The last of Us 2 - Will u be buying it now after the leaks ?

[JZStudios]

23 hours ago, Fatih19 said:

Tbf, in the first Life Is Strange and its prequel, it's not really misplaced because the game is about a teenager's life. Problem is, TLOU is about a zombie apocalypse so it definitely feels out of place.

Ehhh... yeah, but also... I don't know. Again, it never seems to really add much to the story to make characters gay, yet it seems like most games have a lot of, if not exclusively gay characters now. Just doesn't really make a lot of sense.

 

 

 

8 hours ago, SpookyCitrus said:

So your whole gripe with the game series is that Ellie is lesbian and it shows/ integrates that into the story?

No. I never even insinuated that. It also doesn't integrate into the story. You played through the entire base game without really knowing she was lesbo, and that was fine. Again, my big gripe is that they made a DLC to show us stuff that we already knew, rather than showing something different. The DLC didn't show anything new about Ellie that wasn't present in the main game. You could stretch it and say they only made the DLC to show that Ellie was in fact, a lesbo. Which really has no effect or meaning on anything.

 

Let's put it this way, most people aren't gay. That's normal. So when these characters are made gay, my main question is "Why?" It almost never adds anything of value, which you could argue is a pro, or a con. I'm undecided. But when they dedicate an entire DLC or story arc about it, and it adds nothing to the overall plot or structure, it's going to feel forced because they want "diversity." TLOU had many more interesting stories it could've told than the one we already knew.

 

8 hours ago, SpookyCitrus said:

The Last of Us is a game that is heavily story dependent, personally I don't find the DLC that bad. I think they could have done better but you seem to have the opinion that the original games DLC is terrible because it's more of a love story type situation, it's a prequel to the game and shows how Ellie got bit and how she found out she was immune, and shows more of her personality, it may not have been incredible but it still made sense to the story.

So you agree it wasn't great. And sure, it makes sense, but mostly because it's already been told. What did the DLC actually show?

1. Ellie takes care of Joel. We already knew this, she made the deal with David to get medicine for Joel and had him set up in an abandoned house. The DLC is just set around her getting medicine for Joel. It adds nothing to the story.
2. Ellie had a close friend named Riley. We already knew this, there's dialogue in the main game where Ellie mentions her. There's also optional dialogue where Ellie talks about how they would pretend to play an arcade cabinet, which was further shown in the DLC.
3. Riley dies. We already knew this.

The list goes on. It's retreading ground without actually adding anything of value. If they did a DLC focusing on Joel and Tess, they could've explored a relationship that's basically completely ignored in the base game and could've actually added some further depth and meaning to Tess's death. Or they could've done something with Sam and Henry, which had a backstory themselves, or some random character. Instead they retold what we already knew so Ellie could kiss a girl.

 

8 hours ago, SpookyCitrus said:

You were turned away from the new game because of the kiss in the first trailer, because it's not realistic for there to be romantic relationships in the apocalypse, basically you say you don't want to get into it, okay fine. There can be romance in the apocalypse, people won't just lose all emotion, in the game they live in a safe zone, where life is as normal as it could be, people will fall in love, you seem to really only have a problem with it being a lesbian relationship. Who the fuck cares?

Look at Tess and Joel, or Tommy and... his wife... or that scene where Ellie is reading a diary and says "I can't believe they gave a shit about this stuff." Why do we need dumb teenage romance shoved in? It would still be an issue if Ellie wasn't a lesbo. It's dumb. Also, that kiss looked awkward as fuck like even Ellie was uncomfortable. As far as them living in a safe zone, it's not like the first game didn't show that getting overrun with bandits.

 

8 hours ago, SpookyCitrus said:

It's political" "every major game recently has had a lesbian relationship" What do you mean? Most of the games you listed the relationships are optional because they're RPGs, you choose who you have that relationship with, straight or gay, or even if you don't want to.

Not when some games keep trying to force it on you like AC, in a really bizarre fashion from what I've seen. Or when I can accidentally have gay sex with a skeleton man.

 

8 hours ago, SpookyCitrus said:

It was established in the first game that Ellie wasn't straight in 2013, it's not just being added to the sequel now for random or political reasons. It's your opinion and I get that.

I never stated otherwise. Although I would argue it was established in the DLC, which I think was also standalone. Doesn't really matter. Whether it was established then or not doesn't make it feel any less forced then than it does now. It also wasn't part of the big reveal. It's not a high school drama game, why is it there?

And again, there's been interviews with Druckman explicitly stating that he's going to be forcing this stuff in games to "diversify."

8 hours ago, SpookyCitrus said:

If you don't like it, then you don't, but I mean you could of just said that instead of ranting about gay relationships in video games with me quoted, I didn't ask for that.

 

Because observations = ranting.

6 hours ago, SpookyCitrus said:

after they quoted me talking about all the games that are ruined because they have gay characters.

