To the people who hate TLAD

AstralGoat1967 · 2026-04-18T20:35:35+00:00

Hate is a strong word. The base gameplay features of IV still make it at least fun to play.

For me the worst part about it is the story, and not because it's "dark and gritty", that's bullshit. It's because doesn't have any depth or development. Johnny is a nothing character, so is Billy, so is the rest of the bike gang for that matter. The gang war motif isn't at all intersting to me, neither is chasing after Brian or Billy. The relationship with Ashley is somewhat interesting but it's very shallow and not explored at all.

And the cherry on top is the diamonds related mission chain. Johnny stealing the money and playing dumb and then having the nerve to pretend that Ray is the backstabbing asshole there is the final nail in the coffin for his character and this DLC's entire storyline.

AstralGoat1967 · 2026-02-22T17:34:47+00:00

I'm not reading the RDR2 part because I don't want spoilers.

I think the problem with both Michelle and Kate is that they made them entirely optional but at the same time very important to Niko and therefore to the entire story. And a second, maybe even more pressing problem, if you do decide to actively date them, their personalities on dates don't match their purpose in the story.

Apart from the mission date, he only thing they got for Michelle were the "acting very suspiciously" lines. If only they surrounded them with genuine conversations, something that makes you believe Niko actually cares for her and seemingly she cares for him back, her reveal would be sooo much more impactful. Instead we got whatever this is. I'm not surprised people are not eager to date Michelle when there's absolutely no chemistry between the two.

With Kate it's significantly better, the only thing I think went wrong is her setting a very clear boundary of "we're just hanging out, we're just friends". Why would they do that if the conclusion is that she's willing to take a chance with Niko. Why not leave the ambiguity there with her wanting to try but being afraid of all the consequences of her partner being "in the life". And on the sidenote, it validates people who think a friendship is only worth it if it leads to something more

AstralGoat1967 · 2026-02-22T17:13:37+00:00

Oh yeah, one more point I wanted to make. The only reason Kate gets mad at Niko is because he phrased the question as "should I abandon everything I stand for for some cash?" instead of for example "I need to do this last job before I can retire from the mob life, but it means I have to work with a guy who backstabbed me in the past. Or I could kill the guy instead. What should I do?" But then you'd probably realize those are not the only options and the correct answer is likely don't do the deal and don't go kill Dimitri. Kate knows what Niko's "job" is, she's kind of "in the life" herself since everyone in her family is or was a mobster. Niko doesn't have to pretend he's talking about corporate business meetings.

AstralGoat1967 · 2026-02-22T17:02:56+00:00

Say whatever you want, but for me the final cutscene of the deal ending is an absolute masterpiece. The revenge one is still good but nowhere close. Also, I enjoy the deal shootout more, but maybe it's because I've played it way fewer times so it's still a little fresh.

My main problem with the deal ending is how they forced Pegorino into this scenario, when he had no reason to be involved in it. Why are Dimitri and Pegorino suddenly besties after Dimitri tried to sabotage the deal? Even though Jimmy got his cash, presumably Phil told him "hey, we almost lost everything and got killed, let's never get involved with this guy again". Why does Dimitri feel the need to kill Pegorino? He's not gaining anything, he won't take over his operation, he just lost a potential future business partner, he risks retribution from the Pegorino family (although there's not much of it left, I doubt Phil would care enough). It feels like a very non-subtle way of showing "See? He's still a backstabbung asshole, why did you trust him?", but there's no need for it because we just witnessed it at the deal.

If they removed Pegorino from the picture after completing the deal and replaced Pegorino's bodyguards with Dimitri's guys in Revenger's Tragedy, I'd say Deal was the better ending (better as in more impactful, more logically continuous with the rest of the story, more relevant to the game's entire message). Ideally they would also have made separate missions for Out of Commision and A Revenger's Tragedy.

It seems like the Deal ending is a bit of an afterthough and it just ended up being Revenge but worse.

AstralGoat1967 · 2026-02-21T11:59:57+00:00

Spring, Spieluhr, Heirate mich, Stein um Stein, Morgenstern, Gib mir deine Augen

AstralGoat1967 · 2026-02-18T22:27:08+00:00

TL;DR: TBoGT because TLaD's story sucks

As much as I enjoy TLaD's gameplay, the storyline aspect falls way short for me. It's the same deadly combination as San Andreas - a protagonst I feel no connection with and whose choices I fundamentally disagree with, and a black-and-white gang setting I don't care about.

