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arebelnow · 8 years ago

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excuse the rather shitty graphic, i churned it out before class. i wanted to do something with an octopus ( because i’m that guy ), but i got kicked in the shin by schoolwork and neglected to find one i could work with. my bad, my bad.

but! the important thing isn’t my budget image, it’s the fact that i’ve had bodhi for over a month now and i swear, i’m in love with this fandom. from rogue one players to originals to prequels to the animations: you guys are amazing. i haven’t been this excited for a fandom in a long time. i don’t know if star wars just attracts the kinna writers i click with and admire or what but you guys are 👌👌👌👌👌. however, i wanted to use this mushy-gushy holiday to be sappy and show a little appreciation to the people who have really made this blog something i cherish.

THE DOKIDOKI SQUAD

i wish i could write my undying love for everyone i adore, but i doubt i could do that a) before class and b) within the average human lifespan. so these are the folks that i either talk to a lot ooc, write a lot with, or just make me really, really happy by just existing. you’re the friends that send me things, talk to me about nonsense, get real with me, and are just an all around treat. even if i don’t know you very well ( yet ) you are have made bodhi an experience i won’t ever forget and our talks that have me drabbling about this shadow-jumper pilot on the back of my homework.

like, i just---- *blows kiss @ u*

@bretttal + all your baes - YO!!!!! we’ve been friends/saltmates/prosebros for how long now? two years now? but like, it also feels like forever, like that kind of kinship you got with someone who just weaves in seamlessly with your life and mind like damn, son. the fact that we can be so dank levels of emo and crack at the same time with each other but then get so brutally honest and real the very next sentence. we don’t shy from anything and we express ourselves openly but respect when the other wants to be quiet with details. and the fact that our passions overlap: linguistics, culture, politics, and the various aspects of humanity. like, to have someone that i can talk about those things with, who is as passionate about strengths and tragedies of the human mind is such a sacred thing to me. like, to say the ideas we come up with for our muses ( especially now with bodhi in the picture ) are controversial to the mainstream mind is an understatement, i don’t know how many others would dare to tread where you and i go. so, i am so fortunate to have you as a friend and ally, especially with the world the way it is. because ( at the risk of sounding like a ball of cheese ) you, my dear friend, are the kinna soul that gives me hope, the kinna person i know i can trust with the future.

you also cry about rogue one and horror movies and xenomorphs with me. a lot. bless u.

@leadkiss + all your baes - okay, okay, i know. we haven’t interacted on this blog yet but idgaf, you’re a pillar wherever i go. we have so much history, the relationships and plots we craft together make dark souls look like a putt-putt game. we are lovecraftian horrors, we make the tragedies of old look like child’s play and the darkest of apocalypses feel like sunshine. and don’t know many people i can be brave, to be honest and open about real life, and certainly i don’t know many people i’m on the same wavelength with. and i know, our approaches and situations often clash...a lot *heart hands* i wouldn’t trade it for the world. your words are precious to me, whether written or spoken. so idk when we’ll write with each other on our current blogs, i do hope soon but until then, i’m more than happy to just gush at each other in skype about our baes past and present and, lbr, future.

@seijoki + all your baes - *gently gritos in admiration* no but seriously, we met like three years ago. and even we barely talked ooc, you had such a major impact on my muse. and then when jasper happened, you were literally a central part of his character???? you are so precious and such a bae like i can’t even with words to describe how awesome you are. and your characters are just as meaningful and your portrayal of them is so truehearted, i’m blown away. you just have a way with your muses that others, myself included, can’t help but be a little shook like, damn. *waves hands* like, we’ve gone through such an extra af journey together. from felix’s murder-aunt to the unfortunate sister of goggles mcfirehazard and moon moon the carebear. and you as a person are such a masterpiece. i envy your ability to remain patient and noble in situations with people that would have me making strangle-y hands. your such a good, tori, and like, i hope you know that.

plus, the fear of owls. you get it.

