Another Franchise Destroyed

So the biggest buzz in the gaming world is the release of The Last of Us Part 2 and how horrible it is.

Before I continue, I just want to note that I have not played The Last of Us or its sequel. That doesn’t mean I don’t know about it – it’s a fairly popular game, so I have indeed heard about it, but never played it.

And after what I’ve read about it, I probably won’t play either game, regardless of how well-received the original game was.

So back in April, some game footage was leaked, and many outlets, such as One Angry Gamer, posted about it, and of course, the developers Naughty Dog and Sony freaked out. The bad buzz about the SJW elements came from those leaks, and I am sure both Naughty Dog and Sony were afraid that the game would flop upon release due to the leaks.

Here’s One Angry Gamer’s post about those original leaks (all of the videos in the post have been taken down):

https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2020/04/the-last-of-us-part-2-leaked-footage-surfaces-and-is-filled-with-sjw-antics-spoilers/108055/

Those leaks would be confirmed by June 18, as you can see in the post below:

https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2020/06/the-last-of-us-part-2-ending-leaks-and-confirms-rumors-spoilers/111517/

The videos in that post are gone too, because the developers and Sony are such big babies. Oh well. It’s not as if the game has done badly so far, because it hasn’t – so far the game has sold very well. Not only that, it got universal acclaim from professional game critics.

Actual gamers – aka, their freaking CUSTOMERS – feel very differently, however. A lot of people are deeply unhappy at some elements of the game, such as the death of the protagonist from the original game, Joel. Two hours into the game (the game is about 20 or 30 hours long), Joel and the other protagonist form the original game, Ellie, walk into an ambush where Joel is brutally murdered by a character gamers found problematic, Abby.

I’ll just go ahead and provide a link to a plot synopsis at Wikipedia.

The Last of Us Part II – Wikipedia

So anyway, the character Abby is pretty much an antagonist for the entire game, given that she murdered Joel in front of Ellie (and later kills his brother Tommy) and the action of the game is pretty much driven by this event, as Ellie goes on the hunt to dole out revenge to his killers. Abby looks like a tranny – she’s unusually muscular for a woman, and combine that with her being Joel’s killer…well, she’s not popular. It makes me so sad that Laura Bailey is her voice actress, because Laura Bailey is the voice actress for one of my favorite game characters, Rayne from *Bloodrayne *(Laura Bailey also did voice acting for the *Dawnguard *DLC of *Skyrim *and a dwarf character in Dragon Age: Inquisition). But at least she’s still getting work.

The end of the game consists of Ellie letting Abby go free (she and another character are tied to trees), fighting her one final time, and then letting her go free, after Abby bit her freaking fingers off. So, according to the developers of this game, this is a story about revenge and such. Abby killed Joel out of revenge, Ellie hunts down her killers out of revenge, and then for no real reason at all, simply lets Abby go.

That just doesn’t make any sense. There doesn’t seem to be any indication that Joel taught Ellie that revenge was bad or anything, so as I said, it doesn’t make sense, other than Ellie being angry about Joel lying to her about being a Firefly or whatever. Even so, based on what I’ve seen and read, it’s poor storytelling.

Then there’s a couple of other things that people are talking about – a sex scene between Abby and some dude and numerous sex scenes between Ellie and her lesbian lover. The media’s trying to make it out that gamers have a problem with Ellie being a lesbian. That obviously isn’t true.

Oh, and the other antagonists of the game is this group of eeeevil Christians called the Seraphites, and they’re super homophobic, and are currently at war with Abby’s group the Washington Liberation Front, or WLF. Honestly, the Seraphites aren’t even necessary, as the conflict between Ellie and Abby and the others is enough. The Seraphites are added simply so they can be juxtaposed against Ellie’s lesbianism, and to remind us all that Christians are all evil homophobes. Take a look at this: The Last of Us 2 Plot Reportedly Revolves Around LGBTQ Prosecution (Spoiler) – it’s leaks from back in April but it’s all probably legit.

