Gaming Babble: The Last of Us Part 2

I'm not going to spoil the game for you. I just need to note down somewhere some thoughts that had gone through my head as I finished the game. I started playing on Friday morning and, new puppy allowing, played every chance I got to finish a couple of hours into the evening today. It's been a wild, thought-filled ride.

I was fortunate in that I had not been spoilt by the game leaks. I still don't know what was actually revealed. All I saw of the game was the trailers, including the game play trailer. And so I didn't have any negative feelings or expectations that I brought with me, except for the one concern I had - one that in the end wasn't founded.

So what can I say about the game without spoiling it?

The Last of Us Part 2 continues the story of Ellie as she loses herself to vengeance. After an incident of extreme loss, Ellie goes to Seattle to track down those whom she believed wronged her.

The game is very emotionally charged, and poses a number of questions about vengeance and crossing lines without ever having the characters ask them so directly. How far would you go to gain recompense? When is it enough? What is left of you when all you have left is your rage? What separates us from them?

In many ways, the story is pretty brutal and I'll admit that I shed more than one tear throughout. It wasn't as gut wrenching as I was expecting though... but maybe it's because it didn't nearly fuck me up as much as Mass Effect 3 did emotionally. I was sad, I was worried, I was invested, but I wasn't gutted. Which is not a bad thing to say of the game, but gives me a way to measure the intensity of it. There were some things in terms of pacing that initially didn't make sense to me or that I felt I didn't care about at the time of playing, but it became relevant later on in the game. More than anything, this game is a story and how willing you are to hear it from the writers will determine your satisfaction in it, I think.

This seems like a good enough segue into the acting - which was phenomenal. I'm still insanely impressed by what one can do with motion capture and the methods employed in this game to have the actors tell the story. The range of emotions on the faces made me forget that I was looking at something that wasn't real. My mother walked into the room multiple times and, despite some mentions of the extremity of the violence, she was also captivated by the 'realness' of the characters as people. I suppose, as a Critical Role fan, I'm biased when it comes to Ashley Johnson and Laura Bailey, but they really knocked it out of the park. I was incredibly impressed by Laura's performance as she played a character that I would never have imagined her to play physically and vocally. It was disarming. Troy Baker played his role with the same expert skill that I've come to expect from anything he commits himself to.

Gameplay, as expected, is very close to the first game in some ways. There was a sense to me of not fixing something that isn't broken, but they did improve on some aspects as well. Which was great. I played the game on Moderate, with the exception of one particularly nasty infected that spent over an hour ripping my character to pieces until I decided I've seen enough of that cinematic and popped it over to Light. I was challenged. I like stealth games (which is funny because I'm not good at it), so Ellie did a lot of shooting and running for her life as people/critters chased her. The gameplay is solid. Ellie is far more agile than Joel, but she's also a lot smaller. So you have to think about how you're taking on your opponent physically and also how you're going to navigate the world. Not everything within Joel's reach is within Ellie's. So that was interesting.

Bugs: I didn't have the day one patch (I'm nearing the limit of my data cap), so I did have a few bugs, but nothing terrible. I had to restart the programme once due to an error popping up and once I had to kill my character by drowning because the screen went weird. Which was interesting as that was the only time my character drowned while playing and I got to watch the acting instead of freaking out about the lack of breath (I tend to freak out about stuff like that). But those were the worst and probably fixed with the update.

With the passing of time, I think I will probably come back to playing the Last of Us Part 2 again, but not immediately. I think it's going to stick with me for a long time though - as all good, meaningful stories do. I feel the game has left a mark on my soul... I think that's the best compliment I can give it.

Ramble: Life and Subnautica

In the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of social chaos that will hopefully bring some good change, in the middle of everything, I can admit to the world that I'm alive, I'm healthy, if a little fearful at/of everything.

There, that's my update on life.

No, to be honest, things have been okay for me. I'm fortunate that I can work from home virtually unimpeded and am in a position where I don't have to fear for my livelihood. And for that I'm exceedingly grateful. As we step into winter, I have yet to deal with any of the common place colds and flu - which I know is due to the lockdown my country has implemented and not just a stroke of luck, but I'm still grateful that I haven't had to deal with that in the midst of all this insanity.

As an introvert, locked in a house with her mom for company since March, I have to say that only recently have I begun to feel the need to expand my communication lines. And then it's only a slight niggling I get every now and then reminding me that talking to people is actually normal and healthy and thus advised. 

Maybe that's why I'm getting back to blogging... er... don't hold me to that.

So yes, that's life. It still consists of work, video gaming, (virtual) tabletop roleplaying, and just existing. Waiting for something, but I can't tell you what because goodness only knows what it is. Maybe just waiting for the storm to pass.

In this time of confinement, I've been gaming quite a bit - getting back to it in a way I had not realised I had missed until I started playing again. I still have that incurable itch to play something new which got filled for a time with me finally getting my toes wet in Subnautica.

I've had the game in my wish list for years and I had a couple of reasons why I didn't just buy the thing. 

The first was a personal, silly matter. See, I don't like water. I live by the coast and the closest I get to the ocean, if I ever do, is about ankle deep and it's been more than a year since I've even done that. Same with swimming pools. I can swim (not gracefully, but still), but I've never had a call to the water. It's just not my thing.

The other thing I found that made me hesitate was that I was simply afraid the game was going to be too complicated for me. That it, like with Oxygen Not Included, would be the kind of game where I only scratch the surface of understanding and be limited in enjoyment because of it.

But boy, the game still looked darn pretty. So in the middle of the first month of lockdown, I decided to hell with caution, bought it for a song on Steam and loaded it up.

And I was instantly transfixed. The game is gorgeous. Visually, the game was just something to appreciate. I did have to tone down the effects so that my PC could take a breath, but even at lower settings, the game is still a beauty to behold.

So what is the story behind Subnautica? (of course, this is the thing that caught me) Your ship crash lands on an alien planet and you soon learn that rescue is something for other people. You have to get off the planet by yourself. You traverse this mostly aquatic world, searching for wreckage blueprints so you can craft, build and ultimately escape. Unlike games like Don't Starve, there's a definite feeling of having a goal beyond survival. You want to discover and explore and gain knowledge of the world around you, partially out of curiosity but also, more importantly, because you want to leave. Every trip you take is another step towards that goal even as you build a base and set up a temporary residence. 

The game kept me captivated from start to finish, and I was so excited and a little sad when I was ready to leave. But I was also ready to launch into the stars. I loved the sense of accomplishment.

Subnautica does have a dark side. Though it's not something you see in most of the game, the game does have some glitches that had me up in arms. Sometimes you would set out on a journey that would take you fourteen minutes to get to your destination, only to get stuck or have the save go wonky. In my second play through of Subnautica, I found that I had less patience for that. I knew how the game ended so I wasn't going to do a 'rescue' mission to recover lost equipment that would take another thirty minutes of my time.

That said, I've already purchase the sequel, Subnautica Below Zero, and eagerly - dare I say childishly - await its final release date.