• Breaking News

    Tuesday, August 31, 2021

    Home Unlabelled The Last of Us | Realistic joel and ellie made with StyleCLIP AI. Credits: @danlowlows on twitter

    The Last of Us | Realistic joel and ellie made with StyleCLIP AI. Credits: @danlowlows on twitter

    August 31, 2021

    The Last of Us | Realistic joel and ellie made with StyleCLIP AI. Credits: @danlowlows on twitter

    Realistic joel and ellie made with StyleCLIP AI. Credits: @danlowlows on twitter

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 06:06 PM PDT

    Naughty Dog says it’s ‘unfortunate’ some people didn’t like The Last of Us Part II, but stands by the game it made.

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 04:05 PM PDT

    what did y’all think of Jesse? cool guy?

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 09:52 PM PDT

    So I sketched Ellie the other day. Kinda proud of it ����

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 03:27 PM PDT

    Another digital drawing of Abby, by me.

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 08:11 AM PDT

    I made the map of Seattle with watercolor paints! It’s not COMPLETELY accurate but I did my best and I love how it turned out.

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 11:11 AM PDT

    Jackson - still loving the little details

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 05:04 PM PDT

    Just finished Last of Us Part 2...wow, just wow...*SPOILERS*

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 05:57 AM PDT

    I'm a bit late playing this game as I just picked up a PS5, which is also my first Playstation. I have played through most of few the exclusives, but I can safely say that TLOU2 is now my favourite game of all time (and I've played a hell of a lot of games).

    I completed it last night and it was the first time EVER (when it comes to movies, books, games, etc), that I have been close to tears. I literally sat there with my controller on my lap for about 20 minutes staring straight at the screen.

    NEVER ever have I been through such a rollercoaster of emotions. I was so upset at Joel's death as it felt so brutal and pointless and I was SO SO angry at the WLF that I was thinking 'yep I'm gonna destroy those bastards.' Ellie's crusade seemed so justified, that I revelled in every scene where she killed one of the members involved in Joel's death.

    And then suddenly I was playing from Abby's POV...like wtf, why would I want this crazy fool to live and proceeded to purposely kill myself scene after scene, hoping the game would give up and let me play Ellie again. Alas, that didn't happen, I was stuck with Abby. Ok, yeh she became likeable real quick. Like extremely likeable. I suddenly understood why she wanted revenge. Her friends were likeable, her dog was SO likeable and I loved her relationship arc with Owen. What really had me rooting for her was her arc with Lev, which made her so human, so that by the end I actually liked her more than Ellie.

    I gotta say the double ending really hit hard. When they fought and parted ways I thought, damn this game was brutal, but it felt like a kind of 'happy' end. Ellie had a family and Abby was in search of the Fireflies. 'NOPE' said Naughty Dog and crusade number 2 started.

    This is when the emotions really started. Ellie went through such a struggle to get to Abby and then seeing Abby on the post in such a pitiful state really hit the feels. I was screaming 'JUST LEAVE IT THERE'S NO POINT!! YOU'VE HAD YOUR REVENGE! Bloody Ellie just had to finish it didn't she. In that moment I actually hated her, she left Dina and she's about to kill Abby. That moment when she held Abby underwater literally made my heart stop. I was so hoping Abby would live and be able to find the Fireflies with Lev. Luckily at that point Ellie seemed to have an epiphany and allowed Abby to live. I think Ellie really realised how futile this entire thing was and that she has now lost everything in a cycle of revenge.

    Despite kind of hating Ellie at this point, the final nail in the coffin was when she returned home to Dina having moved out. Then when she tried to strum that guitar without two fingers in an empty house...my god the feels.

    Honestly this game is a master in story telling. It's so hard to make a robot like me feel, but this game has definitely managed it. The themes of revenge and loss in such a bleak world were so well explored.

    Please someone talk to me about this game, I feel a bit lost and have the biggest game hangover EVER.

    Edit: we'll this blew up very quick! Thanks for all the amazing discussion!

    submitted by /u/Rykka
    [link] [comments]

    Photosession #4

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 03:06 PM PDT

    So glad I saved this trophy for last in my platinum, such a good farewell to the game

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 06:55 PM PDT

    Lol what kind of band name is Asparagus?

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 03:48 PM PDT

    i think Abby and Joel make a pretty good team, don't you? ������

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 06:27 PM PDT

    Pilot Director Kantemir Balagov has completed his work for the HBO Show

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 10:02 PM PDT

    Calvin and Hobbes moment

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 07:21 PM PDT

    A common complaint of TLOU2 that I would like to address & a short analysis

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 05:20 PM PDT

    Why is it at the end of TLOU2 that Ellie does not kill Abby? How come, after everything she's been through, and all the people she's killed, she lets Abby go? Especially when she has her dead to rights.

