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First image from HBO's The Last of Us series released

3liteDragon

Member


frvNXr7.jpg
 
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Artistic

Member
Looked like the video game until the I got to the larger photo.

Not hyped for it. Probably won't watch unless it gets rave reviews.
 
I can see them following the first games storyline and depending upon its popularity they may not follow the 2nd or like TWD they may change things..
IfJoel is popular he may stick around...
 
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Atrus

Gold Member
Looks like a screenshot from the game. It helps that the top of the screen with the airplane on a hill is a composite shot with cg.
 
Sorry, but the quality difference between the actors and the plane in the distance is too distracting.

Druckmann will never reach Welles at this rate lol
 

Zones

Member
Haaaaaave you met Kojima?
Yes, and David Cage too!

But it's kinda unfortunate how unaware most people are with Neil's role when it comes to 'directing' games.

Hideo Kojima is a full blown wannabe movie director when it comes to story/cinematics , BUT he also happens to direct his own games, you know, the GAMEPLAY portion of the game. Neil, on the other hand, has never directed a single game he has been involved in. He's simply responsible for the narrative/characters/cinematics/pacing/etc but the GAMEPLAY side of his games are done by other people (Bruce Straley for TLOU/U4, Anthony Newman & Kurt Margenau for TLOU2).

In regards to David Cage, well his games have little to no gameplay whatsoever, BUT at least he does use this medium's unique capacity for interactivity to his storytelling advantage. Basically, the level of choice and control a player has over the direction of David Cage's games/story are something that simply cannot be replicated with the tv/movie industry, which is a big contrast with Kojima and Neil's writings.

I truly believe that most people would leave the unarmed doctors alive during the last section of the first TLOU, but interactivity be damned! You're simply experiencing a story in TLOU exactly in the same way a story is written and told via a movie or TV show. And the fact that Neil Druckmann doesn't even direct the 'game' part of his products really makes it an easy choice for being the biggest closet movie director within the gaming industry... Oh and and his excessive enthusiasm for being an executive producer, a writer, AND A DIRECTOR on a TV show really is all the proof you need regarding this argument.
 

Shubh_C63

Member
Hmm I don't know about that.
The poster as first impression is pretty weak for an HBO show
 
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kiphalfton

Member
Can't believe there was a time that I actually really really liked this game. Back for the ps3 version and then eventually got the ps4 version of 1. Then I got my hands on the second one and well...yeah.

It's called growing up. I feel the same way about some movies, where I wonder wtf was wrong with me to have liked it in the first place.

In regards to the screenshot itself, it looks really bad. Like a low quality fan made video.
 
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TidusYuna

Member
Unfortunately, Joel will be killed by Marlene this time because he will be yelling "YOU TOOK HER, CONFESS" the entire time.
 
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kyliethicc

Member
Yes, and David Cage too!

But it's kinda unfortunate how unaware most people are with Neil's role when it comes to 'directing' games.

Hideo Kojima is a full blown wannabe movie director when it comes to story/cinematics , BUT he also happens to direct his own games, you know, the GAMEPLAY portion of the game. Neil, on the other hand, has never directed a single game he has been involved in. He's simply responsible for the narrative/characters/cinematics/pacing/etc but the GAMEPLAY side of his games are done by other people (Bruce Straley for TLOU/U4, Anthony Newman & Kurt Margenau for TLOU2).

In regards to David Cage, well his games have little to no gameplay whatsoever, BUT at least he does use this medium's unique capacity for interactivity to his storytelling advantage. Basically, the level of choice and control a player has over the direction of David Cage's games/story are something that simply cannot be replicated with the tv/movie industry, which is a big contrast with Kojima and Neil's writings.

I truly believe that most people would leave the unarmed doctors alive during the last section of the first TLOU, but interactivity be damned! You're simply experiencing a story in TLOU exactly in the same way a story is written and told via a movie or TV show. And the fact that Neil Druckmann doesn't even direct the 'game' part of his products really makes it an easy choice for being the biggest closet movie director within the gaming industry... Oh and and his excessive enthusiasm for being an executive producer, a writer, AND A DIRECTOR on a TV show really is all the proof you need regarding this argument.
You know Neil actually said that for TLOU2 he was doing the stuff that Bruce had done on the first game, which left him with far less time to work on the story. He wrote the entire story of the first game by himself because Bruce Straley was co-directing the game. But he explained that because he had to direct the second game alone, Haley Gross wrote most of the script of Part 2. He said he wished he had a co-director like Bruce for Part 2, so he would have had more time to work on the story.

Your idea that Neil Druckmann wasn't involved in the game design of TLOU2 is incorrect. And its not like Kojima designs his own games by himself, despite what he'd want you to think lol. Both Druckmann and Kojima served as the overall project directors and creative leads on TLOU2 and Death Stranding and were therefore involved in every aspect of the game. Same with Cory Barlog on God of War. Each directed the game themselves, all of the game.
 
