Linear games get a bad rep for their ‘lack of choice’. But I’m all for sitting down and being told a story in the same way I would with a book. There’s an expectation that video games have to give you choice because they’re interactive but that’s based on nothing. Choice to me doesn’t necessarily equate to good. I love playing through a story and finding out what happens and just feeling all of those emotions. When I play as Nathan drake I know the designers laid out all of these beats for me, but it’s still f***ing awesome to jump through them. Anyway not having a go at you, just venting on here. Really nice video! Can see you out in a tonne of effort. Great job!
I wholeheartedly agree. My favorite example of this is What Remains of Edith Finch. I loved that game and it gave me very little choice at all. Just exploring the world i was given as the story was told was entertaining by itself. As long as the game controls help me feel immersed into the story or character, I'm pretty happy. Of course, since the focus is the story in these types of games, theyve actually got to be an interesting.
The Last of Us is like a movie where you have to solve a puzzle to unlock the next scene. The gameplay is decent but it isn't the main focus, the story is. Which is why it translated wonderfully into a TV show where most videogame to movies fail.
It doesn’t say “you would do these things, you would bond with Ellie, etc.” It says “Joel would do these things, Joel would bond with Ellie, etc.” It’s just role playing.
And at the same time the supposed intention is to make the _player_ feel bad for what _the player_ does, rather then feel bad for the characters, while giving the player no choice to make the terrible things done by the characters matter all that much.
@simplysmiley4670 Supposed by whom? Never got that from the game personally. This isn’t Spec Ops: The Line we’re talking about here, and I see no indication that anything like that was the intention when they were making The Last of Us. It’s a character study that puts you in the shoes of the character it’s studying. That’s why all your choices are so constrained. You’re there to understand what it feels like to make the choices this character would make, not to explore what choices you yourself would actually make in these situations. Again, it’s just the basics of role playing.
It's Joel who does these things, but the player feels precisely because they're performing the role. It's Joel's story, the question is aimed at him, but also at the player who is roleplaying him. To the question "is it cinema or a game", it's neither; it's theatre, and the player is an actor playing a role established by the writer. The actor has to cope with the questions imposed by the script and feels through their character, but the story, the problems and choices are not the actor's, but the character's.
That's a really good counter-point! I think that's another wrinkle that can be chalked up to TLOU being a game (vs a movie or whatever). It's a character study that wants you to act like the character by forcing you to make the decisions the character would make... to make you understand the character.
This reminds me of how some have written or spoken about how a lot of games (classic or modern) are less "games" and more performances. Think acting in plays, or perhaps more apt for this subject, movies. Games allow some freedom to improvise (otherwise, they would just be movies) and leniency for failure but the player ultimately plays out the scenario scripted for the experience. (An aside, but this is what makes livestreams and let's plays really interesting, because the games are actually being performed for an audience.) Great video as always! I already watched the uncensored version, but it was worth a repeat watch.
That's a fascinating idea! Would that be the counterpoint to something like eSports? eDramaClub? I'll have to look into that some more because it sounds really interesting. (And thank you so much for supporting on Patreon!)
great video and editing my guyy. I loved how at the end you talked about a linear narrative. how the game gives an illusion of choice and how at the end of the day the player has to kill the enemies (humans). would love to see you explore the last of us part 2 as I think it really demonstrates this. The developers included scenes of enemies begging to not be killed and if you choose to not kill them they will always try to kill you instead of running away. forcing the player to kill them and giving them an illusion of choice
6:12 That was such clever editing to illustrate what you were talking about in that moment, with the logos not following the camera as you looked away :0
the "lack of choice" is there because it isn't the player's story. in Mass Effect you play as YOUR Shep, but Joel isn't our character we simply join his journey
Nice video, but there are five main enemy types. You forgot about the 'stalkers', the ones that are halfway between 'normal infected' and 'clickers'. They hide and jump out at you mostly.
This is a neat exploration of the style of storytelling in TLOU and also how different games give the player different amounts of agency, and it opens up broader discussions about free will, genre constraints, you name it. I appreciate how earnestly you approach such questions, and I hope this video inspires a lot of great discussion!
We're not playing as ourselves. We play as Joel because we can better understand him. Games where you can choose your own story have always seemed more shallow.
Every artistic decision an author makes has pros and cons. Every artistic medium has strengths and weaknesses. It is up to the authors to decide which tools they need to tell the story they want to tell and what the experience of going through that story is going to be like. Sometimes you can get everything to play along nicely. Sometimes you have elements that clash with one another. But what the goal is will dictate what to prioritize and what to ditch behind. As I watched the video I couldn't help but think of Tears of the Kingdom. Both it and Breath of the Wild are games that have focused their entirety on player freedom, and that comes with huge drawbacks for the narrative, as anyone who's played those games can attest. Yet, I can't bring myself to call their decision a mistake, because it was a decision made to keep in line with the objective they set out to accomplish in the beginning. It wasn't lack of care for the story, it was compromising the story for the sake of player freedom, in the same way that The Last of Us compromises player freedom for the sake of the story.
This video made me think of The Stanley Parable. The whole point of that game was going off the rails and not doing what the developers intended you to do, but the irony is that the whole time the developers intend for the players to go off the rails. I do think a game like The Stanley Parable is probably the closest game I can think of that gives the player the most authority, but it still has its limitations. I never played it myself and have only watched let’s plays years ago when the game came out, so I could be off the mark.
The whole point of Stanley Parable is to show this illusion of choice. You're never truly free. Stanley is a literal non entity. You're constantly testing the limit, and marveling at the facts the game is many steps ahead.
I love choice based games like dbh because it lets you see the same story from different angles. It would be really cool to see that in tlou. Especially in tlou2 when Abby and Ellie cross paths in the theatre or the ending scene in the water. There probably wont ever be a game that's 100% controlled by the player but i think there's an illusion of it sometimes
One thing I thought of when you mention giving players camera control is fixed cameras! So, it’s not always necessary to sacrifice gameplay in order to have more directed cinematography. Although, on the notion of “giving up control” I think it’s important to think of player agency AS an artistic choice rather than handing over the artistic reigns. It’s important to think of the tools of game design as means for artistic expression, which includes the design of agency. Giving the player agency can make them feel something or can say something as a piece of art… taking it away can also do those things too. We should treat the techniques of game design as intentional artistic decisions. We always think of taking away control/agency as the developers “forcing you to experience the game their way”. But giving the player agency is also the same. By giving the player agency, the developer is also forcing the player to experience the game their way. Yet we view it as a relinquishing of artistic intention rather than a part of artistic intention.
