Board 8 > Actual The Last of Us Part II Spoiler Topic

(+) Yeah! (+)

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

So you're saying that my opinion on the game's story shouldn't be taken seriously because I didn't play the game first then?

You are allowed to have an opinion. I'm allowed to think your opinion has less merit because it is second hand.

Your opinion only matters if you experience the thing in the exact same way I did, going in with the exact same mindset, and come out of it with the exact same opinion as me.

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Mobilezoid posted...

Your opinion only matters

Idk why both you and Biscuit seem intent on using such extreme language

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Biscuit's been a huge asshole in every single TLoU2 topic. I don't know why he can't just stay away.
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I was referencing Sorozone, XIII, who used that extreme language.

And Mac, the only person I've ever been an asshole to in any of these topics was pezzicle for reasons explained ad nauseum. I haven't been an asshole to a single other person. I saw a topic, saw someone make a post about 'lol don't take people's opinions seriously unless they pressed buttons' and I posted. I don't even have any interest in discussing the game any further partially because I don't want to dump on the people who enjoyed it still. Which I guess is just asshole behavior.

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XIII_rocks posted...

Idk why both you and Biscuit seem intent on using such extreme language

Because that's what you guys are doing. You came out of the game thinking it was a flawless masterpiece and anyone else who doesn't reach the same conclusion must've not experienced it the right way, or they went in with the wrong mindset because of the leaks, or they don't like lesbians, or any of the countless other excuses I've seen to dismiss criticism out of hand.

davidponte's girlfriend apparently only watched him play, do you think he'd tell her that her opinion of it is worthless? Oh, no, she was emotionally invested, it's okay. She's one of the good ones.

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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

'lol don't take people's opinions seriously unless they pressed buttons'

Who said this in this topic btw

I skimmed and might have missed it

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Aecioo posted...

Who said this in this topic btw

I skimmed and might have missed it

Sorozone posted...

Maybe not playing the full game, that's fine, but I'm not going to take your opinion or perspective seriously unless you've at least played it.

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Legit question for Biscuit - the game came out almost a month ago already, and the leak conversations have been going on even longer than that. Why are you still spending all this energy and time discussing something you apparently have no interest in playing, let alone something that seems to upset you?

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Yeah, people aren't allowed to spend time and energy talking about something as mundane as a video game (unless they like it, then spending time and energy talking about it is fine)

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Xiahou Shake posted...

Legit question for Biscuit - the game came out almost a month ago already, and the leak conversations have been going on even longer than that. Why are you still spending all this energy and time discussing something you apparently have no interest in playing, let alone something that seems to upset you?

Legit answer - I haven't discussed this game in weeks. The most I've discussed it was maybe last week when I was explaining to someone who was trying to say they didn't see the issue with the way trans issues were portrayed in the game, using actual explanations from my trans friends, and still got dumped on and told "Their opinions shouldn't matter because they didn't play the game." And the only reason I did that was because I felt it was an important discussion to have.

I'm largely over discussing this game at all. I think it sucks for reasons I've discussed at length, and all of it is essentially being discounted because I "didn't experience the game right". Which, whatever. I can argue that to discuss the narrative of the game you don't need to press the buttons to proceed. But nobody here has even attempted to actually discuss anything with people who had legitimate criticisms of the game's stories. Why would I even bother talking about the game? I'm glad a lot of people here liked the game. I strongly disagree that the story is a masterpiece narrative, but I haven't talked anyone down or tried to discount anyone's opinions like a lot of other people have.

As mentioned before, I was invested because I really liked the first game's story a tremendous deal, despite hating the gameplay. So I was invested in how the story for this game would go and I have very valid reasons for why I think it's poorly written. But the game came out, it's done, and I've moved on aside from idly checking random topics on a GameFAQs message board and responding to stuff that isn't directly related to the game's story itself.

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Mobilezoid posted...

Yeah, people aren't allowed to spend time and energy talking about something as mundane as a video game (unless they like it, then spending time and energy talking about it is fine)

If you don't like a game and don't want to play it, then continuing to talk about it for weeks on end seems like a waste of time for everybody, yes.

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I remember when I feared a couple of hours ago that no one would respond because the topic had not had a post for a week.

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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

So you're saying that my opinion on the game's story shouldn't be taken seriously because I didn't play the game first then?

I think it'd be more accurate to say your opinion should be taken with a grain of salt because you read a minimal amount of plot elements, based your opinion off of that, then continued to be more and more negative as you found out additional details out of context. Despite being wrong about many elements of the plot, you hated the game before you ever watched somebody play through on stream.

