#sometimes spoilers of the 'jesse what the fuck are you talking about' variety are just a necessary catalyst

[to-shards-you-say]

does anyone actually get into cosmere without spoilers nowadays? or were all of us peons goaded into reading by being asked "wanna find out what happens to the universe when sixteen people kill god and each take a piece for themselves"?

[gundamgamer]

The Last of Us Part II: "There Was This Sequel... Wasn't As Good."

After seven years of what felt like forever, The Last of Us Part II has finally arrived on PS4. And…well, after the leaks were released in late April of this year, it has left the fanbase, and the Gaming Community polarizing, to say the least. Some cancelled their pre-orders, others gave the game the benefit of the doubt, and see for themselves, and then there were those who had no choice because they were getting paid to play and review the game…Only to have mixed feelings of the story. But what do I personally think of the game, overall? Well, after playing through it for a week, and processing the entirety of the main story, I don’t think it’s “the WORST thing ever”…But it’s definitely not masterpiece worthy. Let’s begin with the simple, NON-SPOILER aspects of the game:

 GAMEPLAY:

At first, I thought there was a lot of changes made with the gameplay, since the first game. I wouldn’t say the Combat Mechanics, in TLOU1 were perfect by any means. But, for a 2013 game, they were pretty solid. Though there are times where things can get glitchy and finicky, the controls felt fine…In THIS entry, however, it just feels the same. There’s little to no changes with the controls and, at times, they felt stiff to the point where I would freeze in the middle of picking items up or performing a “T pose” while getting shot at by nearby enemies (Yes, this actually happened to me during my playthrough). Granted, I do like that they gave players the Aim Assist feature, seen in the Uncharted games, which can SOMETIMES make combat a little easier, but that’s not saying much when you’re trying to aim at enemies that have the advantage. And I do feel like the jumping action was pointless, since all you had to do was run off an edge and hope to God you made it to the other side of wherever you were jumping to. Since most of the actions require you to press the Triangle (△) button, this action felt needless. The weaponry has somewhat improved, since the last game, with some familiar returns (such as the Flamethrower and Shotgun) and newer weapons (Semi-Auto Rifle, Hunting Pistol and Crossbow), the variety, on how you choose to kill your enemies, is literally at your fingertips. Finally, there’s a neat guitar mechanic where you use the pad on your DUALSHOCK 4 controller to strum the chords and play tunes on a guitar. A small but neat feature. GAMEPLAY: 3.5

 VISUALS & MUSIC:

There’s no doubt the Visuals have vastly improved since the first game; from the far horizons of Jackson to the deep overgrown forests in the Seattle area, the environments and locations look phenomenal…For the most part. Some areas, however, look so bland that they all look the same just for the purpose of Gameplay. Now, I know that sounds absurd, but hear me out: Using the same environment, for the purpose of Gameplay Mechanics is FINE. However, you need to use a different variety of location designs and settings. Otherwise, the gameplay will feel repetitive at best, and lazy at worst. But I digress. Overall, the Visuals are gorgeous to look at, especially in different season settings. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Last of Us game without the Music. Composer Gustavo Santaolalla returns to give the game life with his score, which (and I know it’s gonna sound crazy) isn’t as memorable as the first game, but is still remarkable to say the least. I also do like that they made him a character, in the game.

VISUALS: 4

MUSIC: 4

AND NOW, WE COME TO THE MEAT OF THIS REVIEW: THE SPOILERS! SO, IF YOU HAVE YET TO PLAY THE GAME, I SUGGEST YOU STOP READING, FROM HERE ON OUT…YOU’VE BEEN WARNED.

I’d also like to point out that NO, I have absolutely NO PROBLEM with LGBT+ representation in any form of media (Gaming, TV, Film etc), as there is a character, Lev, who’s LGBT+, and that is FINE. But…it’s the story that needs to get a beating in all of this. Let’s begin:

 So, let’s talk about the Story, because I have a feeling that a good number of us will agree with me when I say…IT’S ABSOLUTE DOGSHIT!! …I really have no idea where to begin.

This game’s writing is all over the place, and it’s backwards at best and atrocious at worst. Everything from feeling sympathy for the main antagonist, Abby; because it’s revealed that Joel murdered her dad while he was about to operate on Ellie at the climax of the first game (as if we were suppose to know that), to PLAYING AS ABBY FOR A GOOD TEN PLUS HOURS, A CHARACTER THAT HAD SHITTY DEVELOPMENT TO THE POINT THAT NO ONE GIVES A FLYING FUCK ABOUT HER OR ANYONE ELSE AROUND HER! Not to mention that, between Ellie and Abby, you play through flashbacks in flashbacks. This is not creative writing, this is fan fiction bullshit, and it fails FAST. Seriously, I wanted Abby’s playthrough to be done because I did not give a shit about her and wanted to go back to playing as Ellie. Can’t also forget how little to no point these characters serve in the story, from Abby’s side or Ellie’s, they all range from forgettable to needless, in the end. Aside from Dina and her ex-boyfriend, Jesse (yea, he’s pretty forgettable too, but at least he gets shot later on, by Abby), these characters serve little to no purpose to the story besides Story Progression that COULD’VE been done better. But nothing, AND I DO MEAN NOTHING, can compare to the atrocity that is the ending of this game:

