The Last Of Us 2 (Video game)

[Neil]

Oh dear! Seems the woke brigade have now had their "progressive" way with this game/sequel too... And with some storylines and footage having been leaked, people now even just discussing it on social media are being hit with copyright infringement claims from Sony, of which some of course (those not even including footage) are invalid and risk being countersued, which some folks are threatening to do!

[EvilNed]

I can't stand Nerd-rants because I can't stop to think of how insignificant whatever they're ranting about really is in the greater scheme. If these people would commit themselves one-tenth to ranting about social injustice or whatever else political cause they believed in I may have had some respect and gotten some amusement from it. But games? Come on. And by the way, the same goes for nerd culture in general.

[Neil]

I can't stand Nerd-rants because I can't stop to think of how insignificant whatever they're ranting about really is in the greater scheme. If these people would commit themselves one-tenth to ranting about social injustice or whatever else political cause they believed in I may have had some respect and gotten some amusement from it. But games? Come on. And by the way, the same goes for nerd culture in general. Understood, but we're also talking about corporations threatening people's livelihoods? People who have no doubt made considerable effort building up their channels, and now having content taken down by Sony unjustly, and also risking have their entire channels removed... So while I understand your point, it's not quite as trivial as it might seem, from a financial or indeed even social POV. These progressive agendas we see in entertainment are simply a reflection of the progressive PC antics we're seeing in society too (IMHO).

[MinionZombie]

Understood, but we're also talking about corporations threatening people's livelihoods? People who have no doubt made considerable effort building up their channels, and now having content taken down by Sony unjustly, and also risking have their entire channels removed... So while I understand your point, it's not quite as trivial as it might seem, from a financial or indeed even social POV. These progressive agendas we see in entertainment are simply a reflection of the progressive PC antics we're seeing in society too (IMHO). How is 'wokeness' (ugh, I do despise the term "woke") to blame for people having their channels shut down, though? Surely the reason is showing leaked footage? Now, sure go after that specific video and try take it down normally, but yeah, don't go after their whole channel - but then going after people for merely talking about the leaks? Get tae fuck what a piss-take. However, at the same time, it's kind of silly for Sony to even bother trying at this point, one could argue, as the horse has already bolted and the Steisand effect is well and truly underway. That footage and info is now out there. Hell, if a single Tweet can be saved and shared before it's hastily deleted two minutes later, then Sony haven't got much hope of keeping any of this under wraps. Irritating Angry Joe schtick aside, and having never played The Last Of Us, it does sound a bit rubbish to suddenly be half the time playing not as a character you care about, but some other person you don't like.

[Neil]

How is 'wokeness' (ugh, I do despise the term "woke") to blame for people having their channels shut down, though? Surely the reason is showing leaked footage? Now, sure go after that specific video and try take it down normally, but yeah, don't go after their whole channel - but then going after people for merely talking about the leaks? Get tae fuck what a piss-take. No, the "Wokeness" is on Naughty Dog's side, seemingly in the story line for no.2. Alas woke is the term that best fits the seemingly progressive agenda we see at times... And yes, unfortunately people are having videos taken down for copyright infringement and therefore getting channel/live stream strikes for doing nothing more than talking about the leaked material. Like you, I can partly understand if they'd shown footage, but even then, the individuals in question had not signed an NDA so "fair use" then applies. However, at the same time, it's kind of silly for Sony to even bother trying at this point, one could argue, as the horse has already bolted and the Steisand effect is well and truly underway. That footage and info is now out there. Hell, if a single Tweet can be saved and shared before it's hastily deleted two minutes later, then Sony haven't got much hope of keeping any of this under wraps. Irritating Angry Joe schtick aside, and having never played The Last Of Us, it does sound a bit rubbish to suddenly be half the time playing not as a character you care about, but some other person you don't like. Sony are seemingly worried about the negative response, and no doubt the $$$ it could cost them. So they're going for damage limitation it seems... But overall, it just sort of smells like so much of what's happened to so much entertainment recently, from Dr Who to Terminator, and is happening in society with gender politics being pushed to the front and center for no real reason.

