The Last of Us Part 2 - Now updated for PS5 for at 60fps

[BitterToad]

2 minutes ago, MechE said:

I'm going to disagree with you on this. Like you The Last Jedi is one of my favourite films of the past few years and probably my favourite big budget blockbuster since The Matrix. One of the reasons why I like it is because it's unashamedly exploring a range of issues including class, race and yes misogyny. For example Poe is surprised to discover Holdo is a woman, and his lack of respect for her command mirrors the experience of many women in senior roles.

 

Yep, totally forgot about Holdo, you're bang on. And I think a big part of why people don't understand Poe's actions in the movie is because they're men that are actually going through the same character arc he is, without the understanding at the end!

 

But I don't think it's something that the film is necessarily that explicit about? I'd still like to know exactly what it is that @sid had a problem with in terms of the politics of The Last Jedi. But yeah, good point, of course there are aspects of the movie about gender! Doh!

[Flanders]

40 minutes ago, Treble said:

TLOU is about parenthood. It's about a man who has lost his child, driven out of his mind by grief, and has to battle between raising a different child to be independent whilst at the same time reigning-in their independence to keep them relatively safe. It's a fascinating look at parenting in extremis. I haven't seen/heard any of the spoilers but if the second one ends-up tackling what it's like to live in that world when you are in love, have a partner, and how that changes your behaviour, i'm well up for that. I can think of barely any mainstream fiction that does it, except A Quiet Place. Most thriller and adventure stories are all about the rugged loner. The fact they are a gay couple in TLOU2 makes absolutely no difference to how that dynamic would be explored.

It’s also worth noting that The Last of Us was very up front about not being bothered about the wider ‘lore’ (I hate that word but can’t think of a better one in this case) of its world - we don’t know the specifics of how the infection spread, how it brought down civilisation, or really any specifics about the Fireflies etc.

 

The game then really doubles down on this by the end with its rejection of the ‘Ellie as miracle cure’ trope.

 

So fundamentally, the Last of Us 2 is a pretty blank slate for a sequel - it’s not like some other franchise properties where fans could even feel owed some sort of continuation. We had one story in that world and now we’re having another one with some of the same characters but clearly at another stage in their lives.

 

In that context, surely Naughty Dog can do whatever they like with their story. Combining mushroom zomb and religious culture wacko murder with a coming of age lbtq+ story sounds like a pretty neat twist to what would otherwise be a very hackneyed premise - the same kind of twist that the original game managed so well.

 

[rafaqat]

2 hours ago, Lying Cat said:

It really is a bit of a disaster for Sony, I agree - the amount of information stolen relating to the story strikes me as a much worse version of when the large chunks of Source 2 and an early build of Half Life 2 got snatched from Valve years and years ago. And the Half Life 2 build was mostly just some basic environments to wander around without anything to do at all. 

 

I sometimes wonder what the point of the hacking like this is - I've not seen any reports that they attempted to extort Naughty Dog or Sony with threats to release the information - and the fact that NG and Sony initially suspected their own staff for it sort of suggests to me that there actually wasn't one. I guess it could be just a show of prowess - y'know, like the old 8/16-bit cracker groups putting in the custom loading screens on games boasting and threatening one another with baseball bat visits and stuff. Maybe that's it? I'm completely unaware of what's going on in that subculture.

 

I still feel as though words such as "devastating", which is of course doing the rounds is a little much, but honestly if we're going to start railing against clickbait Youtube thumbnails, there are plenty of worse offenders.

 

Got to feel for the Naughty Dog staff though - excessive crunch, followed by accusations of deliberately leaking internal files (presumably in response) isn't going to be doing morale any good at all.

 

It could still be a disgruntled worked claiming "I was hacked" once they realised the shitstorm they were in.  Works for Sony/NG in that the focus is taken off withholding payments/crunch and it works for the disgruntled worked in that it MIGHT presumably let them off the hook.  Just another possibility.  

 

It's probably a hack though as that's the simplest explanation.   Some people just want to watch the world burn.

[Stanley]

You have to hope it is a hack and that Jason Schreier is right, staff have been treated well or at least had the pay rise and health benefits. 
 

