LogFAQs > #940567533

@'ing me doesn't work because I have all notifications turned off.

I think that's a reductive and inaccurate description of Maddy Myers' review. Her entire thesis is laid out at the beginning of her piece, and it's a pretty common leftist cultural critique that rejects nihilism as a worldview and favours community-building as a means of progress. She's not using this singular flashpoint of widespread resistance to police riots amidst a pandemic to say the mirror Naughty Dog hold up to society is an inaccurate, insufficient depiction of the modern world, she's using it as one point of a larger argument, alongside TLOU1's 'cycle of violence' contemporaries already feeling tired by 2013 and Part 2's own depiction of life flourishing in pockets ("The Last of Us Part 2 luxuriates in depicting the best parts of being alive in a way thats somewhat rare, even in games with this kind of budget and scope. The game depicts characters falling in love, discovering a well-hidden post-apocalyptic weed stash, and trying to come up with the worst possible puns."), to show that this game could have been more. The passage just above what you quoted cuts to the heart of her criticism, and I find it strange you jumped over it to quote the part with a literal date:

The writing in The Last of Us Part 2 emphasizes that even the most justified of grievances can grow like a cancer and destroy us, if we let it. Thats the story that the gamewants to tell a story of someone infected by something they dont have the tools to stop. It makes poetic sense, given that the game is about a brain-eating fungus, as it turns out that Ellie doesnt need to be infected to turn into an absolutely monstrous killing machine.

But when the game gave me more and more information about Ellies opponents, painting them as fully realized humans who also deserved to live, the effort felt wasted. I was already convinced that Ellie was handling things the wrong way, and that Joel had made a terrible mistake in the first game. The Last of Us Part 2 didnt need to force me to kill a dog in order to get me to see that its bad to kill dogs. But, of course, it still made me do that. Just to be sure I really got it. I felt annoyed, not reflective. Like, come on, you think I need this much convincing? Does Naughty Dog think were all out here killing dogs, unaware that doing so is a horrific cruelty?

This story seems to think I need to experience ridiculous levels of virtual violence in order to believe that maybe, just maybe, Ellie should have learned a little more about her enemies personal situations and motivations before slamming a baseball bat into their skulls.

This is a story ND have already told. This is a story other games this game is referencing have already told. Why does it need to be reinforced? What point does this serve? That's what she's asking.

As an aside, even if how you described her review was her main argument, that's fine too! Art doesn't exist in a vacuum. If the story Naughty Dog spent years developing is out of touch with the world its releasing in, that should be commented on! The people reviewing or playing the game are the ones out there actually living in the world this game is ostensibly commenting on, and if the came away thinking 'wow, this game doesn't get it at all', ND shouldn't be absolved for a lack of foresight.

davidponte posted...

In terms of my "dock points" comment, I was of course not speaking literally, and I figured that was apparent because, as you said, they aren't scored reviews. Points were docked in the sense that I read this as a negative point about the game.

I don't know this! You said upfront you didn't read the reviews, it follows that I think you're referring to counting stats when you use that language to describe the tone and summary of their reviews.

as for the hostility, it was more incredulity - there's a lot of protective console warring surrounding any criticism of Sony games, so if someone says "I didn't read the review (red flag), but it docked the game for x, y and z (red flag), and here is why I think that's silly (red flag)."

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ICON:
Kiwami means extreme.