The lesbian sex scenes aren’t graphic, from what I’ve heard, but the scene between Abby and whoever seems to be, without any graphic nudity, however. And all the gamers are grossed out because Abby is not sexy in the least, looking like a female to male tranny and all. I have always felt that lengthy sex scenes are pointless in video games. They’re usually cutscenes, and I like as few cutscenes as possible because it’s a GAME and I want to PLAY.

The thing that bothers me the most about this game is the death of Joel and the ending. I can’t blame people for being so angry about it. You could interpret the move as being anti-male, or a “smash the patriarchy” message. Once again, men are bad. No female can have a male mentor or father figure.

It reminds me of Terminator: Dark Fate where John Conner as a youth is killed at a lemonade stand or whatever, for the sole purpose of paving the way for some Mexican chick to be savior of the world instead of him, retconning Terminator 2, a film widely believed to be one of the greatest sequels of all time. Same thing with The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, a movie that has an ending that seriously pissed me off (and I haven’t seen that one because The Last Jedi was bad enough).

This editorial has some interesting points to make: https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2020/06/editorial-the-last-of-us-2-could-have-been-a-good-lesson/111835/

There’s a good comment further down the page about how Abby basically had it made in the post-apocalyptic world of this game, whereas Joel did not. I think that’s a good point too. My main point is that we, the viewer, don’t learn about Joel’s supposed misdeeds until AFTER his brutal murder (and I am calling it a murder, so leftists can fuck off if they don’t like it).

This reminds me of the anime Hell Girl – I first watched this on Netflix and then Hulu, and now it’s only on Crunchyroll, but what it’s about is this supernatural being, the titular Hell Girl, born from the spirit of a girl sacrificed in ancient Japan. People throughout the ages call upon this spirit and ask her to get revenge for them. She agrees to do so, but tells them that the price for her “service” is their soul, of which she will claim and ferry to the dark afterworld once they die. Once revenge is enacted, they end up with a mystical tattoo on their chest. This show is really good because it explores the cyclical nature of revenge. Honestly, if this is the story Naughty Dog wanted to tell with this game, they should have hired Hell Girl’s writers.

So, after some confusion about the actual gameplay – as in, which characters are playable, I found a website willing to tell me which ones they were: The Last of Us Part 2 Playable Characters: Who Do You Play As? | USgamer.

So, according to that site, you spend a small portion of the game playing as Joel, and then he’s killed, half of the game is played as Ellie, and the other half is as Abby, who has her own skills and weapons.

I find this kind of problematic, because you do play as Joel, and presumably lose whatever skills and weapons and other inventory items you’ve gained while playing as him (since, according to most sources, he’s killed two hours into gameplay, which is quite significant, especially if you’re a good gamer). Then again, I don’t know for sure since I haven’t actually played it.

But why the fuck would I want to play as the antagonist Abby? No, I don’t care about her quest for revenge or whatever. A really interesting concept for the ending would have been this – giving the gamer a choice between playing Abby or Ellie for the final boss fight. If you choose to play as Abby, you have to fight Elllie, and vice versa.

Then again, I am sure they’ll want to pinch out another interactive Democrat propaganda piece – I mean, video game – so maybe that wouldn’t be such a good idea, since someone would have to win. Both Ellie and Abby survive in the end, which is stupid. Why Ellie thought everyone else’s life was expendable but Abby’s is beyond me, but I’m not Neil Druckmann, the absolute fuckwit that pinched out a huge loaf and sculpted it into a video game.

I hope this does not happen to a game franchise I like (although based on what’s been released so far about the next Dragon Age game, it’s likely that that franchise will be destroyed by the leftists at BioWare). I am already angry and bitter over the way Game of Thrones ended and I just can’t have this happen to a game franchise I like.

I feel you, Last of Us fans.