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The Last of Us Pt II |OT| Oh Ellie...I think they should be terrified of you

JimiNutz

Banned
Btw, upgrade question:
Do you know where to find the double holster for the sidearms?
I have one for the long guns, can't seem to find the other one though.

Fuck I found this early on (within the first 4 hours). It was just sitting on a table and wasn't hard to find but I can't remember the exact location. Sorry dude. If you're over 4 hours in you've likely missed it - not sure if there is another opportunity to pick it up later.
 

near

Gold Member
I'm about 4 hours in and I'm in absolute awe on the directing in this game. The way the camera pans in certain shots takes cinematic gameplay to a whole new level. The animation, sound design, graphical fidelity its all unbelievably well polished without a moment of jank in between. The story so far? Intense, I'm already emotionally invested.
 
Fuck I found this early on (within the first 4 hours). It was just sitting on a table and wasn't hard to find but I can't remember the exact location. Sorry dude. If you're over 4 hours in you've likely missed it - not sure if there is another opportunity to pick it up later.

1st 4 hours minor spoiler and question

I am 4 hours in and in seattle, I found the short gun holster here, in the bank I think. I had assumed I haven't reached the long gun holster yet? I have still to do the courthouse, I was sweeping up side missions.
 
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ManaByte

Banned
My dog Ellie at ~4 weeks old in 2014 and her today six years later:
Ea5IG-wU0AE1XYS
 

scalman

Member
when i was watching intro cinematics without subtitles i couldnt understand what people where saying and i was making like double volume on sound, still cant hear a thing ,,,and then when scene changes boom volume raises like wow, and then when talking again silent.... damn. start over game turn on subtitles, closed all windows , then its fone and dont try play game at day with open windows in bright room... in those dark areas room needs to be like pitch black then you will notice all details , otherwise you wont see a thing.
 

PanzerAzel

Member
Fuck I found this early on (within the first 4 hours). It was just sitting on a table and wasn't hard to find but I can't remember the exact location. Sorry dude. If you're over 4 hours in you've likely missed it - not sure if there is another opportunity to pick it up later.
Damn. Ah well, thanks anyway. That seriously sucks if I bypassed it, the levels are so huge I’m sure I missed a shitload of stuff.

Plus trying to change the pistol is constantly fucking me over as ND (for some odd reason) changed the button to swap it from holding X to holding square, so every time I need to change I’m battling muscle memory from the original and getting my throat torn out by a Clicker. Need that double holster ASAP.
 

REE Machine

Banned
I have both an Xbox One X and a PS4 Pro, and I've got to admit that RDR2 on Xbox One X surpasses TLoU2 from a technical aspect in certain regards; it runs at a higher native resolution and features a greater draw distance.

However, where TLoU2 beats it is in art direction; I prefer its color palette, its use of motion blur, as well as its motion-captured facial and bodily animations.

Also, despite running at a lower resolution, its horse models looks better to me, and it has much more exciting gameplay and more compelling storytelling.

What do you guys think?
RDR2 is not a first party game
 
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Steve.1981

Unconfirmed Member
Played up to Seattle day one.

I don't like the way the game just started, straight out the gate, rewriting the ending of part 1. No Dr Uckman, you can't just say that the Fireflies were going to make a cure. That's not how you wrote it, that's not how it went down. I know, I paid attention. They had no clue what would happen when they cut up Ellie's brain. They simply hoped and prayed, in their desperation, that it would lead to something tangible.

& then it jumped right into that bloody bigot sandwiches nonsense. How in the world could a bunch of professionals think that scene works. It's fucking laughably bad. Just hilariously terrible. I'm actually stunned that someone sat down & wrote it with a straight face. Bigot sandwiches!!! :messenger_tears_of_joy: Good lord above.

