fraser

It's interesting that people are saying "violence against women" in the game would be problematic if dealt out by the player. There's a lot of brutal death animations when you play as Ellie and the game doesn't shy away from that stuff with the whole David section. Add the 14 years old fact to that, it's pretty messed up.

And seeing as Naughty Dog seem to spend the whole game denying player agency through letting you play as various characters/making Joel a complete bastard by the end who you can't help but feel separate from. I don't think they see player conducted violence as anything different to cutscene violence/violence against the player. You think they'd be a bit more likely to include more female bandits or at least diversify the genders a bit, I don't really get the feeling they were worried about a backlash or anything.

(Probably went spoiler tag heavy there but I don't want to ruin any part of the game for anyone!)

To echo the "Joel isn't a good guy" sentiment of people above me in this thread, has anyone read Brendan Keogh's crazy full length book Killing is Harmless on Spec Ops: The Line? It's an interesting experiment/read, but there's a bit in it where he talks about Nolan North voicing the protagonist in Spec Ops and how it makes him feel about Uncharted (and every video game protagonist):

“The Line isn’t about Nathan Drake going insane; it is about how Nathan Drake was always insane to begin with.”

This pretty much sums up Joel for me. People are talking a lot about how TLOU is the antithesis of Uncharted, but that it couldn't have been made if Naughty Dog hadn't made Uncharted first. I think I agree. Highlighting Joel's craziness and sinister motives seem like an explicit admission by Naughty Dog of the potential problems of their previous protagonist.

The one thing I'll say about the shooting sections is that I found the infinite ammo sections totally jarring in a game that requires you to always know how many shots are left in your gun. And that the compulsory run-and-gun moments took the fun away from the "take out these enemies however you want" ethos that made the rest of the game so enjoyable.

I had to watch Michael Snow's Wavelength (twice) followed by his film Back and Forth in one sitting. That was pretty hard.

I tend to find films that set up a revenge plot then follow it through with 30 minutes of violent "payback" hard to watch - I hate the buildup and the violent purge tends to disturb me just as much - so probably Bedevilled/Straw Dogs/29 Palms (if that counts). I couldn't sit through Lee Chang-dong's Oasis, but that was probably just my mood.

Also, August Underground anyone?

@jazgalaxy: Kinda late to this thread but there's some nice foreshadowing in the lyrics of Girl's Just Wanna Have Fun, even if they're not in the instrumental in-game version:

"Some boys take a beautiful girl

And hide her away from the rest of the world

I want to be the one to walk in the sun

Oh girls they want to have fun"

Not so much "foreshadowing" as a nice description of Elizabeth as the game progresses.

Thank you for being the nicest of men Dave! All the best to you and your family, you'll be sorely missed (if you don't make frequent un-paid appearances!)

I didn't call any of the character plotlines but I was suspicious of the lighthouse from the very start. I kinda thought it was a thematic similarity, a nod to the original game, or maybe a suggestion that Columbia lead to Rapture more explicitly.

I've been trying to pay a lot more attention to the start of films/games at the moment too, so I guessed that the people in the boat at the start were the twins, which made me think the lighthouse would definitely have a role to play later on.

To be honest though, I didn't expect that to be its role!

The gamertag/psn ID that made me laugh the most was "memorabilia".

I cannot think of more of a non-thing, it literally invokes nothing.

I love you.

I've never had any problems with ShopTo and I've been using them for over 3 years.

I actually preordered Persona 4 Golden from them yesterday, and it arrived today despite not being released until Friday. Their website is peculiar though. They even let you see a photograph of your parcel before they dispatch it!

MSG3?

Closest a story based game has come to perfection in my opinion. Would perhaps be perfect if someone cut out half of the patronising, explanatory cutscenes.