E33 is ugly as sin technically, and not even that impressive on a purely art direction basis either. The fact that it's being upvoted to high heavens in that category, above DS2 and Yotei, shows that gamers in general have poor taste.
Nonsensical fist fight that is as far from what I took from these games as possible. Sure, you CAN punch people in DS, but that's not the point of these games at all. So, as a first look, a pretty weird choice of a scene.
Don't care for the execution either. The visual style is fine, but the usage of 3d models is very evident and unfortunate. Also, I really am not a fan of how modern anime are directed, and this one definitely fits the trend. Which, I guess, it needed to fit in order to even register as part of what is considered a modern anime style. For all the talk about it being different from the rest of the industry, to my eye, this looks pretty mediocre.
@Fishysensei agreed, nothing shown here really made me feel anything. Visually busy, monotone, button mashy from the looks of it, and kinda nondescript art direction wise.
@Crimson_Ridley it did look too good to be true in 2021, back when it was originally presented on YouTube. Now it looks incredible yet attainable, with how the tech progressed since.
@Northern_munkey if that's across the entire game and not just radio, then that's great. Fat chance I'll get back to it though, I've had other problems with it like a complete absence of the sense of progression. You have 10 cars the moment you start the game, some of which are elite level vehicles. Then you accumulate cars at a crazy rate, like it's Katamari Damacy. I guess I see little fun in having everything from the get-go. I need that incentive to keep pushing forward. You know, game design things like that.
@Northern_munkey you mean radio, right? I assume they can't be turned off completely, since much of this forced positivity cringe is present within the cutscenes and other transitions between modes of play (race-overworld-story stuff).
@N1ghtW1ng I loved Driveclub. For my money it was a perfect mix of arcade racer and simulation. And a gorgeous one at that. Such a shame Sony abandoned it.
Did they improve the abysmal writing this game constantly shoves down your throat? I hated the never-ending chatter in my radio, every character in this game is an annoying tool. The single most uncool goody two-shoes vibe I've ever felt while playing a racing game.
@Olmaz on a little side note, which will potentially address some of the points that may arrive further in our dialogue. From my point of view, much of the hate this game got was pretty stupid, based on early leaks, poor taste for narrative in general and limited exposure to proper storytelling that can be found outside of games (something, i feel, that is worsening withing the games community as a whole, thanks to tiktok, instagram, twitch and youtube substituting higher forms of storytelling like film as a main avenue of entertainment. golden age of film relevancy is behind us, even worse for literature). Being outraged for the killing of the main guy from the first game and claiming the rest of it is ***** because of that exposes a serious lack of maturity and imagination among gamers. Such "critique" can't be taken seriously.
Other popular argument concerns the mirrored nature of the two storylines. Haters of the game like to call it out as contrived, without engaging with the meaning behind it and its higher thematic intention and relevance. This is not clever as well. Every story ever constructed is just this - a construction, a manipulation, a series of conditions that make the story possible. What matters is a baseline of logic that allows you to accept the rules of the world and higher intention and emotion that stands behind it all. Well, shared humanity and normal human traits, like having a father, a friend, a romantic partner, a hobby, a trauma is not unrealistic or something out of the realm of possibility. This is actually the most common and logical Venn diagram that could be. The scenario just takes these things and makes meaningful parallels out of them, because they are relevant for what this game tries to investigate within its many themes, among which are war, hatred, dehumanisation, vengeance, justice, love, friendship, perspective, legacy and so on. The story is so rich and yet it is poignant as well. It beats with a human heart, and that's one of the many reasons why I love it so much.
>Ok, so we've restricted "any medium" to games and movies (I guess I can safely add series too?).
I also read books and manga/comics, and I do watch TV series as well - but with all of these I engage not nearly as often as I do with games and film, hence why I mention those two as pretty much all encompassing in regard to our discussion.
> I can't vouch for what you've seen, but you're really telling us without irony nor sarcasm that TLoU2's story was your favorite, even including every movie ever made?
No irony and/or sarcasm needed. The story is of premium quality. If you think otherwise that's ok, I would be interested in hearing your arguments, should you care to express them. And not "ever made", of course, just those I've experienced up to this point. I can share my accounts with you, if you want to assess my expertise on the matter.) Let's say I love film since before I knew how to speak, and I love games since I was 5 years old.