That is absolutely true! One of the things I find fascinating about games is how their design can make a player behave a certain way (and especially how that can relate to a character or a story). Perhaps I could have worded that section about "giving up control" a bit better but I totally agree about player agency being an artistic choice. On the note about fixed cameras, my mind immediately went to the original God of War trilogy and how important the directed camera is in those games. I suppose they are also cinematic in their own way. But I would also call the newer God of War games cinematic too but for a completely different reason.
@@i_am_a_dot Yeah for sure, I’d love to see more games that align the player’s feelings/behaviors with the characters they are playing as. That’s actually one of my grievances with The Last of Us. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great game for sure. It does align the player and character to a certain extent through the survival gameplay, but it doesn’t go as deep as it could’ve. The creative director has always said it’s a game about love, which I strongly disagree with. As a video game, it’s more about violence than it is about love. I think there were plans for it to be more about love in the beginning of development. That paradoxical disconnect you were talking about (where you have a lot of agency in combat but no agency in the relationships), I don’t think that was intentional. I think it was the result of cut features. All the gameplay elements seem to have been designed to incorporate Ellie. With stealth, she might’ve been able to aid you (by distracting enemies) or affect you (by getting caught). Which that would transition into combat, where she could help you (as she does) but she also could’ve been affected (by taking damage like the player does). Which THAT would tie into the crafting systems, as now you’d have to weigh the value of making items for combat vs. taking care of yourself vs. taking care of Ellie. The design would work so perfectly to put the player in the shoes of Joel as a surrogate dad. Protecting Ellie, providing for her, taking care of her, etc. It seems like that would be the much more compelling and interesting experience. But my big issue is that I, as a player, never really had to do any of that stuff. Instead, the player (as you said) doesn’t have a choice. I didn’t get to care about Ellie in the same way Joel did because the game didn’t task me with those responsibilities. The hardships and responsibilities of parenthood are depicted almost entirely outside of player control (which is far from how a video game should explore those themes if you ask me). However, it’s pretty hard to believe that wasn’t the plan at one point (especially since one of the big inspirations for TLOU was ICO). Plus, there are a lot of bugs that point to Ellie’s involvement being removed (like for instance, enemies can still see Ellie during stealth, but in the final version of the game enemies are hardcoded to ignore her no matter what). … On the matter of agency, I think you hit the nail on the head when you talked about how everything you can do in a game is ultimately created by the developer. Which is very true. Not sure if there is any other way you could’ve worded this… I imagine this is a very hard concept for many to wrap their heads around: but even when the devs “give up control” they aren’t actually giving up control. They’re actually still controlling you in a weird way (now there’s another paradox for you haha). Giving the player freedom is forcing them to not be constrained or guided, which is exactly what the devs wants. Like, for instance, if the devs of BOTW want you to be free and you go off doing whatever you want, then you’re actually doing exactly what they intended you to do. The devs controlled you by not controlling you… paradoxically haha. … On the fixed camera point, I also enjoyed the original GOW games for sure! I also liked those camera systems, the camera really enhanced the spectacle! Resident Evil (especially the 2002 remake) and Silent Hill 2 also come to mind when I think of fixed cameras. I’m actually developing a game that heavily relies on a fixed camera. Maybe if I’m lucky my game will be a small part of bringing the fixed camera back haha. Personally, I’d say the difference between the old and new GOW games is the difference between having a cinematic style and wanting to be more like cinema. The old games were very much gameplay focused experiences that had a cinematic style (i.e. the fixed camera), but there weren’t as many cutscenes and the player generally had more moment to moment freedom/control. Whereas, the new games want to be more like cinema which means more emphasis on cutscenes, more scripted sequences with even tighter scripting which leads to more limited control, and generally trying to be less “game-y” (for lack of a better word). Personally, I wish narrative driven games would be more game-y. All of my favorite narratives in games don’t try to be like films at all, they tell stories in ways only video games could. This utilization of the medium to tell the story is something I actually think the original GOW does better than any other entry in the series. Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, Paper’s Please, Half-Life 1 & 2, BioShock, MGS 1-3, Silent Hill 2, Journey, Spec-Ops: The Line, and Persona 5 are a few of my other favorite narrative driven games because they tell stories in ways that only games can (i.e. through gameplay/interactivity). I really love games that show how special the video game medium is instead of just trying to be cinema. Although, I will say TLOU has a lot of good moments where gameplay is used to tell the story (like the intro where you play as Joel’s daughter, or protecting Ellie in Bill’s trap while she cuts you down, or when she gets mad at you and is less responsive which ends with her covering you using the rifle, or when she protects you after you get severely wounded at the university, or how they subvert the ladder interaction to build tension/intrigue before the giraffe reveal, or saving Ellie from David, and of course saving her from the Fireflies at the end). Honestly, TLOU would’ve been one of my favorite stories in games if Ellie was a more consistent part of the core gameplay. If the player had to care about Ellie in the same way Joel does, it would’ve been perfect to me. Although, as it is, I think it relies too heavily on cutscenes to communicate the theme of love and not nearly enough on gameplay (which imo gameplay should be the most important part).
i'd say undertale is really the game that works on the polar opposite end of this. where every 'death' has meaning, every decision has meaning, and the gameplay and story are interconnected to the tightest degree.
What makes the medium of games unique is the element of player interactivity, in my opinion. A recent example of game that perfectly balances the elements of player interactivity and linear story, in my opinion, is Disco Elysium. The people who wrote the story had characters, a setting, themes, and a linear plot in mind, but the pace and lens at which it's experienced is entirely up to the player and the character they build. You're not railroaded onto a specific path that annihilates all player agency, but you still experience the plot in a largely linear fashion. For every possible death, there's a written "ending" to go with it. It helps that most of the story you experience is through voice acting and straight up prose writing, adding more than a visual element to the experience.
I've always had this exact kind of thinking, it's a real conundrum of sorts. I'm a contrarian, so I've always hated the over-glowing praise TLoU has always gotten, despite liking the games myself. And I'm not against cinematic games either- TLoU being perhaps the *best* cinematic game series (obviously Uncharted too) out there. But I've always hated how much attention these games have gotten because of how 'simple' they are to love (and not in a bad way, but as a *game*). Despite this, I don't disagree with liking/loving TLoU, or cinematic games; they're genuinely still very good games. [This sounds funny and contradictory but like compare TLoU to Dragon's Age or Elden Ring- all games have complexity in its systems: gameplay, graphics, story, sound design - TLoU chooses to have its main noticeable complexities hidden behind its cinematic storytelling where as Elden Ring's systems are all vague as f**k.]