It's less of a 'you didn't play it' and more a 'you made up your mind before you really experienced it at all'.

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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Who said this in this topic btw

I skimmed and might have missed it

Sorozone posted...
Maybe not playing the full game, that's fine, but I'm not going to take your opinion or perspective seriously unless you've at least played it.

"Seriously" was a poor choice of word. My bad.

My point is I'm not going to take an opinion from second hand information over someone who has played it with first hand experience. You are missing an integral part of the medium(Vision, hearing, and touch, which kudos for ND for giving so many accessibility options) unless of course you have some disability preventing you from experience the medium .

Even narratively speaking you can still potentially miss out on character building, and world building moments by just watching some streams and videos because said person skipped out on optional dialogue or items laying around in the world. Is it enough to sway your opinion the other way? Maybe(and probably) not.

You are still of course free to discuss on the narrative, story, characters, but you are still missing an entire section of the medium.

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HanOfTheNekos posted...

It's less of a 'you didn't play it' and more a 'you made up your mind before you really experienced it at all'.

All the people who went in wanting to love it are fine though

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Mobilezoid posted...

All the people who went in wanting to love it are fine though

I wouldn't agree, but if that's your opinion, you're free to have it.

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You're right, I should've said "All the people who went in wanting to love it and still loved it by the end are fine, though."

I almost opened the game up to valid criticism if someone went in wanting to love it but didn't like it. Thanks for catching my error

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Your error was injecting a weird whataboutism into the conversation out of nowhere, but I'll accept the thanks nonetheless.

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I made this topic for discussion by people who have played the game in full, for full discussion of the game. If you do not play the game you will not get the full context because the games story is integrated with every part of the gameplay. And yes, pushing buttons is important, otherwise in the Nora scene for instance they would have just made it a cutscene. Its basic design stuff, and the reason I made the bloody topic in the first place. I read the first spoiler topic after playing for a bit and got halfway through just looking at posts going thats wrong, thats wrong, thats wrong and I was not even very far in. There is a reason this is the actual spoiler topic!

Mobilezoid posted...

All the people who went in wanting to love it are fine though

Wanting to love something is not the same as deciding how you feel beforehand. We should want to love every game. Deciding you hate something is very different.

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Well, the only other way to read what you posted is that opinions are only valid if someone goes in as a blank slate with no preconceived opinions one way or the other, and that's really stupid, so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt with my interpretation

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HanOfTheNekos posted...

I think it'd be more accurate to say your opinion should be taken with a grain of salt because you read a minimal amount of plot elements, based your opinion off of that, then continued to be more and more negative as you found out additional details out of context. Despite being wrong about many elements of the plot, you hated the game before you ever watched somebody play through on stream.

It's less of a 'you didn't play it' and more a 'you made up your mind before you really experienced it at all'.

I would say this isn't accurate too.

I was actively hoping that the middle part of the game would end up justifying the leaked parts I would see, and would provide a better context and end up justifying all of it. For instance, I watched all of Abby's part of the game with a very open mind hoping they could justify her doing something so brutal and horrifying in the beginning of the game, and hoping that she would end up a good character. But instead they seemed to make utterly confusing narrative decisions with her. Like, bafflingly so.

Like her taking advantage of her drunk friend by sleeping with him when he has a pregnant girlfriend and then when asked about it the next morning just going "It meant nothing to me" is just awful. This is all after essentially telling him he should man up. Stuff like that just baffles me and makes me struggle to understand why it was in the game in the first place if the goal is for us to actually feel for this character.

I had said multiple times that it looks bad, but I'm going to have to see how it all plays out to see if it ends up truly as bad as it seems. Unfortunately, most choices in the middle of the game didn't necessarily make me feel much better about it.

But to say I went into it without an open mind isn't the truth. I went into it wanting the game to have good justification for the choices they made. It just didn't happen though.

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Mobilezoid posted...

Well, the only other way to read what you posted is that opinions are only valid if someone goes in as a blank slate with no preconceived opinions one way or the other, and that's really stupid, so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt with my interpretation

Yeah, you have no idea what I'm talking about lol.

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Mobilezoid posted...

Well, the only other way to read what you posted is that opinions are only valid if someone goes in as a blank slate with no preconceived opinions one way or the other, and that's really stupid, so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt with my interpretation

Again, idk why you keep taking it to the greatest possible extreme just to escalate things here

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Lightning Strikes posted...

I made this topic for discussion by people who have played the game in full, for full discussion of the game.

Please take note that I didn't reply until the conversation became about people who didn't ACTUALLY play it can't form a true opinion about the game.

And that I didn't even talk about the game itself until my post a few minutes ago to make a point.