> Do you mean that it's your favorite even though it's not the best
I guess both? I see no point in trying to be objective when talking about art and how it affects me personally. I know some people like to separate these things, in order to stay respectable in the eyes of the other, hence why such nonsensical (to me) terms as "guilty pleasure" were created. And i guess there can be some merit to admitting something is not done very well, but something within it, that is hard to quantify, makes you love it all the same. But TLOU Part II is something I did dissect to an almost atomic level, so I know very well why I love it. So I do also feel that it has the strongest dialogue, acting, direction, editing, facial animations (which are important for the story and its impact, since much of the drama in this game is expressed without words, something not many games can offer to begin with). Judging how only in recent years the technology arrived at such a level where micro-expressions were made possible, and how only few studios can achieve that fidelity while telling a nuanced narrative, and how I'm, as a film lover, try not to miss anything that is state of the art in games storytelling wise, I think I'm pretty equipped to make such a claim. Again, it's my personal opinion, but an informed one.
Nope, had more than enough time to arrive at this realization in full awareness and honesty, properly taking into account every movie and game I've ever seen/played. And trust me, I do keep a careful account of these things on Letterboxd and Backloggd.
@Olmaz in no way was I saying that the story was lacking in Part II, hahaha. Just the opposite, this is my favorite story put to any medium by a long shot.
What I was saying is that, by design, it was very intertwined with the very notion of player's agency. The split narrative with opposing perspectives is very much dependent on, and, really, was conceived FOR the player's implication and compliance with the terrors being done. So you can't remove that without huge consequences and need for transformation of the whole thing (by the end of which the THING in question is going to be something much-much different). And i think they had a good stab at it. It's just that it was a losing game from the beginning.
@themightyant in my experience, the game recovered from Joel's death more effectively than the show did. I say that as someone who enjoyed both Ellie and Dina in season 2. The penultimate episode showed just how important and powerful Pedro's presence was in the series. Granted, same applies to the games, but there is no arguing that the interactive element remedied that to a huge extent, where in the show you're left to this feeling of less engaging presence inside the frame the whole time. That being said, keeping the character around just for ratings would be a bad call in the long run. The whole story hinges on that death and it's timing.
I guess they lost this battle long before they attempted to adapt the 2nd game. It's just a far more game-oriented experience as a story than the first one was. Therein lies the impossible task of bringing it to a passive medium like TV.
@LimitedPower 100% with you here. As someone who loves the games dearly (particularly Part II, my GOAT among games), I found the direct comparison between the game and the show to be mostly useless as an exercise. Why? There's a number of reasons.
1) Being faithful to the source material doesn't equal copying it as is, regardless of the medium. Maybe that'll blow someone's mind, but sometimes you have to make changes to the story in order to better translate it between different modes of storytelling.
2) As someone SO familiar with the original story, I can only imagine how bored I would be watching a carbon copy of it. I got a sense of that with certain scenes in both seasons that directly pull the dialogue and shot compositions from the game. More often than not, in aping the original, those just feel weaker by comparison. And extrapolating those on the whole thing... I think that would feel absolutely lifeless and phony. There is something to be said about the show having its own identity and dignity about how it tells this story.
3) The changes have been mostly smart and interesting and gave me as a fan a chance to look at the world and characters, that I already love, under a different, wider lense. And on the creator's side of the coin, it gave them the ability to be creative and excited in a way they couldn't be if they were relegated to just retell something that has already been told many years ago.
Like you said, I think there is a strange disregard for the original creator's awareness of how certain changes affect the narrative. I mean, can we have a bit more faith in them making those changes for good reasons that will make themselves more apparent down the line? Or scratch that, not even faith, just basic observation skills. Like, have you watched the same show i did? They did that kind of thing all this time up to this point! To have alternate ways of exploring the things the game did and the things it didn't even touch upon. And this alternate path has its own strengths supported by these changes and unique leverages the TV format presents.
Whether or not these deviations from the canon were and will be to everyone's liking is another story (of course they won't, and that's fine), but to just not address that at all when critiquing this scene's placement within the grand narrative is silly to me. Even within the episode the placement of the scene had different strength to it, tying it to the overarching theme of growing as a child and as a parent. Again, not mindlessly putting the scene where they felt like it, but carefully sewing the familiar with the new.
What this post does is it spoils Tony Dalton appearance in the episode while not providing anything new news wise, since anybody with a pair of eyes has already seen him in the Intergalactic trailer.