Something doesn’t sit quite right with me though, I just don’t get how they can release it so soon after delaying it indefinitely. 

[Ferine]

24 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Something doesn’t sit quite right with me though, I just don’t get how they can release it so soon after delaying it indefinitely. 

 

As they stated during the announcement of the delay, the game was more or less done. It was delayed due to logistical/distribution concerns.

 

 

[sid]

5 hours ago, Boozy The Clown said:

 

Spoiler free rundown of the current situation. I hope these guys aren't in the alt right gamersphere. I quite like their stuff. 

they seem decent , I’m desperate to find out why they didn’t like the story direction.

 

must avoid spoilers !

[Hitcher]

19 minutes ago, Ferine said:

more or less done

isn't done!

[Rayn]

Wow, this thread  

I just popped by to see if there was some cool news about it....

 

[The Bag]

On 28/04/2020 at 12:09, Vemsie said:

Unionizing aside, just getting these stories out might be the best way to improve things. Jason Schreier, who broke the ND crunch story, wrote one about Rockstar prior and recently wrote a follow-up about how Rockstar did implement changes and how things have improved since for the employees.

 

ND have long had a reputation as a shit place to work, crunch heavy & unwilling to fix it because that's the way they do it.  Schreier may have "broken" this story, but his book Blood, Sweat & Pixels is full of praise for the toxic work environment of ND because of the end product.

[Trigg]

Its gone gold!

 

Excitement levels have gone up  a notch

[rafaqat]

4 hours ago, Ferine said:

 

As they stated during the announcement of the delay, the game was more or less done. It was delayed due to logistical/distribution concerns.

 

 

 

I guess the leak has meant they've decided that not being able to easily buy the game physically isn't that much of an issue after all or they're anticipating lockdown easing by the time the game launches.

[Hitcher]

As far as I know there's been no major changes to the world lockdown's so why couldn't they have kept the same release date?

[teddymeow]

6 minutes ago, Trigg said:

Its gone gold!

 

Excitement levels have gone up  a notch

 

It's happening!!! 

[sid]

7 hours ago, Treble said:

 

I think sometimes people can be swept up into thinking that things are 'normal' and 'abnormal' and we have to make sure we keep challenging them. I'll give you two examples:

 

1) How would people react if What Remains of Edith Finch was a story about a black family? Racists aside, whose reaction we can pre-empt, even those considering themselves 'liberal' or left-leaning might say to themselves, "I'm happy that black people are being represented, but it's a stretch that they would be able to afford so much property".

 

The problem at this point is when the player accepts this viewpoint as normal... as the status quo. The important thing would be to challenge this and say, "Hang on a minute... why can't black people have these same opportunities??" The more exposure a group, a race, a gender has in fiction, the more normal it becomes.

 

Which leads to:

2) If you don't live in a larger city and see a person of Chinese ethnicity in the street, you may assume they run a takeaway. If people of Chinese ethnicity are portrayed in fiction as having all sorts of jobs and roles in Western society, you might eventually stop pre-judging their role and just accept them as individuals. Irrespective of whether than person runs a takeaway or not, your perspective has been widened. When said person rocks up for an interview at your work, instead of your internal monologue saying, "This person only works in unskilled roles" you would (ideally) have no such prejudice and judge the person on merit.

 

And see, this process is everywhere and happening all the time. Far slower than we would like, but it's happening. The women gathering in Endgame is a very important moment. It spoke to a lot of women. Yes it was obvious and unsubtle, but that was the point. It focused the mind, made you question WHY it should feel abnormal. The answer being, of course, that despite showing individual women in the MCU as powerful, there's no team that, by luck or design, is all-female and all-competent. Until the very final film, no woman runs a team and the only character portrayed as being anything more than a lackey, peripheral or a stooge to that point is Hope in Ant-Man and the Wasp. 

 

Having the all-female team-up isn't pushing any agenda, it's simply saying, "This could and would happen, is happening in my fiction, and your reaction will say more about you than it does about me".