@catchthatregenerator - *toddler clapping* dude!!! you play a villain and don’t pull punches, i fucking love it. you get more and more unapologetic about how much of delightful garbage can adam is and i could just yasssss~ about it all day. you don’t woobie your boy, and you don’t try to excuse his behavior. you embrace and recognize who and what he is and are a responsible antagonist-player. bless u so much, man. as someone who used to play villains, i admire and love what you do. and also your writing, whether it was about adam or not, is amazing??? you’re so honest about your analysis and you don’t throw around fancy world and scripple with purple crayon everywhere for the sake of “quality”. you just write. your voice is strong, you don’t need falsify your prose with grandeur and it’s such a hallelujah, mang. it makes writing with you so refreshing and just *blows a kiss* you’re such a treat and i’m a lucky sucker for having you in my life. no joke. also, you as a person....idek how you manage to be so sweet and warm??? wtf??? how you can be so kind and gentle but still stand your ground is beyond me. you’re a brave soul, in both your personality and writing and i just have become a meme when it comes to you i swear. you are such a treat and i always look forward to your adam and any muse you pursue.

@sergeantstardust / @scavengered / @halfworldborn / @lightlived / @scarificed ( and your other blogs ) - so i don’t know each of your very well yet. i’ve only just met each of you but you guys are those blogs i halt my dash browsing for to read whatever the heck you just posted. like, it doesn’t matter what stage of writing we’re at: whether we’ve done a few replies, just barely started, or are still plotting --- i have so much respect and adoration for what you guys can do. the care and effort you put into your characters and prose, the thought behind each word and action, there’s never a dull moment and i’m always excited to see you guys on my dash ( or when you talk to me, like sorry i nerd out whenever i get an IM ding from y’all ngl and nerd out even more when we plot or i read a reply to our thread ).

BAES

section for all the folks that make me *hearteyes* because you guys are filled with such talent. you all have such fascinating and unique versions of your muse and your prose is always on point and i’m so jazzed to be mutuals with you whether we’ve had a chance to write together or not.

@thcenemy ( @blindhim ) / @rogueandcr / @rebelsacrifice / @fcrcepilot / @cxptainandor / @pilotcorellian / @awakenedrey / @ginatcnic / @strongwilledsoul / @imqetuous / @fulcrumm ( @sospes ) / @rcbelborn / @lastorgana / @aldcraanian / @hotshotflyboy / @rebelcassn / @stardusttoash / @stardusttings / @xaedificare / @aftcrshocks / @libertinedeath / @bridgrs / @jvnstcrdust / @rebelcourage / @pilotlng / @likemyfatherbeforeme / @galaxyslasthope / @rebellioncaptain / @arepure / @amcureux / @binarywake / @camewithguns / @helluvapilot / @vilibertatis / @captcassiansandors / @scioncfel / @snipisms / @jaigvision / @eireniic

SMOL SHOUTOUT

just a small little section just to give some recognition and love to my fellow bodhi players who i’m mutuals with because you two have a 👌👌👌👌 taste in muses and i appreciate you for exploring the dude with the body of man and the soul of chihuahua and making him your own.

@imthxpilot & @rogue-one-aviator

#long post for ts #long post #long post //#❝ out of chances ❞ ᵒᵒᶜ #¯\_(ツ)_/¯#i have to do homework now but i wanted to get this up before valentines was over in my timezone...so it's kind of a mess and i didn't #spellcheck...shit

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operationrainfall · 5 years ago

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Title The Last of Us Part II Developer Naughty Dog Publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment Release Date June 19, 2020 Genre Action-Adventure, Horror Platform PlayStation 4 Age Rating Mature Official Website

I’ve been sitting on this review for about a week, hemming and hawing over how I want to approach it. To say The Last of Us Part II is divisive is probably the understatement of the year, but I loved the first game and want to give its sequel – which I’ve been looking forward to for years – its due. I also wanted to approach it without any preconceived notions from others. I made a concentrated effort to not know anything about this game before going into it: I didn’t see the pre-release leaks, I didn’t read any reviews or interviews, and I’ve watched no analyses. I’ve avoided discussions with others about the game; I haven’t even looked at its Metacritic score. I jumped into this game head-first the weekend it was released, poured 35 or so hours into it, and have since just been working out my thoughts.

Considering the content of the game, its themes, and how the story plays out, this review will be split into two sections. The first will cover general gameplay, level design, exploration, accessibility options, and difficulty. There will be minor spoilers for locations and NPCs, but I’m going to do my best to keep them at the bare minimum. The second half will be full of spoilers as we go full bore into TLoU2‘s story, characters, and themes. That being said, let’s dive into The Last of Us Part II.

You can pet the dog in The Last of Us Part II.

