T w e n t y S i d e d
Everyone has that one game. It doesn’t always make sense why it reaches into your brain and pokes the dopamine button so easily. It just does.
Mine is ‘Last of Us’. Though the reason why isn’t hard to figure out.
Shamus and I disagreed with the game in almost every way. It’s easily the game which we varied the most drastically. He wasn’t as much of a fan because he disliked Joel so much. Couldn’t wrap his head around that guy, disliked playing a character he felt was so foreign. Illogical. Almost every decision Joel makes is pretty much the opposite of what he would have done, so the entire game was just running red lights.
For me, I’ve never identified with any game character more completely. I “get” Joel. Nothing he did seemed unreasonable. Well… ok… I probably wouldn’t have killed EVERYONE in the fireflies hospital. Only the ones in my way. So, only most of them.
In full disclosure, for those of you who might not know, before you judge me too harshly…. I lost a daughter. I’ve lost a child. But we’re not here to discuss that.
Point is, Joel means something profoundly more to me than anyone else who hasn’t endured that particular kind of agony. Anyone who has ever had the joy of having a child knows it irrevocably changes you, usually for the better. Losing one does the same, sometimes not for the better.
Joel did nothing unacceptable to me. I don’t think what he did was ‘good’ or ‘moral’ or anything so objective. Considering the state of the planet (in game) those concepts are somewhat luxuries, anyway. I’m not going to try and make the case that murder is acceptable. It’s not what was right or wrong, but what was necessary. Like everything else in the game, it was a matter of survival. Not of his body, but his heart and mind. Losing another daughter, which is obviously how he came to view Elle, was unfathomable. The mind can only take so much.
To me…. Joel was broken. As much as the world he inhabited. I think he knew it. He never rationalized what he did, never intellectualized it as some “greater good” sacrifice like the Fireflies. He was broken and did what he needed to do to see tomorrow’s sunrise. The alternatives were shown everywhere he went. Bill chose exile. Bill’s partner, like Henry, couldn’t adapt, couldn’t adjust. They chose suicide. We all like to believe that if we face tragedy, horror or trauma we would behave rationally, perhaps heroically, and come out the other side a better person. When people are broken, they don’t get to decide how the pieces look. The brain doesn’t always operate predictably.
I never played LoU2. I didn’t have the heart at first. Then, when I heard the rumors about how Joel was treated…. I didn’t want to. Couldn’t do it.
I downloaded it last night. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Pixel City Dev Blog
An attempt to make a good looking cityscape with nothing but simple tricks and a few rectangles of light.
How to Forum
Dear people of the internet: Please stop doing these horrible idiotic things when you talk to each other.
Mass Effect Retrospective
A novel-sized analysis of the Mass Effect series that explains where it all went wrong. Spoiler: It was long before the ending.
Who Broke the In-Game Economy?
Why are RPG economies so bad? Why are shopkeepers so mercenary, why are the prices so crazy, and why do you always end up a gazillionaire by the end of the game? Can't we just have a sensible balanced economy?
Object-Disoriented Programming
C++ is a wonderful language for making horrible code.
Note that LOUP2 is quite possibly the most unpleasant, excellent game I’ve ever experienced. I did not have fun playing it at any time. But it’s very good. That’s my review.
I didn’t play it, but I did watch a whole long play, and the same applies: one of the most unpleasant, excellent games I’ve ever watched. Less fun the further you get in, very good. An experience.
And no, I do not judge that identification. That’s what parents are expected to feel, though life doesn’t always go that way. The Fireflies’ logic wasn’t even good enough to sway logic-people (as in myself), so I won’t condemn a broken man, or even “normal” person for going “uh actually how about we not kill the kid?”
Pretty much this. I’m halfway between Shamus’ take of ‘Joel was right because the Fireflies were idiots’ and ‘the writers really wanted this particular ending and didn’t quite put in the legwork to justify it’. I definitely get what they were going for with their story, but it just doesn’t really land for me.
Random Firefly:
“Hey guys, maybe we could try literally every other medical test we can possibly think of including months of observation before we cut open the miracle child’s brain?”While I’ve never played the second game, I looked up a plot synopsis of it a while ago and rolled my eyes so hard that I nearly lost my balance. Maybe it’s better to experience in person, but I have no interest in a story that seems to have nothing profound to say beyond
‘revenge is bad’ in increasingly lurid and grimdark ways.Not so profound but for me, That Game is Final Fantasy IX. It was the first properly epic JRPG I played, and somewhat ruined others in the genre for me as nothing else really stood up to it. A large part is the nostalgia factor, it was one of the first videogames I bought new with my own money and the ability to dive into a story and get completely immersed isn’t there as an adult with proper responsibilities but a lot of the magic was still there when I replayed it on PS3 and then Switch. Vivi’s search for meaning is wonderful writing, as are many of the other character arcs
Rimworld. No idea why, but I genuinely think I could play this just game for the rest of my life. It’s predictable and engaging, with just enough variation (especially with the 4000+ available mods) to keep me making new colonies despite having done everything in it at least once. We’ll see how long it lasts.
I am so sorry for your loss. My grandparents also lost a daughter, and I know how profoundly it changed them. I don’t to it’s not something you can ever truly get over…
I wonder if that’s why I personally don’t find too many characters relatable, because in general I don’t know many people nor have I done a huge range of things (e.g. had children). For my part I had no investment in Joel’s backstory, but did come to be invested in his relationship with Ellie. And until the end didn’t really have any issue with his actions (and even then, my issue was that he seemed to
kill way more hospital people than necessaryrather than the fact that he decided to do what he did which, according to the game, necessitated doing so, a point on which I disagree (just shoot them in the arm or leg, or knock them out etc.). That’s probably a discussion point in itself – the comparative mastery of games at providing depth to a backstory in setting up characters in a short amount of time. I’ve seen the introduction to Firewatch and that did hit quite hard as far as I remember.Which game clicks with me… well the ending to Pr
ince of Persia 2008 was similar in some ways, and is my gold standard for such things. But it’s the atmosphere and storytelling of the Thief trilogy that really gets me, impeccable in my mind, and unmatched. And yet having played the 3rd game and 1st game, I’m still only a part way through the second game (and remain spoiler free). Those cutscenes and interstitial quote screens are incredible.Keep us updated on your thoughts on it! Would love to hear more about your interpretations, and how you gather Shamus’ opinions would have different. My brother and I have similar yet oh so slightly different worldviews that color our opinions on media and history in interesting ways, I am sure you and Shamus are no different.