Everything after that was dull, uninteresting, badly written, poorly paced & clumsily executed. This is not the Naughty Dog I've come to know. It's quite a shocking fall from grace, to be perfectly honest. I've thoroughly enjoyed Last of Us 1, Uncharted 4, Lost Legacy. This just isn't working so far. I guess I'm only at the beginning, so it could pick up & the quality could improve, but I'm not hopeful.

At least the dodge is a very nice addition, so that's good. & the graphics are truly spectacular. But man, story was meant to be what this was all about & it's truly, depressingly bad.
 

ToadMan

Member
And they said this game was woke!

Fools.

<ice_cube_itwasagoodday.gif>
👍
 
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TissueBox

Member
Played up to Seattle day one.

I don't like the way the game just started, straight out the gate, rewriting the ending of part 1. No Dr Uckman, you can't just say that the Fireflies were going to make a cure. That's not how you wrote it, that's not how it went down. I know, I paid attention. They had no clue what would happen when they cut up Ellie's brain. They simply hoped and prayed, in their desperation, that it would lead to something tangible.

& then it jumped right into that bloody bigot sandwiches nonsense. How in the world could a bunch of professionals think that scene works. It's fucking laughably bad. Just hilariously terrible. I'm actually stunned that someone sat down & wrote it with a straight face. Bigot sandwiches!!! :messenger_tears_of_joy: Good lord above.

Everything after that was dull, uninteresting, badly written, poorly paced & clumsily executed. This is not the Naughty Dog I've come to know. It's quite a shocking fall from grace, to be perfectly honest. I've thoroughly enjoyed Last of Us 1, Uncharted 4, Lost Legacy. This just isn't working so far. I guess I'm only at the beginning, so it could pick up & the quality could improve, but I'm not hopeful.

At least the dodge is a very nice addition, so that's good. & the graphics are truly spectacular. But man, story was meant to be what this was all about & it's truly, depressingly bad.

For a lot of reviewers, the final moments were where ND sticks the landing -- in any case, it should be interesting seeing how it gets there..!!

That said, combat-wise, this has been a strong refinement of TLOU's systems, and feels both slick yet weighty to play, thanks to Ellie's more mobile nature. Only thing to see now is how the game spaces out each combat and exploration segment and whether the level design holds down the fort throughout the course of it. *shrug*
 
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sobaka770

Banned
Oh how sad that as soon as something is done by females it's bad and badly written, such bigotry. The game is awesome so far, Dina is awesome, the writing is A-class. I can't wait to get to kill... every... single.. one... of them.

And then do it again on grounded on PS5. I think I'm so into what's going to happen next I don't take enough time to appreciate just how awesome the game looks and feels.
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
@Steve.1981 yeah, the immediate retcon leaves a sour taste. The prologue makes Joel out to be overly sentimental and sappy, as if he was too weak to do what was necessary to save the world, instead of a man of strong convictions seeing through a difficult personal choice where there were no easy answers. This was a guy who was more or less dead inside, but found enough of a spark of life through Ellie to channel his darkness toward saving her.

It was the most powerful aspect of TLOU1, and absolutely should not have been tampered with.
 

Shantae

Banned
@Steve.1981 yeah, the immediate retcon leaves a sour taste. The prologue makes Joel out to be overly sentimental and sappy, as if he was too weak to do what was necessary to save the world, instead of a man of strong convictions seeing through a difficult personal choice where there were no easy answers. This was a guy who was more or less dead inside, but found enough of a spark of life through Ellie to channel his darkness toward saving her.

It was the most powerful aspect of TLOU1, and absolutely should not have been tampered with.
I can't see through the smoke from all the fire in this post.
 

Atrus

Gold Member
Somehow I missed that this was 2 discs? Anyway its almost finished installing and I've switched my pcgaming headset over to ensure I've got the best sound quality on hand to go with the Pro for visuals.

Gonna be a great weekend if the game is good?
 

tassletine

Member
Played up to Seattle day one.

