Recently purchased, played & beaten

[Patrick Stickles]

imo it's not one of the harder mega man games but it's still harder than 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10 lol

though there are some tricky parts in the re-done stages later in the game

the hardest part of it is easily the needle man redux stage because you fight air man again and then you have to do a big ol rush jet section which is just dicks but if you die in between to regain your health it's not so bad

the wily stages are fucking cake

idk i think 7 is fairly unbeatable without an emulator and save states just because the final boss is a piece of shit that continuously hurts you when you can only sometimes hurt it, but other than that it's easy

i have yet to actually beat 10 on not easy mode and i think i'm at wily's castle in 9

i wanna get good at all of them though

[Samus Aran]

being able to blaze through these games feels so good

well, i can't blaze through 7, 8 and 10 cause i haven't played them as much

but 2 and 9 especially are just muscle memory to me now

[Classic]

Thank you for The Walking Dead, Thyme. 

[spoiler]I'm shaking...[/spoiler]

[ME##]

je viens de terminer les derniers d'entre nous



[spoiler]i think i just beat it in a little under twelve hours in total.   :'( [/spoiler]

time to find tec's post here

[ME##]

after wading through dp john and snowy's arguments...

[spoiler]

i'm not even sure what to think, i'm still contemplating how i feel about that ending

on one hand, it was really the only logical conclusion, joel had become too attached to ellie (it didn't help that to him she turned out to be an almost perfect replica of sarah) over the course of their journey and selfishly decided to live out the life he never had with his daughter vicariously through her

there was no way he was going to allow his second and very likely last chance at fatherhood to end so tragically for a second time at the hands of humans who "couldn't understand"

on the other hand, it's absolutely stunning and extremely bittersweet that naughty dog decided to stick to an ending that's so somber, joel and ellie (she was definitely aware of or at least suspected what joel had done, and joel knew that she knew) just acknowledge the gravity of joel's decision knowing that he's turned his back on humanity for his sake and his sake alone and that's that

and the fact that such a gripping tale had to conclude at all might make my feelings about it even more complicated, i was unrealistically hoping for a surprise chapter or post-credit dialogue or something to make it easier to swallow oh god[/spoiler]

[spoiler]

i particularly love how subtly the tale of joel's mental deterioration was told, though

it's almost funny how he had hand-crafted crafted his entire personality over the last twenty years such that he was impossible to emotionally compromise (or so he thought) after suffering such a heartbreaking loss

his initially harsh and dismissive and cold behavior (which didn't sit well with me at first) is exactly what would have saved the world had he been able to maintain it, but unfortunately for him, he gradually began to see ellie as a reincarnation of his daughter, and unfortunately for humanity, she was their only known chance to reverse their fortunes

but fug lol, i still almost can't believe it ended like that, jesus christ

it's the most bittersweet game i've ever played[/spoiler]

[spoiler]surely joel knew her fate too at the beginning when he found out she was immune?  he didn't sound all that sure of them just 'taking blood' from her in the university's medical building



also oh god david is the biggest asshole the game could have thrown at you [/spoiler]

[TooB]

i thought 10 was as easy as 5 and 6 personally

well fine then... mr mega master...

[ME##]

http://thelastofus.wikia.com/wiki/The_Last_of_Us:_American_Dreams


apparently i had shut myself off from the last of us so much that i didn't even know of these existing. 

[Kalahari Inkantation]

after wading through dp john and snowy's arguments...[spoiler]surely joel knew her fate too at the beginning when he found out she was immune?  he didn't sound all that sure of them just 'taking blood' from her in the university's medical building



also oh god david is the biggest asshole the game could have thrown at you [/spoiler]

