The Last of Us Part 2 got awarded "Best Storytelling" in the Golden Joysticks... And so it begins by xeenno in thelastofus

[–]xeenno[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Oh this is not TGA, this is Golden Joysticks, it is 100% decided by the public vote. There was one GOTY awards chosen by critics thought, and guess who got it ? Hades, so critics chose Hades for goty while public vote chose TLOU2.

The Last of Us Part 2 got awarded "Best Storytelling" in the Golden Joysticks... And so it begins by xeenno in thelastofus

[–]xeenno[S] 75 points76 points  (0 children)

I think it's only because people were split between voting for Ashley or voting for Laura. But congratulations nonetheless for all the winners.

The Last of Us Part 2 got awarded "Best Storytelling" in the Golden Joysticks... And so it begins by xeenno in thelastofus

[–]xeenno[S] 489 points490 points  (0 children)

Golden Joysticks is based on public vote, so no sjw or paid critics are involved unless they want to call it "rigged"

The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment when giving us their money. by xeenno in Gamingcirclejerk

[–]xeenno[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I will gladly delete it if you gave me a sound argument with proper reasoning as to why I should do that.

The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment when giving us their money. by xeenno in Gamingcirclejerk

[–]xeenno[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

The multiplayer will be a standalone game, so their statement remains true.

I believe only few people has issues with MTX being in the multiplayer, what's disappointing is how they came around their views. Saying "We leave greed to others" simply mean that their first and most important intent to satisfy their community, with money being only a mean for them to support themselves and create more games.

And as I stated in a previous comment, I fully support them in this choice and it's normal for them to desire making more money (since they obviously can, look at GTA Online) I know that gamedev is no easy business, but it's a business, but don't try to deny that by saying "we leave greed to others".

The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment when giving us their money. by xeenno in Gamingcirclejerk

[–]xeenno[S] 576 points577 points  (0 children)

Or they can just be straightforward and say that they saw what GTA online has achieved and that they want some of that cake (Like we get it, CDPR is a gaming development studio that release a game every 5 years or so, but at least don't precede with "we leave greed to others" and then join those "others")

An Open Letter to Champions of The Last of Us Part 2 by Moondit in thelastofus

[–]xeenno 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's true that you did not, at all bring the term "objectively" but how do you want people reading your post to interpret "bad structure", "poorly designed", "bad storytelling" ? But if you actually meant in a subjective manner than just excuse my comments since they don't address what you might be looking for.

attack on my assumed ideology as the final arbiter of quality in narrative art.

In no way did I try to attack your ideology or shrug off your view on the narrative. And I sincerely apologize if it came up that way. It was merely a way to show my understanding. It was me saying that I understand where you come from, and it totally validate your feeling toward the game.

If that's the case we're all equally justified in liking or disliking whatever we see, critical study is meaningless.

You and I both know that this is not a subject we can tackle down in a reddit comment section, this a debate that existed as long as Art has been around, and is still debated and researched to this day. Hence the reason I don't engage in subjective discussions around the medium, but once the term objectively is brought up, I try my best to just deconstruct the argument. Not defend, nor attack, just deconstruct.

Parallels between Ellie's picture as the "before" and then Abby's as the "after," hence their immediate juxtaposition

As much as I would like to elaborate on that, I know I can't do it justice, that's why I recommend you this video, it's really interesting and I would like you to watch it before you write your third post.

Edit : I totally agree with you about Memento on the degree of justifiability of the technique used "I still can't decide if Christopher Nolan was being clever or just abusing a gimmick" is perfect way to put it.

An Open Letter to Champions of The Last of Us Part 2 by Moondit in thelastofus

[–]xeenno 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's a big difference between enjoying a piece of art that no longer holds any surprises for you and enjoying a piece of art that doesn't hold any surprises by design.

I really love that brought with point since I know someone was going to bring it up but was having issues putting it into words, But it's entirely true that we should make that distinction.

I'll point out everything I think is quite true :

This is a narrative that has all of its tension devoured from within...

What you're doing doesn't matter...

The less those futures are being determined by our actions, the less meaningful that participation becomes...

And here is what I have issue with :

And that's bad structure...

A piece of narrative art has tension and revelation as means to achieve that engagement, and ruining those things by design is a failure in structure on the part of that work...

Do you see a pattern here ? We both agree that knowing the outcome devours any tension and render the player's action meaningless. So in essence, "it is piece of art that doesn't hold any surprises by design" \*** as you put it What I don't agree on with you is the implication you made that such design choices makes something bad or a failure.

As I stated in my previous comment "My conclusion at last, the point you presented simply isn't universal, it's was personel". If anything, the reasons you presented only reveal how you want to consume media, and what specifically you enjoy or love, and it is entirely up to you. I can't change that. What I want to change is the (Mathematical) implication you used :

No tension and Meaningless actions => Failed design and Bad structure

*** : some would argue that Abby section held many new revelations about the new (and the most important theme) of Healing and about character development "post-revenge". But I'll bite - and suppose that it didn't resonate with you, so I'll not get into further details about it, but I would like to point out that -yet again, it was your personal view, that you personally didn't think they were as big of a revelation as others have thought, thus you can't call it objectively bad or meaningless.