I don't like the way the game just started, straight out the gate, rewriting the ending of part 1. No Dr Uckman, you can't just say that the Fireflies were going to make a cure. That's not how you wrote it, that's not how it went down. I know, I paid attention. They had no clue what would happen when they cut up Ellie's brain. They simply hoped and prayed, in their desperation, that it would lead to something tangible.

& then it jumped right into that bloody bigot sandwiches nonsense. How in the world could a bunch of professionals think that scene works. It's fucking laughably bad. Just hilariously terrible. I'm actually stunned that someone sat down & wrote it with a straight face. Bigot sandwiches!!! :messenger_tears_of_joy: Good lord above.

Everything after that was dull, uninteresting, badly written, poorly paced & clumsily executed. This is not the Naughty Dog I've come to know. It's quite a shocking fall from grace, to be perfectly honest. I've thoroughly enjoyed Last of Us 1, Uncharted 4, Lost Legacy. This just isn't working so far. I guess I'm only at the beginning, so it could pick up & the quality could improve, but I'm not hopeful.

At least the dodge is a very nice addition, so that's good. & the graphics are truly spectacular. But man, story was meant to be what this was all about & it's truly, depressingly bad.

There are bits that stick out like a sore thumb but I don’t think I’ve played a game that has sequences that don’t do that. It seems about on par with other Naughty Dog games.
There was some sly humour in there — Ellies first target is a black kid (I Assume making fun of the film trope where the first to die is black, even if it is just snowballs) And the bit where the two girls try and open a jar made me smile. There are some fairly glaring SWJ nods but no more than any other game would have nods to fascism etc. (Half life. GTA). Overall there have been some moving and subtle moments that have been undermined by the clunky stuff but it’s not as depressingly bad as you say. At least I haven’t reached for the Valium yet.

As for rewriting the first game, Joel is telling a story and he’s perfectly entitled to act in character — as it’s not an impartial narrator speaking but a character trying to come to terms with what happened. The most important part of the ending was kept intact — That Joel lied to Ellie and she accepted it.
 
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Steve.1981

Unconfirmed Member
...combat-wise, this has been a strong refinement of TLOU's systems, and feels both slick yet weighty to play, thanks to Ellie's more mobile nature.

It is a more refined version of part 1's combat. I hoped the dodge would work & it absolutely does. I already feel more comfortable approaching a possible fight & I imagine that feeling will grow when I start coming up against gangs of human enemies.

@Steve.1981 yeah, the immediate retcon leaves a sour taste. The prologue mainly makes Joel out to be overly sentimental and sappy, as if he was too weak to do what was necessary to save the world, instead of a man of strong convictions seeing through a difficult personal choice where there were no easy answers. This was a guy who was more or less dead inside, but found enough of a spark of life through Ellie to channel his darkness toward saving her.

It was the most powerful aspect of TLOU1, and absolutely should not have been tampered with.

Exactly. For some daft reason they've decided they just had to change important aspects of Joel's character. Why do that. Were they not happy that so many fans agreed with his actions? Is it just unacceptable to have strong men like him, capable of making those hard choices, in lead roles in our stories anymore? I don't know man, all I know is I don't like it.
 

emmerrei

Member
A glitch i got when i was playing today. Go to the end of the video for the glitch, and also jump any possible anticipation, even if don't really consider this a spoiler, it's just a random location.

 
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JimiNutz

Banned
The story is telling me that violence is horrific and unnecessary.

The gameplay is telling me that violence is glorious and soul enriching :pie_grinning_sweat:

Killing infected/humans/dogs :messenger_face_screaming: feels brilliant in this game lol
 

BluRayHiDef

Banned
I'm stuck.
I'm playing on Survivor and have reached the second building in Seattle that's labeled "WLF." My health is critically low, so a single swipe from an enemy equals death, and I don't have any ammunition. So, because it's so difficult to sneak past the five or six "runners" who are in the ground-level of the building, near the entrance, I keep getting detected and then killed. My options are to start the game over or to lower the difficulty; I don't want to do the former because I don't want to play through all of the previous levels again and I don't want to do the latter because doing so would hurt my pride. Damn.
 

saintjules

Gold Member
2.5 hours in. Gorgeous looking game so far. I understand the gripe with the film grain. Over time your eyes get used to it, but ultimately it would be cool for an option to disable it or adjust it. It does add something to the game overall.
 