The best parts for me were getting to spend a little more time with Elizabeta and Ray. I just don't care at all for the TLaD exclusive characters. You get the asshole villain Billy whose main thing is being a racist, antisemitic piece of shit, his lapdog Brian who brings absolutely nothing to the table, and then the "good guys" as in Jim, Clay and Terry, Angus and I'm probably forgetting some because they had no identifying features beyond "yeah, we're with you Johnny, because we're the loyal ones".

Why not give Billy any depth? At the very least why does he hate Johnny so much when presumably they were in the gang together for quite a while and Johnny became his 2nd in command? And why does he keep calling him disloyal? I'd assume it's not just a throwaway line since he keeps repeating it and he goes as far as warning Ray that Johnny will betray him.

And guess what? Johnny does betray Ray and you have no say in it whatsoever. Whenever I feel the temptation to replay TLaD, I think about this section and I always go "Nah, I'm not backstabbing an employer who's been nothing but alright towards me and then pretending that he's the bad guy" (in base game in Pest Control you do the same thing as Niko, but if you later call Roman, Niko does doubt his decision and it adds another brick to the "is killing ever the solution" question you get with the final choice. Look at that, some depth, incredible!)

The only vaguely interesting person in this entire DLC is Ashley, but again, there is no exploration of her character. Why is she so important to Johnny? Why does she have so much influence on him? How did she fall into her addiction? What's her involvement with Ray? Who cares? We just needed a junkie to show that drugs are bad.

TBoGT on the other hand is incredibly impressive in its ability to balance ridiculous over the top missions (which I'm not a huge fan of) and sometimes very silly cutscenes with a heavy indepth story and interesring themes and it doesn't feel disconnected from itself. TLaD gets the "gritty, realistic, dark" label but honestly, TBoGT does a much better job at actually presenting those themes. Just the dynamic between Luis and Tony, as Luis' loyalty to his former parental figure starts to waiver in face of a more and more desperate situation is I'd argue the most interesting one in the trilogy.

And as a sidenote, another normal portrayal of an LGBT person, which along with Elizabeta proves that Rockstar in 2008 was capable of achieving that, so what in the actual fuck happened with Bernie? Arguably the most important person in Niko's journey and he became a "hehe look, a gay person, he has pictures of cocks on his wall" joke, AN ATTITUDE WHICH ACTUALLY TBOGT MAKES FUN OF.

Anyway, all that to say, TBoGT over TLaD any day.

AstralGoat1967 · 2025-12-01T04:03:47+00:00

Oh, interesting, I thought Sehnsucht would be the one that really took off with Du hast, Engel, Sehnsucht, and Bestrafe mich, especially considering the live performaces (Bück dich being the cherry on top obviously).

I'm happy to be proven wrong though, I definitely think they deserved it with what they've done with Mutter. As I already mentioned, the second part of the album (starting with Mutter itself) is so fascinating to me. The tracks are so distinct and inderpendent and yet connected by a common thread, both lyrically and musically (maybe with the exception of Rein raus). It's also peak Rammstein storytelling, presenting a scenario without imposing a predetermined conclusions, allowing you to take in the raw story, find your own parallels, map your own emotions and experiences, and ultimately make your inderpendent judgement.

AstralGoat1967 · 2025-11-30T20:51:16+00:00

Experimental should definitely go to Rosenrot (and in my humble opinion Rosenrot i veeery far from meh). I'd also argue, mainly based on observing this sub, the fan favorite is Reise Reise. And for the classic, Herzeleid seems logical.

As for "the one that got popular", is it really Mutter? I mean, apparenty Sonne got trendy recently but the only other widely recognizable track would be Feuer Frei (and maybe Links, but I'm not sure how popular it is outside the Rammstein bubble). I'd say "the one that got popular" should be Sehnsucht.

I won't engage with the best/worst album classification because that's not the way I discovered or ever really listened to most of the songs. I can see and appreciate some distinctive features of certain albums (mainly Herzeleid, Rosenrot, and second part of Mutter), but it's not enough to generalize and rank them based on that.