Ellie finds out where Abby is heading, months after the what happened in Seattle. I’ll also mention that, for a bit you’re playing as Abby again, however it’s…somewhat forgivable as it’s only for a short period of time. Afterwards, you’re playing as Ellie throughout the Climax of the game. You come across a group of Rattlers who hunt down and take prisoner to lost travelers, when you [as Ellie] learn where Abby is kept prisoner. Once you find her, and her friend Lev (who TL;DR, identifies as a boy, but was born a girl, and his mother wanted to marry a guy but he refused so her mother went nuts and he killed her…yay?), she follows them to some nearby boats. But Ellie isn’t done with Abby yet. As the two fight it out, Ellie finally has her in the water and makes her drown. But then, for a LITERAL SECOND, she has a flashback of Joel sitting on his porch with his guitar…and feels guilt…So much so, that she lets Abby, the one person who she; wanted revenge on, set out on a mission that killed multiple people, even someone who nobody really gave a shit about (Jesse), risks just about everything to get to this point…And for what? A moral epiphany…Oh god…Ellie then returns home for Dina and their child JJ, only to find that they’re not home. She learns that they both left Ellie, for Dina could not take the chance of losing her. And so, with her ring and pinky finger, on her left hand, bitten off by Abby, she tries to play guitar and has yet another flashback with Joel. This seems to be the last time they encounter each other before he gets axed. It, for the most part, is a nice little moment between the two, as they discuss some issues that need to be resolved. But mostly that Ellie wants to forgive Joel because he lied to her about what happened in the hospital. Afterwards, she sets out on what could be an unforeseeable future…

As you can see, the story isn’t necessarily the greatest…In fact, it doesn’t even come close to the first game’s story (which by the way, won Best Storytelling and GAME OF THE YEAR. Yea, let that sink in). The reason why the first game was so successful is because it focused on the development and bond between Joel and Ellie. How they grew as characters and learned to endure and survive in a chaotic, post-apocalyptic world setting. And we, the fans, WANTED to see that again in this game. But instead, got bamboozled by false advertising. Oh yea, that scene in the trailer where Joel pulls Ellie back and asks “You think I’d let you do this on your own?” NEVER. FUCKING. HAPPENS!! Instead, it’s Jesse in that position. Seriously? WHO THE FUCK CARES ABOUT THIS GUY?! NOBODY, THAT’S WHO!! We don’t care about any of these characters. We just wanna see the ones we cared about grow and learn more from each other. We actually wanted to see if anything changed from these two, over the years. The closest we get to ANY of that, in this game, are the flashbacks with them; from the museum setting (which makes some not-so-subtle nods to Jurassic Park and its sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park), to the only good scene in this ENTIRE game, in my opinion: Ellie heading out to the hospital, from the first game, finding out Joel lied but having Joel confess and tell the truth…That was such a powerful scene, and the acting from both Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson was superb. It shows the emotion between the two, from guilt to betrayal, how both Ellie and Joel lost so many people within their lives, only to go their separate ways after a crucial and impactful reveal…But none of that matters to Neil Druckmann and the crew at Naughty Dog. They just wanted to push ideas that nobody really cares about, especially for a game that’s set in a post-apocalyptic setting. We play games to escape reality and venture into worlds that could NEVER be real for the sake of entertainment and fantastic storytelling. These types of media are slowly fading away, and being replaced by writers who really don’t even give little to no shit about constructive writing, internal consistency, and above all else, THE FANS!! (even if they claim to do so…Looking at YOU, Rian Johnson)

In the midst of it all, the reason I didn’t cancel my pre-order was that I was one of the few that gave this game the benefit of the doubt. Despite only vaguely knowing what those leaks had and how they could’ve affected me, I still played it through beginning to end…Only to be disappointed by an entry I – and MILLIONS more -- had waited seven years for, only for Druckmann to say “You see this? THIS ISN’T WHAT YOU WANTED! THIS IS MY STORY!! AND IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, YOU’RE A BIGOT!!”…However, to be fair, I’ll say this: don’t take my word for it. Maybe there CAN be something to your liking, in this game. Maybe there’s a little something for everyone…just don’t expect me to play through – scratch that – suffer through this mediocre attempt of a sequel ever again. There are ways this game COULD’VE been as fantastic – if not, MORE – than its predecessor. I might have to do that in another essay, sometime. Til then, this the last of my playthrough of this gigantic disappointment.