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I'm just saying what you guys are saying without the wishy-washy filter over it. If it makes you sound like you're doing everything possible to discount any criticism, it's because you are

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It's not "wishy-washy" unless you think everything is black and white

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XIII_rocks posted...

Again, idk why

I think you know why

for reactions

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Maybe, but I just figured he was angry

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Roba are you using the example of my situation as me being a hypocrite or everyone else?

Doesn't really matter either way but it feels like an odd thing to pinpoint!

I actually thought it was a good example of how someone who doesn't play the game may feel differently than someone who did. I don't think anyone was arguing that her point was more/less valid because "she's one of the good ones".

Looking back one more time actually I have no idea what you're trying to say!

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I actually feel like I've been more in the middle here as I never once claimed that those who didn't play the game have less valid opinions, but rather opinions that could have been different than those that played the game because I personally feel as if that makes a difference.

Seems odd to pinpoint a specific point that I made that is entirely irrelevant to make some sort of other point.

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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

But to say I went into it without an open mind isn't the truth.

You had details wrong, said things happened without any explanation when they in fact did, and used a lot of inaccuracies to support your outrage in that other topic.

It's what made that other topic so hard to read. Clearly, the people complaining didn't have any actual experience with the game at all.

Maybe you did have a completely open mind, but I don't think that's particular believable. There was a LOT of vitriol coming from you before you even learned that Lev wasn't Abby's boyfriend.

Now, I didn't need to invoke you at all here, so I'd be pretty turd-y to say 'this is why Ctes is meaningful to talk to about issues with the game and you aren't', but that's kind of where the disconnect is, if that makes sense.


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My point is that everyone in this topic is tripping over each other trying to explain why Biscuit's opinions don't count, and the only commonality between them all is that he didn't like it and that makes him wrong. If he liked it, he'd be welcomed with open arms even if nothing else changed. Your girlfriend didn't play the game, but she still liked it so that's fine. It isn't even a factor, and it only would be if she didn't like it because then she would be wrong and that would be the reason (/excuse) why.

I just want you guys to acknowledge that negative opinions aren't inherently invalid for whatever reason. None of you can seem to get there.

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Roba, maybe lumping everyone's arguments together into a strawman and ignoring any sort of specifics isn't a good way to convince people that they're being illogical.

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You all boil down to the same argument, that the game is a flawless masterpiece and not liking it is wrong.

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This topic is going places.

Honestly this whole conversation is a complete disconnect.

Apparently me having the thought that a person's opinion on the game doesn't have the same merit as one who has is some sort of extreme?

Even though in the context of the discussion and the post I made is referencing the fact I feel like that person is missing an entire portion of the medium. Which is a big deal to me. I never even said no one can have negative or dissenting, critical thoughts on the game or the narrative, I said I wouldn't take them seriously, as opposed to someone who has.

He believes the narrative isn't affected by pushing buttons, I do. There isn't much beyond that because it's a disconnect. I think it plays a large part in the overall medium of story telling, he doesn't. Oh well.

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Mobilezoid posted...

You all boil down to the same argument, that the game is a flawless masterpiece and not liking it is wrong.

Roba, I mean this in the friendliest way possible, you should go take a nap. You're trying to accuse people of having bad arguments and you're saying what is, without a doubt, the most ridiculous thing that has been posted in this topic.

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HanOfTheNekos posted...

You had details wrong, said things happened without any explanation when they in fact did, and used a lot of inaccuracies to support your outrage in that other topic.

It's what made that other topic so hard to read. Clearly, the people complaining didn't have any actual experience with the game at all.

Maybe you did have a completely open mind, but I don't think that's particular believable. There was a LOT of vitriol coming from you before you even learned that Lev wasn't Abby's boyfriend.

Now, I didn't need to invoke you at all here, so I'd be pretty turd-y to say 'this is why Ctes is meaningful to talk to about issues with the game and you aren't', but that's kind of where the disconnect is, if that makes sense.

Let me ask this then.

Did you look at any posts I had made just a day or two leading up to the release of the game? Or any posts I had made in that topic as I was watching through the game myself to form a more accurate opinion?

I don't think it would be particularly unbelievable that I went into it with an open mind if you did so. Hell, I don't know why you guys even bothered to read the first pages of those topics when a ton of misinformation was thrown around, and ignore everything said when the game was actually out there and any inaccuracies were cleaned up.

I had purposefully went to a variety of different streamers of different backgrounds and political leanings to try avoid getting an particularly negative opinion.

