The Last of Us Megathread - Spoilers

Sephiroth_dude

I had forgotten all about Ellie and her joke book 😂 fantastic episode, can't wait to see what the bloaters look like.

Zero-Cool

Oh man, Melanie Lynskey getting hate because of her body shape in episode 4. Too curvy, not enough muscles, doesn't look like a gang leader. These people are really gonna freak out when they see Abby.

McFly85

Great episode. Stuck to the game pretty well but it was great to get some backstory on Henry & Sam - both actors were great choices.

The sniper scene was done really well, and what an entrance for the bloater! Didn’t think we’d see them at all tbh.

It was nice to see a reference to Ish, while I wouldn’t expect anything thing more than that on a TV show, it just highlights how well video games can use the environment to tell a story-Ishs journey from lone survivor to community leader was one of my favourite parts of the first game.

My only minor gripe was Sam telling Ellie about the bite, and then her not telling Joel and Henry. She’s too smart to think wiping some of her blood on the bite would help Sam.

Other than that, thoroughly enjoyed it! Looking forward to Joel’s reunion with his brother now.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120227893#Comment_120227893

Yeah, I didn't really like Sam telling Ellie about the bite. At the very least she might have done the thing with the blood to try reassure Sam so he wouldnt be scared, but she's too smart not to have told Joel & Henry. They would have been better doing it like in the game.

CastorTroy

She's 14 and told her blood is a cure. There's a chance she believes she could've cured him instead of possibly losing another person she had gotten close to and cared about. I doubt the FEDRA schools taught her anything that would make her believe otherwise.

Zero-Cool

I actually really liked the blood offer, gives a false sense of hope about the end game and shows Ellie is still immature in this world. She formed a bond with Sam and it looked like she was sure it would work without having to tell anyone and sharing a trust with Sam.

I think it's also a great motivation tool for Ellie to get to the Firefly camp and do whatever it takes to get a cure which will come into play in season 2.

Grumpypants

Another great episode. I didn't think Ellie thought the blood would work. But more likely did it to stop Sam being so scared.

I thought she should have told Harry at least do he could have some time with Sam.

These parts are hitting me harder in the TV show than the game. I know what's coming, but every time it's still leaving me with a sense of hopelessness. That shows how good the writing is.

Penn

Actually watched the episode again today and, I'm more okay with the blood thing this time. Ellie is still a kid at heart, especially when she's able to play and have fun with Sam, and I guess part of why she did might be guilt over Riley and thinking maybe she could save Sam (and worry Joel might kill him because he's infected, or make Henry & Sam leave). Still think it would have been better keeping it like the game, but I've no issue with it.

McFly85

For me it was minor but still out of character. If they wanted Sam to tell Ellie and Ellie use her blood in the hope that it would work, and to reassure Sam, then I think she should have told Joel and Henry about it after he had fallen asleep.

It would have at least allowed Henry to say goodbye to his brother. Maybe then instead of following the scene from the game, Henry locks himself in with Sam to watch over him over the night, with Joel and Ellie being woken up to the sound of 2 gunshots in the morning.

Ellies a kid, but she’s grown up in a world where seeing someone with a bite like that means imminent danger. It just seemed odd to have her think I’ll use my blood, it will probably be fine, no precautions needed here. In fact I’m happy to have a snooze in the same room as someone I know to be infected.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120234699#Comment_120234699

In fairness, neither Ellie nor Sam intended to fall asleep. Sam asked Ellie to stay up with him for the night, however Ellie accidentally fell asleep. Had she stayed awake, she might have seen earlier that Sam was turning and that it hadn't worked, and then been able to alert Joel & Henry.

She does know that someone being bitten means danger, but she's also dealing with the fact that she's immune, which is completely new. So the idea that she thinks her blood might be able to stop the infection in Sam's leg isn't completely out there either, as they're dealing with something unknown. It was definitely reckless, but then she is pretty reckless anyway.

Glebee

Folks just a quick one. I have never played any of TLOU games but its on my list when it releases on PC later in the year. Should I give the TV show a miss for the time being until I play the game? Any suggestions appreciated.

McFly85

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120234925#Comment_120234925

I would suggest you do if you don’t want to be spoiled in any way-it’s incredibly faithful to the source material so if you watch the TV show now you’ll know exactly what happens when you play the game.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120234925#Comment_120234925

It kinda depends how you'd prefer to experience the story. If you'd prefer to watch the show and just experience the game for the gameplay, that's fine. But given how integral the story is to the game as a whole, you'll probably have a lessened experience with the game. Whereas if you play the game first and then watch the show, you're obviously going to know how the story plays out (they've made several changes to make it suit the TV format, but pretty much everything core to the game is still in the show, with some scenes, dialogue, camera framing etc lifted directly from the game), but that's how most of us are experiencing the show as well and it's certainly not disappointing in that regard.

