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Neil Druckmann interested in making Punisher and Half-Life Games

Azurro

Banned
Not logically, but it does make sense in the audience that the game is speaking to.

It's a game about losing a father, and when that happens, a reaction by a child can be expressed with denial, wanting to escape your own body and body dismorphia. It's not that hard to imagine Abby finding a shit ton of steriods, and that psychological need driving her to push herself into that shape.

In opposition to that, there are so many daft psychological choices made by other characters in the game that you may well be right -- but there are bigger problems with the story than that detail, mainly pacing and a constant need to be either so subtle it's confusing (like above) or so over the top it's laughable.

I'm generally on the side of thinking that the game is vastly overratted storywise -- but then again I don't see it as the SWJ fest that others do. For me it's more about the folly of blind faith / hate and how it leads to misery. It's actually a fairly good criticism of SWJ's from that perspective. It's just way too long.

That's a really flimsy justification. If somehow, somewhere, in the freaking apocalypse, there was a huge stash of steroids ready for she Hulk to use then ok, it's incredibly stupid, but let's go with that.

Why then, is she the only one taking them? On the wall it's quite clear she can lift more than the rest of the dudes, so it's obvious that they are not taking them, otherwise she wouldn't be no 1 on the wall. Was there an agreement that only she can get strong? That'd be incredibly stupid and even with the steroids, I have a hard time believing she'd beat all the guys, no matter how motivated.

The answer is, Abby is the way she was designed because of some body acceptance social movement and nothing else, internal consistency be damned. She's the fantasy of some SJW designing a woman as a man and saying that's progress.
 

VulcanRaven

Member
That's a really flimsy justification. If somehow, somewhere, in the freaking apocalypse, there was a huge stash of steroids ready for she Hulk to use then ok, it's incredibly stupid, but let's go with that.

Why then, is she the only one taking them? On the wall it's quite clear she can lift more than the rest of the dudes, so it's obvious that they are not taking them, otherwise she wouldn't be no 1 on the wall. Was there an agreement that only she can get strong? That'd be incredibly stupid and even with the steroids, I have a hard time believing she'd beat all the guys, no matter how motivated.

The answer is, Abby is the way she was designed because of some body acceptance social movement and nothing else, internal consistency be damned. She's the fantasy of some SJW designing a woman as a man and saying that's progress.
Last of Us 2 spoilers:
I don't think Abby was taking steroids. She trained for years so she could kill Joel. She knew what Joel was capable of so she wanted to be prepared. There are many women MMA fighters who are very muscular so it made sense.
 
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MilkyJoe

Member
I can see it now

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The Skull

Member
I don't think Abby was taking steroids. She trained for years so she could kill Joel. She knew what Joel was capable of so she wanted to be prepared. There are many women MMA fighters who are very muscular so it made sense.
Well, the person they used to base her character model on is a roided up cross fitter. Take from that what you will.
 
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Azurro

Banned
Last of Us 2 spoilers:
I don't think Abby was taking steroids. She trained for years so she could kill Joel. She knew what Joel was capable of so she wanted to be prepared. There are many women MMA fighters who are very muscular so it made sense.

It doesn't matter, no one that has ever done any type of fitness can believe Abby got to be like that through merely hard work. Women can't get that big naturally, period.
 
I wonder if in his Punisher there will be some girl whose father is killed by the Punisher and then she will switch gender to beat the Punisher with a golf club.
 
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realcool

Member
I don't believe Neil is interested in making a Punisher game. I think he's trolling. He already made a game where the main character witnesses a traumatizing event so catastrophic to their being that they develop PTSD and set out on a path of vengeance.
 

Mister Wolf

Member
I guess most people haven't read The Punisher. The stuff by Ennis that made the character relevant again. The Punisher's writing and use of violence has more in common with these new Wolfenstein games than it does any game from Naughty Dog.
 

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
HL2 is incredibly linear and cinematic. Its very much in Druckmann's wheelhouse.

Being able to move around your character while characters talk to you is not player agency. Its just another form of a cutscene.
 

jaysius

Banned
Don't let this cuck get his greasy fingers on Cowboy Bebop, everyone would end up trans even Ein.

The action would be interrupted by long 20-30 minute scenes of boring poorly written drivel shit.
 
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tassletine

Member
That's a really flimsy justification. If somehow, somewhere, in the freaking apocalypse, there was a huge stash of steroids ready for she Hulk to use then ok, it's incredibly stupid, but let's go with that.

Why then, is she the only one taking them? On the wall it's quite clear she can lift more than the rest of the dudes, so it's obvious that they are not taking them, otherwise she wouldn't be no 1 on the wall. Was there an agreement that only she can get strong? That'd be incredibly stupid and even with the steroids, I have a hard time believing she'd beat all the guys, no matter how motivated.

The answer is, Abby is the way she was designed because of some body acceptance social movement and nothing else, internal consistency be damned. She's the fantasy of some SJW designing a woman as a man and saying that's progress.
Well, I kind of said that in my reply didn't I? No need to hammer it in with the stupid part. It's logical, not impossible or implausible -- Abby's father was also a doctor, remember?

I'm not here to defend the game. Read my reply more closely and try to comprehend what I wrote (or just read some of my other posts hammering the story) before diving in with your conspiracy theories about why ND did what they did. I'm no fan of the story.
 

remake_maxpayne

Neo Member
The dude made the most violent game I've ever played. I would happily take a Druckmann Punisher game where you save alphabet people from white people.
 

