As another little extra for our $2 per month patrons, Jacob, Brian and Jay chat have a chat about Naughty Dog's seemingly divisive The Last of Us Part II.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/38991945

Awesome. I'll be diving into this one tonight.

Really enjoying this, but just to pause to say I really like Jay's observation about how the 'minor' members of the dev team have been celebrated for their individual contributions. I love all of that kind of detail and this game is astonishing for it. One thing I particularly noticed was the sheer range of rain sound effects depending on the surface and where you are. At one point I took shelter inside a metal container and while it's not new these days necessarily to have an echoey rain on metal sound in such a scenario, it was the specificity of moving from that insular effect, to stepping out into rain on tarmac, and then to a splishy sploshy rain on deep puddles, and then to a running water sound. It's absolutely extraordinary.

There are so many little details permeating the games design that I feel that even on my third playthrough I'm still clocking some of these things for the first time.

I’ll never play this but very happy to hear all about it. Thanks!

stvnorman wrote: ↑July 8th, 2020, 8:52 pm I’ll never play this but very happy to hear all about it. Thanks!

Interesting, how come you'll never play it?

JaySevenZero wrote: ↑July 9th, 2020, 10:12 am

stvnorman wrote: ↑July 8th, 2020, 8:52 pm I’ll never play this but very happy to hear all about it. Thanks!

Interesting, how come you'll never play it?

Just never got on with the first one. Gave it 3-4 hours, but too much stealth (meaning more than none) and too many Walking Dead vibes (which I also don’t like) for me, and I assume this is more of the same. But they are both clearly very impressive games and I’m more than happy to hear what other people that do enjoy them think!

FWIW, the first five hours are a bit slow, but it gets exponentially more interesting both narratively and...ludically. Is that a word?