless to say DO NOT READ if you haven't played/finished the game yet as it does contain various spoilers.

The way I took the Abby section was to make you (as Ellie) face up to the consequences of your rampage and that by killing her you are just continuing the futile cycle over and over again. Abby has a group of friends and a community round her (and an Ellie proxy in Lev) just trying to survive. If they had just shown you the main reason for Abby's vendetta and that's it then she is just an enemy to be killed and as the player you wouldn't care about doing it. By fleshing out her story you see that she is just a different side of the same coin. There isn't a "baddie" in this world (well apart from the infected), they are all just groups trying to survive. By the end it seems that Ellie (and Abby) have learnt this.

I think the Abby section went on a bit too long but I think it being that long was sort of necessary in that she needed to see that the WLF weren't the only "goodies" through her experience with Yara and Lev. I also wasn't complaining as after 7 years I was more than happy to put 25-30 hours into it. Already started my second playthrough for the Platinum.
 
@Wizard in honesty, I didn't really feel compelled to think about the futile cycle, for the most part I was deciding which weapon to upgrade for my next rampage.

If you want the player to consider morality and ethics, then you kinda have to bring in player choice and respective consequences, otherwise most (myself included) just plough on with detachment. 'Detroit: Become Human' is a great example of this done well. I appreciate that is harder in a linear game, but if I was limited to just a single story affecting choice in TLOU2, it would have been at the house with Dina and J.J.

To make a VERY obscure reference, Druckmann kinda comes across like the (legendary!) parody Garth Marenghi - "As a horror writer I don't ask for much. I just hope I've changed the way you think about life."

In fact, in that show, there's a scene where he talks to a kid, after he leaves the room they jankily over-dub his voice telling the kid: "...never take drugs", it's somewhat reminiscent of all the messages they are trying to cram into this game, as well as the execution at times.
 
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Sy- said:
@Wizard in honesty, I didn't really feel compelled to think about the futile cycle, for the most part I was deciding which weapon to upgrade for my next rampage.

If you want the player to consider morality and ethics, then you kinda have to bring in player choice and respective consequences, otherwise most (myself included) just plough on with detachment. 'Detroit: Become Human' is a great example of this done well. I appreciate that is harder in a linear game, but if I was limited to just a single story affecting choice in TLOU2, it would have been at the house with Dina and J.J.

To make a VERY obscure reference, Druckmann kinda comes across like the (legendary!) parody Garth Marenghi - "As a horror writer I don't ask for much. I just hope I've changed the way you think about life."

In fact, in that show, there's a scene where he talks to a kid, after he leaves the room they jankily over-dub his voice telling the kid: "...never take drugs", it's somewhat reminiscent of all the messages they are trying to cram into this game, as well as the execution at times.
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I thought Detroit: Become Human was a cracking game for its genre. The graphics were incredible too. Heavy Rain was also very good.
 
Sy- said:
@Wizard in honesty, I didn't really feel compelled to think about the futile cycle, for the most part I was deciding which weapon to upgrade for my next rampage.

If you want the player to consider morality and ethics, then you kinda have to bring in player choice and respective consequences, otherwise most (myself included) just plough on with detachment. 'Detroit: Become Human' is a great example of this done well. I appreciate that is harder in a linear game, but if I was limited to just a single story affecting choice in TLOU2, it would have been at the house with Dina and J.J.

To make a VERY obscure reference, Druckmann kinda comes across like the (legendary!) parody Garth Marenghi - "As a horror writer I don't ask for much. I just hope I've changed the way you think about life."

In fact, in that show, there's a scene where he talks to a kid, after he leaves the room they jankily over-dub his voice telling the kid: "...never take drugs", it's somewhat reminiscent of all the messages they are trying to cram into this game, as well as the execution at times.
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It saddens me that that is obscure. Got the DVD right next to me - absolutely tremendous.
 
Wizard said:
My take on the parts of the story of TLOU2 you mentioned. Needless to say DO NOT READ if you haven't played/finished the game yet as it does contain various spoilers.

The way I took the Abby section was to make you (as Ellie) face up to the consequences of your rampage and that by killing her you are just continuing the futile cycle over and over again. Abby has a group of friends and a community round her (and an Ellie proxy in Lev) just trying to survive. If they had just shown you the main reason for Abby's vendetta and that's it then she is just an enemy to be killed and as the player you wouldn't care about doing it. By fleshing out her story you see that she is just a different side of the same coin. There isn't a "baddie" in this world (well apart from the infected), they are all just groups trying to survive. By the end it seems that Ellie (and Abby) have learnt this.