@Netret0120 unlike Part II (of which season 2 is a direct tv adaptation) the first game wasn't review bombed and was generally accepted without any big drama, so... what's the conundrum here exactly?
@Ultimapunch yeah, I have to agree with you on the narrative illiteracy among the majority of modern gamers. We're at the point where many gamers are the people whose only concept of storytelling was informed by.. well... games. Part II became the clearest litmus test of that for me. The "better versions" of the script the disgruntled fans were coming up with could kill you with cringe. The cliche-ridden, most obvious, melodramatic, soap opera nothing-burger.
In the long run I don't think this vitriolic stupidity will hamper the progress of the quality of stories that are going to be told through games in the future. I think this medium has only one way of having any sort of cultural relevancy and interest in the future, and it's to become more nuanced not only technically, but also narratively. Maybe that's wishful thinking on my part, but I think that just as it was with cinema, the directors and the writers are going to strive for that quality just by the virtue of their professional self-respect, and, in turn, that will form the taste and demand for that quality among the players.
@RBMango
> If we're talking atmosphere, framerate performance, shot composition, attention to detail, nuances in facial and character animation, art direction, and even fidelity at times, I think Expedition 33 blows the vast majority of "AAA" games this generation out of the water.
I mean, some of these things you mention are subjective, like atmosphere. Some are arguable, like attention to detail, which I already established my impression about. The FPS count is good, but that's due to it not being very ambitious with it's content to begin with (again, I concede that i've only played through prologue portion and saw the beginning cutscene of the 1st chapter, may very well be that the game becomes something more impressive systems wise, graphics wise, etc.). But being an avid film junkie I can say that the "shot composition" you refer to (i'm assuming that by that you mean overall direction of cutscenes, since "shot composition" as a term is more suitable when describing a specific moment) is very mediocre and doesn't even begin to approach great games that do offer interesting and inspired visual storytelling (The Last of Us 1-2, Death Stranding, Metal Gear games, Alan Wake 2 etc.) It's boringly shot and overconfident in it's ability to do passive storytelling. The initial action scene where one of the squad loses his head was so prolonged and uninspired, I was really itching for it to finish so i could at least play the game (especially after an exposition dump of a prologue, that lasted 2 whole hours and gave you little else to do proactively). So it was very bland and mostly boring two first hours. And that "intriguing" villain reveal (i assume that was a character played by Andy Serkis) fell flat on it's face because of all the reasons mentioned. I was very far from intrigued by all of this subpar execution. I'm really sceptical about it getting much better further down the line, because, normally, with such narrative focused games (or a film) you can feel straight away if you, as an audience, are in the hands of a good storyteller. This was not it, let me tell ya. Still, I think I'll give it one more 2 hour session to convert me into a believer.
> This kind of demand for and obsession with very specific and realistic details is why budgets balloon out of control.
I was commenting more on the glorification of this as a game that is on par with much more expensive projects. I see a lot of that and it's just not true at all. This is a AA game.
> How does the game's flow and atmosphere in any way improve if the flowers in one area blow in more than one direction?
They may improve greatly if your eye is catching things like that. And it was just one example. Little things do add up.
@rachetmarvel im 100% serious. Not sure what's so crazy about those statements. The high concept the whole story is layed out upon is VERY anime-esque. All characters do look like dolls, so not sure what's the confusion here also. And on the technical side, the running animations are quite bad as well as the overall feel of the character movement, you have to admit. Some objects like flowers in the flower store have one wind reaction animation, instead of individual ones, so it looks like a flag reacting to the wind, instead of how it should be, with separate animation cycles. There way more jank that could be found in the prologue alone. And the first level in a game is traditionally the most polished one.
@lazarus11 it's really not that good, at least not in first 2 hours (the Prologue and the beginning of the first chapter). The acting is very mannered, the facial animations are stiff (though i didn't mind them, few studios manage to impress in that department), the story is very much your seinen anime nonsense that reminds of squid game, the characters are all exclusively hot looking which makes the whole thing feel even more hollow AND there's plethora of technical stuff that betrays it's AAA aspirations and expose it for what it is (a budgeted project with a limited team). Granted, I didn't play enough to assert it's battle mechanics properly, but it's not my fault the game didn't grab me enough for that to happen. I really am puzzled with all the praise it's getting.
One detail I loved is the squishy sound inside Ellie's sneakers when you crouch after being submerged in water.
Breathing system is a phenomenal thing in itself. Try sprinting and then stealth right after and you'll hear how Ellie changes open mouth breathing to nose breathing to avoid detection by nearby enemies.