    Well, let's start off with this. Ellie would have absolutely killed Abby had she not been caught blindsided by Abby during their first encounter. It's just that Abby decided to let her go.

    When we get back to the farm, we can see that Ellie no longer has the same hellbent desire for revenge she had initially, but is still tortured by the fact that she has been robbed of her chance to reconcile with Joel, as well as dealing with severe PTSD and trauma from both watching Joel being brutally murdered and the consequences of her relentless pursuit of Abby (Jesse's death, + almost losing both Tommy and Dina).

    Furthermore, pretty much everyone Ellie kills were either after her or had attempted to kill her. A lot of her killing was either done in self defense or in an attempt to escape a life or death situation.

    At the end of the game, it seems like Ellie has decided to leave Abby for good once seeing the poor condition she's in. She's obviously here at this point for catharsis. She may have even expected to be killed. But in a twist of events, we find Abby crucified and in no condition to provide Ellie with achieving this catharsis. As she's about to leave, the blood leaking from her wound paints the image of Joel's mutilated face. It is at this point that she turns to Abby to confront her once more. Her words? "I can't let you leave." It is in this statement that Ellie's true desire for killing Abby is fully realized. It's at this point where the player and Ellie's motives are at a disconnect. Whereas initially, both the player and character were seemingly motivated by the same cause; an eye for an eye, avenging Joel and her loved ones…it's clear now that Ellie's pursuit of Abby is something in which she feels she is forced to do. Ellie isn't in it simply for revenge. For her there is no alternative, she has no choice but to kill Abby because she's directed all her pain, trauma, and hurt towards this one person. The accumulation of all the pain, suffering, and survivals guilt is directed towards Abby. If she is to justify her existence, then Abby is her conquest.

    However, unlike Abby, Ellie realizes that killing her antagonist won't bring back her loved ones. It won't bring back Joel, it won't bring back Riley, it won't rid her of her survivors guilt, and it won't bring meaning to her life. Once she realizes this, she's able to let Abby go. And this doesn't mean this is Ellie forgiving Abby, it's just Ellie's first step towards being able to heal and finding meaning in her life as Joel intended. Instead of continuing on a path of self destruction, which consequentially resulted in the destruction of those around her.

    Ellie and Abby share similar story arcs it's just that both characters in the game are at different points of these arcs.

    One last thing. A complaint that really bothered me is just how many people were saying Abby faced no repercussions for her actions, when she literally lost everyone she loved as a consequence to killing Joel. That's not saying Ellie didn't either in comparison. Both of them did.

    submitted by /u/aagator
    [link] [comments]

    I liked Abby.

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 11:59 PM PDT

    Yes, yes I know. How can I say this after what she did to Joel?! I thought this too during the first time I played this game. However, I got a PS5 and completed this game again for the 2nd time with more perspective and focus and man was I wrong before!

    The entire game is built to destroy this belief which a lot of games and gamers have where the main characters are always right. Whatever Ellie went through and was trying to do during the second game, Abby already suffered all that after the 1st game ended. Just when you think the game couldn't put any more twists, it gives you the biggest mindfuck moment of all: it puts you into Abby's shoes. You have to fight your own judgment for someone you barely knew. You see that Abby was like any other girl. She had a wonderful & loving dad and friends who were actually nice people (who just wanted to help Abby get revenge later on). Hell, we even see Alice the dog as a playful and adorable pup who had to be killed by Ellie in seconds. All the people Ellie kills (some brutally), we find in Abby's gameplay that they were normal, chill folks. Nora helps Abbie get medical supplies for Yara, Owen (the least of the Wolves) saved Ellie from getting killed in Jackson by other Wolves & was the voice of reason, and Mel was just doing her job and wanted to get away from all this too.

    I understood where both Ellie and Abby are coming from and no one was entirely correct. But I felt Ellie got way too carried out in getting revenge. Even when she found out that Dina was pregnant, she didn't turn back. Jesse got killed because of her quest. Abby let her live twice and she still wasted it. She even threw away a perfect happy ending, which the majority of people in her world don't get, just to go after Abby again. Abby got her revenge by killing Joel, somehow felt guilty, and didn't feel better. She decides to redeem herself by helping out Lev & Yara, who belonged to Seraphites, the sworn enemy of the Wolves'. Sure, everyone guessed that Abby is just doing it to feel better and even Abby knew that but she grows close to Lev and even risks her own life by confronting Isaac to protect Lev. She struggled so much for everyone and everyone (except Lev) left her in return. And lastly and most importantly, she made the rat king her bitch. Most importantly, Abby realized when to let go. Even when she lost everything cause of Ellie, she still let her live again after their fight in the theatre. She learnt the best medicine to live this life: forgiveness. Humans are flawed. We will fuck up. Hence, we will need to forgive ourselves and others to move on in life. Anger and rage will only hold us down. This is a very important life lesson to me which I learnt through this game.

