RFT90
"Rise from the 90's, reclaim nostalgia"
The Last of Us Part II
This Article is not about The Last of us Part II. Surprise. It's a better """Game""" than the previous entry. Every mechanic has been iterated on in a way that makes you think Naughty Dog knows what they are doing and have had years to learn how to evolve the amazing work they started with Uncharted. If you are anyone with eyes and a PS4 it's an amazing achievement. 8/10, there, done.
Last of Us Part II is a flashpoint for the latent sexism in games, it exemplifies how I feel the very need to "market" games is often the undoing of their cultural significance and while it will be the target of a lot of my uncultured criticism at the end I will say: Last of Us Part II is a RFT90 GOTY and scores 8/10 Thank you NaughtyDog and the entire PD/DEV team. Not because I love it, in fact, the more you read these articles, the more you'll find I award 8/10 as a bit of a booby prize, it often means I didn't expect to DISLIKE the game and with a AAA budget and prestigious studio, I wasn't really grading on how """Good"""" they made it. The reason TLOUII is a GOTY is because of it's impact on the conversation of games. Despite appearing to me as a milquetoast sequel, the conversation over sexuality and the absolute mushroom people who rallied against this game for it's inoffensive portrayal of not just LGBTQIA+ people but Women with """non-standard""" body types. Without TLOUII we would not know who amongst us was a real Gamer or the kind of traitor that only plays games to consume some bullshit version of "Content", throwing has a hissy fit when the girls they control on screen are not "controlled" by their sense of entitlement. Need some water for that pill? TOO BAD WE ARE GOING IN DRY!
Part One: The Last of Us
Let's all pretend we are on the same page as to speed up the process. TLOU is 9/10 material. The kinds of criticism it receives are the same all great games do in hindsight. Too much of one type of mechanic here, that part was not so good there. Not something that really makes a game "worse". Finding flaws on the Mona Lisa does not make one an artist or even a critic. The Story, The Gameplay, The Writing, The World, The Graphics. Everything in TLOU is good enough to make it one of the most important games on the PS3. The Ending is what is the most important to our discussion. So, Spoilers.
The Ending of The Last of Us sees the two main characters, Ellie and Joel come to their destination, a hospital run by The Fireflies where Ellie will be operated on due to her immunity to the virus that has ravaged the world and turned the population into Fungal Zombies. Not only have Ellie and Joel grown a Father/Daughter-like bond, but this is important to Joel due to losing his daughter at the beginning of the Outbreak (also the beginning of the game). When Joel finds out this will kill Ellie this causes him to break into the operating theater, shoot the doctor dead, take Ellie and in the process of escaping: kill people he had worked with to get Ellie into their care.
The final conversation and end of the game has Ellie asking Joel why she is so suddenly back on the road. Joel has a hard time lying to her about there just suddenly not being a cure and that they had business to attend to anywhere but where they just were. She very clearly knows he is lying and while not explicitly aware she was going to die for an attempt at the cure, she knew the gravity of her situation. She also clearly knows as the game comes to an end that Joel made a decision for her. He damned humanity in order to "rescue" her from a fate that was just as much not his choice to make as it was The Fireflies.
This depressing ending gives no closure and that is INTENTIONAL. Like it's clear inspiration, The Road, this game has a dark, nihilistic view of survival and the human condition. Like all Post Apocalyptic works it is at it's core about how humans would act when the world isn't hospitable and what was once sacred is now vestigial to survival. So when I say that it ends perfect I mean, in long form: "The work stays true to it's grim view on humanity by allowing the ending to be both touching yet heartbreaking. The "kind act" of sparing a life is not a heroes deed but a selfish act at most tinged with empathy. " When Joel can't even explain to Ellie what he just did you feel his pain because the developers/actors did their job and made YOU love Ellie. Yet if you have an REAL love for her in your heart you'll realize how she could hate you for what you just did. When Ellie confronts you only to just accept what you say without even trying to look like she believes you, that's heartbreaking! The Sadness of it all tinges the "victory" of beating the game. Just as you propelled the crushing story of the world whittling down these two souls forward to see it through, Joel did what he had to do to see his ending play out and like you he got nothing for his efforts that doesn't remind him of the terrible thing he did.
