SomTervo

Literally my favourite film of all time. A masterpiece imo. Another one of those "the more you watch it the more you see" films. Like the character work is just unbelievable. Daniel Plainview says about a million things you need to watch it 3-4 times to properly notice or hear, really subtle fucking things which are amazing. And dat ending. Took me two watches to 'get it', but by golly. Ingenious. (By 'get' I literally just mean appreciate. There's no big plot hidden in there or anything.) Saw it in the cinema too. Mind-blowingly powerful cinematography and music.

I love Resident Evil 6. It's such a crock of shit. Which I enjoyed every minute of.

7 Wonders is so, so good Got redacted but no time to get a good sesh in yet!

Literally the only time ever that a humanities degree is worth having.

Your argument is understandable until this point. There is no point at which Joel 'suddenly changes', Except perhaps the prologue. The crux of the issue, IDD, is that what you want is resolution of plot. There are two ways of decribing plot: melodrama (all-out losing, or all-out winning) and tragedy (winning in the losing, or losing in the winning.) Hollywood has drilled it into popular culture that we need a resolution of plot, melodrama, that things have to wrap up one way or another. Not just Hollywood- shitty novels have been doing this since the late 1700s. In real life and in all the best storytelling artworks, resolution of plot is a sham. It usually signifies unrealistic cop-out. Tragedy is real, tragedy is emotional, tragedy is sacrificing humanity's only escape from apocalypse to cater to your innermost motives. TLoU is a near-perfect tragedy because there are at least three layers of 'winning in losing'. Joel 'won' because he got a surrogate daughter. Ellie 'lost' because she knew he was lying and went with it anyway, and her survivors' guilt is being ignored by him (though this point isn't really a win or a lose). Humanity 'lost' because the only opportunity for a cure has been destroyed. But in a sense we 'won' anyway because humanity will persevere, "The Last Of Us" will persevere. We won because the Fireflies were arguably a sham just as bad as the military government. So the plot is left in a huge grey area intentionally, and this makes you think about it and feel emotionally confused (a great effect)- but the characters are the ones we really understand. What The Last Of Us does is resolution of character. Like all the greatest novels- Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby, Ulysses, Mrs Dalloway, A Clockwork Orange, The Crying of Lot 49 - and all the greatest movies - There Will Be Blood, The Godfather(s), Pulp Fiction - characters are the centre of the story, not the plot. Ie the events don't matter, and how they wrap up doesn't matter. Only the characters and how they change, or don't change, is what matters. As many great writers have said, story doesn't exist without character. And all the best stories revolve only around character. If a story is slave to plot and how things wrap up, it will be fundamentally unsatisfying, even if it's genuinely decent. Eg in Uncharted 3, where Naughty Dog fucked this up. 2 is great because the main resolution is Drake and Elena coming to trust/rely on each other, but 3 fucks it because they rush through all the relationship stuff and the ending is focused mainly on the plot, and the characters are given very vacuous treatment. In TLoU if you study Joel's character, all the stuff he does and says (and importantly all the things he doesn't say when he could) you'll get a totally unambiguous and perfectly painted portrait of a very psychologically damaged human being. Which is what art's all about, yo.

I'd argue it was quite a bit better than AC1. AC1 was so, so barebones. Watch Dogs has a lot more going on in it, but is still pretty dull at a fundamental level. Unlike Mordor, which is fun fun fun, fun through-and-through. @Pirate: Last of Us is a masterpiece of masterpieces. I've never played a game which performed such an in-depth, holistic character study. Games always focus on plot and character development... One of TLoU's main points is that trauma can change someone for good- and they'll never change back. On-topic: A real mess of a game in many ways, but a fucking fun mess of a game. Like one of the better 80s schlock horror movies, eg Evil Dead 2 or Reanimator. The story comes off as a complete mess with stunted characters and an incomprehensible plot - but the ending was curious and suggested some intelligence was in there. So I popped over to the GAF spoiler thread and... Holy fuck. The Evil Within has one of the most ingenious stories of a game I've played in a long time, possibly ever. It's so unique. The more I think about it the better it gets. I guess by definition it's a "bad" story because a story is only as good as its telling- and TEW is pretty badly told. But it's more that it's very selective with plot ordering and it doesn't point out character connections or significant events- once you draw the dots, it's phenomenal. Has some really subtle character work going on in the backdrop. It also out-Inceptions Inception (which I suppose isn't a very hard thing to do.)

Man, the easy way out always sucks you in... Only twice have I ever gone all-out on a costume. Worth it, but so much hassle. This year I'm going as the most rudimentary ghost you've ever seen. "Easy way out" doesn't even cut it.

Somebody try and sell me this game. I played the first Dragon Age for about two hours, didn't dig it at all, put the series down, and now this one is generating so much noise it's getting hard to ignore. Why the hype, dudelies and dudettes?

Y'know Bruce Lee got his insanely ripped physique without ever setting foot in a gym? You can do it in the comfort of your own home! You've got one day. GO!

1. Say what you'll be going as, or are thinking about going as. DISCUSS. 2. After tomorrow, post pictures of the result. DISCUSS. It turns out I'm being forced into costume this year - so I thought I try my best and bring you all into my pit of shame and self-hate. I believe I'm going to be attending festivities as a white sheet with two holes in it. Eat your heart out, Mr BOOH! To kick off proceedings, here's me and my GF last year. We went as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It was a murder mystery party held by her aunt. Awkward comedy ensued . Edit: mods, a much better name for this thing is "What Do You Spook Like". If you could change it to that, I'll love you forever.