I think the Abby section went on a bit too long but I think it being that long was sort of necessary in that she needed to see that the WLF weren't the only "goodies" through her experience with Yara and Lev. I also wasn't complaining as after 7 years I was more than happy to put 25-30 hours into it. Already started my second playthrough for the Platinum.
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So essentially this.

1593531637589.webp

Honestly mate, I think it's unnecessary. Same as the Fireflies in the original - you know their motivation, you know they're not necessarily "bad", you know Joel isn't necessarily good - the ambiguity was already there and didn't need to be achieved with a 10-15 hour boring side quest.

It's not original to have an antagonist have a moral purpose. We didn't need a three hour Thanos origin story to understand his motivation in the MCU.
 
Wizard said:
My take on the parts of the story of TLOU2 you mentioned. Needless to say DO NOT READ if you haven't played/finished the game yet as it does contain various spoilers.

The way I took the Abby section was to make you (as Ellie) face up to the consequences of your rampage and that by killing her you are just continuing the futile cycle over and over again. Abby has a group of friends and a community round her (and an Ellie proxy in Lev) just trying to survive. If they had just shown you the main reason for Abby's vendetta and that's it then she is just an enemy to be killed and as the player you wouldn't care about doing it. By fleshing out her story you see that she is just a different side of the same coin. There isn't a "baddie" in this world (well apart from the infected), they are all just groups trying to survive. By the end it seems that Ellie (and Abby) have learnt this.

I think the Abby section went on a bit too long but I think it being that long was sort of necessary in that she needed to see that the WLF weren't the only "goodies" through her experience with Yara and Lev. I also wasn't complaining as after 7 years I was more than happy to put 25-30 hours into it. Already started my second playthrough for the Platinum.
Click to expand...

I was actually really enjoying the game up to that point. When the Abby section began, it was hours and hours of trying to get the players to care about glorified NPCs they already know are dead. It felt like a massive waste of time. Like they didn't know how to develop Ellie after her revenge so they found a way to really drag it out and make this one person more significant than the hundreds she kills with hesitation.
 

Tubey said:
So essentially this.

View attachment 92699

Honestly mate, I think it's unnecessary. Same as the Fireflies in the original - you know their motivation, you know they're not necessarily "bad", you know Joel isn't necessarily good - the ambiguity was already there and didn't need to be achieved with a 10-15 hour boring side quest.

It's not original to have an antagonist have a moral purpose. We didn't need a three hour Thanos origin story to understand his motivation in the MCU.
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Firstly I didn't find it boring. Have you played it through yet?

Secondly
The Thanos comparison doesn't work at all. Thanos is undeniably bad. You don't need much of a backstory because everyone knows that wanting to wipe out half of the beings in the Universe is a bad thing regardless of the initial motivation for it. No one is going to come around to that and feel sympathy.

In this Abby is bad in the way Ellie or Joel is bad and she is good in the way Ellie or Joel are. All they care about is the survival of themselves and their loved ones. What they are trying to do is actually make you care about (or at least understand) the actions of someone you initially hate more than anything. Trying to turn them into more than just a boss fight target at the end. Whether they pulled that off or not will be completely personal to each player.

Fair enough if you don't think it is necessary but I thought it was an interesting take and really enjoyed the game. It's probably a bit long but as I said I don't mind that as I've waited 7 years to play more.
 
Wizard said:
Firstly I didn't find it boring. Have you played it through yet?

Secondly
The Thanos comparison doesn't work at all. Thanos is undeniably bad. You don't need much of a backstory because everyone knows that wanting to wipe out half of the beings in the Universe is a bad thing regardless of the initial motivation for it. No one is going to come around to that and feel sympathy.

In this Abby is bad in the way Ellie or Joel is bad and she is good in the way Ellie or Joel are. All they care about is the survival of themselves and their loved ones. What they are trying to do is actually make you care about (or at least understand) the actions of someone you initially hate more than anything. Trying to turn them into more than just a boss fight target at the end. Whether they pulled that off or not will be completely personal to each player.

Fair enough if you don't think it is necessary but I thought it was an interesting take and really enjoyed the game. It's probably a bit long but as I said I don't mind that as I've waited 7 years to play more.
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Actually, Thanos' motivations were understandable. They had a logic to them. He wanted half of life gone for the universe to thrive because resources were becoming scarce - so his motivation was basically the greater good. In his eyes, he wasn't the bad guy - he was the hero of the story, the only one brave enough to do what the universe needs done. He only became "pure" bad guy right at the end; until then, it was nothing personal for him.