[spoiler=too long; don't read]

i suspected they were going that way from what they spoke about at the university, a blood test would have just been too easy and the story wouldn't have anywhere to go

that being said, i'm not exactly content with that, despite knowing it had to be that way for story purposes

naughty dog obviously poured a vast amount of effort into making this game as believable and internally consistent as possible, even the science and biology are realistic enough for the most part (despite the entire premise of that infection mutating to spread to humans being incredibly far-fetched)

but right at the very end, they absolutely fudged the science they strove to keep credible for the sake of story development and it's hard to suspend my disbelief at that point

like they never quite give a medically sound reason as to why that lethal surgery was necessary for them to derive a vaccine/cure/treatment, and the explanations they do give (and expand upon in the recordings) make little sense and leave plenty of other possibilities open

the fireflies quite honestly have all the time in the world to perform every non-lethal test imaginable, from drawing blood to growing cultures to taking tissue samples to simply asking her about her personal experiences since being infected (i'm sure she would have had plenty of valuable insight to offer had she been conscious and able to answer questions)

i mean they don't even know for sure that she's truly immune, perhaps she has a particularly insidious form of the infection whose effects are delayed but still eventually become apparent, and they would have absolutely no way to know for sure without monitoring her behavior over the course of a few years at least

even in an absolute worst case scenario, all they'd need is a brain biopsy which doesn't necessitate death, they give no believable reason whatsoever for any large portion of the brain to need to be removed (and most certainly not the entire thing)

if you're a scientist, when you come across a specimen as rare/valuable/potentially world-changing as ellie is, you try your absolute hardest not to destroy it, especially not within the first few moments of acquiring it, because there's no guarantee that anything of value will come of its demise, nor is there any guarantee that you'll ever come across another specimen like it

but instead, within a few hours of finding her unconscious they (really, naughty dog) decide 'yep we're gonna have to vivisect oh well' for nothing but the sake of driving the story forward

the game strives to present scenarios that are as realistic as possible from beginning to end and that whole plot point just isn't

but that's probably my one and only complaint about the story lol, it's definitely a 9.5/10 game[/spoiler]

[spoiler]

and lol yeah david is just horrible, though i really like that naughty dog tried to make him somewhat difficult to hate for his actions at first[/spoiler]

[Kalahari Inkantation]

http://thelastofus.wikia.com/wiki/The_Last_of_Us:_American_Dreams


apparently i had shut myself off from the last of us so much that i didn't even know of these existing. 

the first of those comes with the survival edition lol

[TooB]

after wading through dp john and snowy's arguments...[spoiler]surely joel knew her fate too at the beginning when he found out she was immune?  he didn't sound all that sure of them just 'taking blood' from her in the university's medical building



also oh god david is the biggest asshole the game could have thrown at you [/spoiler]

lol.... sorry.

[ME##]

[spoiler=too long; don't read]

i suspected they were going that way from what they spoke about at the university, a blood test would have just been too easy and the story wouldn't have anywhere to go

that being said, i'm not exactly content with that, despite knowing it had to be that way for story purposes

naughty obviously poured a vast amount of effort into making this game as believable and internally consistent as possible, even the science and biology are realistic enough for the most part (despite the entire premise of that infection mutating to spread to humans being incredibly far-fetched)

but right at the very end, they absolutely fudged the science they strove to keep credible for the sake of story development and it's hard to suspend my disbelief at that point

like they never quite give a medically sound reason as to why that lethal surgery was necessary for them to derive a vaccine/cure/treatment, and the explanations they do give (and expand upon in the recordings) make little sense and leave plenty of other possibilities open

the fireflies quite honestly have all the time in the world to perform every non-lethal test imaginable, from drawing blood to growing cultures to taking tissue samples to simply asking her about her personal experiences since being infected (i'm sure she would have had plenty of valuable insight to offer had she been conscious and able to answer questions)

i mean they don't even know for sure that she's truly immune, perhaps she has a particularly insidious form of the infection whose effects are delayed but still eventually become apparent, and they would have absolutely no way to know for sure without monitoring her behavior over the course of a few years at least

even in an absolute worst case scenario, all they'd need is a brain biopsy which doesn't necessitate death, there give no believable reason whatsoever for any large portion of the brain to need to be removed (and most certainly not the entire thing)