[EvilNed]

Understood, but we're also talking about corporations threatening people's livelihoods? People who have no doubt made considerable effort building up their channels, and now having content taken down by Sony unjustly, and also risking have their entire channels removed... So while I understand your point, it's not quite as trivial as it might seem, from a financial or indeed even social POV. These progressive agendas we see in entertainment are simply a reflection of the progressive PC antics we're seeing in society too (IMHO). I was solely talking about how much I dislike what we've become, as a culture. How we get so emotional about games and nerd culture. It was really more of a tangent

[Tricky]

The first game is brilliant, an interesting take on the zombie apocalypse especially after the prologue when you're exploring the realistic looking decayed and overgrown world 20 years after it all happened, the characters are well written and the dialogue between them convincing. From what I've read about the new one they've gone down the route of trying to please the LGBTQ community too much which has annoyed a large amount of fans by pandering to the "woke" brigade. That's not to say it won't be a good game, but they didn't really need to do it, just the same as Battlefield 5 set in WW2 didn't need to have amputee women with robot arms running around blowing up Tiger Tanks.

[EvilNed]

The first game is brilliant, an interesting take on the zombie apocalypse especially after the prologue when you're exploring the realistic looking decayed and overgrown world 20 years after it all happened, the characters are well written and the dialogue between them convincing. From what I've read about the new one they've gone down the route of trying to please the LGBTQ community too much which has annoyed a large amount of fans by pandering to the "woke" brigade. That's not to say it won't be a good game, but they didn't really need to do it, just the same as Battlefield 5 set in WW2 didn't need to have amputee women with robot arms running around blowing up Tiger Tanks. There's a reason the phrase "get woke, go broke" seems to apply almost everytime. There's nothing wrong with expressing your opions, views or whatever through culture. But the problem seems to be that game and movie producers seem to think that a vocal minority represent the gaming majority - when it doesn't. Like the latest Terminator film. Who would want to go see a Terminator film at the cinema? Well, first off - it's guys. You can break it down even more - but that's a pretty good starting point. Ok, so we're making a film for guys. Should we feature Arnold front-and-center or two strong women? Well, if I was aiming to sell tickets I know what I'd go with...

[Neil]

I was solely talking about how much I dislike what we've become, as a culture. How we get so emotional about games and nerd culture. It was really more of a tangent Understandable, but then we're not talking about people rioting or burning flags... Simply venting emotion/views over something that's give them a lot of pleasure. eg: Consider if you'd been fishing at a lake for years and found it an enjoyable cathartic thing, only to find out, someone had thrown a bag of poison into it, so you couldn't look forward to it any more? OK! Shit bad analogy, but you get my drift hopefully - - - Updated - - - The first game is brilliant, an interesting take on the zombie apocalypse especially after the prologue when you're exploring the realistic looking decayed and overgrown world 20 years after it all happened, the characters are well written and the dialogue between them convincing. From what I've read about the new one they've gone down the route of trying to please the LGBTQ community too much which has annoyed a large amount of fans by pandering to the "woke" brigade. That's not to say it won't be a good game, but they didn't really need to do it, just the same as Battlefield 5 set in WW2 didn't need to have amputee women with robot arms running around blowing up Tiger Tanks. It's seemingly the same thing that's happened to Dr Who, Star Wars, even T2 I guess, along with goodness knows how many other bits of entertainment recently...

[MinionZombie]