First things first, this game is visually stunning. Naughty Dog have gone above and beyond creating a breathtakingly beautiful world. Playing on the PlayStation 4 Pro with HDR is honestly something else, and the team really pushed what the PS4 can do graphically. I did experience a lot of pop in, especially for shiny surfaces, and near the end of the game some textures would take abnormally long to load (particularly with letters), but nothing was ever so bad as to be game breaking.

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One of the most important aspects of any game is its gameplay, and I think this is where TLoU2 shines. It takes what the first game provided and polishes it, with tighter controls, more satisfactory gun-play, and an assortment of tools that make each combat engagement genuinely fun. Between the staple bottle throw/molotov combo for infected and using the new proximity bombs at Ellie’s disposal, encounters often had great pay-off. The inclusion of new enemy types helped break up combat as well, and overall I found the cadence of fights very satisfying. No two instances were exactly alike, and a lot of that came down to the expanded freedom the environment offered over TLoU‘s more claustrophobic settings.

Seattle literally opens up the gameplay, and I found the way Naughty Dog introduced us to the wider world really clever. The Jackson prologue feels a lot like more TLoU, with your standard corridor setups and small interior locations. The game adds jumping to Ellie’s repertoire, opening the world vertically and making traversal less of a chore. Combined with the tighter controls, it feels like a really polished The Last of Us experience. But then once you reach Seattle, the corridor opens to a literal city with optional locations to visit, stunning vistas, and a lot more choice in how to approach combat encounters.

Seattle offers a great semi-open world setting that significantly expands the world over The Last of Us.

What’s great about TLoU2‘s level design is how well it weaves in these more “open world” sequences and your standard corridors. For the most part, even when exploring inside, Ellie has plenty of nooks and crannies to check out that didn’t really exist in the first game. Puzzle sequences still default almost exclusively to opening doors and pushing around dumpsters, but I feel far more connected to Seattle than I did the locations in TLoU. Deciding to keep the game confined to the greater Seattle area, rather than multiple set-pieces scattered across the country, makes the city a character in itself. It feels lived in (literally and figuratively). This makes for a great juxtaposition for those times when we find ourselves in smaller, more claustrophobic situations, and helps keep the pace of the game engaging. It doesn’t always pay off (there’s a very long sequence near the end of the game that overstays its welcome to the point of exhaustion), but for the most part I always felt invested in what I was doing.

The open nature of Seattle also provided a lot more fun with encounters. There were plenty of situations where I opted to just sneak around enemies rather than engage, weaving in and out of buildings, hiding in tall grass, and using distractions. Dogs added some nice tense moments to these sequences that human enemies just didn’t provide, since once they have your scent they can track you even while you’re hiding. Other times I ran in guns blazing, or set up traps to catch enemies unaware. At least two sequences let me pit the infected against humans, and those were probably the most fun of all.

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On the whole I felt TLoU2 was easier than its predecessor, in large part thanks to Ellie’s knife. Unlike in the previous game, Ellie will always have a weapon to use against Clickers and Stalkers, whereas Joel had to choose between crafting a shiv to fight or to unlock doors. That choice no longer exists, as locked doors can be opened by finding a different route in, and the instant-death threat of some more powerful infected is reduced. The game compensates somewhat by tossing more Clickers, Stalkers, and dogs at you, and in the second half of the game removes your knife briefly, but it never feels quite as dangerous as Joel’s encounters in the first game.

Seattle also shines when it comes to world building. The set-pieces in TLoU made for good character moments between Joel and Ellie, but they never delved much into the state of the world itself post-outbreak. They couldn’t. We never stayed in one place long enough to know or care much about it, and the narrative drive to reach the Fireflies superseded learning about these stopover locations. In Seattle though, we get a sense of how people really dealt with the outbreak. One of the earliest examples involves stumbling over the bodies of would-be bank robbers who thought Outbreak Day would be a great time to steal some cash. We follow the lives of a handful of long-dead citizens through the notes they left for each other in the suburbs, and the prominent graffiti and posters for the government and rebel factions similar to the Fireflies litter the landscape. We can also see the escalating war between the WLF and the Seraphites and the ways it has consumed the city. Seattle is just a fantastic setting all around to bind the themes of the game together.

Seattle is littered with old signs, posters, and other remnants of its long civil war between the WLF, FEDRA, and the Seraphites.

Naughty Dog has also made the game incredibly accessible for a wide array of player abilities. In addition to your standard difficulty levels (Very Light, Light, Moderate, Hard, Survivor), you can tweak individual settings to tailor the experience to your playstyle. Want super tough enemies, normal damage, but lots of resources? You can do that. The game lets you toggle individual settings from the easiest to the hardest, instead of wholesale. It reminds me of being able to choose easy encounters but super difficult puzzles in Silent Hill. And since you can change the settings on the fly, it really lets players tailor the experience to their comfort.