Part Two: Joel and You.
UNLIKE JOEL, you got up afterwards, clocked into your shift at Kroger's and proceeded to live the kind of life the game deprived it's characters of. For years you bounced from job to job. You played game after game, ate chip after chip. You experienced all sorts of other journeys in the way that gamers do. You grew up, for better or worse. You MANAGE the deli at the Kroger's now. Your friends all get together and talk about all the EPIC games they played and, "like that one really dark one where like it was all zombies and junk, but it wasn't all cool like Call of Duty." The year is 2020. You and all of your bros can't hang. The asshole at the game store won't open the gates because the governor told him he couldn't and you are SICK of playing whatever new pay-to-customize game your friends migrated to this month. There is one thing to look forward to, that game you liked from years ago is getting a sequel!
The Pandemic slowly passes and the game is in your hand. The sands of time have rendered to you only the memories it can vaguely construct from such a long time ago. COOL. SCARY. ACTION. ZOMBIES. You remember the story being cool too but how many games have you PLAYED!? Remembering the small details for them all is bullshit when you can watch a Youtuber summarize it for you. When you fire it up to find you aren't playing Joel, but Ellie, you feel something off. You KNOW Ellie wasn't gay because you played ALL of the multiplayer DLC but you let it slide, lesbians are cool. Then a buff woman who confuses your penis plays a round of golf on the back of Joel's head. She mercilessly KILLS him for what we did at the end of a game YOU barely remember and it makes you SO MAD.
"When did TLOU become about a cruel world that kills people who are just trying to do right!? Why do I (Joel) have to die because the game (the world) wanted to move away from telling my (Joel's) story?" you share on Twitter.
"It isn't fair that the only character I can relate to dies because his innate masculinity caused him to protect a person who's fate was not his to decide and in the process sparked the flames of revenge that would immolate him in a painful fashion that looks like but may not actually be karmic justice," you continue ironically stating the things you are ignorant of for comedic effect.
It is then that all the pieces fall together. Killing the Man from the last game, making the Woman from the last game's sexuality a big part of the story, the fact that you got fired from Kroger's for giving free samples to girls you liked: This is the work of an AGENDA.
Part Three: Abby and the Least Of Us
The above story is what a high school student would call a strawman. A fictional person I MADE to act as a dummy while I show off my cool "verbal moves". Well, maybe, or, maybe because I do not WANT to know the kind of people who are afraid of women and I don't want to take the time to illustrate them and their "issues" with the narrative of TLOUII, and any other fortnite-baby bullshit as something to take serious. Joel's death at the beginning of the game is one of the few choices I appreciated. Since moment 1 of the game I wanted him dead. Not because I am a double agent working for the Woke-agenda, no, because his purpose was to act as a set of eyes through which we see Ellie, grow to love and protect her. I do not need to know "why" Joel is so protective of a little girl who reminds him of his dead daughter. That's a pretty self explanatory motivation.
I also do not need a character to "Represent me" when the story is as simple as revenge. There are revenge stories for every stripe of person. That is very much the beauty of media as a concept. So influential is it to how we live that people grow up to have sexual awakenings to fictional characters. If you think this is "new" or "bad", you are wrong. Regardless as to how much you like media, it is about interpretation. To claim you are owed a certain aesthetic or level of comfort in a story is absurd; doubly so if you are a picky eater who only eats straight-white shooters with machismo dipping sauce.
Every character in every game, book or cave painting is: alive, dead, gay, straight, dark skinned, light skinned, handicapped, trans-gender and any other characteristic you can name. It is the domain of the one interpreting the game at that time to decide how much "identity" to give a fictional character. Sometimes it's easy like the gay undertones inherent in military action (Hello Hideo Kojima). Other times people take great lengths to "claim" a character shares part of their identity no matter how 'not canon' it is. So What?