    My point is that I don't get the hate towards Abby and this game. I think this clever storytelling may be the best plot in gaming history (maybe after Red Dead 2) and this game is definitely in my top 3 of all time. Thank you to whoever took the time to read this.

    May your survival be long. May your death be swift.

    submitted by /u/aaebrownguy
    [link] [comments]

    A love letter to TLOU2, and the people who post about how much they enjoyed it

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 06:44 PM PDT

    Brace yourselves, essay incoming. When TLOU2 came out, these sorts of pages all over the Internet were brimming with people HATING the game, people who had sped through it with expectations ablaze, not willing to open themselves to new possibilities and narrative decisions. People were sending Neil Druckmann and the dev team literal death threats, over a Videogame. It was stupid, it was infantile, and it infuriated me. Which is why I am so, so glad that people are still posting about playing this game for the first time, and that they all say something similar - it's a masterpiece. It is, and nothing less, it's just such a shame that there were so many negative kneejerk reactions from people who held the first game up on a plinth, and felt like the sequel had ruined it's sanctity or something. End of the day, it's a Videogame, and it doesn't stop you from playing the original again and loving it the same. The people that hated the game were the ones with expectations of the story and the characters, the ones who didn't understand (or refused to) that the original was as good as it is because of the 'real' quality of the characters and their decisions, their interactions, and that Naughty Dog didn't just want to release the same game again, they wanted to expand and improve, to go somewhere different. The characters weren't Lara Croft, or Nathan Drake, exaggerated cartoons in human form designed to bring colour and life to a story, making decisions you can see a mile off that are satisfying BECAUSE you can see them a mile off. Now that time has passed, and the immediate buzz has died down, people are much more open to playing it - a lot of people who didn't previously because they heard so much bad press - and these people are simply taking it as it is, and enjoying it for the masterpiece it is. Thank you for telling us about how much you enjoyed it, we enjoyed it too, as much as it made us all joyful and tense and tearful and angry, we loved it.

    When I played the first game, it blew my tiny mind. I was 16 or 17 at the time, big into film and theatre and games. It was a Christmas present from my dad (rest his soul), a scriptwriter and a theatre director. I was so unprepared for just how good a narrative and cinematic experience it would be that I cried at the end, I was an emotional wreck, and I would not shut the fuck up about it for a good few weeks. I had no idea a game could be everything that The Last Of Us is. Then 2 came out, and obviously I preordered it, I played it as soon as I could, chomped through it as fast as I could manage whilst taking the time to admire how far it had come from the original. When Joel died, I stopped. I was like 'Woah, okay, this is brave, this is gonna be a ballsy fucking story' and then I thought 'thank fuck they've taken a risk! They're not gonna just pull an Ubisoft and churn out the same shit every time to milk it'. Then, like the grown up I am, I didn't cry on reddit or throw my controller or push my toys out the pram, I appreciated that this was someone else's piece of art, that I was simply along for the ride, and most importantly, I TRUSTED in the team that brought me the game that changed my view of videogames forever. I didn't go in expecting anything, I just took everything as it came, and judged it only against itself. Boy was I in for a treat. A rollercoaster, and a bloody long one, but a treat. Without even mentioning the outstanding visual and design quality, or the solid, satisfying gameplay, or the fucking BREATHTAKING music by Gustavo Santoalalla (which I still listen to regularly, seriously, it stands up on its own too), TLOU2 is a narrative masterpiece. It is my firm belief that any story is only as strong as it's characters. You must always have believeable, relatable characters, and you must NEVER sacrifice character in order to move narrative forward or create interest. Naughty dog really pushed it with this one, but they pulled it out the bag. They played the long game and it payed off. All the characters felt strong and grounded, and every move they made was either justified in the moment, or justified later on. It all felt real and visceral and emotionally intense. Playing half the game as Abby was a genius move. Big brain 900 iq. The secret sauce that made TLOU2 stand out from every other story game. I came to like Abby more than I like Ellie, and I think I was supposed to. Playing what was essentially a prequel, DURING the game, from the point of view of the bad guy, was a ballsy move. She had just shat on the legacy of one of the most important games of the last decade, if not more, and now they were justifying her! humanising her! Making us sympathise with her! More than that, they were making us dislike Ellie, the only remaining champion of the original game. Ellie, who we had been through so much with, who we were so emotionally invested in. Ellie, who had had everything taken from her, and was now enacting a brutally satisfying revenge story that we were all pumped for. Suddenly, we see these actions in a new and horrific light. Ellie, who is finally the hero of her own story, is no longer a hero. She's a murderer, blinded by rage and grief, and we're being made to connect with the people she's killed, the people WE have killed. Suddenly, its no longer 'Ellie vs the Bad Guys', but 'a bunch of people in a messed up world, all as bad as each other, trying to hold on to themselves'. In the world of Videogames, where everything is Heightened, they had grounded all the characters, in turn doing more than simply justifying their narrative decisions, but making them feel believable. If you didn't feel like the way the story panned out was believable, you simply weren't allowing yourself to be open to it properly. Thank you for coming to my TED talk lmao.