Difficulty isn’t the only place to tweak accessibility. Presets exist for those with vision impairments, hearing impairments, and motor impairments, each of which can be toggled individually to suit your specific needs, or done wholesale. I’m personally a big fan of the font colors and size, as well as the speaker locator, which puts an arrow on the screen to indicate from where someone off-screen is speaking. During some more chaotic fights, knowing where my AI partner was gave me a better sense of what was going on. It also helped me avoid being pushed out into the open, which happened way too often. Compared to Ellie’s AI in TLoU, the companion NPCs in the sequel got in the way more times than they helped. That being said, I had the options turned on for comfort, but they offer real, tangible benefits to those with disabilities, and seeing a big-budget title like The Last of Us Part II provide so much customization was great. It should be the standard, and I hope more games embrace giving players options and broadening their playerbase.

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Gameplay isn’t perfect, though, and for all the improvements it makes to the first game, stealth is not one of them. Hearing feels particularly weak compared to TLoU. Just like in the first game, Ellie can enhance her abilities using pills, but even after upgrading her hearing, detecting enemies was scattershot in even some of the more confined locations. Peering around corners was inelegant, and I disliked the fact you couldn’t pull enemies into the water. I don’t expect Metal Gear Solid, but for the amount of stealth the game pushes, these would have been nice additions.

There were also several times where the contextual triangle button would not trigger. In the quiet puzzle rooms or caches, having to hit the button multiple times wasn’t an issue, but during hectic encounters, it led to my death on more than one occasion. It was a nuisance that wore my patience thin during long gaming sessions.

Pacing also suffered, particularly in the second half of the game. From a narrative standpoint, having an exhausting encounter rate makes sense – it is the post-apocalypse, after all, and we’re ramping up to the climax. But the frequent use of flashbacks coupled with enemy sequences severely hampered the pacing and left me more frustrated than entertained.

The dreaded contextual triangle.

Speaking of narrative, while I personally resonated with the themes of TLoU2, I still feel its predecessor’s story and execution were overall better. We meet significantly more characters in Seattle than we ever did traipsing across the U.S., but they are for the most part unlikable or lacked impact. The game attempts to accommodate this by extending its length, but the minimalist nature of the first game did a better job connecting us to its characters than TLoU2‘s cutscenes.

Overall, TLoU2 plays great and looks beautiful. Seattle is a gorgeous city and traversing it provides a plethora of options. And while there are a plethora of motifs, symbolism, subtext and more I’d love to talk about, I’m going to stick to only the overarching plot in my spoiler discussion below.

Keep Reading for more of The Last of Us Part II

For those who don’t want to be spoiled on the story and characters, turn back now, because from here on out will be massive spoilers for the entire game. This is your last warning!

****SPOILER WARNING****

The Last of Us told a simple but effective story with the overarching premise of “What would you do to save your loved ones?” Would you kill a young girl to save humanity, or condemn humanity to save a young girl? How many atrocities would you commit to keep others alive? The Last of Us Part II takes this premise to its logical extreme and asks “What would you do to avenge the ones you love?”

Joel was not a good man. He admitted as much himself. And yet through the intimacy of his growing affection for surrogate daughter Ellie, we came to understand his worldview. It put in stark contrast the warring philosophies of sacrificing one for many, and saving one at the expense of others. TLoU was an elaborate Trolley Problem, and Joel chose to let humanity suffer in order to save his newfound family. Whether his decision was right or wrong was for the player to decide, but it was his decision.

The game returns to Saint Mary’s Hospital often.

That decision comes back to kill him about an hour into The Last of Us Part II, when Abby comes for her pound of flesh. Joel sacrificed humanity and killed her father, and in her mind, he deserves to die. As the player, who grew to love Joel despite his faults, we don’t see it the same way. We understand his reasons. But us understanding can’t save Joel from death. It’s brutal, and sudden, and puts us exactly in the mindset for our own vengeance. TLoU2‘s revenge plotline is neither new nor subtle, but it is powerful.