Did I say that? Where exactly did I say that? This is the kind of thing that really gets under my skin. Absolutely nowhere did I say that, I just said a lot of games now have a lot of gay characters. That's all.

These games typically have them for no reason, or specifically because they're trying to "diversify" and push an agenda. That's a separate thing I didn't really mention. It's just that I've noticed most relationships in media now are gay, even when it makes no sense or feels incredibly forced.

[PlayStation 2]

I guess I oughta speak for myself, but am I the only one who just gets annoyed when characters are either retroactively made gay or just poorly written as such? If you're gonna go the distance of going for a minority sexuality, at least give enough of a fuck to make it feel natural rather than turning their sexuality into a focal point of their character. Lots of us couldn't give a shit about their sexuality, myself included, but what's the point of writing in a character's sexuality (even if they are straight) if you aren't gonna actually avoid turning it into a forced character trait? Just makes most people annoyed and offends some gays like me who couldn't care less about that kind of shit unless it's forced.

[JZStudios]

I'm just going to make this a separate post showing some instances of ND and ND pushing "diversity" because... reasons?

 

Here's an interview where ND say's he's pushing diversity as a pillar of the industry

Quote

Hollywood, like games, has had a problem in empowering women as protagonists and empowering people of color. Is it important to you as a writer to make sure that the people in the game are women or people of color?

 

Absolutely. I've been talking more and more about this recently with the team. When you make a game, you have these different pillars that you're trying to balance. It's graphics, it's gameplay, it's story and you're trying not to let any one pillar overwhelm the other. You're trying to just keep all of this stuff in your mind like, how does it all work together? Recently, I realized that there's this other pillar of diversity. That's just as important as any one of these other pillars. I've kind of empowered people on the team that have made this their top priority, one of which is someone I have to give a lot of credit to, is Ashley Swidowski, our lead concept character artist, which in film terms would be our costume designer. She is constantly challenging me and pushing for diversity in our cast. Can this be a person of color? Can this be a woman? I see myself as a pretty progressive person and yet my default is a white, straight, christian male. That's interesting because I'm Jewish and yet that's the norm for me right now. It's a challenge and it requires energy to deviate from that. Therefore it's important to empower people on the team that are going to push for this pillar.

 

Here's a Twitter post from ND saying he will put his personal politics in the game:

https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2017/01/23/the-last-of-us-part-ii-writer-wont-shy-away-including-personal-politics/

 

Here's ND talking about how he almost made a "misogynistic" game.

 

This interview shows ND just changing character identities for... no real reason.

Quote

You've said in the past that you've been influenced by Anita Sarkeesian's Feminist Frequency videos and the larger conversation about diversity and representation in games. How did that affect Uncharted 4?

When I'm introducing and describing a new character to our lead character concept artist, constantly she will ask, "What if it was a girl?" And I'm like, Oh, I didn't think about that. Let me think, does that affect or change anything? No? Cool, that's different. Yeah, let's do it.

Initially, in the epilogue, it was Nate's son. Something similar happened with the mansion they go into. That was an old English guy's house. She asked, Well, what if it was a woman? 

He also kicked out a focus tester for being upset that a single woman kicks the absolute shit out of army destroying Nathan Drake.

 

Here he is stating that he's going to put more "diversity" in the games (although the original comment is a dick.)

 

 

Here's an interview with ND in which he sheds some light;

Quote

Speaking this weekend during PlayStation Experience, Naughty Dog teased the story of The Last of Us: Part II and more. Asked by the interviewer if Joel is dead or alive, writer/director Neil Druckmann teased, "Everybody dies at some point."

More seriously, he said no character is safe in The Last Of Us: Part II. "There are stakes--there are real stakes," he explained. "With The Last of Us, no one is safe. We want people to go into The Last of Us: Part II, especially with this theme [of hate] and what we're trying to say with this game, is knowing that no one is safe--not even these two [Joel and Ellie]." [snip] Druckmann wanted to give the PSX audience an example of what he meant by this, and, after fidgeting in his seat he relented and gave a very interesting tease. He said of writer Halley Gross, "After her first day, Halley goes home and says to her husband, 'I think I got someone pregnant.' And you'll see what that means [in The Last Of Us: Part II]."

Also of note, Druckmann says: "Fans of the first game might not like the sequel."

 

There's more, but I'm bored.

[JZStudios]

35 minutes ago, handymanshandle said:

I guess I oughta speak for myself, but am I the only one who just gets annoyed when characters are either retroactively made gay or just poorly written as such? If you're gonna go the distance of going for a minority sexuality, at least give enough of a fuck to make it feel natural rather than turning their sexuality into a focal point of their character. Lots of us couldn't give a shit about their sexuality, myself included, but what's the point of writing in a character's sexuality (even if they are straight) if you aren't gonna actually avoid turning it into a forced character trait?

Aren't you gay? Or was that someone else? Just feels like it validates the argument a bit more.

36 minutes ago, handymanshandle said:

gays like me.

