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Days Gone (PS4): The Origin of an Antihero

Mezoly

Member
and a white dude with a beard.

Edit: I will say that his design is pretty generic. Would have been cool to see a black motorcycle gang leader or something.
Yeah I'm pretty excited about the game but the character design is not the most orginal. Hopefully they explore more the bikers club story more than losing a loved one part.
 

Harmen

Member
Bend is going to have to do better than that.

To the average consumer: "Dead Island. Dead Rising. The Last of Us. The Walking Dead. CoD Zombies. There are already lots of great zombie games out there that feature a combination of open world, TPS, hordes, cinematics, and story-telling. What makes this game different? Why should I buy it over those, let alone all the other great games coming out in the same time-frame?"

What's the big hook? As much as I like the game so far, I don't see one.

The zombies are in hibernation during the day (or at least some of the hordes), thus you can start a mission during the day and have some prep time to make traps, plan your route etc. Furthermore, interaction with the environment and how your enemies react to it seems to be crucial in general (with how the hordes work), as seen in trailer. We also haven't seen wildlife, other types of enemies and the whole motercycle gameplay yet.

And, unlike quite a damn lot of these type of games, this one focuses on telling a story with absolute focus on a single player campaign (which is what I enjoy the most and thus far about only TLOU and to a lesser extent WD properly offered me).
 

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
reductionism again...sigh

Good character design: make the character black

Oh fuck off with this nonsense. We've got a shit ton of bearded white guys with rough backstories in gaming and the stereotype of biker gangs is outlaw white dudes. I think a black or latino or asian or whatever anyone else would be more interesting. Its not about quotas or anything else, I just like diversity in protagonists.
 

Lime

Member
it's a long story, but the short version is the monkey's paw.

:lol

Seriously..I understand that most games feature white male protagonists and many people often want to see diversity, as do I

but this is such a terrible and reductionist way of looking at a game character....do you just literally see any protagonist and reduce him to a "white male" with not understanding his character, his personality, his motivations?..like thats a awful way to look at the world

With the quality of video game writing, I don't have any expectations for an interesting character. I'd love to be pleasantly surprised, but history and the past have told me otherwise. I mean, come on, the dude's name is Deacon St. John - it's almost like the Western version of Edge Maverick.

At least having a zombie game that's not in the US would be interesting to me. I already have a million narratives about the US after zombies hit. Even moreso when it's some grizzled white US dude at the center.
 

MaxHouse

Banned
:lol



With the quality of video game writing, I don't have any expectations for an interesting character. I'd love to be pleasantly surprised, but history and the past have told me otherwise.

At least having a zombie game that's not in the US would be interesting to me. I already have a million narratives about the US after zombies hit. Even moreso when it's some grizzled white US dude

why do you reduce someone to his skin color...?

like do you read a science book and then be like..."ahh Isaac Newton, another white guy" and then dismiss it? i mean seriously
 
The "freaker" name is so bad. The protagonist and premise is so generic. Gameplay would have to be top 5 quality from this gen for me to be interested.
 

I swear, it's really hard to pretend that the game doesn't rip off the Last of Us. It's possible for the game to be both a TLOU rip off and generic at the same time. One doesn't necessarily refute the other.

Seriously, make the main character a bit less Joel. How about impossibly cheerful and witty like Spider-Man? Lol
 
D

Deleted member 325805

Unconfirmed Member
The atmosphere really sucked me in, it's definitely on my "please don't be shit list".
 
I dont like zombies but this game looks very good, Bend is a great studio and I hope it delivers a lot of fun. Maybe I buy it on the NEO
 

J 0 E

Member
The only game that gave me this vibe

World War Z

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Sony's answer to XBO's exclusives (Dead Rising 4 + State of Decay 2)

The settings + TLoU influence is making it high on my list.
 

Lime

Member
why do you reduce someone to his skin color...?

like do you read a science book and then be like..."ahh Isaac Newton, another white guy" and then dismiss it? i mean seriously

Don't blame the character or the developer, blame the games industry for having the same type of character in the center of their games for soooo many years. Other people in the world exist, why can't simply exist in these narratives?

(also, I didn't reduce to skin color, but nationality and setting as well)
 

Mezoly

Member
The last of us was my favorite game of last gen.
The way people talk about tlou like it invented the genre. In fact, the tlou was not innovative at all. It just did everything well which made it great.
Tlou fan base talking about how games are ripping tlou is getting old. Companions, antihero, zombies, etc tlou didn't invent or do those things first.
 
Even the guys wife looked like a tattooed, biker version of Elena from Uncharted.

Yeah, maybe drop the tats and make her look different. At least unElena her.

I have no problem with white characters. They can remain white if they choose. I just want them to distance themselves from TLOU in both appearance and narrative tone.
 
My biggest question is can we do a few tricks (ie. back flips) going off dirt-ramps and the like. That would be pretty fun, a little levity among the chaos.
 
It's been incredible how there was so much tension in the stage demo despite the fact that you weren't playing it, it was set during the day time, and the character was well armed with an assualt rifle and molotov's.
 

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
My biggest question is can we do a few tricks (ie. back flips) going off dirt-ramps and the like. That would be pretty fun, a little levity among the chaos.

Someone asked the developers if you could pull a wheelie with the bike and they were very mum during their response. I'm guessing you can do quite a bit with the bike down the line. I also like how you need gas to operator it.
 
Didn't you guys hear God of War is a Last of Us ripoff.

Seriously though I love Last of Us but holy shit is fanbase frustrating. The game is not even innovative, in fact it's riddled with cliches. The only reason why it was good was because of the execution. The game did not invent the zombie genre nor the craft system. In terms of originality it's nothing special.
 