The little detail of Ellie's two fingers going through the revolver's cylinder recess when reloading is pretty cool.
There are hundreds of details like these, these are just the ones that came to mind right this moment.
@Hyena_socks probably because there are not many (if any) great actresses that are built this way AND are matching in terms of age. If you have some examples, then please tell me.
@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare while I agree with your assessment of her character in the game, I think there is still something cool to be done with her without the extreme physical aspect of her appearance. It really was a cool thing to have in the game, but i would take a more talented actress over the one that is physically matching. Like Katy O'Brian from "Love Lies Bleeding". Physically bad ass, not so much in the acting department (if you like her acting, that's ok, but I found her dull)
@Mintie yeah right, I've read that justification before and I'm just not into such an idea. At this point I'm not even sure which would be worse, them straight up shoving DS and other games inside ER lore (for reasons unknown), or just plain not caring about the lore ramifications in service of creating a game they wanted to create.
A bit surprised how ok everyone is about these uncharacteristic creative liberties they now take with lore, something that has always been treated as a sacred aspect of these games. I remember Miyazaki saying that he is starting to step away from things to give the new blood an opportunity to make something new with the formula. If that's it, then I'm afraid the future truly is Dark for this one.
Comments 196
Re: Talking Point: The Game Awards 2025 Nominations Announced - Who Are Your Winners?
E33 is ugly as sin technically, and not even that impressive on a purely art direction basis either. The fact that it's being upvoted to high heavens in that category, above DS2 and Yotei, shows that gamers in general have poor taste.
Re: Just What Is Going on with Sony and Indie Dev Giant Squid?
@PuppetMaster I mean, there is undeniable merit to these complaints, right?
Re: Death Stranding's Anime Movie Has One of the Most Striking Art Styles We've Seen in Some Time
Nonsensical fist fight that is as far from what I took from these games as possible. Sure, you CAN punch people in DS, but that's not the point of these games at all. So, as a first look, a pretty weird choice of a scene.
Don't care for the execution either. The visual style is fine, but the usage of 3d models is very evident and unfortunate. Also, I really am not a fan of how modern anime are directed, and this one definitely fits the trend. Which, I guess, it needed to fit in order to even register as part of what is considered a modern anime style. For all the talk about it being different from the rest of the industry, to my eye, this looks pretty mediocre.
Re: PS5 Fans Anticipate Big State of Play Livestream This Week
@Fartingale what is pain 1?
Re: State of Play Confirmed for 3rd September, Deep Dive on 007 First Light
@IntrepidWombat thank you for the detailed explanation. Yeah, I think I'll check out these YT channels you mentioned for a full picture.
I never picked up on this particularity so it's super interesting to come across all these years of watching action cinema later.
Re: State of Play Confirmed for 3rd September, Deep Dive on 007 First Light
@IntrepidWombat can you expand on the tea-cupping thing? I'm just interested.
Re: Poll: How Would You Rate Gamescom Opening Night Live 2025?
Best show in years, def not "okay" or "poor". WTF everyone is on about.
Re: PS5 Stunner Phantom Blade Zero Looks Out of This World in New Gameplay Trailer
@Fishysensei agreed, nothing shown here really made me feel anything. Visually busy, monotone, button mashy from the looks of it, and kinda nondescript art direction wise.
Re: Everyone's Talking About Body Horror Game ILL for PS5, Apparently
@Crimson_Ridley it did look too good to be true in 2021, back when it was originally presented on YouTube. Now it looks incredible yet attainable, with how the tech progressed since.
Re: Sony's Marketing the Massive Improvements PS5 Pro Makes to Forza Horizon 5
@Northern_munkey if that's across the entire game and not just radio, then that's great. Fat chance I'll get back to it though, I've had other problems with it like a complete absence of the sense of progression. You have 10 cars the moment you start the game, some of which are elite level vehicles. Then you accumulate cars at a crazy rate, like it's Katamari Damacy. I guess I see little fun in having everything from the get-go. I need that incentive to keep pushing forward. You know, game design things like that.
Re: Sony's Marketing the Massive Improvements PS5 Pro Makes to Forza Horizon 5
@Northern_munkey you mean radio, right? I assume they can't be turned off completely, since much of this forced positivity cringe is present within the cutscenes and other transitions between modes of play (race-overworld-story stuff).