It's seemingly the same thing that's happened to Dr Who, Star Wars, even T2 I guess, along with goodness knows how many other bits of entertainment recently... Totally disagreed on T2. For one thing, Twitter was years away from being a thing for idiots to vent their spleens on, with their poorly written ramblings being reported (by clickbait 'journalists') as some 'epic fallout' when it's anything but - and therefore hadn't infected the way in which movies are written/directed/advertised. Sarah Connor's trajectory in T2 is totally justified and makes narrative sense. Her getting ripped and being tooled-p isn't so she can look macho, it's because she has a mission: to protect John in order to ultimately protect the entirety of mankind when the future war comes (incidentally, I hate that T2's positive ending - they won!!! - was ignored by the subsequent sequels). She must be proficient in a multitude of disciplines (weapons, combat, guerilla tactics etc) - it's not just for poser pandering - and, even more importantly, she transformed as a character whose journey of change made sense, for one, but also cost her something. Her sanity comes loose, and while trying to protect John and bring him up to be a "great military leader" she ends up totally souring her relationship with her son - who is torn away from her by the State. Sarah Connor, in both T1 and T2 faces challenges, makes mistakes, learns, and then earns her power and successes (but not without paying a price). Rey, in The Force Awakens, on the other hand (to bring up a hotly discussed character from recent years) is some nobody from a scrap planet (who has therefore likely never flown anything) who hops in the Millennium Falcon and is immediately doing all these awesome flips and fancy flying in it. You wot? And that was after the rather awkward 'stop holding my hand' stuff (why was any of that needed?) Fortunately they put more challenges in front of Rey in #8 and #9, made her earn her stripes, but she was definitely too much a case of 'just brilliant from the get-go' ... and, well, that's boring. Where's the character development? Where's the struggle to achieve your goals? Where's the story in that journey? There's no story in being awesome and then learning to be a little bit more awesome in two hours time. That's where the key difference lies - and, indeed, one of the key problems: pandering. Nobody likes being lectured to, and really, pandering is similarly about as unpopular. Pandering presents a false vision. A handful of virtue signalling, hand-wringing, "oh isn't that worthy?" type commentators (who are able to talk very loudly while not representing all that many people in actuality, such is the problem with their echo chambers) gets it all blown out of proportion and it all becomes, as we've seen in recent years, coportate. That makes it even more gross. Car makers trying to flog you a car based on how environmental it is (to make you feel all goody two-shoes about it - yes, it should be as environmentally sound as possible, not just on fuel but also how the car is manufactured!!!, but don't patronise me FFS) ... or remember that dreadful bomb of a Gilette advert that met so much derision across the globe and cost them a shedload of money in lost sales before it was quietly shoved aside in favour of a more traditional Gilette ad? Woof. Ellen Ripley, particularly in Aliens (1986), is absolutely put through the wringer, suffers great personal loss, is faced with huge challenges - but she endures it all and earns her rewards (and our respect and adoration). The movie doesn't stop at regular intervals to make weak-arse winks at the audience to Twitter politics and the like, and her being female isn't the be-all and end-all of her character. It's taken into account, but there's no moments of "as a..." pandering or preaching. Indeed, it feels organic in the film. We sympathise with her, this mother who left her child behind to earn money, didn't make it home in time for her birthday (11th?) and, because she was floating in hyper sleep in deep space for so many years, ended up missing her child's entire life. She's got PTSD from her ordeal on the Nostromo. She suffers awful nightmares, she can't adjust to a potentially quiet life doing simple work, and steps up to the challenge of returning to the planet that caused all the mess in her life. When Gorman (who is simply not up to the job, being as green as he is) fails to act, Ripley steps in and stages a daring rescue of the marines - but she doesn't know how to drive the APC really, she hops in and gives it a go (and does a fairly sloppy job of it, arguably - she wouldn't have passed her APC driving test ), but she muddles through and manages to help rescue some of the marines. It's not a case of "oh, look at Ripley, she's a woman and therefore she's amazing", it's "oh, look at Ripley, she's amazing because she's trying to do what needs to be done despite the challenges facing her". The problem we've seen is this call for "strong female characters" which has been utterly misunderstood by so many lazy film and TV makers. They've translated that into "just kicks arse and is brilliant at everything" plus some dreadfully blunt social messaging and smug worthiness. What you/we/us actually need and want is complex female characters - hell, just complex characters in general. Although, that's not to say that simpler characters aren't effective too. The Expendables doesn't feature deep and complex characters, but works perfectly for what it is. John Wick isn't some Shakespearean drama of great depth, but it doesn't need to be. Halle Berry was kind of a 'female John Wick' in #3, but her being female was never brought up (i.e. crammed into the dialogue), and Berry absolutely earned my respect as you could see she put in the graft to be that proficient with weapons. She earned it. Generally, it's a case of horses for courses, is what it is - what suits. There's no doubt been some terribly written female characters in the past (although in some of these films that get slammed for such rubbishness, I do wonder if the complainers bother to see how rubbish all the male characters - and the general story - has been written as well, but that would be a fuller picture of things and not a slapdash hashtag, wouldn't it?) It's kind of like how slasher movies get slagged off for being misogynist because women get killed in that - and yet, in the golden age of the slashers (1978-1984), more than half of the victims in slasher movies are male. But you don't see many folks calling them misandrist, do you? That, in-turn, flags up another issue: the new double standard, and hypocrisy in general. Normal folks out there (i.e. not the spleen venters of Twitter), the majority of people, can't be doing with that bullshit. It's also kind of insulting, really, as if females or gay people or whomever cannot (or are not allowed to) exist outside of their random twists of genetic fate. Ironically, the 'woke folk' are perpetuating otherness by constantly segregating people based on their rude bits or their skin colour etc. It's really quite grotesque. They weaponise these elements and push them to the fore in such a blunt manner that it all becomes rather gross and off-putting. It's quite unrealistic to how people actually are in real life. Regardless of race/sex/gender/nationality/sexuality/etc, the vast majority of people on Earth are decent and, certainly in-person, don't carry on like the Twittersphere (or corporate entities utterly desperate to be 'on trend'). There's ways to not do it (e.g. Ghostbusters 2016) and ways to do it (e.g. Atomic Blonde). Bit of a rant there, I'll freely admit. Okay, I'll shut it.

