Maiden Voyage
Gold™ Member
You should really have summarised OP, it's not going to get much traction posting an hour long video. I've picked out the relevant pomts though I've had to paraphrase some as literal quotes won't get the point across unless you do watch it all in context
Chapter I
- Explains that he's a player that relies on simple motivations in games. Like achieve this thing, kill this guy, do these tasks;
- Hates stupid downtime in games like slow walking exposition, tailing missions, escort missions etc.
- Says despite those criticisms he really loved TLOU I and the reason for this was because the motivator was the characters and story itself. The emotional attachment and story meant a lot of the simple gameplay mechanics could be overlooked or forgotten
- Says ND are the masters of breaking their game up between story and encounters in small portions so you never really get to appraise how shallow some of those gameplay elements are, until you replay them
- Highlights Bruce Straley interview on Ludonarrative Dissonance as something they chose to address in TLOU I
Chapter 2
- Story is more complex to the detriment of the player attachment;
- Too many strands to ultimately arrive at the same linear path/conclusion;
- Basically the overbearing story and scenes give no simple emotional attachments to evolve. Instead you have a lot of scattered people with diluted emotional attachments;
- The emotion felt was manufactured e.g. it wasn't the emotion of Ellie losing Joel he felt, it was the emotion of knowing you killed off the heart of the story;
- Concept was cool but it fell apart for consistency, gameplay and agency. There was basically too much divergent story in the player didn't have agency in, which led to not having that emotional investment in a lot of it;
- Highlights the boss fight - doesn't matter if you empathise with Ellie or Abby, if Ellie kills Abbie you fail as the 'player' - whereas killing Abbie was the player motivator in the previous 12 hours;
- Highlights the IGN review that picks up on this being the point. Player interactivity in an unalterable story gives a more 'affecting' experience.
- Says basically if that's true, the motivator then becomes the gameplay and combat itself. To kill and maim all these NPCs in the most graphic and creative ways because if it doesn't happen in a cut scene, it basically doesn't matter to the story and then makes the familiar argument of sparing Abbie runs contrary to this way of playing the game;
- Also says the key choice hinges on Ellie having empathy the player built up playing as Abbie - but Ellie wouldn't be aware of any of these incidents or happenigs to build that empathy herself;
- Admits he is being nitpicky and OCD, but says he is beating the drum hard because of all the hype and promise. We were basically promised a genre defining story and experience and it fell way short, so the level of criticism is relative to the level of perceived failure;
- Says the stealth mechanics etc. are still behind games from years ago (e.g. MGS);
- Recounted the ghost sorrow sequence in MGS where the game showed you all the players you had chosen to kill and it had a profound effect on him. Then highlights how TLOU II was focused more on advancing things like going prone, active stealth than improving the thing the game was lauded for (storytelling, emotional attachment etc);
- Says a lot of stuff is surface level and he would have expected something like the sorrow sequence when going through the city morgue to show the people you'd killed etc. Basically did the story presentation do anything creative to support the new mechanics and gameplay additions?
- Says that the most 'affecting' things were the things in gameplay (when he chose to kill a dog), not the cut scenes that were fishing for emotion from the player;
- Goes on to discuss how the game is 'brave' for subverting expectations by killing off Joel. Said it would have been braver to have actually less violence - likened it to mindless shooting in Bioshock Infinite;
- Says it is shallow, hypocritical and outdated if it's intent was to move the subject of video games as a storytelling device forward;
- Runs counter to Bruce Straley's searching question about making an immersive game without killing/murdering;
Chapter III
- At the end you can replay encounters which is amazing and turn your mind off violence and they took 3 and a half hours to complete on their own on hard.
- Game is twice as long and didn't do enough to make him enjoy the vast majority of the game which was meant to be the story and characters;
- Why didnt they actually use the rope for some intriguing puzzles or gameplay moments that don't exist in any other game (recalls one puzzle). Tying up enemies/zombies or tripwires which goes back to non killing/stealth options;
- Finding a note with a safe number on is not a 'puzzle';
- Why isn't auto pickup on by default? There is no circumstance where you will not want to loot items or supplies, no strategy for inventory management;
- Criticises the music as being more background music rather than story complementary;
- Pregnant woman (valued resource) is a medic - why? Story question;
- As a player he didn't want to do half the things Ellie did, and that persisted to the end which left a hollow empty feeling. The flashback was basically a deus ex machina moment and was cheap;
TLR
Basically ND games hide very well the little player agency and choice they actually present and how boring the games are to replay in which 90% is pressing up or triangle. They do this by portioning out the story and encounters by having a compelling story and characters you care about. TLOU II completely destroys this with an overly complex story that is so convoluted you look forward to the gameplay sections more. The only problem is these last at most 4 hours in a 25 hour game.
Despite this, the game does succeed in some places like Yara and Lev but in small portions. But despite the bigger cast and more story strands no characters evoked the close emotional attachment like Joel/Ellie and when it approximated it, the moment was usually over in a flash.
In TLOU I he became Joel
In TLOU I: LB he became Ellie
In TLOU II he became disspponited
Don't @ me bastards
Last edited: