Computer games.

Looking at some of the ghost reviews it’s generally positive but the issues it has I’d imagine tlou2 would have been roasted for. Like walking up hills and your feet go through the floor. Other dodgey animations. The AI is prity broken with stealth. Npc models are very bad and it can get repetitiv etc. The story isn’t its strong point apparently.

Now I still wanna get ghosts it it looks good. But TLOU2 would be shredded like it has been with them issues. A few disagreeable narrative decisions, lesbians and muscular women 0/10!!!!!

Ellie has been a lesbian since the first game DLC, nobody cared, no outrage.

The problem with Abby is that it feels shovelled in to literally create a "strong female character". It's jarring to the audience. Compare to Cyberpunk and the character of Sasquatch, who makes sense in her universe. But in TLOU2 her ridiculous size is played totally straight - if you look at MMA with Rousey, Cyborg, Holly Holm etc. they are exceptionally strong women but look absolutely nothing like Abby. Compare this to this. It's crazy. It's been done solely to exaggeration the point and it comes across as cartoonish.

The bigger problem is what you've tried to gloss over as a "few disagreeable narrative decisions" - it's much more than that.

The entire story structure is wrong. Just one example, but Abby is set up as an antihero; a villain originally, then you as the audience are meant to sympathise with her and as she arcs round to moral relativism with the protagonist. But it doesn't work because for an antihero to work you need an established bigger threat, a more evil character that holds influence over Abby and explains why she was bad in the first instance. The game never delivers that - instead, it tries to make Abby good by making Ellie bad, so that they're both comparatively awful. The audience can't relate to them, not just because of that, but because they keep making decisions because the plot needs them to, rather than the plot being driven by character sensibilities.

It's a slightly above average video game in terms of mechanics, with world class graphics and terrible fan fiction as a plot. It's a game that lives and dies by its' narrative by design. I'm glad you enjoyed it but you seem devastated that most people can see the very obvious problems with it.
 
Ellie has been a lesbian since the first game DLC, nobody cared, no outrage.

The problem with Abby is that it feels shovelled in to literally create a "strong female character". It's jarring to the audience. Compare to Cyberpunk and the character of Sasquatch, who makes sense in her universe. But in TLOU2 her ridiculous size is played totally straight - if you look at MMA with Rousey, Cyborg, Holly Holm etc. they are exceptionally strong women but look absolutely nothing like Abby. Compare this to this. It's crazy. It's been done solely to exaggeration the point and it comes across as cartoonish.

The bigger problem is what you've tried to gloss over as a "few disagreeable narrative decisions" - it's much more than that.

The entire story structure is wrong. Just one example, but Abby is set up as an antihero; a villain originally, then you as the audience are meant to sympathise with her and as she arcs round to moral relativism with the protagonist. But it doesn't work because for an antihero to work you need an established bigger threat, a more evil character that holds influence over Abby and explains why she was bad in the first instance. The game never delivers that - instead, it tries to make Abby good by making Ellie bad, so that they're both comparatively awful. The audience can't relate to them, not just because of that, but because they keep making decisions because the plot needs them to, rather than the plot being driven by character sensibilities.

It's a slightly above average video game in terms of mechanics, with world class graphics and terrible fan fiction as a plot. It's a game that lives and dies by its' narrative by design. I'm glad you enjoyed it but you seem devastated that most people can see the very obvious problems with it.
Naughty Dog spends the second half of the game repeatedly punching the player in the face over and over shouting "like Abby, like Abby, like Abby....."
 
Naughty Dog spends the second half of the game repeatedly punching the player in the face over and over shouting "like Abby, like Abby, like Abby....."

Even the layout of the story is wrong. It would have worked marginally better if you started the game as Abby and... damnit, spoilers...

... killed Joel...

... as Abby. But even then the whole idea of turning Ellie into some weird pseudo-antagonist-and-protagonist just doesn't work because the player is already invested in Ellie and doesn't buy the transition.

It's a genuine mess of a game in terms of narrative. One of the worst I've ever seen in fact, certainly in terms of AAA. There's next to nothing in the story that works as intended - it's like a handbook on how not to write fiction.
 

Just because you don't like the story doesn't make it bad

I happen to really like the story, find that it works in both a narrative and emotional sense and believe that the game is pretty wonderful on most fronts

Opinions eh?

Objective and subjective are two different things.

Subjectively, I like Blue Streak as a movie, for example. It just makes me laugh and I enjoy it for the ride it gives.

Objectively, it is an absolutely terrible movie, with horrific acting, a nonsensical script and incredibly bad editing.