    A whole lot of people put a whole lot of blood, sweat, tears, and time into this game to make it the triumph it is, ascending above a simple story game into something that has touched people in a way that even the best films and television can only dream of, and we all salute you for it. And Neil, if you and the team ever read these pages out of morbid curiosity, I just want you to know you did a bloody outstanding job, and my dad, who had been writing scripts for film, TV, and stage for almost 40 years, who usually didn't have time for these monster marathon games, sat through almost all of it with me, and said something along the lines of 'whoever wrote that has their head screwed on straight, I'm glad games are more than just games these days'

    submitted by /u/Millwall_Ranger
    [link] [comments]

    Just finished the second game…

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 04:47 AM PDT

    And I have to say, I really loved it! It was loaded with action and actually challenged me more than the first game quite a bit, so many twists and turns, so many feels! I enjoyed Abbey's story and thought it was an interesting twist, I found myself really struggling in that final scene and feeling so sad for these two traumatised characters who had lost so much, I cared for both of them and didn't want either to die! The part that sucked the most: The realisation that I had killed Alice the dog, that was a tough one…

    Excited that now I can finally engage in this sub and not have to worry about spoilers! Btw, fuck stalkers.

    submitted by /u/LadyGisela
    [link] [comments]

    i feel like I explained it well

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 04:50 PM PDT

    My favourite photo mode shots from my first TLOU2 playthrough :)

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 06:47 PM PDT

    First playthrough i hid and moved slowly out of fear, second playthrough i did the same but assumed Tommy just spawns at the door anyway, third playthrough I realized I was wrong

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 09:00 PM PDT

    potential meme format? (screenshot by me)

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 04:47 PM PDT

    Just finished TLOU2 (again) and was inspired to write this. Work in progress, dont judge too harshly, first time posting etc etc

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 06:58 AM PDT

    Contains spoilers: To those of you who think that TLOU2 erased the moral ambiguity of the first game.

    Posted: 30 Aug 2021 05:37 PM PDT

    That's a fair assertion.

    However, Part 2 was necessary to finish Ellie's story. The moral ambiguity in the first game favored Joel, not Ellie. And with Ellie being a main character, the story was not resolved when Ellie was left with wondering if Joel was telling the truth. I believe a game only works with ending on moral ambiguity when it doesn't particularly favor any main character. Otherwise, a sequel is often sought after.

    Part 2 also explored a lot of moral ambiguity, with Ellie choosing violence, with Ellie sparing Abby, with Abby choosing violence, etc. The game ended with moral ambiguity because when Ellie chose to find Abby over staying with Dina, she lost Dina. But she also got to a point of healing. So was it worth it? The game is centered on the moral ambiguity of Joel saying he would do it all over again, knowing that Ellie would hate him for it. Would his decision still be the right thing to do? There's the moral ambiguity of Ellie going through what she went through and turning into the person she did, to understand Joel and forgive him and let go of her obsession with the vaccine. Could she have done that without hunting down Abby?

    Part 2 by any means does not leave the player feeling like everything that happened was bad or that everything that happened was good because it worked out in the end, which is what people who say "part 2 made a moral decision for the players," argue in favor of.

    People probably think that because Joel was killed, that the game devs made the moral decision for the players to kill him off and thought "he deserved it and so what if he saved Ellie, he deserves to pay for what he did." But it was necessary to tell Ellie's story. However which way you slice it, yes, saving Ellie is morally ambiguous (because saving her risked humanity but killing a child isn't right) but LYING to her, to keep her around, was not right. And part 2 reveals that he lied to her over and over and over again.

    And like I mentioned earlier, lying to her leaves her story open. And how do we explore that? With a new game (part 2) that reveals the truth to her and how she handles it. The first game was not morally ambiguous when it came to "the lie" - it was always wrong. And so why was killing Joel necessary? Because it was a plot driving force for Ellie to explore the guilt and anger she felt about it and about the vaccine she was obsessed about, etc.

    Joel's story was done. He succeeded in what he did. And HE thinks that what he did was right by saving her and lying to her about it. Regardless of how morally ambiguous the player feels about it.

    Ellie's story in Part 2 became a bunch of morally ambiguous choices, much like what Joel did on his journey of healing, for her journey of healing.

    Thanks for reading and letting me explain my side of this. Please add in what you think.

    submitted by /u/kh7190
    [link] [comments]
    Read more
    at

    No comments:

    Post a Comment