 

TLOU is about parenthood. It's about a man who has lost his child, driven out of his mind by grief, and has to battle between raising a different child to be independent whilst at the same time reigning-in their independence to keep them relatively safe. It's a fascinating look at parenting in extremis. I haven't seen/heard any of the spoilers but if the second one ends-up tackling what it's like to live in that world when you are in love, have a partner, and how that changes your behaviour, i'm well up for that. I can think of barely any mainstream fiction that does it, except A Quiet Place. Most thriller and adventure stories are all about the rugged loner. The fact they are a gay couple in TLOU2 makes absolutely no difference to how that dynamic would be explored.

 

Anyway, I hope this shows you the importance of representation; it's just there to normalise everybody so that you don't pre-judge what they are or what they can do. Think about why people would want you to see others as abnormal•. That's where there's an agenda.

 

• 

*cough* white patriarchy!! *cough*

totally agree with all your points there , and yes avengers girls assemble is a weak argument, and appreciate it spoke to a lot of women. It didn’t bother me just thought it odd like why would everyone just split up by gender wtf. But I get the message. I know some women who felt it was condescending and forced, but no doubt many more found it empowering.

 

I couldn't agree more on your last of us commentary that’s exactly what I’ve been saying all along , their gender or sexual preference should be irrelevant and certainly was to me in the first games. A great story with really strong characters, probably the best in any video game.

 

[rafaqat]

56 minutes ago, Hitcher said:

As far as I know there's been no major changes to the world lockdown's so why couldn't they have kept the same release date?

 

Probably because they didn't know what was going to happen at all with teams and other logistics so couldnt give any release date.   Now they have a better idea in terms of logistics what was slowed down, what was/is impossible and what is working as it was before lockdown so can plan that in and give a date.

[Sarlaccfood]

On 04/05/2020 at 11:01, rafaqat said:

 

Probably because they didn't know what was going to happen at all with teams and other logistics so couldnt give any release date.   Now they have a better idea in terms of logistics what was slowed down, what was/is impossible and what is working as it was before lockdown so can plan that in and give a date.

Exactly.  
 

“Indefinitely” just means they weren’t sure when the date would be, not that it’s never coming out. They would have been mad to name a date with everything that’s been happening.
 

There must be so many moving parts to releasing a game, especially one of this size. It’s not like hitting crtl-P and choosing the “disc printing machine” in the drop-down menu, or just uploading to PSN. All the logistics involved takes months to organise. 

 

And then you have a massive global marketing campaign that would have included a large amount of television, cinema and public transport advertising slots which they’ve probably had to renegotiate in each territory.
 

It’s a bit weird to be looking for some conspiracy theory. 

[Stanley]

That all makes perfect sense to make such an announcement if the best case scenario it’s delayed by a couple of months or so, but a couple of weeks - might as well just hold fire to see how it all pans out, no need to cancel preorders and issue refunds etc. 
 

It’s not a conspiracy theory either, I think most thought it would be delayed until at least autumn if not to tie in with the PS5 release. 
 

But then it’s odd times isn’t it, perhaps they just panicked. But the timing of it the day the leak came about is very odd too. 

[Bojangle]

This whole thing is just a new situation for everybody isn't it, and whilst the games industry is quite flexible in that a lot of it can be done remotely (and in the case of outsourcing often already is) when your entire team is working remotely, things like production planning take on a whole different form. I mean we're a small team of 15 people and it took a couple weeks of adjusting for us to get into the flow of things, work around the kids being around people whilst trying to work etc. I'd dread to be dealing with production in these times on a Naughty Dog scale. 

 

Even if your production isn't affected by it then you still need to factor in external things such as age rating submissions and certification (probably a lesser issue for a 1st party title, but I know Sony Cert is currently running at 50% capacity and you can no longer book your own slots, you need to get Sony to assign you one (this alone is going to lead to a lot of delays on smaller titles at least)).

[teddymeow]

New trailer tomorrow (6th May) not 5th June as I originally thought it meant. Silly dates.

[NecroMorrius]

On 04/05/2020 at 13:46, sid said:

they seem decent , I’m desperate to find out why they didn’t like the story direction.

 

must avoid spoilers !

The guy on the right is “Skill Up” on YouTube who is sometimes really insightful in his commentary. But, at least on the layman channel, he and his brother are sometimes very obnoxious towards games with what might be called a liberal perspective, without ever saying it outright. 