Re: Sony's Marketing the Massive Improvements PS5 Pro Makes to Forza Horizon 5
@N1ghtW1ng I loved Driveclub. For my money it was a perfect mix of arcade racer and simulation. And a gorgeous one at that. Such a shame Sony abandoned it.
Re: Sony's Marketing the Massive Improvements PS5 Pro Makes to Forza Horizon 5
@lazarus11 really sounds like i shouldn't!
Re: Sony's Marketing the Massive Improvements PS5 Pro Makes to Forza Horizon 5
@Perturbator they would make perfect victims for butchering alright
Re: Sony's Marketing the Massive Improvements PS5 Pro Makes to Forza Horizon 5
Did they improve the abysmal writing this game constantly shoves down your throat? I hated the never-ending chatter in my radio, every character in this game is an annoying tool. The single most uncool goody two-shoes vibe I've ever felt while playing a racing game.
Re: Stellar Blade's Inclusion in Saucy Smartphone Shooter NIKKE to Get Livestream Next Week
Removed
Re: Stellar Blade's Inclusion in Saucy Smartphone Shooter NIKKE to Get Livestream Next Week
Removed
Re: HBO's The Last of Us Sees a Dramatic Decline in Season 2 Finale Viewers
@Olmaz on a little side note, which will potentially address some of the points that may arrive further in our dialogue. From my point of view, much of the hate this game got was pretty stupid, based on early leaks, poor taste for narrative in general and limited exposure to proper storytelling that can be found outside of games (something, i feel, that is worsening withing the games community as a whole, thanks to tiktok, instagram, twitch and youtube substituting higher forms of storytelling like film as a main avenue of entertainment. golden age of film relevancy is behind us, even worse for literature). Being outraged for the killing of the main guy from the first game and claiming the rest of it is ***** because of that exposes a serious lack of maturity and imagination among gamers. Such "critique" can't be taken seriously.
Other popular argument concerns the mirrored nature of the two storylines. Haters of the game like to call it out as contrived, without engaging with the meaning behind it and its higher thematic intention and relevance. This is not clever as well. Every story ever constructed is just this - a construction, a manipulation, a series of conditions that make the story possible. What matters is a baseline of logic that allows you to accept the rules of the world and higher intention and emotion that stands behind it all. Well, shared humanity and normal human traits, like having a father, a friend, a romantic partner, a hobby, a trauma is not unrealistic or something out of the realm of possibility. This is actually the most common and logical Venn diagram that could be. The scenario just takes these things and makes meaningful parallels out of them, because they are relevant for what this game tries to investigate within its many themes, among which are war, hatred, dehumanisation, vengeance, justice, love, friendship, perspective, legacy and so on. The story is so rich and yet it is poignant as well. It beats with a human heart, and that's one of the many reasons why I love it so much.
Re: HBO's The Last of Us Sees a Dramatic Decline in Season 2 Finale Viewers
@Olmaz
>Ok, so we've restricted "any medium" to games and movies (I guess I can safely add series too?).
I also read books and manga/comics, and I do watch TV series as well - but with all of these I engage not nearly as often as I do with games and film, hence why I mention those two as pretty much all encompassing in regard to our discussion.
> I can't vouch for what you've seen, but you're really telling us without irony nor sarcasm that TLoU2's story was your favorite, even including every movie ever made?
No irony and/or sarcasm needed. The story is of premium quality. If you think otherwise that's ok, I would be interested in hearing your arguments, should you care to express them. And not "ever made", of course, just those I've experienced up to this point. I can share my accounts with you, if you want to assess my expertise on the matter.) Let's say I love film since before I knew how to speak, and I love games since I was 5 years old.
> Do you mean that it's your favorite even though it's not the best
I guess both? I see no point in trying to be objective when talking about art and how it affects me personally. I know some people like to separate these things, in order to stay respectable in the eyes of the other, hence why such nonsensical (to me) terms as "guilty pleasure" were created. And i guess there can be some merit to admitting something is not done very well, but something within it, that is hard to quantify, makes you love it all the same. But TLOU Part II is something I did dissect to an almost atomic level, so I know very well why I love it. So I do also feel that it has the strongest dialogue, acting, direction, editing, facial animations (which are important for the story and its impact, since much of the drama in this game is expressed without words, something not many games can offer to begin with). Judging how only in recent years the technology arrived at such a level where micro-expressions were made possible, and how only few studios can achieve that fidelity while telling a nuanced narrative, and how I'm, as a film lover, try not to miss anything that is state of the art in games storytelling wise, I think I'm pretty equipped to make such a claim. Again, it's my personal opinion, but an informed one.
