The Last of Us 2 - Two cowgirls murdering each other's loved ones

CT Phipps said:
I think if you try and explain it, it'll just make more plot holes. But the assumption is to find out how it works, they need to see how it works in Ellie's brain and that requires DISSECTION!

It's science fiction, don't question it. Otherwise you'll wonder how they're making a vaccine for a fungus (which doesn't exist in RL).
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If it was Science Fiction, wouldn't it be extra important to question it? I mean, the point of the whole "science" in "Science Fiction" is to explore the logical implications of technology and build a story around that, and not have the technology bend around the story to fit.
Wait a second, aren't you supposed to be a Science Fiction author?
On the other hand, so's Chuck Wendig...
 
Hassknecht said:
If it was Science Fiction, wouldn't it be extra important to question it? I mean, the point of the whole "science" in "Science Fiction" is to explore the logical implications of technology and build a story around that, and not have the technology bend around the story to fit.
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Basically, my view as a science fiction author is that the importance of science fiction is that you never contradict your own rules. They must be consistently applied and not be wrong according to the rules of science as known. You're writing around the laws of science as they're currently known rather than ignoring them (which is fantasy).

In the case of Ellie, overexplaining it will make it worse than better. What we have is the experts saying, "We need to dissect Ellie's brain in order to find out how this stuff works and make more of it."

The importance is in Joel's choice, not trying to find ways around whether you could find a cure that didn't kill her.

Wait a second, aren't you supposed to be a Science Fiction author? On the other hand, so's Chuck Wendig...
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In fact, I wrote Lucifer's Star (my science fiction trilogy) because I was unsatisfied with the Aftermath Trilogy and the New Star Wars trilogy.

Hilariously, Chuck also wrote WOD: Slashers and I wrote a novel about slashers recently. I didn't much care for the former's take on the subject.
 
CT Phipps said:
Yes, if you can describe how the obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey works then I'd love to hear it. Basically, my view as a science fiction author is that the importance of science fiction is that you never contradict your own rules. They must be consistently applied and not be wrong according to the rules of science as known. You're writing around the laws of science as they're currently known rather than ignoring them (which is fantasy).

In the case of Ellie, overexplaining it will make it worse than better. What we have is the experts saying, "We need to dissect Ellie's brain in order to find out how this stuff works and make more of it."
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The Obelisk is an example of Clarke's own Third Law, and can't really be explained with conventional means. Funny enough, "the experts" saying that you HAVE to kill Ellie is an example of Clarke's First Law in a way.
Anyway, the brain fungus thingy is a rather mundane thing and not a post-singularity invention, and it is intensely shoddy writing if you have to proclaim "don't look too closely, it'll just create more plot holes".
It's a basic bitch brain fungus. It's really easy to justify dissection with internal consistency. Hell, it adds to the whole risk/reward thing and leads to justifying Joel's decision to fuck up their shit.
"It's Science Fiction, don't question it".
What kind of a hack writer and fucking critic are you that you can even say this kind of shit with a straight face?
Fuck me I need a break from this absolute and complete stupidity.

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And to make it clear, I don't give a shit about the brain fungus or whatever, really. I'm specifically and mainly furious at this whole notion of "it's science fiction, don't question it". You're a writer. You're said before that you take more care in your own work than what you'd forgive in the writings for Fallout 3 and 4, but somehow I doubt it. Really gotta get one of your books these days, I might get an aneurysm from it and finally leave this shitty mortal coil...
 
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I think his point was more so "don't think about it" because it's a fairly short leap to allow the story moment of Joel's very human unethical decision, and the story of the first game is way better for that so it's worth skipping over sci-fi jargon when the why is much more compelling than the how.

It's not a good trend and I think it's a blotch of ink on a writer's work but it's a case by case thing and in this case I didn't think it was that egregious.
 
Yeah, in this case it is totally fine to just not think about it; but the notion of "it's science fiction, don't question it", especially from a Science Fiction author, should be met with a slap to the face.
 
Lidku said:


Yongyea's take on the TLOU2. To summarize: technical execution is good, but TLOU2 story was unfocused, was too much a meta-commentary, and poorly paced.
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That is pretty much what AngryJoe and PewDiePie said. Technically it is Sony's most beautiful looking game, the amount of options for players suffering from disabilities is a welcome, the gameplay is pretty good, some players liked that Ellie was a good representation of a gay character but story and character wise it was just pretentious and bad. It is the type of story I would expect from a first year liberal arts student who wants to be "deep" and "profound" or from Rian Johnson.
 