I'll honestly maintain that Elden Ring is deeper thematically than TLoU. And I don't mean it's more difficult to understand or there's more stuff happening. I literally mean that there's more depth in themes, philosophy and characters in Elden Ring once you understand the story.
@@jmiquelmb And you're not wrong, Elden Ring is a lake compared to the pond that is TLoU. But reading into technicalities, it's not fair because both games try for very different things.
Problem is that the cinematic storytelling misses entirely if you're not into movies. You don't get any choice and the game bashes you over the head that what you're doing is bad over and over. None of the "you should feel bad" scenes hit in any significant way when it wasn't your choice at all, unless the choice of uninstalling the game counts.
I wonder how well-regarded TLOU would be if it had no story whatsoever (or a very minimal one) but the exact same gameplay. Because I do think the core gameplay is really solid and a lot of fun. But yeah, I do agree that a lot of the praise seems sort of surface level, often referring to the story and all that while ignoring the really solid gameplay that holds up the whole thing. I first played TLOU years after it had originally came out. A lot of the story stuff had been spoiled for me but I legit didn't know it had stealth mechanics until I played it. I know that's anecdotal but I think it kind of goes to your point about the story overshadowing everything else.
My problem with modern games everyone praises for their stories and cinematic-ness is that in a lot of cases the "story" is just the cutscene inbetween the gameplay. In Bioshock, Ocarina of Time, Gris those stories being told in a video game form is the point, those stories have to be experienced, played, they cannot be movies or books or graphic novels or mini series because their storytelling is so deeply tied to gameplay. Meanwhile the last of us is a collection of cutscenes interrupted with gameplay for me, my mom had the same level of connection to Joel in the miniseries as i did in the game, nothing was lost making this game a miniseries
That’s a bit uncharitable. The Last of Us has a lot of great environment storytelling moments, like the sewer and mall sections, not to mention how tense the gameplay can actually be, reinforcing the danger of the world.
@@SaberRexZealotyes, and the little moments like hearing ellie’s shock or disgust with all the death. or the enemies fear or anger or their grief. they put you in joel’s shoes. how slow joel moves, yet how hard he hits. how helpless ellie feels when playing as her. etc etc
Maybe you should actually play the game before having a snobby opinion about it because if you did you would know that theres a shit ton of stories told through the gameplay and exploration.
@Justxfied I have played it, I didn't play the sequel because I know my feelings about the first game so I prefer not to chat about it. Im really not the type of person to comment something without full conviction. I am glad you enjoyed and love this game more than me tho
in last the part where ellie is given sniper for first time i just stealth kill everybody on that map it was so fun, and just to feel the experience of the game i mostly killed all the character through stealth
I don't think anyone expects linear games to provide you with choices - they're narratives and you experience them in someone else's shoes. I wouldn't really call it an irony, because that would imply this is a funny twist on what the game wanted or what the player expected. Personally, I've always enjoyed linear games more since their stories can be made to make more sense, and characters can have more depth when they can always act "in-character" rather than bending to match player's will.
What about the perma death mode in the second game, does that change anything? It gives the story more weight as there is no longer the disconnect between the player dying a hundred times and the story of the game.
I think it's simply that you feel more for the characters when you play them. When you're just watching a show, it's not as easy to get in the heads pace of the characters, when you play the games, you actually *feel* like you are them. You feel like ellie is your daughter, not that she's Joel's daughter. You feel like you raise her instead of watching another character raise her. It's a level of connection you simply cannot have when it's a TV show
The Last of Us game is more of a cinematic experience than the tv show'll ever be. It has better writing, pacing and cinematography. Honestly, there's no point for the TV Show to exist besides trying to reach a different type of audience and acclaim.
A good compasion I've seen before is: What if you went to watch a movie, but the movie was just words on the screen. There's no movement, maybe has voiced lines and music, but at the end of the day, it's essentially just a book. If that's all movies were, would they really be something unique or interesting? Same thing with some of these more cinematic games. You can interact and play around with some stuff, but at the end of the day, it's essentially just a movie. If that's all games were, would they really be something unique or interesting?
I didn't mention it in the video but it's also interesting how easy it was for TLOU to jump to a TV show with relatively little fuss (compared to the many other less successful game-to-movie adaptations).
this is the story of joel and ellie, and you are simply there to help make it happen. it wouldnt be better as a film or a show because you dont fill in those shoes and physcially do it all. and the fact that you cant make out of character choices and what not is the best thing because it would break the story, immersion and the characters
I think you’re focused too much on the semantics between gameplay and the story. Joel doesn’t die a million times, YOU died. Unless you count roguelikes, there’s no games where you actually “die”. It doesn’t ask you “what would you do in this situation”, it says “Joel did this”. It’s a story. You’re not supposed to view it as a diety, “pre determined”, because when you play it, it hasn’t happened yet. I think your critique of The Last of Us is less of a critique of The Last of Us, and more of a critique on stories in a whole. Nothing besides DnD would fit the mold that you’re looking for, not even a game like Balder’s gate 3(since you can’t do “anything”)
I greatly disagree if you're trying to imply that not having a choice over how the story plays out means it's not really a game. You definitely have meaningful choices in the gameplay, as you can have a favorite gun that you use the most, try and stealth whenever possible, try and use everything in your inventory on the final encounter, sneak past a group of enemies, etc. One encounter can go tons of ways, and this is especially true in The Last Of Us 2 where the game is much wider and freer in it's environments. But from a story perspective? Cinematic doesn't mean that it's just a movie with gameplay in between. Cinematic games are meant to make you feel like you're living in a movie. You care when the opening sequence occurs because you've lived as Sarah. You care about Ellie at the end because you've been with her for most of the game. You care more about her every time she tells you about an enemy you didn't notice or throws a brick to stun somebody. You feel like she has your back when she gets a gun later in the game. When she gets unexpectedly grabbed by an enemy, you aren't wasting a second to go break her free. You feel exactly what Joel feels the whole time. Which is why when they try to kill her at the end, most players are on board with stopping them. "You are NOT taking another daughter away from me..." is the feeling the game is pushing you towards since the beginning. The Last Of Us pushed the medium forward because it was the first time a game intertwined story and gameplay so well that what you did in gameplay impacted how you felt about the story. Sure, there weren't a dozen paths and endings that you could've chosen to make the story different (games have been doing that for years.) But the gameplay itself was designed to get you to feel more attached to what was happening in the story. It's why the show (while still amazing) doesn't hit quite as hard. Because the gameplay wasn't there to inform and heighten the story like it is with the game version, you don't feel quite as attached as you otherwise would be. I think the main reason the game broke so much ground in getting people to view video games as a serious medium was just how differently the story was made in the first place. No glorified violence. No sexualized female characters. A serious story about a man losing his daughter, and then eventually deciding to love again. Before this, games didn't usually ask you to take them too seriously. This felt mature and realistic and got adults to see it as more than just a little fun escape, but a serious art form. This is the quality that games like God of War, Spider-Man, and RDR2 have copied. For me, that's a good thing. I like being "along for the ride" as you put it. But I can see how games with story choices can be exciting too. It's just that with so many choices, it inevitably leads to them all being less focused than one unified story would be. Sorry for the essay, genuinely tried to make this as brief as possible while making my point.