STORY: 1.5

CHARACTERS: 2.5

THE LAST OF US PART II: 3.5/10

[donnyjabronie]

Far Cry 5 Spoiler Rant

Let me preface this by saying this is going to be very spoiler-y, as my biggest nitpick with the game is how it ends. It’s pretty much all I talk about. If you don’t wish to be spoiled, turn back now. 

~~~~~

Far Cry 5 was a decent entry into the Far Cry franchise, and a fun game for being $60. Despite having less gun variety, less animal variety, heck just less variety in general in terms of the world and immersing you when compared to it’s 3 year old predecessor Far Cry 4, yet it still almost seemed more fun. The gameplay is a fun time, towers are gone thank god and instead we have more creative ways to go about capturing the lands back, and all in all it feels like it took 2 steps back and 3 steps forward; it excelled in aspects that the other games did not such as gunplay and gameplay, but fell in aspects such as the environments and variety we saw in the earlier entry. 

But I’m an RPG nerd. I want a good story, even if it’s in a dumb shoot game like Far Cry.  

Now, Far Cry 4 didn’t have the best story, but it definitely had the best villain in my opinion. Pagan Min was perfect at hitting the mark of sympathetic villain; he’s a ruthless dictator, but at the end of the day that’s all he really is. Not straight up evil, but certainly not good either. This, combined with the allies you had in the story, led to a solid hollow-victory ending. One problem was solved, but it made it clear that this wasn’t the end and whoever took his place would be just as bad. When a game can pull off an ending like this, it can be quite thoughtful or solid, but sometimes a game tries to give you a hollow-victory or even a failure ending and it winds up unsatisfying and unfulfilling, there needs to be a resolution and conclusion to the plot. So why does Far Cry 5′s ending suck? It doesn’t have this. 

Others I’ve seen didn’t enjoy Far Cry 5′s storytelling at all, and I can’t blame them even if I found it fine enough. You basically just had 4 cutscenes overr the course of taking over the region, pretty poor pacing but whatever, they’re trying to give as much freedom as possible in this game so I guess it’s serviceable.

 John was a fairly interesting character, the allies associated with his section of the game were interesting, and it was a satisfying section taking him down after what he put people through. Jacob felt rushed and I never really developed any sort of bond to the allies in the area (the deputy that you rescue in this region never is shown or speaks up to this point so I honestly didn’t even realize he was important until the game spelled it out for me). The villain’s motivation is just PTSD, and that’s that. There’s fun mind-control stuff with conditioning, but then you kill him and that’s it, it’s all good. Faith was my favorite, as her character helped to show how fucked up the main villain of the game, Joseph, is. She had a unique bossfight, her zombie army was fun, and the allies of the region were fantastic. 

And then you get to Joseph and the end of the game. Immediately, despite me landing a helicopter with Jess Black sitting next to me, as it turns out actually all the allies I made over the course of the game were all suddenly mind-controlled, including Jess. How did he do this? NOBODY KNOWS! Also they kidnapped my police crew. And the only way to rescue your allies from the mind-control is by shooting them in the face and then picking them up. Also, during this you shoot the ever-loving shit out of Joseph who comes out of the encounter with a couple scratches. Let’s not bother questioning the logic in any of this. 

After this boss fight, despite how he just tried to kill you and had kidnapped or mind-controlled literally all of your allies, and everyone being in agreement they’d like to see Joseph dead, and his entire thing being how persuasive he is and how he has everyone including the government (Fucking Nancy) under his thumb, you all decide to arrest him rather than kill him. Fuck it, whatever, justice yada yada yada. 

And then the nukes happen.

Now there’s some theories around these nukes, the one that seems most logical is that Joseph set off these nukes to trick the US into thinking World War 3 was starting and so he could be right about the end of the world coming. How did he set these off? NOBODY KNOWS! The answer that makes the most sense is that he had them on a timer, but whatever. Who knows. So then, the game lets you try to drive to the bunker you wound up in at the start of the game in a ridiculous driving section (How are trees burned to a crisp and deer are on fire, yet all of us are perfectly fine sitting in our van? I guess the AC is just that good  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). It gives this false sense of hope, that maybe Far Cry silliness will win out. Well, it does in a way.

You get in a crash just before the bunker, a crash in which everyone dies. Except you and Joseph, because reasons I guess. Also you, this super soldier who has literally killed Joseph’s entire army, is too hurt to get up or maintain consciousness, but Joseph, this shirtless prick who wasn’t even wearing a seatbelt, is perfectly fine and not even scratched during the crash. How? NOBODY KNOWS! Noticing a pattern about this ending? Also worth noting that just moments ago deer were on fire just from being outside, and now this shirtless man is walking around like it’s no big deal and not even breaking a sweat. Let’s just not talk about the radiation poisoning.  

So then he drags you to the bunker, kills literally every ally you made through the entire game, locks you to a bed post, where you will spend (presumably) the rest of your days with Joseph. Also he was right about everything, and you are just as bad as him (despite the fact that he’s drugged hundreds of people, murdered hundreds of people, raped people, etc etc.) I’ve never encountered a game with as much of a fuck-you ending as this.

I really enjoyed the game up to the ending, I thought it was a lot of fun and the characters were all very intriguing. But that ending single-handedly soiled the entire experience for me. It retroactively made the game and all the time I spent with it horrible, because the game is all about liberating and saving this county from a crazy nutjob cult leader, but then the ending is just “actually everyone but the villain dies, the dispute between the protag and antag is never resolved, everything you did throughout the game was utterly pointless, the end.” I don’t know how they managed to fuck something up this much, but boy did they fuck it up.