Oh. Yep.

 

Of which I 100% agree. Whether or not you have your own biases, most of this stuff is just crammed in and it's just not needed. Sorry if I'm a little "Keep it in the bedroom." If Uncharted didn't have Elena, I would give exactly zero shits as to whether or not Nathan Drake is white, black, straight, or gay. But it does have Elena so therefore Nathan must be white and straight. (This is a joke.) Making Ellie a lesbian changes very little, and then focusing so hard on it just makes it feel forced. Even Nathan and Elena's relationship wasn't pushed this hard.

[PlayStation 2]

1 minute ago, JZStudios said:

Aren't you gay? Or was that someone else? Just feels like it validates the argument a bit more.

Oh. Yep.

 

Of which I 100% agree. Whether or not you have your own biases, most of this stuff is just crammed in and it's just not needed. Sorry if I'm a little "Keep it in the bedroom." If Uncharted didn't have Elena, I would give exactly zero shits as to whether or not Nathan Drake is white, black, straight, or gay. But it does have Elena so therefore Nathan must be white and straight. (This is a joke.) Making Ellie a lesbian changes very little, and then focusing so hard on it just makes it feel forced. Even Nathan and Elena's relationship wasn't pushed this hard.

Oh don't worry, I largely subscribe to the "it doesn't need to be public knowledge" theory, too. I just have a massive problem when they take trivial traits about a person, like sexuality, gender and race, then proceed to shove it down our throats.

[JZStudios]

43 minutes ago, handymanshandle said:

Oh don't worry, I largely subscribe to the "it doesn't need to be public knowledge" theory, too. I just have a massive problem when they take trivial traits about a person, like sexuality, gender and race, then proceed to shove it down our throats.

I don't know if it really fits as a response, but one of the new characters in the game is named Lev, and is acted by a transgender that Neil cherry picked. So... yeah. Being trans gets you a leg up at ND with ND I guess.

He also tweets about how he hates white people, which is cool.

[PlayStation 2]

2 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

I don't know if it really fits as a response, but one of the new characters in the game is named Lev, and is acted by a transgender that Neil cherry picked. So... yeah. Being trans gets you a leg up at ND with ND I guess.

He also tweets about how he hates white people, which is cool.

Ooooh, diversity quotas AND self-hatred of their own race, that's if he even considers himself to be white. Quality. Guess that Battlefield V didn't show Naughty Dog that pointless forced diversity and self-hatred don't sell a game to anyone but game "journalism".

[JZStudios]

Just now, handymanshandle said:

Ooooh, diversity quotas AND self-hatred of their own race, that's if he even considers himself to be white. Quality. Guess that Battlefield V didn't show Naughty Dog that pointless forced diversity and self-hatred don't sell a game to anyone but game "journalism".

Nah, he looks some form of pacific islander or Asian. There's this video which showcases a bunch of things, including the fact that if ND wasn't trying to push the lesbian so hard, why is the biggest part of the gameplay trailer an awkward cutscene with Ellie kissing a girl with no context to anything else?

 

I'm at the point now where I question if one of the mods will get upset because we aren't praising lesbians in video games.

[JZStudios]

Just now, JZStudios said:

Nah, he looks some form of pacific islander or Asian.

Ah shit... I'm actually not sure what pronoun they prefer, being a trans. The guy in the video said "him" so I went with it.

[PlayStation 2]

Just now, JZStudios said:

Ah shit... I'm actually not sure what pronoun they prefer, being a trans. The guy in the video said "him" so I went with it.

Trust me when I say that if you're worried about offending me, it takes a lot more than that lmfao. 

More on the point of lesbianism in games in general, I do wonder why they won't do the same for, say, guys. I generally don't care but if they're gonna push for portraying one end of homosexuality, they'd better do the same for males and in the same quality for how they do so with females. 

[JZStudios]

Just now, handymanshandle said:

Trust me when I say that if you're worried about offending me, it takes a lot more than that lmfao. 

More on the point of lesbianism in games in general, I do wonder why they won't do the same for, say, guys. I generally don't care but if they're gonna push for portraying one end of homosexuality, they'd better do the same for males and in the same quality for how they do so with females. 

Because if it was males it would feed the patriarchy. But this is going off topic.

[handymanshandle]

1 hour ago, JZStudios said:

Because if it was males it would feed the patriarchy. But this is going off topic.

lmao

That's pretty low to exclude gay guys because of that concern, a rather dubious concern at that.

[SolarNova]

Careful, we all like LTT .. continued discussion may end up win ND / Sony filing a copyright clam against the LLT forums.

 

 

[Fatih19]

16 hours ago, SolarNova said:

Careful, we all like LTT .. continued discussion may end up win ND / Sony filing a copyright clam against the LLT forums.

 

 

It'd actually be more interesting tho. IIRC in a WAN Show form a year ago, Linus said that if someone decided to falsely copyright strike their videos, they're going to drag them to court.