The Last of Us Franchise - Because it's apparently a franchise now. This thread has been double-DMCA’d by Sony Interactive Entertainment.

If I see anyone saying they sympathize with Abby and side with her killing Joel and believing she's justified in beating Ellie to near death while threatening to slit a pregnant Dina's throat, I'm gonna track down every copy of this game or PS4 that downloaded it digitally and break them with a mallet personally. The charges would be well worth it.


But Abby lives matter.
 
It's looking like Druckman's input on the TV series is going to be absolutely minimal. To put it in perspective, Mike Mignola had more of a say in Atlantis: the lost Empire and the Hellboy movies.

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Warcraft 3 lets you play as the Undead, right after you have finished the Human campaign where Arthas (Human protagonist) turns evil and burns the remaning Human kingdoms to the ground. In fact, the first mission of the expansion pack Undead campaign has you slaughter refugee caravans.
Was my first experience playing a bad guy in a game, blew my mind as a kid.
yep that's a pretty massive one
the first campaign, you play as paladin arthas fighting off the undead from your realm, that campaign ends with arthas going insane and being turned to evil by the undead.
the second campaign, you play as death knight arthas laying waste to your former realm: massacring civilians, killing your former paladin mentor, defiling your own fathers grave (whom you killed yourself btw), genociding the high elves and desecrating their holy place, ushering in a massive demonic invasion that almost annihilates the entire world - to this day, out of all the games i played, wc3 is still the game where the player does the most evil shit in the story. it also had some of the best cinematics and soundtrack ever created in video game history:

the big difference here of course is that there is no ambiguity about any of this. the undead are absolutely obvious and completely unapologetic about their evilness, they lust for power and visibly enjoy bringing mayhem and death to the living. there is no attempt at making some retarded "maybe the humans are the real monsters here?" point, nor are the undead ever portrayed as anything less than genocidal monsters. they're cool and awesome villains, but still unambiguously evil villains. not even when infighting between the undead and their former demon masters breaks out does this change, it is always clear that this is just a struggle about power, at no point does the game try to guilt and shame you into feeling pity for them.
 
Just curious is there any other game out there that does anything remotely like this? A game that forces you to play as a villain that mutilates and tortures the protagonists? I play way more video games than is safe or healthy and I can't name one.

There's one notable one: OFF. If you've got ~4 hours to kill and like surrealism and JRPGs it's well worth the time. It's also the only game I can think of that ends with a situation where you can play as the final boss instead of the protagonist for the final battle if you don't agree with the protagonist's morality.
 
It's looking like Druckman's input on the TV series is going to be absolutely minimal. To put it in perspective, Mike Mignola had more of a say in Atlantis: the lost Empire and the Hellboy movies.

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Ghost of Tsushima is one I'm looking forward to, that actually looks like a fucking videogame, not some glorified "wish it was a movie" game like this one. All the reviews (and not the BS MSM reviews) I have seen say that nothing has changed gameplay wise since the first, and they ended up removing almost all the "puzzle" elements of the first. Only improvement gameplay wise is that maps/environments don't look "videogamey", so instead of this set of obvious cover for you to hide behind when the shooting starts, it looks more organic. Otherwise, the game is a dated mess.
 
Just curious is there any other game out there that does anything remotely like this? A game that forces you to play as a villain that mutilates and tortures the protagonists? I play way more video games than is safe or healthy and I can't name one.

If you mean seriously, no. I can't think of one. People mentioned Warcraft 3. But as to something as character driven as this...no. And to shit on previous protagonists? No. The closest thing that comes to mind is Prototype. Alex Mercer ain't exactly heroic or beloved either. So I think its safe to say this is the first time in history where a game shits on its previous protagonists and allow you to play the villian to actively mutilating them.

Hatred
But if I remember you can't kill dogs in it (you can give them treats tho then they attack people for you)
Or that may be postal, I can't remember
The better question, is there a game that goes to this level of edge while playing as a mutilating torturing protag?
This has dog killing, making people beg for their lives, and torturing the protagonists, then killing one in front of the other
Even the edgy games where you play as a public shooter, they draw the line generally at animals and don't really give characters you kill deep and beloved backstories

Edgy shooter games go right for shock value. They have no pretenses of being great 'art' and generally are aiming to fuck with people who don't play them. And to be honest, a lot of them want you to have fun, they're actually not aiming to make you miserable.

To be fair, there's VERY VERY few people like Druckman in anything approaching mainstream entertainment. Most of them are very fringe artists who produce low budget pretentious trash and indie shlock. It might be the first time the gaming world is exposed to such things and probably the last. People have given me 'optimistic' ratings that I said this would end his career and no joke, this will do it.
 
To be fair, there's VERY VERY few people like Druckman in anything approaching mainstream entertainment. Most of them are very fringe artists who produce low budget pretentious trash and indie shlock. It might be the first time the gaming world is exposed to such things and probably the last.

If you mean the mainstream gaming world, yeah. But even across the wider world of niche releases - Pandemic 2 comes to mind as a game that actively wants the player to suffer and struggle, and a lot of mechanics in the game are just annoying hassles to deal with. If you're not min-maxing by looking at a guide and playing the game organically, it's very likely that you're going to fail at a lot and feel pretty shit for that -- but the point of the game is that kind of misery, and people go into that game looking for misery.

This is a game that's misleading most of the people who are going to be grabbing it, most of whom are probably people that don't really delve into niches. At the same time, I feel like this might lead people to try to continue and finish the game - "will this pay off?" Meaning that they're probably going to slog through more and more, getting turned off and dejected further and further.

But I somewhat do lean towards optimistic. If it isn't already obvious, the squad has been called in to give this game ridiculous cover and ratings. People are going to see defending this game as a necessary requirement of their political position, and so despite the fact that they may personally despise the thing, they'll never openly criticize it - perhaps the opposite. Whether or not this sinks the guy, I feel, depends heavily on whether the spell breaks or not. Yeah, he's already sunk his studio; yeah a ton of marketing money is still lost and down the shitter; yeah Sony's running interference; but don't underrate the propensity of weak people to succumb to peer pressure and shell out money for something they'll never play or finish. That could be enough to make the game a big success despite its lack of merit.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Neurotic Loser
From what i get. Neil Cuckman took all the credit. The real genius behind first Last of Us game. This guy

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Bruce Straley is an American game director, artist, and designer. He previously worked for the video game developer Naughty Dog, known for his work in the video games The Last of Us and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. Straley's first video game work was as an artist at Western Technologies Inc, where he worked on two titles. Following this, he worked as a designer on titles for different companies, prior to his employment at Crystal Dynamics, where he worked as a designer on Gex: Enter the Gecko and Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko.

Straley was employed at Naughty Dog in 1999. He worked as an artist on Crash Team Racing and the Jak and Daxter series. Following this, he became co-art director on Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, and was appointed to game director of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. He was later chosen to lead development on The Last of Us as game director, a role he continued during the development of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. Straley has received praise for his work. In particular, his work on The Last of Us was highly praised, and the game received several awards and nominations. He departed Naughty Dog in September 2017.

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