Sony's answer to XBO's exclusives (Dead Rising 4 + State of Decay 2)

Dead Rising 4 is a timed exclusive only and will be coming to PS4 a year later. But anyway

Days Gone just looks so generic. There's nothing exciting about it. Take it back to the drawing board and start again. Just make it a Dead Rising clone, what's the problem sony?
 

Bandit1

Member
Unfortunate that people automatically assume grizzled, violent anti-hero= Joel, as if someone can't have more character traits to differentiate themselves from one another. I'm already interested in his past, the motorcycle gang and his role as an actual bounty hunter.

Anyway, I'm extremely excited for the game. I love games with dark tones and survival. Crafting, heavy emphasis on the motorcycle, dynamic world and weather in a big (and gorgeous) open world is right up my alley. Can't wait.

Agree 100%. The way the devs talked about the motorcycle itself being a character I'm assuming that motorcycle means a lot to the protagonist, that alone opens up some interesting opportunities for character development. How far are you going to go for your motorcycle? Are you going to end the life of a human being for an inanimate object? Then you have the brotherhood and camaraderie of the MC, and how those relationships evolved from before/during/after the outbreak. There's loads of potential from a character perspective. Just because it's a white dude with a beard and a troubled past doesn't mean he's Joel.
 
Dead Rising 4 is a timed exclusive only and will be coming to PS4 a year later. But anyway

Days Gone just looks so generic. There's nothing exciting about it. Take it back to the drawing board and start again. Just make it a Dead Rising clone, what's the problem sony?
No. If you want to play Dead Rising, go play that.

Asking for clone games is so weird. Either wait for a port to your system of choice, or buy it for the system its available on.
 
No. If you want to play Dead Rising, go play that.

Asking for clone games is so weird. Either wait for a port to your system of choice, or buy it for the system its available on.

Fair nuff. But it did seem like Days Gone or DDR (lol) was going to be some sort of mix between DR and Mad Max but alas, it was never meant to be. We hyped it up ourselfs for that. We did that. We thought it would have been ... that but nahh.
 

Loudninja

Member
It's been incredible how there was so much tension in the stage demo despite the fact that you weren't playing it, it was set during the day time, and the character was well armed with an assualt rifle and molotov's.
Yeah and that was tone down.
These things aren’t exactly zombies, though. Instead they’re infected humans, turned feral by some as yet unexplained disease. Because of that they’re a little more reactive to the game’s open world. ”Every creature is different, they are a living type,” explains senior animator Emmanuel Roth. “They have some needs and behave differently depending on the weather, the location”. We’ve only seen two variations so far: the main horde type and a “newt” - an adolescent version that appears to be the ‘hide and jump on your back' type of bastard.

While the E3 demo seemed to show easily killed creatures, mown down by the main character, Deacon’s gunfire, the final game won’t be that easy. "They are not weak,” clarifies Roth, who explains that what we saw was geared to be entertaining: “Maybe we dumbed them down a bit for the demo but they are not weak. It’s very dangerous. Those guys will be hard to fight”.
That danger will be something you can build up to, with Roth observing that, at the start of the game, the player will be in no state to handle the hordes seen so far (“that will happen later in the game where you are equipped enough to deal with them”). The open world also means you can avoid conflicts if you want. “If you went to the saw mill and you didn’t want to deal with the swarm, you’re fine. You can go somewhere and deal [with things] the way you want,” says Roth.

Fortunately you won’t have to worry about thousand strong crowds at every turn. In my demo an alternate route showed off some smaller encounters, fighting off a few Freakers at a time in side a building. “There’s going to be different sizes of horde; you’ll come across varying ranges of numbers,” confirms Pape.
http://www.gamesradar.com/sony-expl...eyre-alive-have-needs-and-behave-differently/
 

Window

Member
Like every other zombie story on the face of the planet.

Nothing wrong with that, but it'd be nice for a different kind of take on it.

I've been looking up some books to read on Goodreads and pretty much every second description says something similar. Makes even well known classics seem down right rote and boring.
 

citizensyndrome

Neo Member
Honestly I wish they had just set the game in a different country. Zombie in the US is so boring at this point.

What about Indian biker gang dude? Or Russian? Or Malaysian? Or Rwandan? Or Iranian?

So many possibilities yet we get the worst possible outcome. US is the center of the world as always

It's why I was pleased to see games like Watchdogs 2, Mafia 3, and Prey have protaganist that are PoC.
 

ReaperXL7

Member
Should have made the MCs name Deacon St Jock and have it been about a porn star and how he deals with the loss of the porn industry after the zombie....sorry "freaker" apocalypse hit.

I think that would have been an interesting concept.
 

bunkitz

Member
I'm really interested in learning about the Freaker ecosystem. So far, I think it's the most interesting thing. Also, no doubt the story will spend plenty of time showing us Deacon's relationship with the motorcycle gang in some way. The whole "brotherhood" thing and his relationship with his (deceased?) wife is another point of interest for me.
 
Days Gone has the most eye-rolling character type. I have really low expectations of the game after seeing the game feature White American Dude with Traumatic Past (lost his wife) for the millionth time



:lol
legit. watching the trailer my eyes rolled back into my skull and did a complete 360.
 

Gold_Loot

Member
"I have a dream that one day people will be judged by their character rather than the color of their skin."

*Reads thread*

.... oh
 

FATALITY

Banned
Dead Rising 4 is a timed exclusive only and will be coming to PS4 a year later. But anyway

Days Gone just looks so generic. There's nothing exciting about it. Take it back to the drawing board and start again. Just make it a Dead Rising clone, what's the problem sony?

lol
im dying here you guys cant be serious
 
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