WTF? They're not asking what you would do, you play as Joel, the question is what would Joel do, and they get to answer it, you don't get a choice because they're the writers of Joel the fictional character.
i prefer games like last of us than traditional games. most games that give players too much freedom ultimately get boring because i was doing too much side stuff and now i am burnt out and i don't even wanna open that game. pacing is a very important thing for me in games and i really appreciate games like these.
Not even in the gameplay moments (combat) this game is about expressions. Choosing a gun, an arrow, a shiv or a bomb to kill people is no expression, it is a different skin covering the exact same situation. TLoU is a great game, because it has a really, really well told story amd some of the best written characters in the medium, and it has enough gameplay to be called a game without any doubt (you see, when games like Dear Esther are called "not a game"). The second game ruined the pacing but improved the gameplay moments, so a great game too.
This is a really...weird video. So...do you think you can change stuff in real life, unlike pre-determined narratives in a game? No. In life, you make a decision ONCE, and it stays with you forever. Because that is the decision YOU made at that point. Choices matter in real life even more than in gaming, because, you cannot go back, ever. Good writings reflect real life, and that is why fictional characters' choices move our emotions.
I really disagree with this and find that this entire video just comes from you expecting something from the game that it never promised. Why can’t The Last of Us ask what you would do while at the same time telling a very specific narrative? I mean, that is how every linear story ever asks its questions. A story is always just an example or a version of an idea that the author wants to spark a conversation about. This actually gets taken to the extreme in The Last Of Us Part 2 where the characters you play actively do things that you the player disagree with. At no point there is the story saying “you would do this, because that’s how it happens in the story“, rather the story actually plays out the complete opposite way of what it‘s message actually is. It shows people harming each other to say „don’t harm each other“. And again, that’s just how stories work. I think what proves this best is that people are still discussing the choices made by the characters in The Last Of Us to this day.
The problem with this is that TLOU (and much moreso TLOU2) seems pretty interested in wagging its finger at the player when its player characters do bad things under player control.
@@MorteTheSkull this is such a common misinterpretation of part 2🤦♂️ Just because a game has a theme and a message that it conveys through it‘s story and characters doesn’t mean that it is “waving it’s fingers at you“. That would mean that EVERY story that has something to say is doing that. And I think the reason this is said about part 2 is simply because of the reality part 2 faces us with. Our loved heroes aren’t flawless or absolutely good, in someone else’s story, they’re the villains. And just because Part 2 shows us the idea of this concept doesn’t mean that it’s telling us what to think. It just invites us to consider other perspectives. A thing that also gets misunderstood so often about that game is, that it is painting Ellie and Joel as the villains and says to the player “look what you did you monster“. But the one thing that game doesn’t want us to do is to pick sides. Abby isn’t “right“. It’s just a different perspective that we should also consider.
This entire video I thought you were going to get to a thesis or some sort of "point." It felt like a bunch of rambling. Okay... and...? What is your point? It's a story game, of course you can't get in a car and drive to California. It's a video game... with a story. What are you trying to address here? You're all over the place man...
Gameplay is king and this game is overrated. You don't do anything in this game. Joel does. Joel does because you have to follow a straight scripted line and sit through unskipable dialogue and interactions. The only freedom you have here is on how you approach the enemies in these repetitive or scripted encounters. I wouldn't have a problem if this was a exclusively movie game without trying to disguise itself as an actual game. In the end, this is an inferior version of telltale's the walking dead. Inferior in every aspect. Every.
@@realityveil6151what are you on about this person worked hard on this video and deserves to make money from it. So he’s keeping with guidelines. Also you saying unwatchable is an objective statement which is not because I in fact could watch this video. Dawg it’s ok to not like something like don’t act like your god and can define what’s good or bad
@@rockworldroblox8136 No, it's not objective, don't put words in my mouth. It's a subjective opinion. You have different perspective than I do and that's great. I have to give him the feedback so he can give youitube the feedback about the guidelines. Why do zoomers find negative opinion so scary? Grow up.
@@realityveil6151 "Grow up" but apparently couldn't read what it said in the first few seconds and whinged in the comments about it like a baby AND is naive enough to think youtube would give a toss about his opinion when significantly larger youtubers than him have had problems with this for years. They care about their the delicate sensibilities of advertisers, not the actual quality of the viewing experience. If you can't hack that people are still trying to make a living despite that, complain to youtube yourself.
Linear games get a bad rep for their ‘lack of choice’. But I’m all for sitting down and being told a story in the same way I would with a book. There’s an expectation that video games have to give you choice because they’re interactive but that’s based on nothing. Choice to me doesn’t necessarily equate to good.
I love playing through a story and finding out what happens and just feeling all of those emotions. When I play as Nathan drake I know the designers laid out all of these beats for me, but it’s still f***ing awesome to jump through them.
Anyway not having a go at you, just venting on here. Really nice video! Can see you out in a tonne of effort. Great job!
I wholeheartedly agree. My favorite example of this is What Remains of Edith Finch. I loved that game and it gave me very little choice at all. Just exploring the world i was given as the story was told was entertaining by itself. As long as the game controls help me feel immersed into the story or character, I'm pretty happy. Of course, since the focus is the story in these types of games, theyve actually got to be an interesting.
You know... i never thought of Tess being a tutorial character. Thats how good the writing of the first game was.
The Last of Us is like a movie where you have to solve a puzzle to unlock the next scene. The gameplay is decent but it isn't the main focus, the story is. Which is why it translated wonderfully into a TV show where most videogame to movies fail.
It doesn’t say “you would do these things, you would bond with Ellie, etc.” It says “Joel would do these things, Joel would bond with Ellie, etc.” It’s just role playing.
And at the same time the supposed intention is to make the _player_ feel bad for what _the player_ does, rather then feel bad for the characters, while giving the player no choice to make the terrible things done by the characters matter all that much.