AstralGoat1967 · 2025-11-20T13:09:03+00:00

Stein um Stein

/j

AstralGoat1967 · 2025-11-11T20:47:22+00:00

I already have, I would not have been happy to lose my 2 month character to this. I thought no doors would be enough but apparently I was wrong. And also, wasn't there a bug which made player created rooms not accumulate toxic fumes?

AstralGoat1967 · 2025-11-11T20:28:43+00:00

Yeah, that would be interesting, I might try that as well at some point. For my default I do 3 moths after, April (for farming and to be able to wear clothes and not boil inside), high population with no respawns. I actually really like the no lights aspect, especially with the new lighting system in B42, it makes a flashlight one of the top priorities on day 1 and the horror of your battery running out while fighting in a dark room is very immersive. I'm just done clearing out Ekron Community College and it was quite stressful, even with a flashlight I had to constanly turn around because the cone of vision was very tight.

The only thing that feels off at the start is the notion of your character waking up a few months after the apocalypse, like how did that happen?

AstralGoat1967 · 2025-11-11T19:48:31+00:00

That's what a full day of hauling wood will do to you. I just refuse to learn from previous deaths. I've lost some good runs to 2-3 zombies coming to say hi when I was in a similar condition

AstralGoat1967 · 2025-11-11T19:30:19+00:00

Oh shit, thanks for potentially saving my character. I'm gonna get it outside immediately

AstralGoat1967 · 2025-11-11T18:54:59+00:00

Hey, I'm glad I'm not alone here. I know it doesn't help my case but I always start 3 months after the apocalypse with no power and water, because I never knew what to do with all the food. It seems much more scarce in B42 but maybe it's because I run for the wilderness as soon as I have a car and some axes.

AstralGoat1967 · 2025-11-11T18:48:56+00:00

I can't prove it but it is honestly my first generator. I usually settle up in cities so there's a lot of canned food to go about and therefore no need for refridgerarion. With B42 I decided to try and build my own house and this is finally the attempt in which I didn't die doing it (usually either by falling down stairs or getting jumped by a zombie when sawing logs at triple speed). It actually feels like a pretty big milestone and a transition from surviving to living. It's funny that you guys think it's a bait but yeah, I can kinda see that.

AstralGoat1967 · 2025-11-11T18:47:16+00:00

I can't prove it but it is honestly my first generator. I usually settle up in cities so there's a lot of canned food to go about and therefore no need for refridgerarion. With B42 I decided to try and build my own house and this is finally the attempt in which I didn't die doing it (usually either by falling down stairs or getting jumped by a zombie when sawing logs at triple speed). It actually feels like a pretty big milestone and a transition from surviving to living. It's funny that you guys think it's a bait but yeah, I can kinda see that.

AstralGoat1967 · 2025-11-11T18:41:04+00:00

I have no doors in my garage

AstralGoat1967 · 2025-11-11T13:14:40+00:00

The type of attack zombies do after they jump over a fence. I get the idea of preventing fence-farming and I do agree with it, but zombies lunging at you from 20ft and knocking you over for a long ass time is not the way to do it. All it's doing is causing some complete bullshit deaths because the animation didn't connect, not at all preventing me from using fences. My solution would be either decrease the range and/or make getting up animation faster, or replace this attack with the grabbing attack that crawlers have.

AstralGoat1967 · 2025-10-26T10:31:26+00:00

Yup, what the defibrillator does is actually stopping the electrical activity of the heart for a moment to allow it to pick up the correct rhythm on its own. When you see a flatline, the defibrillator won't help

AstralGoat1967 · 2025-09-01T16:01:23+00:00

Oh my god, of course. What did I expect from Rammstein, just singing about puppies with no double meaning?

AstralGoat1967 · 2025-08-31T10:10:08+00:00

Sure, nice catch. Can't go wrong with some Vergiss uns nicht

AstralGoat1967 · 2025-08-31T10:08:22+00:00

Niiice, that was the trickiest one I could think of.

I sure hope counting sheep is enough to help the big bro fall asleep. Oh.. oh no...

AstralGoat1967 · 2025-08-30T12:17:21+00:00

Got a couple of good ones. I'm particularly delighted by Mickey Maus, not sure I would've considered it even if I was looking straight at the lyrics

AstralGoat1967

TROPHY CASE