Like I've never been shitty to anyone in these discussion except for pezzicle. But for whatever reasons I'm being treated like some prick who can't have a valid opinion. It's not like my opinion is based on these inaccurate leaks. I watched the damn thing. I know exactly what happens front and back and know what was wrong and what wasn't now and a lot of the time the truth of how things played out was worse than what the false leaks said.

I don't even care about discussing the game and haven't for weeks. Where I have this problem is with people trying to act like people's opinions on the story are less valid because they didn't press a button when I watched people play it and saw exactly what anyone else discussing it saw. The only difference is I didn't 'feel' a certain way.

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Mobilezoid posted...

You all boil down to the same argument, that the game is a flawless masterpiece and not liking it is wrong.

I haven't played it, so I don't know if it's good. I can say that I find certain aspects of the story disappointing, but I cannot make a claim as to the story's overall quality without having played the game first.

If you play the game and dislike it then that's fine. You're overreacting to the posts on purpose or you have terrible reading comprehension.

this topic got dumb as fuck

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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Let me ask this then.

Did you look at any posts I had made just a day or two leading up to the release of the game? Or any posts I had made in that topic as I was watching through the game myself to form a more accurate opinion?

Yeah. They all had the same flavor. Whenever you did account for something you had wrong, you usually veered it into 'it's actually worse' or stated a plain fact and made it out to be something terrible, and focused a lot on streamer reactions. Maybe you felt like you were being properly open, but it didn't come across that way at all.

And for the record, I think the 'you didn't play it' argument is being overstated. But some people might personally get a lot more experience out of playing a game vs watching it, so maybe that difference means a lot more for them, so whatever.


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Actually when I finished the game she said "this game sucks and gave me anxiety, I'm glad its over".

and then I told her that her opinion wasn't valid.

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Mobilezoid posted...

You all boil down to the same argument, that the game is a flawless masterpiece and not liking it is wrong.

You could have just said "I'm not interested in discussion, I'm only interested in shit posting" and it would have given the same message as this post.

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as for favorite/least favorite parts:

Most of Ellie's day 2 & day 3 were great. I really enjoyed some of the encounters in Hillcrest & The Seraphites. The California chapters were fun too. My horse getting blown up really caught me by surprise in day 1 too.

I really didn't like The Stadium, On Foot, The Forward Base, The Aquarium, or Winter Visit - that's five out of six of Abby's first Seattle Day 1 chapters. Total borefest.

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Lightning Strikes posted...

And yes, pushing buttons is important, otherwise in the Nora scene for instance they would have just made it a cutscene.

I sat there for at least a minute hoping that something would happen if I didn't push the button when this happened.

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Not Dave posted...

My horse getting blown up really caught me by surprise in day 1 too.

The horses are the true causalities in the series. RIP Callus and Shimmer.

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Not Dave posted...

I really didn't like The Stadium, On Foot, The Forward Base, The Aquarium, or Winter Visit - that's five out of six of Abby's first Seattle Day 1 chapters. Total borefest.

I wouldn't quite go this far but the DIY store with two pretty unsubstantial support characters, and the stuff just after that, was pretty boring. I liked the stadium because I thought it was a pretty cool idea and a great visual.

Shimmer was the biggest jumpscare in the game for me right next to the god damn Weapon Bench jumpscare, fuck them so much for that.

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ctesjbuvf posted...

Finally, the idea that you need to play the full game for your opinion to count has serious flaws. If you disliked the game after playing through a good bit of it then that's a strike against it already, it should ideally have you hooked the whole way through. Same goes if you don't like a synopsis of the game. Then that's fair. A lot of the time your intuition on such is true. If you need to play through 20+ hours to maybe not think a game was as bad as it sounds, then that's a problem too. That's a lot. And for a game as story heavy and cinematic as this one, watching it all definitely gives you a fair opinion. The idea that you would like the story much more or less if you played instead of watching is absurd to me. Minimal difference at best.

1. Yes you do need to play the full game because there are serious big picture things that happen in the last 15 minutes of the game.
2. Ideally it should have you hooked throughout - you're not wrong on that. Yet if you played only part of the game, your opinion on the whole game still carries less weight. You may have a valid complaint but you still can't talk about the game in full.
3. If you only read a synopsis of the game, you can't have a credible opinion on the game. My brother read the leaks, thought it was going to be shit, played it, and ended up calling it a masterpiece. Synopsis doesn't do anything.
4. Watching it in full gives you an opinion, but not one that matters as much as if you had played it all the way through. The player participating in the action/events is the whole purpose of a video game. It changes things.

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I see now I'm late to the conversation but yeah, you gotta play the whole game if you want me to take your opinion at full value.

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