Sometimes, people are blinded by something visually dazzling on release, but then retrospectively realise they were probably mistaken - James Camerons' Avatar is a perfect example of that. TLOU2 graphically is stunning, the moment to moment gameplay in tense moments is on occasion second to none, and it's possible that people have been overly swayed by those moments into thinking more favourably of the whole as a result, more ready to gloss over the bad.

I'm delighted you subjectively enjoyed TLOU2, wouldn't wish anyone to not enjoy a game they've bought, but objectively there's certain things that are either right or wrong in terms of storytelling technique. You'll struggle to find any serious deconstruction on how TLOU2 succeeds in its narrative, for example, whilst you'll find loads that detail precisely why it fails, because we have countless examples in other media where the themes it aims for are done well.
 
Ellie has been a lesbian since the first game DLC, nobody cared, no outrage.

The problem with Abby is that it feels shovelled in to literally create a "strong female character". It's jarring to the audience. Compare to Cyberpunk and the character of Sasquatch, who makes sense in her universe. But in TLOU2 her ridiculous size is played totally straight - if you look at MMA with Rousey, Cyborg, Holly Holm etc. they are exceptionally strong women but look absolutely nothing like Abby. Compare this to this. It's crazy. It's been done solely to exaggeration the point and it comes across as cartoonish.

The bigger problem is what you've tried to gloss over as a "few disagreeable narrative decisions" - it's much more than that.

The entire story structure is wrong. Just one example, but Abby is set up as an antihero; a villain originally, then you as the audience are meant to sympathise with her and as she arcs round to moral relativism with the protagonist. But it doesn't work because for an antihero to work you need an established bigger threat, a more evil character that holds influence over Abby and explains why she was bad in the first instance. The game never delivers that - instead, it tries to make Abby good by making Ellie bad, so that they're both comparatively awful. The audience can't relate to them, not just because of that, but because they keep making decisions because the plot needs them to, rather than the plot being driven by character sensibilities.

It's a slightly above average video game in terms of mechanics, with world class graphics and terrible fan fiction as a plot. It's a game that lives and dies by its' narrative by design. I'm glad you enjoyed it but you seem devastated that most people can see the very obvious problems with it.
All of this. The whole revenge bit should have been a secondary plot and there should have been some overarching story to go with it.

Only worse example that comes to mind of a revenge plot is Mercenaries 2

The whole plot is based on revenge for getting shot in the ass. That’s it. It’s that simple and idiotic. An EA game for you

To be fair I enjoyed the second game more than the first. Probably because it was goofy af
 
Ellie has been a lesbian since the first game DLC, nobody cared, no outrage.

The problem with Abby is that it feels shovelled in to literally create a "strong female character". It's jarring to the audience. Compare to Cyberpunk and the character of Sasquatch, who makes sense in her universe. But in TLOU2 her ridiculous size is played totally straight - if you look at MMA with Rousey, Cyborg, Holly Holm etc. they are exceptionally strong women but look absolutely nothing like Abby. Compare this to this. It's crazy. It's been done solely to exaggeration the point and it comes across as cartoonish.

The bigger problem is what you've tried to gloss over as a "few disagreeable narrative decisions" - it's much more than that.

The entire story structure is wrong. Just one example, but Abby is set up as an antihero; a villain originally, then you as the audience are meant to sympathise with her and as she arcs round to moral relativism with the protagonist. But it doesn't work because for an antihero to work you need an established bigger threat, a more evil character that holds influence over Abby and explains why she was bad in the first instance. The game never delivers that - instead, it tries to make Abby good by making Ellie bad, so that they're both comparatively awful. The audience can't relate to them, not just because of that, but because they keep making decisions because the plot needs them to, rather than the plot being driven by character sensibilities.

It's a slightly above average video game in terms of mechanics, with world class graphics and terrible fan fiction as a plot. It's a game that lives and dies by its' narrative by design. I'm glad you enjoyed it but you seem devastated that most people can see the very obvious problems with it.

Oh shad ap. I’m not having another one of these with you haha. I cared a lot about death stranding but this isn’t worth WW2 with Tubey.
 

One thing people bashing TLOU for the story on YouTube people like Angry Joe and the like they are mad hardcore into superhero movies. Trying to dissect the game when they’ve given Antman a good review ffs.

tlou may have some questionable plot points and what have you but even as a video game it’s story and how it tell it pises all over anything a superhero movie serves up.
 

Welcome to GrandOldTeam

Get involved. Registration is simple and free.

Back
Top