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Fredrik

Member
This is the way. I hope it becomes a huge success so he turn into a movie director and let ND do something like Jak and Daxter instead of just digging deeper into his dark and twisted mind. He should continue the plot for the third game on the TV show instead.
 
Can’t wait to see how much cultural pandering is shoehorned into this series. Originality has never been a goal of ND’s work, so this series should be a perfect fit.
 

EruditeHobo

Member
Don't think it's any surprise that this is probably going to be very good. People with a weird ax to grind won't like it for their own personal reasons, but there's probably not a better team to put this in the hands of than the people responsible for the writing, casting, and tone of Chernobyl.

I truly believe that most people would leave the unarmed doctors alive during the last section of the first TLOU, but interactivity be damned!

Would really love to see the data on this, because I could not disagree more -- at most it would be split, but more likely IMO everyone in the room dies a healthy majority of the time.

Who knows, maybe the gaming community surprises me? After watching a few streamers go through the game/ending for the first time, let's just say I wouldn't bet the farm on that outcome.
 
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Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
I truly believe that most people would leave the unarmed doctors alive during the last section of the first TLOU, but interactivity be damned! You're simply experiencing a story in TLOU exactly in the same way a story is written and told via a movie or TV show. And the fact that Neil Druckmann doesn't even direct the 'game' part of his products really makes it an easy choice for being the biggest closet movie director within the gaming industry... Oh and and his excessive enthusiasm for being an executive producer, a writer, AND A DIRECTOR on a TV show really is all the proof you need regarding this argument.
What a weird argument.

You experience the story as is in most games: God of War, Spider-Man, Witcher 3, Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto, Zelda, Halo, Hellblade, etc.

I wanted John Marston to run away with Abigail and Jack, but I couldn't, so interactivity be damned. You couldn't just throw away Faye's ashes on the side and bang Freya instead in GoW? Interactivity be damned! I wanted to kill Trevor and continue living my family life as Michael in GTA 5 but I couldn't ... interactivity be damned!

There are sandbox-type games out there, but TLOU is not one of those games. Why do you want to judge it on the basis of what it specifically isn't?
 

Zones

Member
You know Neil actually said that for TLOU2 he was doing the stuff that Bruce had done on the first game, which left him with far less time to work on the story. He wrote the entire story of the first game by himself because Bruce Straley was co-directing the game. But he explained that because he had to direct the second game alone, Haley Gross wrote most of the script of Part 2. He said he wished he had a co-director like Bruce for Part 2, so he would have had more time to work on the story.

Your idea that Neil Druckmann wasn't involved in the game design of TLOU2 is incorrect. And its not like Kojima designs his own games by himself, despite what he'd want you to think lol. Both Druckmann and Kojima served as the overall project directors and creative leads on TLOU2 and Death Stranding and were therefore involved in every aspect of the game. Same with Cory Barlog on God of War. Each directed the game themselves, all of the game.
I am not sure what bringing Halley Gross as a co-writer has anything to do with my initial point exactly... But it's interesting that you omitted the fact Neil Druckmann brought in TWO other people to serve as TLOUII's game directors (while he remains as a creative director, just like for the first TLOU).

Yes indeed, during the transitional period of Bruce leaving and ND being busy with Lost Legacy, Neil had to do more to get the project off the ground, but we're talking about the earlier phases of development, not to mention the extra managerial tasks he had to undertake with all the hiring and whatnot compared to U4/TLOU. But none of that really contradicts with what I said, and on top of that, your assessment of comparing the involvement level of the game design aspect of Cory Barlog, Hideo Kojima, and Neil Druckmann for GoW/DS/TLOU2 (respectively) is simply not accurate, and you can check the main credits for yourself to see, for example, how much more involved Kojima was for Death Stranding's gameplay design compared to the others.

Last thing I want to say regarding this topic is an interesting theory from someone else. That someone theorized a big reason behind Halley Gross' hiring is because Halley knows people at HBO due to her writings and involvement on a few episodes of the HBO TV show Westworld, meaning working as a writer/director in Hollywood has always been one of Neil's aspirations and this hiring would expediate that end goal dramatically. I personally can't tell if that has been the case or not, but with how unbelievably Oscar bait-y TLOU2's narrative was, I feel like this whole thing does sound like a match made in heaven.

Would really love to see the data on this, because I could not disagree more -- at most it would be split, but more likely IMO everyone in the room dies a healthy majority of the time.
It's impossible to tell, but I was making a point regarding TLOU's story being non-interactive in the same way a movie is (and unlike David Cage's). However, I remember reading about this and there were quite a lot of people torn regarding Joel's killing spree during that section, but here are some interesting comments from the creators themselves taken from this Kotaku article.