I only just learnt yesterday that Hotline Miami actually shows up in TLOU2 to reference that they're doing the same message/story. I guess it ends up being pretty funny because of how much better HM pulls it off.
 
Hassknecht said:
And to make it clear, I don't give a shit about the brain fungus or whatever, really. I'm specifically and mainly furious at this whole notion of "it's science fiction, don't question it". You're a writer. You're said before that you take more care in your own work than what you'd forgive in the writings for Fallout 3 and 4, but somehow I doubt it. Really gotta get one of your books these days, I might get an aneurysm from it and finally leave this shitty mortal coil...
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I *AM* talking about the brain fungus and am not interested in going on a tangent. Fiction comes in hard and soft varieties with people either accepting the premise of a story or not.

One of the most biggest jerks I ever encountered when I was a literature teacher was a guy who tore into COLD EQUATIONS. CE is a short story about a guy who is forced to eject a young girl because life support is only enough for one of them. He went into long tangeants about how the lack of safety features and redundancies were a reason the story didn't work.

I was like, "You have absolutely no soul for fiction, do you?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cold_Equations

I feel that's the same for Joel's choice.
 
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The story of the the first game has a lot of contrievances and non sensical moments because the focus was more on the characterizations and relationship between Joel and Ellie than in having a consistent setting and world. Not all stories have to be hard sci fi, but sometimes pushing too hard the limits of beelivability is risky, specially when you are asking your story to be taken super serious like in the first game.

Which is why SO FAR, I am enjoying this one more than the first as the moment to moment narrtive is flowing much more organically, altho I just ran into Jessie conveniently after a sequence of helpless running away from dogs and soldiers and he was just at the ready in thet house to help me, it does stretch the beleivability a bit. I just hope Jessie entering into te group dynamic doesn't go where I think it's gonna go...
 
CT Phipps said:
Any other games worth talking about?
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I mean, is it worth it to talk about a game that you and one other person in the thread have played while 5 others tell you how much they don't like it and won't play it? What's the point?

If everyone I talked to shit on a game I liked, I'd just stop talking about it.
 
Eh, what's the point about talking about a game you can't argue about?

You show up at a forum for an argument.
 
So I killed someone and they turned out to be playing on a Vita, that's how you know it is the apocalypse, people actually using PSVitas.

So far so good, the scene were Joel comes clean to Ellie was pretty well done, almost feel bad for the guy, altho it also shows how creepy he is getting with his relationship with Ellie that she can't even stand being near him afterwards.
 
Barely a reference tho, more of an easter egg.

The sequence with the scars on the tall grass was pretty fun, going all stealthy on those fuckers was pretty fun.

Infected encounters are still the bane of my existence, they really make you hate those fungi fuckers.
 
So I continued. I am still enjoying it a lot. Probably haven't reached the part that made everyone get so angry. Unless it was at the beginning which would be like the most pathetic nerd rage I have seen if that is what made them get so angry.

I am at the part where you control Abby now. That whole segment with having to fend off the infected with a Hammer was fucking brutal. I actually thought I was supposed to escape it because I was just getting so destroyed. Playing on hard realy makes melee combat a challenge because you can get killed in like 3-4 swipes.

One thing I was glad they had gotten rid off was jsut saved for the Abby campaign tho, the stupid daggers being limited use items that you have to craft. Which ironically makes Abby play more like Joel than Ellie, I am sure that was the intention, but after not having to craft daggers I sighed in disappointment when I picked up the skill book and the first skill was Dagger Crafting. At least they aren't required for opening doors now.

Altho it is starting to get a bit weird with how many infected encounters there are, I just reached the end of Seattle Day one with Abby and that encounter with the ship full of zombies just felt a tad paddy-ish, I ended up just throwing bottles and running past them on the last track and gunning it for the door, I don't think I was supposed to do that considering there was even a Shambler mixed in and I could hear his grunts evene after getting off the boat.

Really enjoying how now we are getting the other side of the coin, seeing how a psychopath cutting through our friends like Jason Vorhees means for the community, all those body bags lining the storage unit really are a striking sight.

Now it's off to save the Scars kids and I only have 2 handgun rounds.

The variety in locations is still pretty nice. That whole sequence in the Chinatown shop looked amazing.
 
Yeah it is. I beat TLOU1 semi-recently and I never felt any fondness for Joel. He was a good character but he was good because he was a very selfish and "human" person. I didn't think he was a hero. The guy literally admits he's been a raider in the past and his ultimate decision is his own happiness over the wellbeing of mankind. Him getting merked unceremoniously is within the character of the story being this brutal, unrelenting place without heroism.
 
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