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Steve.1981

Unconfirmed Member
As for rewriting the first game, Joel is telling a story and he’s perfectly entitled to act in character — as it’s not an impartial narrator speaking but a character trying to come to terms with what happened. The most important part of the ending was kept intact — That Joel lied to Ellie and she accepted it.

But that's the thing, Joel is not acting in character during that "confession". Apart from his sad tone regarding his lie to Ellie & how she feels about it. That I can believe would weigh heavy on his conscience. But he knew what we knew. The "cure" was nothing but hopes & dreams.
 

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
I’m not sure I’m going to be able to make it through this game.

It’s so, so emo.
This is what I was worried about 😕
I gotta play it to see for myself but I'm afraid it'll ruin the original
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
Played up to Seattle day one.

I don't like the way the game just started, straight out the gate, rewriting the ending of part 1. No Dr Uckman, you can't just say that the Fireflies were going to make a cure. That's not how you wrote it, that's not how it went down. I know, I paid attention. They had no clue what would happen when they cut up Ellie's brain. They simply hoped and prayed, in their desperation, that it would lead to something tangible.

That's not what was depicted in the first game.

Here are the actual quotes from the recordings and Marlene.

Marlene
Once they remove it, they'll be able to reverse engineer a vaccine. A vaccine.

Doctor
We're about to hit a milestone in human history equal to the discovery of penicillin. After years of wandering in circles, we're about to come home. Make a difference, and bring the human race back into control of it's own destiny. All of our sacrifices and the hundreds of men and women who've bled for this cause, or worse, will not be in vain.

This doesn't sound like they were hoping and praying, they truly believe they had a cure.
 
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REE Machine

Banned
That's irrelevant. The point is that the Xbox One X's version of RDR2 looks better than The Last of Us 2. In fact, I'd say that Xbox One X's version of RDR2 is the best looking game on console.
The problem why the console didnt sell is because it had no good first party titles to show off the system, period.
 

BluRayHiDef

Banned
The problem why the console didnt sell is because it had no good first party titles to show off the system, period.

Okay, I went back and read the original post of yours to which I replied and realized that you were referring to games published by Microsoft. I see your point now. However, what about Gears of War 4 and 5? They look great, don't they?
 

Woggleman

Member
In four years Joel probably changed. He has been living in as safe a community as possible in that world and his life is not a daily life and death struggle anymore. Chances are he has mellowed with age.
 

Cactuarman

Banned
I don't like the way the game just started, straight out the gate, rewriting the ending of part 1. No Dr Uckman, you can't just say that the Fireflies were going to make a cure. That's not how you wrote it, that's not how it went down. I know, I paid attention. They had no clue what would happen when they cut up Ellie's brain. They simply hoped and prayed, in their desperation, that it would lead to something tangible.

But does Joel ever acknowledge in game that he knew it was an uncertainty? The player can know this if they find the right artifact, but ultimately I'd assume that what he knows about the situation is based on what he says in the game.

And ultimately if you think of it like: Ending 1 (no artifacts collected) and Ending 2 (artifacts collected), Last of Us 2 goes with Ending 1 as cannon. But even then, I had always interpreted it as knowledge for the benefit of the audience. So really, Last of Us cannon is just Ending 1.

Not really a rewrite of anything if I remember correctly.

Exactly. For some daft reason they've decided they just had to change important aspects of Joel's character. Why do that. Were they not happy that so many fans agreed with his actions? Is it just unacceptable to have strong men like him, capable of making those hard choices, in lead roles in our stories anymore? I don't know man, all I know is I don't like it.