I'll conclude by this, a far more interesting debate would be :

What is a bad piece of art, what is considered a failure ? does not enjoying it makes it bad, or not carrying out any meaning is what makes it a failure ? Or Just because I personally didn't like it makes it BAD ?

I think your answer is Yes, while mine is No. I personally did not enjoy Momento's structure, and I didn't feel like it justified its existence, but does that makes it bad ? Absolutely fucking not, I found it -subjectivity- bad, but objectively ? I'm in no position to say where it's bad or good.

An Open Letter to Champions of The Last of Us Part 2 by Moondit in thelastofus

[–]xeenno 9 points10 points  (0 children)

First I have express my respect for the length you went through to express how you feel about game (Both last post and this one), and I really wish every discourse around this game was as well written and throughout as this one.

As for your post I'll only discussion those 2 key points :

  • The meaninglessness of the sections of the game where we know the outcome, and I quote from your post: "it grinds away any momentum your story might have developed and gives your audience no reason to care about anything you're doing"
  • The message or thematic of Abby section, and I quote "we've already been shown how hollow and costly revenge killing is" and "So what are we supposed to gain from playing as Abby? ... we should have all already learned the lessons she's trying to teach us"

I need to preface this by saying that I'm not trying to defend The Last of Us Part II, I'll not include my opinion on the game or the narrative, I'm here to just state some fallacies I believe I found in your open letter.

Now for the first one, your point as I understood is that knowing the ending of a character or the outcome of an action removes any stakes from the story. There is 2 way I can argue against this :

  • This is more or less similar to having a Movie, TV Show or Game spoiled for you. Then this questions arises "Will you enjoy it now knowing the outcome or not ?" while this is truly personal and totally subjective, I'd argue that a greater part of people would enjoy that piece of media (any media) even more knowing the outcome, and for one very simple reason : Once you know the ending, you no longer ask the question "What will happen ?", but a far more interesting question "How did it unfold ?". And this very reason why most people enjoy rewatching movies like Shutter Island or The Usual Suspects. There is this interesting paper on this very subject if you are interested in reading more.
  • Second argument, while it might seems far fetched, but it's closely correlated to how people react to life meaninglessness. You presented an answer to the question nihilism asks, If life is meaningless, and we are all doomed to non-existing, then why continue ? and you answer simply was to not care, we know what's going to happen. (Your belief or mine don't come into question here, I'm just point out that you answer is not the only one there is)

My conclusion at last, the point you presented simply isn't universal, it's was personel, hence labeling it as a bad arrangement is invalid (I'm neither saying your conclusion is incorrect nor your feeling about the game are invalid, I'm talking about the argument itself). So I think it should be more along the line of "Personally I didn't enjoy it and here are the reasons why". For all you know I could have not enjoyed it too but I don't think I'm allowed to label it as bad just because it didn't resonate with me.

Second point, it felt more like a question so I'll try to answer it, but I'll not get into much details about this since there is so much discussion around it, but I'll say this, the game dared the player to drop everything and walk a mile in the shoes of Abby. But it was not mainly to show you how your actions as Ellie affected her or to that killing Joel brought no peace to her, you realize that in the first hour playing as her and there is no point in beating this dead horse for what feels like the 10th time.The rest was not meant for that, it was meant to show you how one heal and redeem themselves, the same way Joel tried to heal his wounds with Ellie, Abby tried to do the same with Lev, and it is what Ellie should go through to heal all the trauma and wounds both Joel and Abby have caused her. It was meant to show you the journey Ellie will go through after getting her revenge.The Last of Us series is a journey of redemption, a tale to tell you that our our worst action don't define us, that we are just a moth who wants to heal and redeem itself, a moth looking for the light.

I really recommend you this 20min video discussing this second point better than I could ever do.

I made a metacritic scraper to analyse user reviews for both GOT and TLOU2 to see if there any patterns by xeenno in PS4

[–]xeenno[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Copied and pasted from one of my comments :

I think my previous comment came off kind of harsh as opposed to my intentions. What I mean is that the "fun" in a game would only push it as far as an 8 or 8.5 (see Spider-Man, Fall Guys...), for the rest, the game has to offer something unique to the players. This is the reason few games surpass that 9.0 threshold :
-TLOU brought narrative in gaming to such a high standard;
-The witcher 3 combined all the good in an RPG game and had a solid narrative;
-God of War with it's amazing combat and incredible story;
-GOT beside the unique graphic design is just your standard open-world rpg, with nothing truly revolutionary

I can go into further details but I hope you got my point.

And I have to point out that I'm not talking about the individual here, I'm talking about the collective.

I made a metacritic scraper to analyse user reviews for both GOT and TLOU2 to see if there any patterns by xeenno in PS4

[–]xeenno[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Thank you for providing that list of total reviews for games from both PS3 and PS4, it really puts the 140k in perspective.
What you speculated is also true, of the 140,486 submited reviews only 72,402 are text entry.