Re: HBO's The Last of Us Sees a Dramatic Decline in Season 2 Finale Viewers
@Olmaz
> A bit hyperbolic there, aren't you?
Nope, had more than enough time to arrive at this realization in full awareness and honesty, properly taking into account every movie and game I've ever seen/played. And trust me, I do keep a careful account of these things on Letterboxd and Backloggd.
Re: Hideo Kojima Will Be at Summer Game Fest, Because of Course He Will
> The imbalanced friendship
What a strange and unnecessery remark.
Re: HBO's The Last of Us Sees a Dramatic Decline in Season 2 Finale Viewers
@Olmaz in no way was I saying that the story was lacking in Part II, hahaha. Just the opposite, this is my favorite story put to any medium by a long shot.
What I was saying is that, by design, it was very intertwined with the very notion of player's agency. The split narrative with opposing perspectives is very much dependent on, and, really, was conceived FOR the player's implication and compliance with the terrors being done. So you can't remove that without huge consequences and need for transformation of the whole thing (by the end of which the THING in question is going to be something much-much different). And i think they had a good stab at it. It's just that it was a losing game from the beginning.
Re: HBO's The Last of Us Sees a Dramatic Decline in Season 2 Finale Viewers
@themightyant in my experience, the game recovered from Joel's death more effectively than the show did. I say that as someone who enjoyed both Ellie and Dina in season 2. The penultimate episode showed just how important and powerful Pedro's presence was in the series. Granted, same applies to the games, but there is no arguing that the interactive element remedied that to a huge extent, where in the show you're left to this feeling of less engaging presence inside the frame the whole time. That being said, keeping the character around just for ratings would be a bad call in the long run. The whole story hinges on that death and it's timing.
I guess they lost this battle long before they attempted to adapt the 2nd game. It's just a far more game-oriented experience as a story than the first one was. Therein lies the impossible task of bringing it to a passive medium like TV.
Re: TV Show Review: The Last Of Us (HBO) Season 2 Episode 6 - Robbing the Story of Its Genius
@LimitedPower 100% with you here. As someone who loves the games dearly (particularly Part II, my GOAT among games), I found the direct comparison between the game and the show to be mostly useless as an exercise. Why? There's a number of reasons.
1) Being faithful to the source material doesn't equal copying it as is, regardless of the medium. Maybe that'll blow someone's mind, but sometimes you have to make changes to the story in order to better translate it between different modes of storytelling.
2) As someone SO familiar with the original story, I can only imagine how bored I would be watching a carbon copy of it. I got a sense of that with certain scenes in both seasons that directly pull the dialogue and shot compositions from the game. More often than not, in aping the original, those just feel weaker by comparison. And extrapolating those on the whole thing... I think that would feel absolutely lifeless and phony. There is something to be said about the show having its own identity and dignity about how it tells this story.
3) The changes have been mostly smart and interesting and gave me as a fan a chance to look at the world and characters, that I already love, under a different, wider lense. And on the creator's side of the coin, it gave them the ability to be creative and excited in a way they couldn't be if they were relegated to just retell something that has already been told many years ago.
Like you said, I think there is a strange disregard for the original creator's awareness of how certain changes affect the narrative. I mean, can we have a bit more faith in them making those changes for good reasons that will make themselves more apparent down the line? Or scratch that, not even faith, just basic observation skills. Like, have you watched the same show i did? They did that kind of thing all this time up to this point! To have alternate ways of exploring the things the game did and the things it didn't even touch upon. And this alternate path has its own strengths supported by these changes and unique leverages the TV format presents.
Whether or not these deviations from the canon were and will be to everyone's liking is another story (of course they won't, and that's fine), but to just not address that at all when critiquing this scene's placement within the grand narrative is silly to me. Even within the episode the placement of the scene had different strength to it, tying it to the overarching theme of growing as a child and as a parent. Again, not mindlessly putting the scene where they felt like it, but carefully sewing the familiar with the new.
Re: Intergalactic Recruits New The Last of Us Season 2 Actor for PS5 Game
What this post does is it spoils Tony Dalton appearance in the episode while not providing anything new news wise, since anybody with a pair of eyes has already seen him in the Intergalactic trailer.
