Speaking of the not feeling anything when killing an enemy despite the game trying to suggest otherwise, during Ellie's first segment, isn't it possible that if an enemy surrenders and you choose not to kill them, they'll try to kill you once your back is turned? So the game is telling you that killing is bad, but if you show empathy, they'll try to stab you in the back.
On the subject of Part II, it's coming out on PC this April, and guess what?
Yep, just like God of War Ragnarök, you need a PSN account to play the PC version, despite The Last of Us Part II being a single-player game. Sucks for people who don't have access to PSN where they live.
I would laugh if the PC port of Part II turns out to be a Porting Disaster like the PC port of The Last of Us Part I was.
Edited by IvanovTroping97 on Jan 10th 2025 at 12:39:13 PM
To encourage you to buy PS PLUS since you need that for all online functionality now.
It helps boost their numbers. "See, PSN has 7 million registered users! So much content, so much value!" (whisper whisper) and maybe 100,000 or more just wanted to play TLOU.
Benefit of the doubt that maybe if you were looking at the PS online catalog it makes sense you'd need an account, but if you have to literally make a PSN account just to play something on a non-PS platform then it's all about optics.
Edited by FOFD on Jan 10th 2025 at 12:36:55 PM
The movie as post apoc zombie game isnt shy in that you have to unleash violence on other people and that some of them are just nasty people while other can have love one, like walkind dead did the same.
I think the series did a better job at times(the series is very much the game but improve) like when joel shoot a kid and he start calling his mother....yeah that is brutal.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"But he was still willing to go through with it (because it would mean a better chance against infected), and it's notable that the first game won't let you not kill him.
If you try to just walk past him, he slits your throat with the scapel he grabbed.
So I'm guessing they had this in mind for Joel from the start. You can't proceed unless you kill Abby's dad.
One Strip! One Strip!
Marlene asked him if he would do it to his own daughter, at which point he started ranting about how succeeding would make everything they did up to this point justified and Marlene repeats the question, which he notably still doesn't answer. Marlene then gives in without an answer from him and then he has the gall to be shocked by her announcing she's telling Joel about it, probably because he intended to go along with the other Fireflies in executing Joel.
After Abby tells him if it was her she'd want him to do it, totally ignoring that her father and the other Fireflies are actively refusing to allow Ellie to know anything that's going on and nothing is preventing them from doing so, aside from the fact that they couldn't larp as the heroic saviors of humanity if Ellie said no and they had to forcibly vivisect her.
issue is this:
The fireflight are doing a gamble and they really expect this pay off and if she dies...well, children dies, it is what it is.
Joel clearly is using ellie to a degree to replace Sarah and there wasnt any way for him to leave anyone alive.
it intersting the series chose to frame the shooting as sinister, with Joel being almost robotic in how he just kill everyone. This would be intersting
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"Eh, I'd call that more an attempt to make Abby sympathetic, just like how the appearance of the hospital was completely changed from a rundown, moldy cesspit into something that looked functional, with the remakes ditching the old look for it. I think there was even an article posted in here about how the sickly kinda green color scheme it originally had has a lot of roots in horror movies and portrayals of mad scientists.
It's more or less like I said in my earlier post.
Joel and Fireflies were both right and wrong.
The Fireflies were right that a cure was important, but were too willing to kill Ellie. The fact that they could do it and it would work is irrelevant as there were hundreds of other things that could go wrong afterwards, and Ellie would be dead, meaning they couldn't just make more. The fact they didn't even give her a choice didn't help.
Joel wanting Ellie to live was also right, but he did as much for (if not more for) himself as he did it for her.
Marlene should have done two things: either kill Joel to prevent him from causing trouble (which is an understatement really) or give Ellie a choice.
I think everyone was just too radicalized. The Fireflies are too desperate due to Fedra constantly kicking their asses, so they figure killing one girl, even one they like is worth the risk.
Joel....is not a good person, and doesn't care about anything beyond that. The moment they tried to take something that wasn't his, he did what he does best and....
Was there a better option? I don't know. Was there time to find that option? Hard to say. And it's a moot point now.
Everybody just wanted to do things their way, and it lead to the deaths of Marlene, Abby's dad, Joel, and an endless number of Abby and Ellie's friends.
One Strip! One Strip!I would make the argument that within the story's framework, suspension of disbelief applies and you aren't supposed to question nor is there a question of how the Firefly's plan can succeed. In order for the moral dilemna to be engaging it 100% has to ve possible (creating a cure) or otherwise the situation is unimportant.
The game never indicates the plan couldn't have worked, but we keep going outside the narrative and claiming it wouldn't have and using that as justification for Joel - except Joel never asks or cares about that.
It's like watching a crime/heist movie and criticizing the plot because, realistically, those criminals will never get away with or be able to keep or trust each other to hold onto the money.
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The Surgeon's Recorder notes that Ellie's blood will grow cordyceps when placed in fungal media, completely undermining it to begin with. But also suggesting Jerry is just blatantly lying to get his way because in it it's claimed that they're uncertain why Ellie is immune, while Marlene repeats much more certain info on it.
I think the second game also suggests Jerry isn't fully trained as a doctor going off the diploma you can find while playing as Ellie in his office.
The thing that keeps Jerry from being sympathetic to me is thay he does not even consider that Joel might have a father and daughter relationship with Ellie, and that his motivation is that they need the cure to justify everything they have done. His first priority isn't saving the world, it's easing his guilty conscience.
Joel was a surly guy the Fireflies paid to do a job, and has a pretty strong reputation as "guy you don't f-ck with."
Jerry and the others probably had no idea that Joel went on a life-changing spiritual growth during the trip there.
Like.
I gotta give them that one.
I wouldn't have expected a person with Joel's reputation to adopt what he essentially considered cargo either. Heck halfway through the first half of the journey the second he had a chance he tried to drop her on his brother.
I mean, in a world as shitty as the last of us, the fact that he traveled across the country on foot to deliver Ellie and they plan to stiff him is a Moral Event Horizon. Forget the child murder, they're still murderous bandits who never intended to just pay the guy who went above and beyond.
They are, yes, the guy who shoots the Courier in Fallout: New Vegas.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

And make the Seraphites and WLF less cartoonishly evil so you don't feel bad about killing then en masse in a game ostensibly about revenge being bad. They can still be pretty bad, but make them less cartoonish and more three-dimensional.
Once Upon A Time.