I've played a few hours with my brother, but he gave up on it after the midpoint (like an awful lot of people did) and has switched back to other games. I've watched the whole thing on live streams personally, so in regards to the narrative I have full info on it.

I applaud what they tried to do, but it doesn't work. Too much ludonarrative dissonance, poor character development, inconsistent motivations and simply drags on far far too long. People will be blinded by the technical brilliance of it (the animations, graphics, sound design are the best I've seen so far in any game period), but it's ultimately a game driven by its' narrative and without the grounding of the original - where the core of it was on the relationship between two people and understandable decision-making and consequence - it falls flat.

What I will say is that the moment to moment actual gameplay is far better than the original. Feels like if you could pop the graphics and gameplay over the top of the original story you'd have close to the perfect game.
 
Zezti said:
I was actually really enjoying the game up to that point. When the Abby section began, it was hours and hours of trying to get the players to care about glorified NPCs they already know are dead. It felt like a massive waste of time. Like they didn't know how to develop Ellie after her revenge so they found a way to really drag it out and make this one person more significant than the hundreds she kills with hesitation.
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Fair enough. As I say I didn't have a problem with that section. I think the thing is that if they just went with the straight revenge story then where do you go from there? Ellie would have had two options at the end, kill or let survive.

If she kills Abby then nothing has been learnt at all and she simply goes back to Jackson. And basically this is the story in pretty much every revenge plot ever.

If she lets her survive then she has clearly learnt something but would it be that believable that she would get in a confrontation, find out one piece of information and then let her go. If would feel flat and forced. She's just murdered all these people and suddenly has a moment of clarity just as she's about to succeed? Would be like the scene in Batman v Superman where Batman spares him because their mother's have the same name.
 
Tubey said:
Actually, Thanos' motivations were understandable. They had a logic to them. He wanted half of life gone for the universe to thrive because resources were becoming scarce - so his motivation was basically the greater good. In his eyes, he wasn't the bad guy - he was the hero of the story, the only one brave enough to do what the universe needs done. He only became "pure" bad guy right at the end; until then, it was nothing personal for him.

I've played a few hours with my brother, but he gave up on it after the midpoint (like an awful lot of people did) and has switched back to other games. I've watched the whole thing on live streams personally, so in regards to the narrative I have full info on it.

I applaud what they tried to do, but it doesn't work. Too much ludonarrative dissonance, poor character development, inconsistent motivations and simply drags on far far too long. People will be blinded by the technical brilliance of it (the animations, graphics, sound design are the best I've seen so far in any game period), but it's ultimately a game driven by its' narrative and without the grounding of the original - where the core of it was on the relationship between two people and understandable decision-making and consequence - it falls flat.

What I will say is that the moment to moment actual gameplay is far better than the original. Feels like if you could pop the graphics and gameplay over the top of the original story you'd have close to the perfect game.
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Definitely agree with that
 
Wizard said:
Fair enough. As I say I didn't have a problem with that section. I think the thing is that if they just went with the straight revenge story then where do you go from there? Ellie would have had two options at the end, kill or let survive.

If she kills Abby then nothing has been learnt at all and she simply goes back to Jackson. And basically this is the story in pretty much every revenge plot ever.

If she lets her survive then she has clearly learnt something but would it be that believable that she would get in a confrontation, find out one piece of information and then let her go. If would feel flat and forced. She's just murdered all these people and suddenly has a moment of clarity just as she's about to succeed? Would be like the scene in Batman v Superman where Batman spares him because their mother's have the same name.
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For me, they should have ended when Abby spared Dina and go back the farm. Ellie learns violence isn't the way and mercy is preferable, having now been a recipient of it. Have Ellie having a PTSD episode, so not a happy ending and indicating more stress to come, and would then indicate the horrors of her experience but the hope for the future (whilst foreboding further involvement with Abby).

Instead, she flips 180, goes back after her, murdering hundreds of people and then sparing her at the end, knowing she's lost Dina and the kid. So she went back for absolutely no reason other than to ruin her own life. It just produces massive dissonance in terms of the flow of the story and takes you completely out of it - no one is consistent in their motivations, constantly. If she had killed Abby, at least then you'd be able to paint the "losing everything" thing as a consequence of it, but no - she doesn't kill her, and gets nothing but misery for doing so.

Even that wouldn't have saved the game, but it would have made more narrative sense.
 

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