Re: Just Like the Game, The Last of Us 2's TV Adaptation Is Getting Review Bombed
@CutchuSlow
> How do TV shows get review bombed?
The same way?
Re: Just Like the Game, The Last of Us 2's TV Adaptation Is Getting Review Bombed
@Netret0120 unlike Part II (of which season 2 is a direct tv adaptation) the first game wasn't review bombed and was generally accepted without any big drama, so... what's the conundrum here exactly?
Re: Just Like the Game, The Last of Us 2's TV Adaptation Is Getting Review Bombed
@Ultimapunch yeah, I have to agree with you on the narrative illiteracy among the majority of modern gamers. We're at the point where many gamers are the people whose only concept of storytelling was informed by.. well... games. Part II became the clearest litmus test of that for me. The "better versions" of the script the disgruntled fans were coming up with could kill you with cringe. The cliche-ridden, most obvious, melodramatic, soap opera nothing-burger.
In the long run I don't think this vitriolic stupidity will hamper the progress of the quality of stories that are going to be told through games in the future. I think this medium has only one way of having any sort of cultural relevancy and interest in the future, and it's to become more nuanced not only technically, but also narratively. Maybe that's wishful thinking on my part, but I think that just as it was with cinema, the directors and the writers are going to strive for that quality just by the virtue of their professional self-respect, and, in turn, that will form the taste and demand for that quality among the players.
Re: Death Stranding 2's PS5 Story Could Take a Monstrous 75 Hours to Beat
PS5 story? I wonder how long the PC story will take............
Re: Random: GTA 6's Jason and Lucia Have a Fake PS5 in Their Apartment
Don't be silly, it's a PS6.
Re: Expedition 33 Is Increasing in Popularity with Each Successive Week
@RBMango
> If we're talking atmosphere, framerate performance, shot composition, attention to detail, nuances in facial and character animation, art direction, and even fidelity at times, I think Expedition 33 blows the vast majority of "AAA" games this generation out of the water.
I mean, some of these things you mention are subjective, like atmosphere. Some are arguable, like attention to detail, which I already established my impression about. The FPS count is good, but that's due to it not being very ambitious with it's content to begin with (again, I concede that i've only played through prologue portion and saw the beginning cutscene of the 1st chapter, may very well be that the game becomes something more impressive systems wise, graphics wise, etc.). But being an avid film junkie I can say that the "shot composition" you refer to (i'm assuming that by that you mean overall direction of cutscenes, since "shot composition" as a term is more suitable when describing a specific moment) is very mediocre and doesn't even begin to approach great games that do offer interesting and inspired visual storytelling (The Last of Us 1-2, Death Stranding, Metal Gear games, Alan Wake 2 etc.) It's boringly shot and overconfident in it's ability to do passive storytelling. The initial action scene where one of the squad loses his head was so prolonged and uninspired, I was really itching for it to finish so i could at least play the game (especially after an exposition dump of a prologue, that lasted 2 whole hours and gave you little else to do proactively). So it was very bland and mostly boring two first hours. And that "intriguing" villain reveal (i assume that was a character played by Andy Serkis) fell flat on it's face because of all the reasons mentioned. I was very far from intrigued by all of this subpar execution. I'm really sceptical about it getting much better further down the line, because, normally, with such narrative focused games (or a film) you can feel straight away if you, as an audience, are in the hands of a good storyteller. This was not it, let me tell ya. Still, I think I'll give it one more 2 hour session to convert me into a believer.
Re: Expedition 33 Is Increasing in Popularity with Each Successive Week
@lazarus11 maybe I will.
Re: Expedition 33 Is Increasing in Popularity with Each Successive Week
@RBMango
> This kind of demand for and obsession with very specific and realistic details is why budgets balloon out of control.
I was commenting more on the glorification of this as a game that is on par with much more expensive projects. I see a lot of that and it's just not true at all. This is a AA game.
> How does the game's flow and atmosphere in any way improve if the flowers in one area blow in more than one direction?
They may improve greatly if your eye is catching things like that. And it was just one example. Little things do add up.
Re: Expedition 33 Is Increasing in Popularity with Each Successive Week
@rachetmarvel im 100% serious. Not sure what's so crazy about those statements. The high concept the whole story is layed out upon is VERY anime-esque. All characters do look like dolls, so not sure what's the confusion here also. And on the technical side, the running animations are quite bad as well as the overall feel of the character movement, you have to admit. Some objects like flowers in the flower store have one wind reaction animation, instead of individual ones, so it looks like a flag reacting to the wind, instead of how it should be, with separate animation cycles. There way more jank that could be found in the prologue alone. And the first level in a game is traditionally the most polished one.