if you're a scientist, when you come across a specimen as rare/valuable/potentially world-changing as ellie is, you try your absolute hardest not to destroy it, especially not within the first few moments of acquiring it, because there's no guarantee that anything of value will come of its demise, nor is there any guarantee that you'll ever come across another specimen like it

but instead, within a few hours of finding her unconscious they (really, naughty dog) decide 'yep we're gonna have to vivisect oh well' for nothing but the sake of driving the story forward

the game strives to present scenarios that are as realistic as possible from beginning to end and that whole plot point just isn't

but that's probably my one and only complaint about the story lol, it's definitely a 9.5/10 game[/spoiler]

[spoiler]

and lol yeah david is just horrible, though i really like that naughty dog tried to make him somewhat difficult to hate for his actions at first[/spoiler]

[spoiler]oh god you're right.  i wonder how the monkey's brains reacted to the cbi .  i mean, they clearly weren't killing them as readily as they were about to kill ellie.[/spoiler]


[spoiler]and yeah, but he does a pretty good job at destroying every good thing he did at first [/spoiler]

[Samus Aran]

[spoiler]the winter part is still strikingly emotional to me

like even the beginning of it, where you play as ellie and hunt, was really special and i think it really drove home her growth as a character and her attachment to joel. but then shit goes down, and when you wake up as joel and just start absolutely murdering anyone who gets in your way and he screams and yells and is absolutely desperate to find ellie it's clear by that point that he will literally do anything to keep her and that she's effectively replaced his late daughter. and then the end of the winter scene, the cutscene where ellie kills david, was heart-wrenching.

[/spoiler]

[TooB]

[spoiler]the winter part is still strikingly emotional to me

like even the beginning of it, where you play as ellie and hunt, was really special and i think it really drove home her growth as a character and her attachment to joel. but then shit goes down, and when you wake up as joel and just start absolutely murdering anyone who gets in your way and he screams and yells and is absolutely desperate to find ellie it's clear by that point that he will literally do anything to keep her and that she's effectively replaced his late daughter. and then the end of the winter scene, the cutscene where ellie kills david, was heart-wrenching.

[/spoiler]

fully agreed.

[Kalahari Inkantation]

[spoiler]oh god you're right.  i wonder how the monkey's brains reacted to the cbi .  i mean, they clearly weren't killing them as readily as they were about to kill ellie.[spoiler]


[spoiler]and yeah, but he does a pretty good job at destroying every good thing he did at first [/spoiler]

[spoiler]

seriously, and the monkeys were far less behaviorally predictable and known to be capable of infecting despite showing no symptoms lol

at first i thought joel was a selfish violent idiot for what he did and my feelings about the actions he took were terribly ambivalent, but the more i've come to realize how unbelievable the hospital events that led up to joel's retaliation are, the more i've come to side with him

he had every right in the world to postpone that rash surgery at the very least (though whether slaughtering everyone in his path was necessary i'm not so sure)

now the only thing i'm still not sure about is the obvious and hastily-manufactured lie he gave her at the very end [/spoiler]

[spoiler]

and he did, but not until ellie provoked him repeatedly

though all she did was hasten the inevitable, his plans for her from the start were to serve his interests and his interests alone, in the most heinous of ways[/spoiler]

[Samus Aran]

[spoiler]also i was genuinely angry at how the fireflies totally dehumanize joel's relationship with ellie. they just call him "that smuggler" and are immediately suspicious of him on no solid ground and they treat ellie less like a person and more just like the cure they think she is...and certainly don't care at all about his relationship to her. they didn't even give them a chance to say goodbye, and what's worse, did not give ellie a chance to actually choose. even if she probably would have, the lack of actual confirmation makes them not only hasty but also pretty goddamn terrible people in a way.

all of this, plus the fact that said scientists, as tec said, could not actually be sure that this was the only way to attain a cure, makes it a little easier to digest what joel did. even if it was completely and utterly selfish.[/spoiler]