{"id":25006,"date":"2014-11-14T16:10:44","date_gmt":"2014-11-14T21:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=25006"},"modified":"2014-11-14T18:42:49","modified_gmt":"2014-11-14T23:42:49","slug":"the-last-of-us-ep21-escape-from-pittsburgh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=25006","title":{"rendered":"The Last of Us EP21: Escape From Pittsburgh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><table class='nomargin' cellspacing='0' width='100%' cellpadding='0' align='center' border='0'><tr><td><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CkCkFaPXtCE\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen class=\"embed\"><\/iframe><br\/><small><a href='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CkCkFaPXtCE'>Link (YouTube)<\/a><\/small><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n<p>Once again the game demonstrates how bad it is at setting up fights with humans. What&#8217;s the deal with this moron sniper? Does he really sit in that sniper nest 24\/7, just waiting to shoot random families as they attempt to pass through? <\/p>\n<p><em>Hey idiot, how about you put up a sign to warn people away BEFORE they drop down off that wall? How about you just POINT your guns at people and TELL THEM to leave, rather than expending precious bullets on a risky firefight? And while we&#8217;re at it, what&#8217;s the point in telling people to go back the way they came when you KNOW it&#8217;s physically impossible to do so? Even if you&#8217;re so amoral that you&#8217;re willing to gun down travelers who don&#8217;t mean you any harm, and so stupid you can&#8217;t see the value in trade and news, this is still a completely bone-headed approach to security.  You are deliberately putting people in a position where they will have no choice but to shoot back. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>But of course the only reason this guy acts this way is because he&#8217;s a videogame monster. And I could swallow the idea that one lunatic would just snipe people for giggles, but this is yet another village of bloodthirsty buttheads who only exist because videogame. <\/p>\n<p>The only thing less plausible than these raiders is the idea that we could possibly prevail against them. Even allowing for their complete lack of strategy,  the idea that two men and two children could charge head-first into this fortified sniper nest is ridiculous.<\/p>\n<p>And speaking of strategy, how stupid are these guys? Let&#8217;s see&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Why are you shouting at your targets while sniping at them, which makes it easy for them to find you?<\/li>\n<li>Why did you leave all this handy cover all over the street?\n<li>Why are you sending guys with MELEE WEAPONS to attack the people you&#8217;re trying to snipe?\n<li>Why are you shooting at them anyway, despite the risk of friendly fire?\n<li>Why is everyone pouring out into the street instead of making the visitors assault your entrenched position?\n<li>Why are you missing all the time like a complete loser?\n<li>Why did your second-wave reserves wait so long to join the fight?\n<li>Once the intruder took the sniper nest, why did you assault it anyway? There was nothing in the house worth having! (Aside from the sniper rifle with infinite ammo, although since Joel doesn&#8217;t take it I guess this counts as a fault for both sides.) What are you spending your lives for?\n<li>Why did you STEP OUT INTO THE OPEN to murder a child?\n<li>Why are you taking cover on the wrong side of objects?\n<li>How did you manage to build barricades that will keep intruders (and I assume yourselves) trapped in your sniper alley, but don&#8217;t keep out zombies? (Or were the zombies hiding in that house and nobody noticed them? Doesn&#8217;t matter. It&#8217;s nonsense either way.)\n<\/ol>\n<p>So they may be pure chaotic evil, but they make up for it by being chaotic stupid. Um&#8230; yay? <\/p>\n<p>BUT!<\/p>\n<p>Okay, credit where it&#8217;s due: The scene with Sam falls right into a bunch of obvious zombie tropes, but they make it work anyway. This is a powerful moment. The contrast between the incompetence of the manshoots and the mastery of the storytelling is really stark.  <\/p>\n<p>Dear Naughty Dog: <strong>This is specifically why we tell zombie stories in the first place<\/strong>, so we can have never-ending waves of dangerous stuff to kill without needing to explain their motivations and behavior. You made a zombie game where we spend most of our non-cutscene time shooting non-zombies that make no sense and poke holes in both the worldbuilding and the tone. You make me sad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Link (YouTube) Once again the game demonstrates how bad it is at setting up fights with humans. What&#8217;s the deal with this moron sniper? Does he really sit in that sniper nest 24\/7, just waiting to shoot random families as they attempt to pass through? Hey idiot, how about you put up a sign to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[188],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spoilerwarning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25006\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}