Re: Expedition 33 Is Increasing in Popularity with Each Successive Week
@lazarus11 it's really not that good, at least not in first 2 hours (the Prologue and the beginning of the first chapter). The acting is very mannered, the facial animations are stiff (though i didn't mind them, few studios manage to impress in that department), the story is very much your seinen anime nonsense that reminds of squid game, the characters are all exclusively hot looking which makes the whole thing feel even more hollow AND there's plethora of technical stuff that betrays it's AAA aspirations and expose it for what it is (a budgeted project with a limited team). Granted, I didn't play enough to assert it's battle mechanics properly, but it's not my fault the game didn't grab me enough for that to happen. I really am puzzled with all the praise it's getting.
Re: Expedition 33 Is Increasing in Popularity with Each Successive Week
@MrPeanutbutterz sure, still sucks for me!
Re: Expedition 33 Is Increasing in Popularity with Each Successive Week
Removed
Re: Expedition 33's Sublime Success Sparks Chatter About Final Fantasy's Future
The game is whack, don't know what everyone's smoking. Badly acted squid game fashion models nonsense.
Re: Nintendo Is Losing Its Identity, Says Ex-PlayStation Boss
Wow who did this thumbnail. Shuhei is an independent voice for a while now. It's just his opinion, so let's maybe not make it a console war thing?
Re: The Last of Us 2: All the Tiny Details You Missed
One detail I loved is the squishy sound inside Ellie's sneakers when you crouch after being submerged in water.
Breathing system is a phenomenal thing in itself. Try sprinting and then stealth right after and you'll hear how Ellie changes open mouth breathing to nose breathing to avoid detection by nearby enemies.
The little detail of Ellie's two fingers going through the revolver's cylinder recess when reloading is pretty cool.
There are hundreds of details like these, these are just the ones that came to mind right this moment.
Re: The Last of Us 2: All the Tiny Details You Missed
@Matroska you do leave bloody prints in that area (and other areas).
Re: Intergalactic PS5 Game All About Faith, Religion, and 'Being Lonely'
@J2theEzzo never mind, I thought you were defending @Shinnok789 comment (which he removed already). A bit of confusion on my part.
Re: Intergalactic PS5 Game All About Faith, Religion, and 'Being Lonely'
@J2theEzzo by stating the obvious? Okay
Re: Cancelled Wonder Woman PS5 Game Was 'Gorgeous and Expansive'
Often when a game is cancelled there is talk of how great the said game was going to be. Just let it die.
Re: Random: Bloodborne Fans Cope with State of Play No-Show
So tired of Bloodborne fans throwing a feat after every semi-big show AND getting coverage for it. Guys, can we move on from this story?
Re: Abby's Muscles Less Relevant to HBO's The Last of Us Adaption
@Hyena_socks probably because there are not many (if any) great actresses that are built this way AND are matching in terms of age. If you have some examples, then please tell me.
Re: Abby's Muscles Less Relevant to HBO's The Last of Us Adaption
@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare while I agree with your assessment of her character in the game, I think there is still something cool to be done with her without the extreme physical aspect of her appearance. It really was a cool thing to have in the game, but i would take a more talented actress over the one that is physically matching. Like Katy O'Brian from "Love Lies Bleeding". Physically bad ass, not so much in the acting department (if you like her acting, that's ok, but I found her dull)
Re: Elden Ring: Nightreign Will Boast Bosses Pulled from Dark Souls Series
@Mintie yeah right, I've read that justification before and I'm just not into such an idea. At this point I'm not even sure which would be worse, them straight up shoving DS and other games inside ER lore (for reasons unknown), or just plain not caring about the lore ramifications in service of creating a game they wanted to create.
Re: Elden Ring: Nightreign Will Boast Bosses Pulled from Dark Souls Series
A bit surprised how ok everyone is about these uncharacteristic creative liberties they now take with lore, something that has always been treated as a sacred aspect of these games. I remember Miyazaki saying that he is starting to step away from things to give the new blood an opportunity to make something new with the formula. If that's it, then I'm afraid the future truly is Dark for this one.
Re: Random: Hideo Kojima's Chronic Back Pain Symptom of Carrying Video Game Industry, Fans Say
wow imagine that