All of that pre-amble to arrive at this mean spirited paragraph:
If you are the kind of gross, callous individual who actually cares enough about any of characters sexuality in a game, please, from the bottom of my heart and with the gravity it deserves, GET A FUCKING LIFE. Characters are play things, you absolute pedant! Just because it's hard for YOU to imagine being a girl who doesn't LOOK like a girl doesn't mean you are oppressed. Finding out that a group of people have no problem working in modern sexuality into a story doesn't mean you found a secret agenda. Every kind of person has to exist on this world whether they like it or not. If you were any kind of real person, like, a fucking CORPOREAL BEING and not some shade of a dead idiot: you would just not buy the game, get to shutting up and play a game that appeals to whatever world-view you are so proud of but suspiciously quick to protect. Could it be your faith in such ideas is frail? Something you need to protect by bullying voice actresses online and making bad-faith arguments about?
Again, and loudly: If you have a problem with people other than you being in media, you are a child who is hoarding validity.
I'm all for having a passionate opinion but I have seen the kind of garbage logic and playground arguments the "Last of Us II sucks because of Abby" crowd use. They aren't here because they think the narrative fails in it's execution. They say shit like "Nah, I haven't played it, garbage, bro, like why you gotta kill Joel." or "I heard it had SJW shit in it, I don't like games being political".
Part Four: Unqualified Criticism
So I spent 3 paragraphs talking about the not fun stuff; well, it was fun for me to talk about, but as a straight white male that is a privilege because even if I am made sick by how a lot of people who call themselves my brothers in gaming act, I am among them and of course have a lot of distance between the personal stakes that come with watching an audience send death threats because a character shares part of their identity. None of this is meant to minimize that.
I cannot be clear enough that none of that is said in in pursuit of anything other than the word "ok". I don't see myself as someone who "acts like an ally" just because I practice empathy to most people. I exist as whatever relationship we have as author and reader. I like to talk about games and that mostly means about the mechanics and how they make the game and story "cool" and "good". I also talk about all the other stuff but that's because I don't live in a vacuum. I take in the extra parts of media whether I like it or not and I think some people are not as comfortable with that. To those people, I do extend sympathy. I too WANT to be able to not see shows I love as racist or homophobic. I would love to never have someone challenge me about how creepy some of my favorite anime is. Too bad.
Guess we will all just have to strive to be neighborly to each other regardless of almost any factor and accept the changes in our morals as they come.
So with a bow on that: HERE ARE THE REASONS I FUCKING HATED THE LAST OF US PART II (I have been waiting for this part)
REASON 1) If you are going to weave a narrative where the surprise is a previous protagonist dies a violent and sudden death, maybe fucking write it better!
REASON 2) The world is so big and full of interesting stories and we have to focus on the ONE character from the last game who was marketable? I want MORE FUCKING ABBY!
REASON 3) How come your game has so many fucking endings?! Did Ellie really need to go back to Jackson just to grab her keys!? How many times does the game have to brain me with a golf club labelled "If you kill for revenge, dig two graves"
REASON 4) Ellie becomes an unlikeable character for the sole purpose of making a cheap "moral dilemma" about killing people in a Fungal Zombie apocalypse.
REASON 5) THATS IT! I ACTUALLY DIDN'T MIND THE GAME ALL THAT MUCH, THERE WERE JUST SOME BITS THAT CONFIRMED MY BIAS THAT THIS GAME DIDN'T NEED TO HAVE JOEL AND ELLIE FRONT AND CENTER IN IT YET DID BECAUSE THEY HAVE NAME BRAND VALUE!!!!!!! I WISH MORE GAMES DIDN'T HAVE TO OPERATE IN THE SERVICE OF GENERATING SEQUELS BUT THATS WHY THIS CHAPTER IS CALLED UNQUALIFIED CRITICISM!!!!!!
On the whole I found the gameplay absolutely carried the experience and the story may not be my favorite, but it's worst crime is being too much content in a story that has little to say. If you are a PlayStation fan, you have no reason to miss this. If you are a fan of the previous game, I am sure it isn't hard to convince you why it is unquestionably superior mechanically: Every combat encounter had me scrambling for the exit and begging the humans on the other end of my gun to "not make me do this". Every aspect of the gunplay and stealth mechanics was either polished from the previous entry or a new top notch edition to an already diverse and fulfilling gameplay loop.
The Last of Us Part II is a RFT90 GOTY and scores 8/10
Thank you NaughtyDog and the entire PD/DEV team.