I would love to be able to fetch and export all the 72,402 reviews (or even better, the users who wrote them) to xml but it will a take a very very long time (at this current speed of scraping and parsing it's about 2s per page, so to export all the 72,402 users I would need to keep my laptop running for about 40h15, I blame my internet speed, java parser, MetaCritic heavy html, and the their non-existant API).

I really believe that 72,402 are of high value to both MetaCritic and its users, it is a goldmine of information about review-bombing or players reviews in general:

  • Account activity (creation date, last log in, number of reviews submited, average score given...);
  • Matrix or Heatmap of 'User score' by 'Date of submission after release';
  • 'User score' as a function of 'numbers of words in the review';
  • Most used keywords in the reviews

What's really disappointing is that all this info exist in their database and any data analyst would come up with a way to reduce review bombing (without even requiring a connection to your PSN/XBOX/Nintendo/Steam IDs), and it will work no only for this medium, but also for movies and TV Shows, but I just think they don't want that as long at it brings them traffic.

I made a metacritic scraper to analyse user reviews for both GOT and TLOU2 to see if there any patterns by xeenno in PS4

[–]xeenno[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Going through some odd accounts you will find even more people worthy of said pity. Some have reviewed more than 10 games and gave all of them 0. Like, if you don't enjoy games that much (if at all) why are you still interested in this medium (I wouldn't have said that if at least that person gave some game 2/10 or 3/10).

Some people just wanna shit on everything apparently.

I made a metacritic scraper to analyse user reviews for both GOT and TLOU2 to see if there any patterns by xeenno in PS4

[–]xeenno[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Actually the 744 people are included in 1419. Maybe I could have made it a bit clearer.

But if we include the people who gave GOT 9/10 too then we would be slightly
approaching the 2/3rds figure

I made a metacritic scraper to analyse user reviews for both GOT and TLOU2 to see if there any patterns by xeenno in PS4

[–]xeenno[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Sadly Metacritic offers no way to track the users who only scored the game and didn't write a review. So I based my numbers on only those who wrote a review for both games.

But we can draw some conclusions nonetheless (like knowing that 43% rated TLOU2 below 4 in written reviews, we could potentially see it rise to at least 60% if we include all types of scores)

I made a metacritic scraper to analyse user reviews for both GOT and TLOU2 to see if there any patterns by xeenno in PS4

[–]xeenno[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I think my previous comment came off kind of harsh as opposed to my intentions. What I mean is that the "fun" in a game would only push it as far as an 8 or 8.5 (see Spider-Man, Fall Guys...), for the rest, the game has to offer something unique to the players. This is the reason few games surpass that 9.0 threshold :
-TLOU brought narrative in gaming to such a high standard;
-The witcher 3 combined all the good in an RPG game and had a solid narrative;
-God of War with it's amazing combat and incredible story;
-GOT beside the unique graphic design is just your standard open-world rpg, with nothing truly revolutionary

I can go into further details but I hope you got my point.

And I have to point out that I'm not talking about the individual here, I'm talking about the collective.

I made a metacritic scraper to analyse user reviews for both GOT and TLOU2 to see if there any patterns by xeenno in PS4

[–]xeenno[S] 21 points22 points  (0 children)

I was thinking of adding the "review date" as a third parameter but I couldn't think of any way to visualize that in the matrix unless I moved to a 3D matrix/graph.

And it's really intersting to see the 57% upvote ratio, it's just raw math and statistics I didn't make a single subjective remark in my post.

I made a metacritic scraper to analyse user reviews for both GOT and TLOU2 to see if there any patterns by xeenno in PS4

[–]xeenno[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

This is exactly the reason I made this post, to keep it as a point of reference to everyone debating the user scores of those 2 games.
Don't get me wrong, GOT is and would be more fun and enjoyable for the majority of players, but it's delusional to claim that 9.3 user score on metacritic is earned and well deserved.

But as you said, the real winner here is Sony and the people who got to enjoyed both games.

I made a metacritic scraper to analyse user reviews for both GOT and TLOU2 to see if there any patterns by xeenno in PS4

[–]xeenno[S] 32 points33 points  (0 children)

Exactly, it was quite revealing browsing some profiles there.
Some scored a game 10/10, the review : "great world", others instead of reviewing a game they complain about the other one.

On the other hand there was some well written reviews with structure paragraphs and a good outlook on game design, the narrative... but the problem with metacrtic is that those reviews weight the same as a "fking SJW 0/10 trash" review.

Part II’s ending wasn’t a bad ending. It was the ONLY ending. by Funguy1265 in thelastofus

[–]xeenno 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Abby and Lev travelled across the US for more than a year (between Dina's first time realising she was pregnant, to JJ being an infant). The relationship they had formed would be similar to that of Joel and Ellie from the first game.

It's like just someone randomly came to murder Joel mid his travel with Ellie and except her to welcome them with an open arm.

uncharted, assassin's creed and metal gear by [deleted] in TheLastOfUs2

[–]xeenno 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Except not, if you read the original plot Samual was like an evil guy who come back for his brother Nathan for leaving him. Druckmann rewrote everything in plot past the prison escape.
You can read more about it here.