I never played Resplutions because I didnt like Ezio enough (have no idea how people prefer him to Connor) and Brotherhood was great enough for me. But ACIII os good crack, even if it's jank as fuck. Brotherhood is a big improvement. And im hoping Unity + Rogue are even bigger ones... Ive almost finished Mordor. Yes, Gerbil, it's a bit much having 3 games at once. Theyre all great and ive barely had time to play em- which is okay as i enjoy every minute i snatch with em

Is there any way to see status conversations on Tapatalk? I find it really useful but by god. No statuses. Half the fun gone

Yes- a friend and I tried the Nightfall one. Holy shit. Had Phogoth down to a sliver of health at one point... Then three wizards showed up. Always with the three wizards. They're why the 3 runes bit is so tough too. Yeah i've been decrypting all day long, doing public events, patrols and bounties mostly. With the odd strike. About level 24.5 atm.

Good shout, cheers.

We're getting back up on Homeland. Well into season 3 now. The characters and dialogue are phenomenal, but the story is becoming more and more flawed as it goes on. Still good. But not the brilliance of the first season (except the whole bullshit romancey story arc in the middle of it).

Did this go ahead? Think I only saw one fireteam of 3 rocking about. I grinded a bit more last night, but it was kinda fun. Patrols are decent enough. You just run out of travel space within about 5 minutes. Racking up the Vanguard rep/marks atm.

You guys take it away. I'mma play for the next hour, and if I get lucky with a few drops I could probably make it to lvl 24. Which still isn't ideal, probably doing 30-40% damage on enemies at that. A lot of the time only headshots count too right. The only reason I'm still level 22 is because I can't be arsed with Destiny's grindey, time-demanding bullshit. Now I'm suffering. Thanks Bungie! Edit: I actually knew what you're saying Ethan, but assumed it would be doable in some sense if about 23 or so. But I guess not.

I never thought of it that way - that when the gameplay is easy, losing progress is a far more bitter pill to swallow. Very, very true. I think this is the worst in games where the difficulty balance suddenly spikes. From easy to hard, unfairly, and you lose a lot of progress. I remember getting really frustrated with many Bethesda Softworks games because of this. Eg in Fallout 3 or Skyrim, creeping through a place for ages, finding loads of good loot in really unique places which would be agonisingly irritating to re-find, then getting killed by one super-OP enemy. Then having to exactly retread your steps from the last half hour... Shudder. I think a few games, like Dark Souls, have decided to totally sidestep this by making your inventory always-saved regardless of environment progression.

Yeah that's a really interesting discussion I've had with several people actually. Some people detest TLoU's combat, but I felt it fitted with the world and the character perfectly. I still happily load up some of the bigger fights just to engage in the emergent combat. Like the bit when Ellie's watching over you in the square with a rifle. Had so many unique situations happen in that one context. Offtopic rant, and maybe we should move this into the appropriate thread: Subjectivity, subjectivity, subjectivity. I could totally understand how you might not be able to get over these issues when there's a high risk of losing hard-earned resources. On Grounded it becomes like a puzzle game (ala Halo on Legendary)- even when you've got 2 bullets in a gun, an empty inventory, and 5 infected to get through, you will find a way of dealing with them after 10 tries or so. And each try is so broadly different it's still fun. Death is a five second setback.

I agree that Nemesis has a few shortcomings, but I think the idea that death isn't a game-halting experience is what makes the problems 100% worthwhile. The fact that when you die your game doesn't 'stop' in an abstract sense is just game-changing (though not original obviously.) In so many games dying is just the shittest thing and it wastes your time. Usually a game has to really, really be fun moment-to-moment and have very quick respawn times to make dying bearable. But if a game can have a system where dying isn't an ending and you keep going in some capacity... That's the way to go. Heavy Rain, as backwards as it is in many ways, nailed this. As did the Souls' games- because you still keep all your kit, your levels, your progression- you just have one chance to get your currency back. Also Roguelikes and games like Spelunky go the opposite direction - death is so quick and so common and so twitch-based that it becomes almost meaningless as a setback. Rogue Legacy's got a really unique way of dealing with this, no? In Rogue Legacy when you die some of your attributes + a random mutation or two get passed down to your next character, because you play an entire lineage of adventurers who all try the same dungeon once they come of age. The time difference means the dungeon is slightly different each time. Phenomenal concept. I might buy it tonight actually. Edit: it's also worth noting that the more emergent a game is the more bearable death is. In the sections of The Last Of Us where they force you to fight, I was actually fine with it, because every fight would go so differently. It was like every time I died I'd get a new action scene straight out of a movie. The stealth sections were actually far more frustrating from a death/failure standpoint, but were still fun.

Assholes

Do you start at 0 or 1 in vanguard rep? I started doing Patrols with bounties on to achieve this. It's kinda fun. But I very nearly had a "fuck this, i'm officially shelving Destiny" moment too when I realised just how much time the game expects you to put in before you can afford some of the better gear. It's like, fuck that, I'm not spending 1-2 hours a day making 'money' and getting loads of vanguard rep/points so I can buy some stuff which will make really minor and arbitrary improvements to my character- with no improvement to my gameplay experience. 'Sake man.

Okay, 9PM GMT- but I'll have to leave at about 11pm. So we okay to pick it up again in the week? Who's all in so we've got an idea of numbers? Add your name to this list in your reply: - Kenshi - Caveman - BDH Halfway there! Edit: oh and FYI, I'll probably only be level 22 - but perhaps 23 or 24 if I'm lucky - by the time we get on. Weak.

Not in any kinda J-Law way at least. J-Law's my favourite thing to come out of Hollywood in ages. Probably one of the only things I've liked at all. Stewart is just, as so many note, kinda annoying. And wooden.