In comments sections and forums and even among my colleagues, one thing everyone seems to talk about is the scene in the operating room. Joel walks in and three doctors are preparing to operate on Ellie, which would kill her in the process. Joel slowly walks toward the operating table, and the nearest surgeon holds up a scalpel, ready to fight him off. Joel kills him, takes Ellie, and leaves.

Or, that's how it played for me. Other people did it differently; killed all three doctors, or tried to do it clean. Given how little "choice" there is in The Last of Us, it's fascinating that people have approached this one "optional" part in such different ways. But as it turns out, that scene could have been a non-interactive cutscene.

Druckmann: "The ending, when Joel walks into the operating room, it used to be one giant cutscene. It was quite a bit different."
"The ending," Druckman said, "when Joel walks into the operating room, it used to be one giant cutscene. It was quite a bit different. And there was a designer, Peter Field, who advocated for it to be playable. And he argued for it, and we'd kind of wrack our brain for how to do it, and eventually he was right. We scrapped the whole cinematic and made it playable. And it helped even moreso than we had initially, the beginning really mirrors the end."

I asked if Druckmann could estimate how playtesters fared when called upon to shoot the doctors. "I don't know the numbers," he said, "it's interesting. Sometimes people don't realize they can shoot all the doctors, and sometimes they don't realize that they don't have to shoot the doctors. And sometimes like, "Hey, I don't care, I just went in there guns blazing, how dare they do what they're doing!" And some people were disgusted that they have to shoot the first doctor."

"We have exit interviews after our playtests in-house," Straley said, "and we ask questions about difficulty and weapons and all sorts of different ramping things, and at some point, we walked through the game linearly. And once they get to the doctor's office, you'll always have, because we'll have like two or three people in the room at a time, and inevitably, there will be an outbreak of an argument between somebody and the other people in the room about like, 'Did you kill them all?' 'I murdered 'em all.' 'No, I let them all go, I wish I didn't have to kill that one,' 'I took out my flamethrower and burned them to a crisp.'

What a weird argument.

You experience the story as is in most games: God of War, Spider-Man, Witcher 3, Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto, Zelda, Halo, Hellblade, etc.

I wanted John Marston to run away with Abigail and Jack, but I couldn't, so interactivity be damned. You couldn't just throw away Faye's ashes on the side and bang Freya instead in GoW? Interactivity be damned! I wanted to kill Trevor and continue living my family life as Michael in GTA 5 but I couldn't ... interactivity be damned!

There are sandbox-type games out there, but TLOU is not one of those games. Why do you want to judge it on the basis of what it specifically isn't?
See above please... I wasn't judging the storytelling aspect negatively at all, I was simply trying to say that David Cage, despite also being a closet movie director, at least uses this medium's potential for interactive storytelling to his advantage so that his outputs are somewhat unique if compared directly to a movie or TV show, but I understand most other games are not like that (mostly for good reasons) and I have personally zero problem with that approach, in fact, I somewhat prefer that good ol' traditional approach.
 

THEAP99

Banned
Looks worse than tlou2 tbh not really a fan of the set or image quality. Not sure why they went to Canada to film when they should be on ground at real game locations like Pittsburgh for authenticity.
 

kyliethicc

Member
I am not sure what bringing Halley Gross as a co-writer has anything to do with my initial point exactly... But it's interesting that you omitted the fact Neil Druckmann brought in TWO other people to serve as TLOUII's game directors (while he remains as a creative director, just like for the first TLOU).
He was not "creative director" of The Last of Us Part II. He was the "Director" (of the entire game.)

Underneath him, the director, were the multiple game / art / programming directors (aka leads).
Game Director - Anthony Newman
Game Director - Kurt Margenau
Art Director - Erick Pangilnan
Art Director - John Sweeney
Programming Director - Travis McIntosh
Programming Director - Christian Gyrling
Technical Art Director - Waylon Brinck

Or are we gonna pretend that TLOU2 was actually co-directed by like 8-10 people now just cuz of the word director in their title?


Yes indeed, during the transitional period of Bruce leaving and ND being busy with Lost Legacy, Neil had to do more to get the project off the ground, but we're talking about the earlier phases of development, not to mention the extra managerial tasks he had to undertake with all the hiring and whatnot compared to U4/TLOU. But none of that really contradicts with what I said, and on top of that, your assessment of comparing the involvement level of the game design aspect of Cory Barlog, Hideo Kojima, and Neil Druckmann for GoW/DS/TLOU2 (respectively) is simply not accurate, and you can check the main credits for yourself to see, for example, how much more involved Kojima was for Death Stranding's gameplay design compared to the others.
We just disagree. Any director of an entire game, whether Druckmann, Barlog, Kojima, etc... they are involved in the entire project and that includes the game's design. Of course it varies person by person game by game but how much is impossible to know.

The Last of Us Part II - directed by Neil Druckmann.
God of War - directed by Cory Barlog.
Death Stranding - directed by Hideo Kojima.
 
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