@simplysmiley4670 Supposed by whom? Never got that from the game personally. This isn’t Spec Ops: The Line we’re talking about here, and I see no indication that anything like that was the intention when they were making The Last of Us. It’s a character study that puts you in the shoes of the character it’s studying. That’s why all your choices are so constrained. You’re there to understand what it feels like to make the choices this character would make, not to explore what choices you yourself would actually make in these situations. Again, it’s just the basics of role playing.
"The curtains were fucking blue" type of situation
It's Joel who does these things, but the player feels precisely because they're performing the role. It's Joel's story, the question is aimed at him, but also at the player who is roleplaying him. To the question "is it cinema or a game", it's neither; it's theatre, and the player is an actor playing a role established by the writer. The actor has to cope with the questions imposed by the script and feels through their character, but the story, the problems and choices are not the actor's, but the character's.
That's a really good counter-point! I think that's another wrinkle that can be chalked up to TLOU being a game (vs a movie or whatever). It's a character study that wants you to act like the character by forcing you to make the decisions the character would make... to make you understand the character.
This reminds me of how some have written or spoken about how a lot of games (classic or modern) are less "games" and more performances. Think acting in plays, or perhaps more apt for this subject, movies. Games allow some freedom to improvise (otherwise, they would just be movies) and leniency for failure but the player ultimately plays out the scenario scripted for the experience.
(An aside, but this is what makes livestreams and let's plays really interesting, because the games are actually being performed for an audience.)
Great video as always! I already watched the uncensored version, but it was worth a repeat watch.
That's a fascinating idea! Would that be the counterpoint to something like eSports? eDramaClub? I'll have to look into that some more because it sounds really interesting. (And thank you so much for supporting on Patreon!)
Wow I never thought of it that way! I play these cinematic games like I'm performing as the character, I even try to walk slow for role play purposes.
@@Spoopy_manI do the walk slow thing too!
great video and editing my guyy. I loved how at the end you talked about a linear narrative. how the game gives an illusion of choice and how at the end of the day the player has to kill the enemies (humans). would love to see you explore the last of us part 2 as I think it really demonstrates this. The developers included scenes of enemies begging to not be killed and if you choose to not kill them they will always try to kill you instead of running away. forcing the player to kill them and giving them an illusion of choice
6:12 That was such clever editing to illustrate what you were talking about in that moment, with the logos not following the camera as you looked away :0
the "lack of choice" is there because it isn't the player's story. in Mass Effect you play as YOUR Shep, but Joel isn't our character we simply join his journey
Man I love that dot guy
Nice video, but there are five main enemy types. You forgot about the 'stalkers', the ones that are halfway between 'normal infected' and 'clickers'. They hide and jump out at you mostly.
This is a neat exploration of the style of storytelling in TLOU and also how different games give the player different amounts of agency, and it opens up broader discussions about free will, genre constraints, you name it. I appreciate how earnestly you approach such questions, and I hope this video inspires a lot of great discussion!
We're not playing as ourselves. We play as Joel because we can better understand him. Games where you can choose your own story have always seemed more shallow.
There are… a few exceptions to that last statement lol. I understand where you’re coming from tho.
Every artistic decision an author makes has pros and cons. Every artistic medium has strengths and weaknesses. It is up to the authors to decide which tools they need to tell the story they want to tell and what the experience of going through that story is going to be like. Sometimes you can get everything to play along nicely. Sometimes you have elements that clash with one another. But what the goal is will dictate what to prioritize and what to ditch behind.
As I watched the video I couldn't help but think of Tears of the Kingdom. Both it and Breath of the Wild are games that have focused their entirety on player freedom, and that comes with huge drawbacks for the narrative, as anyone who's played those games can attest. Yet, I can't bring myself to call their decision a mistake, because it was a decision made to keep in line with the objective they set out to accomplish in the beginning. It wasn't lack of care for the story, it was compromising the story for the sake of player freedom, in the same way that The Last of Us compromises player freedom for the sake of the story.
This video made me think of The Stanley Parable. The whole point of that game was going off the rails and not doing what the developers intended you to do, but the irony is that the whole time the developers intend for the players to go off the rails. I do think a game like The Stanley Parable is probably the closest game I can think of that gives the player the most authority, but it still has its limitations. I never played it myself and have only watched let’s plays years ago when the game came out, so I could be off the mark.
The whole point of Stanley Parable is to show this illusion of choice.
You're never truly free. Stanley is a literal non entity.
You're constantly testing the limit, and marveling at the facts the game is many steps ahead.
I love choice based games like dbh because it lets you see the same story from different angles. It would be really cool to see that in tlou. Especially in tlou2 when Abby and Ellie cross paths in the theatre or the ending scene in the water. There probably wont ever be a game that's 100% controlled by the player but i think there's an illusion of it sometimes
I think interactive movie games have a place since you are directly put into the protagonists shoes but they should remain a genre and not the norm
One thing I thought of when you mention giving players camera control is fixed cameras! So, it’s not always necessary to sacrifice gameplay in order to have more directed cinematography.
Although, on the notion of “giving up control” I think it’s important to think of player agency AS an artistic choice rather than handing over the artistic reigns.
It’s important to think of the tools of game design as means for artistic expression, which includes the design of agency.
Giving the player agency can make them feel something or can say something as a piece of art… taking it away can also do those things too.
We should treat the techniques of game design as intentional artistic decisions. We always think of taking away control/agency as the developers “forcing you to experience the game their way”. But giving the player agency is also the same.
By giving the player agency, the developer is also forcing the player to experience the game their way. Yet we view it as a relinquishing of artistic intention rather than a part of artistic intention.
That is absolutely true! One of the things I find fascinating about games is how their design can make a player behave a certain way (and especially how that can relate to a character or a story). Perhaps I could have worded that section about "giving up control" a bit better but I totally agree about player agency being an artistic choice.
On the note about fixed cameras, my mind immediately went to the original God of War trilogy and how important the directed camera is in those games. I suppose they are also cinematic in their own way. But I would also call the newer God of War games cinematic too but for a completely different reason.
@@i_am_a_dot Yeah for sure, I’d love to see more games that align the player’s feelings/behaviors with the characters they are playing as.
That’s actually one of my grievances with The Last of Us. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great game for sure. It does align the player and character to a certain extent through the survival gameplay, but it doesn’t go as deep as it could’ve. The creative director has always said it’s a game about love, which I strongly disagree with. As a video game, it’s more about violence than it is about love.
I think there were plans for it to be more about love in the beginning of development. That paradoxical disconnect you were talking about (where you have a lot of agency in combat but no agency in the relationships), I don’t think that was intentional. I think it was the result of cut features.