Interesting framing. It seems to me like they're both pretty hard decisions - let Ellie die for a potential cure which could save many lives VS kill a bunch of people trying to find a cure to save Ellie

Edit: rewording
 
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REE Machine

Banned
Okay, I went back and read the original post of yours to which I replied and realized that you were referring to games published by Microsoft. I see your point now. However, what about Gears of War 4 and 5? They look great, don't they?
They look great but much like Halo, Gears has been on a slow down hill spiral, what would have reallt helped them would have been 1-2 new ips that were built on the ground up to show what the X could have done and make people go out and buy it instead of settle with their launch. They fumbled the X launch horribly.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Oh man. The Last of us 2 is installing... and Oculus Quest just got here. Got my hands full.
Impressions so far: Oculus quest is much more comfortable than I though and the screens looks fantastic(I think better than S). Hand tracking is neat too.
Oh... tlou2 is installing still the install disc
 
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Steve.1981

Unconfirmed Member
That's not what was depicted in the first game...they truly believe they had a cure.

Yes it is what was depicted in the first game.

Marlene tells Joel they'll be able to create a vaccine in order to placate him & justify her actions. It's not because she knows it for a fact. She records a message for Anna, Ellie's mother, where she also tries to justify her actions by saying "...we have a chance to save everyone"

& you cut out a lot of the Surgeon's recording. You know, like the part where he talks about trying to replicate her immunity under lab conditions. He's excited because she's immune & he's desperate to try & find out how. Again, he doesn't know for a fact that killing Ellie & cutting her brain up will lead to anything.
 
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Steve.1981

Unconfirmed Member
But does Joel ever acknowledge in game that he knew it was an uncertainty? The player can know this if they find the right artifact, but ultimately I'd assume that what he knows about the situation is based on what he says in the game.

And ultimately if you think of it like: Ending 1 (no artifacts collected) and Ending 2 (artifacts collected), Last of Us 2 goes with Ending 1 as cannon. But even then, I had always interpreted it as knowledge for the benefit of the audience. So really, Last of Us cannon is just Ending 1.

Not really a rewrite of anything if I remember correctly.

Well if you want to look at it that way, how about this? In my playthroughs, it was Joel who found the diaries & recordings that explained all of this stuff. So I assume he knows it.
 

farmerboy

Member
But what if she was a bigot towards someone else? The word swings both ways.

big·ot
/ˈbiɡət/
noun
  1. a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions.

Well then it gets interesting doesn't it?

Want it to get more interesting? What if your preconceived bias is colouring how you read the situation, one way or the other?
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
Yes it is what was depicted in the first game.

Marlene tells Joel they'll be able to create a vaccine in order to placate him & justify her actions. It's not because she knows it for a fact. She records a message for Anna, Ellie's mother, where she also tries to justify her actions by saying "...we have a chance to save everyone"

& you cut out a lot of the Surgeon's recording. You know, like the part where he talks about trying to replicate her immunity under lab conditions. He's excited because she's immune & he's desperate to try & find out how. Again, he doesn't know for a fact that killing Ellie & cutting her brain up will lead to anything.
I referenced the most important parts.

What was said in the first game simply doesn't indicate hope and prayer. Marlene was on the verge of tears when she was talking about the vaccine. The doctor was comparing it to the discovery of penicillin. Even if there was a little doubt, they were just about ready to celebrate.
 
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Steve.1981

Unconfirmed Member
I referenced the most important parts.

What was said in the first game simply doesn't indicate hope and prayer. Marlene was on the verge of tears when she was talking about the vaccine. The doctor was comparing it to the discovery of penicillin. Even if there was a little doubt, they were just about ready to celebrate.

It absolutely does indicate hopes & prayers. They were desperate. Marlene especially so & a part of her knew the hard truth that Joel showed her when he said "Yeah. You keep telling yourself that bullshit" Hence those tears you heard in her voice.

The doctor was excited & desperate, as I already explained.

Glad you at least acknowledge that there was a little doubt though. That's a start.
 
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