Ellery

Member
Wish I had the power to get people fuming mad by simply replying to an innocent hypothetical question.


Still, NDs and NDs talent would be wasted on most of these and whatever they are cooking will be better anyways.

Okay real talk though I'd be super in love with the idea of a Cowboy Bebop game by Naughty Dog. I can't even begin to image how cool that would be.
 

NickFire

Member
I would be really interested in a Punisher game from him and his team. Whether I'd like the direction they take the story is impossible to say in a vacuum, but their technical know-how could lead to a great Punisher game.
 

Azurro

Banned
Well, I kind of said that in my reply didn't I? No need to hammer it in with the stupid part. It's logical, not impossible or implausible -- Abby's father was also a doctor, remember?

I'm not here to defend the game. Read my reply more closely and try to comprehend what I wrote (or just read some of my other posts hammering the story) before diving in with your conspiracy theories about why ND did what they did. I'm no fan of the story.

It doesn't matter if the father is the CEO of Pfizer, I assume the ampoules they are using come from before the apocalypse, as a bunch of meat heads wouldn't have a factory that produces those up and running. I'm not a pharmacist, but from what I've searched, anabolic steroids don't have a longer shelf life than 36 weeks, so she would long be out of those by the time the game arrived. Not to mention the logistics of keeping the whole bunch of bodybuilders fed and eating their 10,000+ calorie per day diet, which sounds to me like a reckless way of living in the apocalypse where food is scarce.

The plot point of the she hulk lady is indefensible. It literally cannot happen, and the only reason it did is because of stupid SJW reasons that care not about internal logic. That's why the biggest plot points don't make sense and enrage so many people, because they modify or kill characters in ways that don't go according to their characters because they want them replaced by an lgbt flag cast.
 
i would love to see a Punisher game made by Naughty dog , just imagine half the action of Uncharted 2 with half the dark and brutal action of The last of us ...would be freakin awsome!
 
S

Sidney Prescott

Unconfirmed Member
A Punisher by Naughty Dog would have sounded awesome a couple of years ago, but The Last of Us 2 kind of made me sour on them a little.

Despite that, I still think it could be good. The combat in TLOU2 was pretty good. I just hope they wouldn't screw the storyline up, I feel like Punisher is really simple.
 

Yoda

Member
I’d prefer he stay away from all of those franchises. His style of writing would be better off with something like comic book super heros.
 
HL2 is incredibly linear and cinematic. Its very much in Druckmann's wheelhouse.

Being able to move around your character while characters talk to you is not player agency. Its just another form of a cutscene.
It is not very much in Druckmann's wheelhouse if you are comparing the Half-Life games to Uncharted and The Last of Us.

Since the very first Half-Life, you have control of the player character as well as the camera, meaning you are in control of the "cinematic" as opposed to the developer. Decades later and most AAA developers, including the oft-praised Naughty Dog, have done the complete opposite as they want their games to be more cinematic, movie-like, passive etc. There are very few moments in Half-Life games when you are actually locked in place but even then you can still move the camera. For the other 99 percent of Half-Life games, you are in complete control of the player character and camera and that freedom adds to the overall immersion.

Being forced to slowly walk down a narrow hallway as a non-playable character talks your ear off is what is very much in Druckmann's wheelhouse, while in Half-Life games you can choose whether or not to walk at the same pace as Alyx or run directly to Dr. Kleiner's lab as she talks. I don't think Druckmann could do the latter because AAA game developers like him seem obsessed with directing every cutscene moment, whether they're in-game or in-engine.
 

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Being forced to slowly walk down a narrow hallway as a non-playable character talks your ear off is what is very much in Druckmann's wheelhouse, while in Half-Life games you can choose whether or not to walk at the same pace as Alyx or run directly to Dr. Kleiner's lab as she talks. I don't think Druckmann could do the latter because AAA game developers like him seem obsessed with directing every cutscene moment, whether they're in-game or in-engine.

Walking alongside a talking NPC vs walking anywhere in a small room with extremely limited interactivity while an NPC delivers a monologue that you have no way of responding to. Sorry I just don't see much of a difference.

Whenever I replay HL2 I use console command to skip to Route Kanal lol. The first couple levels are not interactive.
 
Walking alongside a talking NPC vs walking anywhere in a small room with extremely limited interactivity while an NPC delivers a monologue that you have no way of responding to. Sorry I just don't see much of a difference.

Whenever I replay HL2 I use console command to skip to Route Kanal lol. The first couple levels are not interactive.
The difference is you are in control of your character and the camera. Personally I think more games should play like Half-Life in that regard.
 

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
The difference is you are in control of your character and the camera. Personally I think more games should play like Half-Life in that regard.

I'd agree its cool to an extent, like in Kleiner's room the little things you can play around with. However there should be a skip option even for that type of experience. Replaying something like Metal Gear Solid 3, with its 5 hours of cutscenes, is actually more enjoyable than a HL2 replay for me because you can easily skip cutscenes.

I'm just glad you're not pontificating the environmental storytelling meme. That works brilliantly in some games but really for most stories you need characters to have a conversation with each other. The traditional videogame cutscene is still an effective way of delivering a story. Even Half-Life, with its non-traditional approach, at least understands that much.
 
I can imagine Neil asking Gabe if he would consider letting Naughty Dog take over Half Life. Gabe would just chuckle and say something like, “At Valve, we believe games should be fun. I don’t think your team wants to deliver that experience to our users.”
 
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