All the gameplay elements seem to have been designed to incorporate Ellie. With stealth, she might’ve been able to aid you (by distracting enemies) or affect you (by getting caught). Which that would transition into combat, where she could help you (as she does) but she also could’ve been affected (by taking damage like the player does). Which THAT would tie into the crafting systems, as now you’d have to weigh the value of making items for combat vs. taking care of yourself vs. taking care of Ellie.
The design would work so perfectly to put the player in the shoes of Joel as a surrogate dad. Protecting Ellie, providing for her, taking care of her, etc. It seems like that would be the much more compelling and interesting experience. But my big issue is that I, as a player, never really had to do any of that stuff. Instead, the player (as you said) doesn’t have a choice. I didn’t get to care about Ellie in the same way Joel did because the game didn’t task me with those responsibilities. The hardships and responsibilities of parenthood are depicted almost entirely outside of player control (which is far from how a video game should explore those themes if you ask me).
However, it’s pretty hard to believe that wasn’t the plan at one point (especially since one of the big inspirations for TLOU was ICO). Plus, there are a lot of bugs that point to Ellie’s involvement being removed (like for instance, enemies can still see Ellie during stealth, but in the final version of the game enemies are hardcoded to ignore her no matter what).
…
On the matter of agency, I think you hit the nail on the head when you talked about how everything you can do in a game is ultimately created by the developer.
Which is very true.
Not sure if there is any other way you could’ve worded this… I imagine this is a very hard concept for many to wrap their heads around: but even when the devs “give up control” they aren’t actually giving up control. They’re actually still controlling you in a weird way (now there’s another paradox for you haha). Giving the player freedom is forcing them to not be constrained or guided, which is exactly what the devs wants. Like, for instance, if the devs of BOTW want you to be free and you go off doing whatever you want, then you’re actually doing exactly what they intended you to do. The devs controlled you by not controlling you… paradoxically haha.
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On the fixed camera point, I also enjoyed the original GOW games for sure! I also liked those camera systems, the camera really enhanced the spectacle! Resident Evil (especially the 2002 remake) and Silent Hill 2 also come to mind when I think of fixed cameras. I’m actually developing a game that heavily relies on a fixed camera. Maybe if I’m lucky my game will be a small part of bringing the fixed camera back haha.
Personally, I’d say the difference between the old and new GOW games is the difference between having a cinematic style and wanting to be more like cinema.
The old games were very much gameplay focused experiences that had a cinematic style (i.e. the fixed camera), but there weren’t as many cutscenes and the player generally had more moment to moment freedom/control.
Whereas, the new games want to be more like cinema which means more emphasis on cutscenes, more scripted sequences with even tighter scripting which leads to more limited control, and generally trying to be less “game-y” (for lack of a better word).
Personally, I wish narrative driven games would be more game-y. All of my favorite narratives in games don’t try to be like films at all, they tell stories in ways only video games could. This utilization of the medium to tell the story is something I actually think the original GOW does better than any other entry in the series.
Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, Paper’s Please, Half-Life 1 & 2, BioShock, MGS 1-3, Silent Hill 2, Journey, Spec-Ops: The Line, and Persona 5 are a few of my other favorite narrative driven games because they tell stories in ways that only games can (i.e. through gameplay/interactivity). I really love games that show how special the video game medium is instead of just trying to be cinema.
Although, I will say TLOU has a lot of good moments where gameplay is used to tell the story (like the intro where you play as Joel’s daughter, or protecting Ellie in Bill’s trap while she cuts you down, or when she gets mad at you and is less responsive which ends with her covering you using the rifle, or when she protects you after you get severely wounded at the university, or how they subvert the ladder interaction to build tension/intrigue before the giraffe reveal, or saving Ellie from David, and of course saving her from the Fireflies at the end).
Honestly, TLOU would’ve been one of my favorite stories in games if Ellie was a more consistent part of the core gameplay. If the player had to care about Ellie in the same way Joel does, it would’ve been perfect to me. Although, as it is, I think it relies too heavily on cutscenes to communicate the theme of love and not nearly enough on gameplay (which imo gameplay should be the most important part).
extremely underrated video on the last of us. I fw this HEAVY!
i'd say undertale is really the game that works on the polar opposite end of this. where every 'death' has meaning, every decision has meaning, and the gameplay and story are interconnected to the tightest degree.
This was a fantastic video! Thanks for sharing.
13:07 Not even Niel Drunkman
True that
What makes the medium of games unique is the element of player interactivity, in my opinion. A recent example of game that perfectly balances the elements of player interactivity and linear story, in my opinion, is Disco Elysium. The people who wrote the story had characters, a setting, themes, and a linear plot in mind, but the pace and lens at which it's experienced is entirely up to the player and the character they build. You're not railroaded onto a specific path that annihilates all player agency, but you still experience the plot in a largely linear fashion. For every possible death, there's a written "ending" to go with it. It helps that most of the story you experience is through voice acting and straight up prose writing, adding more than a visual element to the experience.
I've always had this exact kind of thinking, it's a real conundrum of sorts.
I'm a contrarian, so I've always hated the over-glowing praise TLoU has always gotten, despite liking the games myself. And I'm not against cinematic games either- TLoU being perhaps the *best* cinematic game series (obviously Uncharted too) out there. But I've always hated how much attention these games have gotten because of how 'simple' they are to love (and not in a bad way, but as a *game*). Despite this, I don't disagree with liking/loving TLoU, or cinematic games; they're genuinely still very good games.
[This sounds funny and contradictory but like compare TLoU to Dragon's Age or Elden Ring- all games have complexity in its systems: gameplay, graphics, story, sound design - TLoU chooses to have its main noticeable complexities hidden behind its cinematic storytelling where as Elden Ring's systems are all vague as f**k.]
I'll honestly maintain that Elden Ring is deeper thematically than TLoU. And I don't mean it's more difficult to understand or there's more stuff happening. I literally mean that there's more depth in themes, philosophy and characters in Elden Ring once you understand the story.
@@jmiquelmb And you're not wrong, Elden Ring is a lake compared to the pond that is TLoU.
But reading into technicalities, it's not fair because both games try for very different things.
Problem is that the cinematic storytelling misses entirely if you're not into movies.
You don't get any choice and the game bashes you over the head that what you're doing is bad over and over. None of the "you should feel bad" scenes hit in any significant way when it wasn't your choice at all, unless the choice of uninstalling the game counts.
I wonder how well-regarded TLOU would be if it had no story whatsoever (or a very minimal one) but the exact same gameplay. Because I do think the core gameplay is really solid and a lot of fun. But yeah, I do agree that a lot of the praise seems sort of surface level, often referring to the story and all that while ignoring the really solid gameplay that holds up the whole thing.
