Drunk Review Ahead.
The general public is being agitated by Druckmann as much as /v/ et al. over a game whose mediocrity and absurdity should be laughed at as opposed to being taken seriously. It is obvious that Druckmann wants a sensational, controversial piece that allows him to claim victim points or be a misunderstood artist assaulted by bigoted trolls. The more internet savvy people should be way smarter than this. Engaging in shit-flinging with a man whom expects just that is very stupid. Making cheap memes to mock the work of someone who is dead-set on mocking TLOU is just self-defeating, since you’re basically being complicit with his endeavor. I am basically just kind of sad that the thread is feeding a troll or his useful idiots that spread (and inflate) the controversy around it through memes.
Abby fucking around with her boy-bucci or trans-shota or whatever is no more shocking than her entire ark - which‘s a badly acted borefest.
Ellie comes off as way more dumb than she was in her early teens, and none of what she (or Joel) do in the course of this game make much sense. The case with Joel is especially egregious because he would have never let himself trust or get cornered by a group of suspiciously well-armed strangers. TL;DR, the authors don’t even know their own character
The ending, and much of the game in hindsight, is just a gore-fested soap opera coming across as this:
Shit just happens, bruh.
No true moral lesson is learned. No catharsis is gained. Everything is just mechanically engineered to piss any player off as much as possible.
There’s lots of plot points or holes to gape over, but I’m just seriously baffled by the fact that this story was green-lighten out of the womb. For a series so reliant on its emotional impact, the steaks in this (beyond Joel’s demise) are so dull and one-note that you may as well be watching a dead granny porno.
It wasn’t even hard to follow with a better villain for the second part. Retcon notwithstanding (TLOU 2 does it anyway.) Why not Ellie’s ma?
Created it for illustration. Note the firerfly glasses and all that.
- She, unlike Abs, has genuine grievances with Joel over fucking up the life of her work - fireflies.
- A biological parent killing a foster parent would have been emotionally engaging, no matter how cliched to some. And could span the entire game.
- Would have been an excellent fodder for Ellie to becoming her own person, and choosing Joel’s nurture over the kind of viciousness she could have as a consequence of her lineage.
- Close all the loose ropes of the first game
There was a lot of routes to take in this franchise. Neil just took the worst one to be a provocateur and shield himself from criticism in the first place. This game is as “edgy” as “The Serbian Film”, but rather than being a standalone gimmick, it has taken advantage of an existing franchise pushed it under the bus.
TL;DR it’s provocateur shit. Funny but hollow. Not worth a peak.