[Neil]

Totally disagreed on T2. For one thing, Twitter was years away from being a thing for idiots to vent their spleens on, with their poorly written ramblings being reported (by clickbait 'journalists') as some 'epic fallout' when it's anything but - and therefore hadn't infected the way in which movies are written/directed/advertised. Sarah Connor's trajectory in T2 is totally justified and makes narrative sense. Her getting ripped and being tooled-p isn't so she can look macho, it's because she has a mission: to protect John in order to ultimately protect the entirety of mankind when the future war comes (incidentally, I hate that T2's positive ending - they won!!! - was ignored by the subsequent sequels). She must be proficient in a multitude of disciplines (weapons, combat, guerilla tactics etc) - it's not just for poser pandering - and, even more importantly, she transformed as a character whose journey of change made sense, for one, but also cost her something. Her sanity comes loose, and while trying to protect John and bring him up to be a "great military leader" she ends up totally souring her relationship with her son - who is torn away from her by the State. Sarah Connor, in both T1 and T2 faces challenges, makes mistakes, learns, and then earns her power and successes (but not without paying a price). Rey, in The Force Awakens, on the other hand (to bring up a hotly discussed character from recent years) is some nobody from a scrap planet (who has therefore likely never flown anything) who hops in the Millennium Falcon and is immediately doing all these awesome flips and fancy flying in it. You wot? And that was after the rather awkward 'stop holding my hand' stuff (why was any of that needed?) Fortunately they put more challenges in front of Rey in #8 and #9, made her earn her stripes, but she was definitely too much a case of 'just brilliant from the get-go' ... and, well, that's boring. Where's the character development? Where's the struggle to achieve your goals? Where's the story in that journey? There's no story in being awesome and then learning to be a little bit more awesome in two hours time. That's where the key difference lies - and, indeed, one of the key problems: pandering. Nobody likes being lectured to, and really, pandering is similarly about as unpopular. Pandering presents a false vision. A handful of virtue signalling, hand-wringing, "oh isn't that worthy?" type commentators (who are able to talk very loudly while not representing all that many people in actuality, such is the problem with their echo chambers) gets it all blown out of proportion and it all becomes, as we've seen in recent years, coportate. That makes it even more gross. Car makers trying to flog you a car based on how environmental it is (to make you feel all goody two-shoes about it - yes, it should be as environmentally sound as possible, not just on fuel but also how the car is manufactured!!!, but don't patronise me FFS) ... or remember that dreadful bomb of a Gilette advert that met so much derision across the globe and cost them a shedload of money in lost sales before it was quietly shoved aside in favour of a more traditional Gilette ad? Woof. Ellen Ripley, particularly in Aliens (1986), is absolutely put through the wringer, suffers great personal loss, is faced with huge challenges - but she endures it all and earns her rewards (and our respect and adoration). The movie doesn't stop at regular intervals to make weak-arse winks at the audience to Twitter politics and the like, and her being female isn't the be-all and end-all of her character. It's taken into account, but there's no moments of "as a..." pandering or preaching. Indeed, it feels organic in the film. We sympathise with her, this mother who left her child behind to earn money, didn't make it home in time for her birthday (11th?) and, because she was floating in hyper sleep in deep space for so many years, ended up missing her child's entire life. She's got PTSD from her ordeal on the Nostromo. She suffers awful nightmares, she can't adjust to a potentially quiet life doing simple work, and steps up to the challenge of returning to the planet that caused all the mess in her life. When Gorman (who is simply not up to the job, being as green as he is) fails to act, Ripley steps in and stages a daring rescue of the marines - but she doesn't know how to drive the APC really, she hops in and gives it a go (and does a fairly sloppy job of it, arguably - she wouldn't have passed her APC driving test ), but she muddles through and manages to help rescue some of the marines. It's not a case of "oh, look at Ripley, she's a woman and therefore she's amazing", it's "oh, look at Ripley, she's amazing because she's trying to do what needs to be done despite the challenges facing her". The problem we've seen is this call for "strong female characters" which has been utterly misunderstood by so many lazy film and TV makers. They've translated that into "just kicks arse and is brilliant at everything" plus some dreadfully blunt social messaging and smug worthiness. What you/we/us actually need and want is complex female characters - hell, just complex characters in general. Although, that's not to say that simpler characters aren't effective too. The Expendables doesn't feature deep and complex characters, but works perfectly for what it is. John Wick isn't some Shakespearean drama of great depth, but it doesn't need to be. Halle Berry was kind of a 'female John Wick' in #3, but her being female was never brought up (i.e. crammed into the dialogue), and Berry absolutely earned my respect as you could see she put in the graft to be that proficient with weapons. She earned it. Generally, it's a case of horses for courses, is what it is - what suits. There's no doubt been some terribly written female characters in the past (although in some of these films that get slammed for such rubbishness, I do wonder if the complainers bother to see how rubbish all the male characters - and the general story - has been written as well, but that would be a fuller picture of things and not a slapdash hashtag, wouldn't it?) It's kind of like how slasher movies get slagged off for being misogynist because women get killed in that - and yet, in the golden age of the slashers (1978-1984), more than half of the victims in slasher movies are male. But you don't see many folks calling them misandrist, do you? That, in-turn, flags up another issue: the new double standard, and hypocrisy in general. Normal folks out there (i.e. not the spleen venters of Twitter), the majority of people, can't be doing with that bullshit. It's also kind of insulting, really, as if females or gay people or whomever cannot (or are not allowed to) exist outside of their random twists of genetic fate. Ironically, the 'woke folk' are perpetuating otherness by constantly segregating people based on their rude bits or their skin colour etc. It's really quite grotesque. They weaponise these elements and push them to the fore in such a blunt manner that it all becomes rather gross and off-putting. It's quite unrealistic to how people actually are in real life. Regardless of race/sex/gender/nationality/sexuality/etc, the vast majority of people on Earth are decent and, certainly in-person, don't carry on like the Twittersphere (or corporate entities utterly desperate to be 'on trend'). There's ways to not do it (e.g. Ghostbusters 2016) and ways to do it (e.g. Atomic Blonde). Bit of a rant there, I'll freely admit. Okay, I'll shut it. Agreed, but T2 [EDIT: Mean the latest Terminator flick]? John Connor being killed at the beginning without a single word said, so we can seemingly instead then have "strong Latino girl" in his place?