The story’s most effective conceit is actually the one I hated at first. Joel’s death upset me. I hated it. I hated that Abby could turn around and torture him after he and Tommy saved her life. I was absolutely on board with Ellie’s hatred and pain and wanted nothing more than to get back at the group who took Joel away. Then the midpoint switch hit and I was put into Abby’s shoes, and I hated it. It felt pointless and hollow, especially when the game tried to characterize her friends – whom I’d just killed in the aquarium half an hour earlier. It was dumb; I couldn’t relate to these people. I knew their fate, why should I care?

Yes.

And yet, by the end, I had no interest in killing Abby at the Rattler compound. The game forced to me try, relentlessly pushing me toward exacting a revenge plot I’d seen destroy every other character, and I wanted nothing to do with it. It’s a feeling I don’t think I’d have had if the game had played out differently. It wouldn’t have worked had I not been in both Ellie’s and Abby’s shoes and seen the toll revenge took on both of them.

Ellie’s determination to get back at Abby nearly destroys her. While her one-woman-killing spree through Seattle is initially cathartic, by the time she tortures Nora to death, it’s hard to see how she’s any better than Abby herself. It has a visible effect on her and, like Owen, Dina begins to turn away from the idea of vengeance at all costs, even while Ellie continues. It’s the same distance we saw grow between Abby and Owen, and their relationship dies with him on an aquarium floor. In TLoU2, revenge, in no uncertain terms, leads to ruin.

We see this mirrored in an assortment of ways throughout the game, the most obvious being the civil war between the WLF and the Seraphites. The WLF already had a rough start when they supplanted the government 20 years earlier, replacing one fascistic regime with another. Seattle is scarred by the remnants of that war with bombed out buildings and blighted landscapes. Corpses of soldiers who tried to get away mark the totality of the WLF’s vengeance against the government. Those corpses are later replaced with the Seraphites, a cult-like group determined to live off the land who also gut and hang any WLF they find. No one can say definitively who threw the first proverbial punch, but no one is willing to stop throwing them, either, escalating until the WLF literally set the Seraphite’s island on fire in an all out march to their own doom.

Lev and Alice are the best supporting characters in this game.

Both Ellie and Abby are ultimately saved from the same fate, but not by themselves. After Ellie kills Owen and his pregnant girlfriend Mel, Abby continues the cycle of vengeance, killing Jesse. She’s only stopped from also killing Dina by Lev, a Seraphite whom Abby saved in a too-late moment of conscience. A runaway who defied Seraphite will, he’s the only character we meet who didn’t choose which side to be on – he was born into it, and he chose to reject it. He’s the one who keeps Abby from continuing the killing, and he’s the one to whom Abby turns at the end when Ellie finally comes for her pound of flesh. She doesn’t want to fight anymore, and neither did I, but the game wouldn’t let me walk away. Up until this point, Ellie has pushed away anyone who tried to help her, including Dina. She’s trapped in this cycle and as the player, we are trapped with her. We’re forced to bear the burden of unending violence.

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The thing that pulls Ellie back is Joel. Despite the rift that had formed between them from years of lying and Ellie’s survivor’s guilt, his memory is what keeps Ellie from following through. Killing Abby wasn’t going to bring Joel back and it wasn’t going to heal the festering wound inside her. But, like with Joel, forgiveness might. The night before he died, Ellie was willing to bury the hatchet she’d carried for four years following Saint Mary’s Hospital. She was willing to forgive. Letting Abby go was an extension of that.

It’s telling that only after Ellie relents on her quest for vengeance can she draw Joel’s face. Sometimes mending what’s broken isn’t the easiest choice, but it might be the best one. At the end of the game, in the empty farmhouse she’d once shared with Dina, we’re left with the tatters of a life Ellie almost threw away. Whether she can repair it or not is left up in the air, but I’d like to believe there’s something worth saving.

How far would you go to get revenge? How much would you sacrifice for forgiveness? How do you deal with guilt when it eats you from inside? Is there a line you won’t cross, or is everything fair game to make someone else pay for your pain? None of these are easy questions with simple answers, and The Last of Us Part II doesn’t really offer a definitive answer, either. It can’t, and if it did, it would ring hollow. Instead we’re left with the wreckage of two lives spurred on by vengeance and the hope that, maybe, there is closure for the worst of us.

The Last of Us Part II is available for the PlayStation 4 for $59.99 USD.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4″]

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Review copy purchased by author.

REVIEW: The Last of Us Part II

#Naughty Dog #oprainfall #PlayStation 4 Reviews #sony interactive entertainment #The Last of Us Part 2

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