I first played TLOU years after it had originally came out. A lot of the story stuff had been spoiled for me but I legit didn't know it had stealth mechanics until I played it. I know that's anecdotal but I think it kind of goes to your point about the story overshadowing everything else.
Bro these videos are so fire
keep up the great work! 👍
My problem with modern games everyone praises for their stories and cinematic-ness is that in a lot of cases the "story" is just the cutscene inbetween the gameplay. In Bioshock, Ocarina of Time, Gris those stories being told in a video game form is the point, those stories have to be experienced, played, they cannot be movies or books or graphic novels or mini series because their storytelling is so deeply tied to gameplay. Meanwhile the last of us is a collection of cutscenes interrupted with gameplay for me, my mom had the same level of connection to Joel in the miniseries as i did in the game, nothing was lost making this game a miniseries
That’s a bit uncharitable. The Last of Us has a lot of great environment storytelling moments, like the sewer and mall sections, not to mention how tense the gameplay can actually be, reinforcing the danger of the world.
@@SaberRexZealotyes, and the little moments like hearing ellie’s shock or disgust with all the death. or the enemies fear or anger or their grief. they put you in joel’s shoes. how slow joel moves, yet how hard he hits. how helpless ellie feels when playing as her. etc etc
Maybe you should actually play the game before having a snobby opinion about it because if you did you would know that theres a shit ton of stories told through the gameplay and exploration.
@Justxfied I have played it, I didn't play the sequel because I know my feelings about the first game so I prefer not to chat about it. Im really not the type of person to comment something without full conviction. I am glad you enjoyed and love this game more than me tho
The explanation is good but the EDITING THO 🔥🔥🔥
Nice vid! I disagreed with 40% of what you said, but this analysis is great.
“not so much a glimmer of hope, as there is a glimmer of agency.” Great insight
At the start there kind of is a quest if you count shooting the infected guy that’s begging and stuff
in last the part where ellie is given sniper for first time i just stealth kill everybody on that map it was so fun, and just to feel the experience of the game i mostly killed all the character through stealth
You forgot about stalkers as an enemy type.
I don't think anyone expects linear games to provide you with choices - they're narratives and you experience them in someone else's shoes. I wouldn't really call it an irony, because that would imply this is a funny twist on what the game wanted or what the player expected. Personally, I've always enjoyed linear games more since their stories can be made to make more sense, and characters can have more depth when they can always act "in-character" rather than bending to match player's will.
I would have maybe lowered the megaphone instead of the script, because that's more the control the player is given than the script.
What about the perma death mode in the second game, does that change anything? It gives the story more weight as there is no longer the disconnect between the player dying a hundred times and the story of the game.
Honestly I'd rather watch the series than play the last of us. What's the point of playing if everything is predetermined?
I think it's simply that you feel more for the characters when you play them. When you're just watching a show, it's not as easy to get in the heads pace of the characters, when you play the games, you actually *feel* like you are them. You feel like ellie is your daughter, not that she's Joel's daughter. You feel like you raise her instead of watching another character raise her. It's a level of connection you simply cannot have when it's a TV show
The Last of Us game is more of a cinematic experience than the tv show'll ever be.
It has better writing, pacing and cinematography.
Honestly, there's no point for the TV Show to exist besides trying to reach a different type of audience and acclaim.
Nice pouring from empty to void
Wow. Just wow.
Cosplaying a more prestigious medium isn't the best way to become a prestigious medium.
A good compasion I've seen before is:
What if you went to watch a movie, but the movie was just words on the screen. There's no movement, maybe has voiced lines and music, but at the end of the day, it's essentially just a book. If that's all movies were, would they really be something unique or interesting?
Same thing with some of these more cinematic games. You can interact and play around with some stuff, but at the end of the day, it's essentially just a movie. If that's all games were, would they really be something unique or interesting?
@@Rogeryoo I'd say its a bit more like a silent movie that turns into than whenever the cutscenes stop.
I didn't mention it in the video but it's also interesting how easy it was for TLOU to jump to a TV show with relatively little fuss (compared to the many other less successful game-to-movie adaptations).
Great video and perspective on a classic and compelling game.
do a video about the second part
this is the story of joel and ellie, and you are simply there to help make it happen. it wouldnt be better as a film or a show because you dont fill in those shoes and physcially do it all. and the fact that you cant make out of character choices and what not is the best thing because it would break the story, immersion and the characters
I think you’re focused too much on the semantics between gameplay and the story. Joel doesn’t die a million times, YOU died. Unless you count roguelikes, there’s no games where you actually “die”. It doesn’t ask you “what would you do in this situation”, it says “Joel did this”.
It’s a story. You’re not supposed to view it as a diety, “pre determined”, because when you play it, it hasn’t happened yet. I think your critique of The Last of Us is less of a critique of The Last of Us, and more of a critique on stories in a whole.
Nothing besides DnD would fit the mold that you’re looking for, not even a game like Balder’s gate 3(since you can’t do “anything”)
On grounded the checkpoints are longer spaced 😢
I greatly disagree if you're trying to imply that not having a choice over how the story plays out means it's not really a game.
You definitely have meaningful choices in the gameplay, as you can have a favorite gun that you use the most, try and stealth whenever possible, try and use everything in your inventory on the final encounter, sneak past a group of enemies, etc. One encounter can go tons of ways, and this is especially true in The Last Of Us 2 where the game is much wider and freer in it's environments.
But from a story perspective? Cinematic doesn't mean that it's just a movie with gameplay in between. Cinematic games are meant to make you feel like you're living in a movie. You care when the opening sequence occurs because you've lived as Sarah. You care about Ellie at the end because you've been with her for most of the game. You care more about her every time she tells you about an enemy you didn't notice or throws a brick to stun somebody. You feel like she has your back when she gets a gun later in the game. When she gets unexpectedly grabbed by an enemy, you aren't wasting a second to go break her free. You feel exactly what Joel feels the whole time. Which is why when they try to kill her at the end, most players are on board with stopping them. "You are NOT taking another daughter away from me..." is the feeling the game is pushing you towards since the beginning.
The Last Of Us pushed the medium forward because it was the first time a game intertwined story and gameplay so well that what you did in gameplay impacted how you felt about the story. Sure, there weren't a dozen paths and endings that you could've chosen to make the story different (games have been doing that for years.) But the gameplay itself was designed to get you to feel more attached to what was happening in the story.
It's why the show (while still amazing) doesn't hit quite as hard. Because the gameplay wasn't there to inform and heighten the story like it is with the game version, you don't feel quite as attached as you otherwise would be.