[shootemindehead]

I was solely talking about how much I dislike what we've become, as a culture. How we get so emotional about games and nerd culture. It was really more of a tangent It's too many people with far too much time on their hands and being saturated with shitty, childish, American identity politics that focuses on nonsense, so people are misdirected away from the social issues that actually matter. - - - Updated - - - Totally disagreed on T2..... ....Bit of a rant there, I'll freely admit. Okay, I'll shut it. The most perplexing thing to come out of all this "woke" (I hate that term too) nonsense is why do studio execs and companies think that this is a viable marketing tool? When all of the evidence suggests that it's actually detrimental to sales of your product. Is it simply to generate pre-release copy and caution be damned? A no "such thing as bad publicity" schtick? Which, BTW, has always been bunkum. Do they feed this stuff out, so that gobshites on YouTube, with silly names like "White-Wolf", or whatever, can get in a tizzy and go mental in one of their stupid videos, blaming "SJW's" on all the ills of the world?

[Neil]

It's too many people with far too much time on their hands and being saturated with shitty, childish, American identity politics that focuses on nonsense, so people are misdirected away from the social issues that actually matter. True, but people can be frustrated by their entertainment being needlessly messed up as well as being balanced enough to be concerned about "third world problems"? Angry Joe reviews official trailer... Which is a tad more positive

[MinionZombie]

Agreed, but T2? John Connor being killed at the beginning without a single word said, so we can seemingly instead then have "strong Latino girl" in his place? That doesn't happen in T2 ... it happens in T6 ... also, while still having not seen T6 yet, I do agree that killing off John is an idiotic idea that spits in the face of everything that came before it.

[Neil]

That doesn't happen in T2 ... it happens in T6 ... also, while still having not seen T6 yet, I do agree that killing off John is an idiotic idea that spits in the face of everything that came before it. Sorry! My bad... Yes typo, I meant the latest Terminator... [Apologies if it was a spoiler for you]