[Opinionated Ham Scarecrow]

I'm playing the first game through for the sixth? time and am staggered people still think it is somehow bad or overrated. It's one of the best stealth games ever made, with every encounter being a puzzle within itself, and even when it does fall back to combat, this holds up well enough to be fun and satisfying. It's the best horror game of the last 10 years, the best stealth game and the best action adventure all wrapped up in the most epic road trip since Half Life 2. Can't wait for the sequel regardless of whether Joel has decided to now wear a dress or not.

[Kevvy Metal]

38 minutes ago, Opinionated Ham Scarecrow said:

I'm playing the first game through for the sixth? time and am staggered people still think it is somehow bad or overrated. It's one of the best stealth games ever made, with every encounter being a puzzle within itself, and even when it does fall back to combat, this holds up well enough to be fun and satisfying. It's the best horror game of the last 10 years, the best stealth game and the best action adventure all wrapped up in the most epic road trip since Half Life 2. Can't wait for the sequel regardless of whether Joel has decided to now wear a dress or not.

 

I recently finished a replay too, and appreciated it more than I ever have. 

It has a deliberate ramping up slow start - much like the Uncharted games - and I can imagine people with no much of an attention span checking out need to start and not giving it enough time. Same with the Uncharted games that I also consider to be as good, only with an obviously completely different tone. 

[teddymeow]

Everytime I play through thr first game the prologue always makes me cry!!

 

 

[Bojangle]

54 minutes ago, Opinionated Ham Scarecrow said:

I'm playing the first game through for the sixth? time and am staggered people still think it is somehow bad or overrated.

 

Just that internet thing where people can't just say "This game isn't for me!" and move on. Instead they have to hyperbole it up and claim mad shit like it's "awful". Even if you don't like it, it's not even remotely close to being a "bad" game, it's just not for you, innit. It's fine to not get along with a game, that doesn't make it bad, or shit.

 

I guess the closest example for me is Red Dead Redemption 2, it just didn't click for me, but it's so far from being a bad or overrated game!

 

Anyway. Trailer hyyyyype!

[Kevvy Metal]

1 minute ago, Bojangle said:

 

Just that internet thing where people can't just say "This game isn't for me!" and move on. Instead they have to hyperbole it up and claim mad shit like it's "awful". Even if you don't like it, it's not even remotely close to being a "bad" game, it's just not for you, innit. It's fine to not get along with a game, that doesn't make it bad, or shit.

 

I guess the closest example for me is Red Dead Redemption 2, it just didn't click for me, but it's so far from being a bad or overrated game!

 

Anyway. Trailer hyyyyype!

 

Yes! This. So very true.

This all encapsulates all of this modern day internet reaction trend going on. 

[Pixelated Ben]

3 hours ago, teddymeow said:

Everytime I play through thr first game the prologue always makes me cry!!

 

 

 

It's an incredible opening. A scene-setter full of impact.

[Vemsie]

 

[Flanders]

5 hours ago, Opinionated Ham Scarecrow said:

I'm playing the first game through for the sixth? time and am staggered people still think it is somehow bad or overrated. It's one of the best stealth games ever made, with every encounter being a puzzle within itself, and even when it does fall back to combat, this holds up well enough to be fun and satisfying. It's the best horror game of the last 10 years, the best stealth game and the best action adventure all wrapped up in the most epic road trip since Half Life 2. Can't wait for the sequel regardless of whether Joel has decided to now wear a dress or not.

The puzzle aspect of the encounters is a good observation - making the Clickers a blind enemy that insta-kill turns every infected encounter into this brilliantly tense problem to solve - find out where the Clickers are, can I sneak past them, can i take out the other infected around them, should I use my shiv on this one, do I have a Molotov for that one. And then when shit kicks off you’re frantically saving shotgun ammo to take down the Clickers, which means you have to melee the other infected.

 

It’s like Naughty Dog blended the chainsaw guy and the blind wolverine claws dude from Resi 4 into one enemy and designed a whole system around it. 

[teddymeow]

14 minutes ago, Vemsie said:

 

 

[JoeK]

Christ. I found the original traumatic enough, god knows how I'll be able to play the thing whilst my eyes are being diverted from the screen what with all the nasty stuff going on.