I think the main reason the game broke so much ground in getting people to view video games as a serious medium was just how differently the story was made in the first place. No glorified violence. No sexualized female characters. A serious story about a man losing his daughter, and then eventually deciding to love again. Before this, games didn't usually ask you to take them too seriously. This felt mature and realistic and got adults to see it as more than just a little fun escape, but a serious art form. This is the quality that games like God of War, Spider-Man, and RDR2 have copied. For me, that's a good thing. I like being "along for the ride" as you put it.
But I can see how games with story choices can be exciting too. It's just that with so many choices, it inevitably leads to them all being less focused than one unified story would be. Sorry for the essay, genuinely tried to make this as brief as possible while making my point.
Oh no, you criticized this game and forgot to mention a ladder. This game is a ladder simulation.
I'm impressed that you talked about the subvertive illusion of choice in games for 25 minutes and never mentioned BioShock
WTF? They're not asking what you would do, you play as Joel, the question is what would Joel do, and they get to answer it, you don't get a choice because they're the writers of Joel the fictional character.
I was more emotionally invested and impacted by Halo Reach's story than by whatever this movie-game tried to make.
i prefer games like last of us than traditional games. most games that give players too much freedom ultimately get boring because i was doing too much side stuff and now i am burnt out and i don't even wanna open that game. pacing is a very important thing for me in games and i really appreciate games like these.
Not even in the gameplay moments (combat) this game is about expressions. Choosing a gun, an arrow, a shiv or a bomb to kill people is no expression, it is a different skin covering the exact same situation.
TLoU is a great game, because it has a really, really well told story amd some of the best written characters in the medium, and it has enough gameplay to be called a game without any doubt (you see, when games like Dear Esther are called "not a game").
The second game ruined the pacing but improved the gameplay moments, so a great game too.
The pacing of the second game is perfect.
@@TheOutsider69 It drags on and on and. It's twice as long as needed.
@@vagabundorkchaosmagick-use2898 if it wasn't the way it is it wouldn't have worked out as a story OR as a game.
A game I think you’d like is dying light , that’s a good game where story telling is efficient
The Last of Us is a videogame made by and for people that hate videogames.
It's no wonder it translated almost perfectly to TV.
Did you copy this comment straight from Reddit? What a stupid statement. Naughty Dog hates video games?
This is the most pretentious video I've ever seen...🤡
literally dude
Yes... in the literal sense
This is a really...weird video. So...do you think you can change stuff in real life, unlike pre-determined narratives in a game? No. In life, you make a decision ONCE, and it stays with you forever. Because that is the decision YOU made at that point. Choices matter in real life even more than in gaming, because, you cannot go back, ever. Good writings reflect real life, and that is why fictional characters' choices move our emotions.
I really disagree with this and find that this entire video just comes from you expecting something from the game that it never promised. Why can’t The Last of Us ask what you would do while at the same time telling a very specific narrative? I mean, that is how every linear story ever asks its questions. A story is always just an example or a version of an idea that the author wants to spark a conversation about. This actually gets taken to the extreme in The Last Of Us Part 2 where the characters you play actively do things that you the player disagree with. At no point there is the story saying “you would do this, because that’s how it happens in the story“, rather the story actually plays out the complete opposite way of what it‘s message actually is. It shows people harming each other to say „don’t harm each other“. And again, that’s just how stories work.
I think what proves this best is that people are still discussing the choices made by the characters in The Last Of Us to this day.
The problem with this is that TLOU (and much moreso TLOU2) seems pretty interested in wagging its finger at the player when its player characters do bad things under player control.
@@MorteTheSkull this is such a common misinterpretation of part 2🤦♂️ Just because a game has a theme and a message that it conveys through it‘s story and characters doesn’t mean that it is “waving it’s fingers at you“. That would mean that EVERY story that has something to say is doing that. And I think the reason this is said about part 2 is simply because of the reality part 2 faces us with. Our loved heroes aren’t flawless or absolutely good, in someone else’s story, they’re the villains. And just because Part 2 shows us the idea of this concept doesn’t mean that it’s telling us what to think. It just invites us to consider other perspectives. A thing that also gets misunderstood so often about that game is, that it is painting Ellie and Joel as the villains and says to the player “look what you did you monster“.
But the one thing that game doesn’t want us to do is to pick sides. Abby isn’t “right“. It’s just a different perspective that we should also consider.
This entire video I thought you were going to get to a thesis or some sort of "point." It felt like a bunch of rambling. Okay... and...? What is your point? It's a story game, of course you can't get in a car and drive to California. It's a video game... with a story. What are you trying to address here? You're all over the place man...
This is a movie game that tries to pretend it is an actual game and this creates some flaws like for example boring replayability
Gameplay is king and this game is overrated.
You don't do anything in this game. Joel does. Joel does because you have to follow a straight scripted line and sit through unskipable dialogue and interactions. The only freedom you have here is on how you approach the enemies in these repetitive or scripted encounters.
I wouldn't have a problem if this was a exclusively movie game without trying to disguise itself as an actual game.
In the end, this is an inferior version of telltale's the walking dead. Inferior in every aspect. Every.
😂😂😂😂😂
I agree with you!
And the legacy is sadly shortlived as TLOU2 destroys everything part 1 built 🥺
TLOU2>TLOU
@WaitWhatWho
Game mechanics- Sure
Graphics- Absolutely
Characters & Plot- Hot garbage
You're not going to change my mind and I'm not changing yours.
Tlou2 > tlou
It is the weakest possible sauce that you kept blurring things. Unwatchable.
It's cause of youtube guidelines lol
@@stargirl2094 Doesn't make it watchable.
@@realityveil6151what are you on about this person worked hard on this video and deserves to make money from it. So he’s keeping with guidelines. Also you saying unwatchable is an objective statement which is not because I in fact could watch this video. Dawg it’s ok to not like something like don’t act like your god and can define what’s good or bad
@@rockworldroblox8136 No, it's not objective, don't put words in my mouth. It's a subjective opinion. You have different perspective than I do and that's great. I have to give him the feedback so he can give youitube the feedback about the guidelines. Why do zoomers find negative opinion so scary? Grow up.
@@realityveil6151 "Grow up" but apparently couldn't read what it said in the first few seconds and whinged in the comments about it like a baby AND is naive enough to think youtube would give a toss about his opinion when significantly larger youtubers than him have had problems with this for years. They care about their the delicate sensibilities of advertisers, not the actual quality of the viewing experience. If you can't hack that people are still trying to make a living despite that, complain to youtube yourself.
11:16 “The Last of Ust”