So I'd lean more towards playing the game first, but if you're feeling left out with everyone discussing the show, there's no harm in just watching the show and playing the game after.

Glebee

Playing the game first was my preference as well. Will hang onto watching show for later in the year

Zero-Cool

+1 to playing the game first. Incredible experience that I don't think a tv show will match because you're in control of Joel which makes the story more impactful. Saying that, I wish i was watching the show with no knowledge of it but preferred i played the game first.

Grumpypants

Either way it gets "spoiled" in terms of the big story points, but not ruined. You would be doing good to avoid spoilers either way.

I've played the game 3 times and each time is a great experience. The second and third times I took something extra from the game that I missed the first time.

Watching it again in TV format is great.

The Raging Bile Duct

I thought the battle scene was really well done and really highlighted the gulf in quality between this and the likes of the Walking Dead.

Zero-Cool

Well that was class, can't believe they hinted at Dina! The wound at the end was a bit mild compared to the game but i thought they couldn't follow what happened in that and keep it realistic.

Thought it was great to show Jackson as well, sets up season 2 nicely.

https://twitter.com/sckberry/status/1627553299699212288?t=zAOAOjjBWuqSmwfvLTsm1A&s=19

Grumpypants

Yeah they are bringing in more and more Part 2 stuff. The locations around Jackson, Dina, and shimmer the horse shows up as a foal.

Another good episode. The attention to detail to bring the game to life is paying off. This is what happens when you use the source material properly.

Can't believe it's almost over. The game was around 15 hours and had loads of gameplay to buff it out. I feel like this could have been 20 hours and I'd have love it all.

Grumpypants

And that's a wrap. I think they missed the mark with the hospital scene. In the game I was hell bent on saving Ellie and getting out felt like I'd been through the grinder by the time the car scene happened.

But the slow motion here kinda killed it. It felt flatter than it should have.

But overall amazing series. Just wished they had spread it out over two seasons and spent longer on it.

Zero-Cool

Ha Laura Bailey aka Abby was a nurse. Here she is doing the peace out over Jerry :D

https://twitter.com/Neil_Druckmann/status/1635176889060052992?t=09Y3IFVX-64kltKHwTdyiA&s=19

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120355750#Comment_120355750

Didn't realise that she actually played a nurse in the original game, to the point where they changed the voice actress for the remake of the game because Bailey then went on to be Abby.

The Raging Bile Duct

Bloody hell, didn't twig Ellie's mother was played by Ashley Johnson.

J. Marston

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120357076#Comment_120357076

Clicked immediately for me. Her regular voice seems to be just game Ellie. Thought it would've been different.

CastorTroy

So last week Ellie killed Joel and this week Ellie gave birth to Ellie.

Zero-Cool

Ashley is just class, beaming she had such a great part and i think "you **** tell 'em Ellie" might be my favourite line across all of TLOU.

As for season 2, Neil said he doesn't care how people react to season 2, he only cares how to make it good for tv which "is something we wrestle with everyday". So sounds like all the big plot points will be there but they're just figuring out how to tell it. Also both Neil and Craig said part will definitely be told across at least 2 seasons. So, joel vs abby could be the season finale (would make an epic finale of telly) with season 3 being the revenge tale.

The big question would be do they introduce Abby as the doctors daughter early helping you empathise with what she wants to do or surprise people like the game and then try to make people like her.

nix

Episodes 1 and 2 were the best of the episodes, the pacing of the show went to absolute sh!t after this point. While i enjoyed the 3rd episode i think they dwelled on Bills romance far too long and they should not have grown old together, i really wanted to see the hateful Bill we see in the game, he was a good character. They could have killed off frank half way through the episode and time jump to When Joel and Ellie pop in and show him being his usual miserable bastard self from the game. Then kill him if they wanted..

Why they bothered introducing the Kathleen character boggles my mind, she was terrible, and no not because she was on the heavy side, her on screen presence was just terrible and not believeable, and ultimately she gets killed off pretty quickly, so it begs the question of why did they bother? They could have spent the budget/time fleshing out everything else later.

The meeting up with Tommy section was fine, but it was from this point on that everything just felt super rushed, except the DLC episode, that should have been cut in half, the section of David should have been spread over the two episodes i felt, and why bother making him a religious loon? so unnecessary. And then the last episode was just total fast forward, it blew my mind how quickly they skimmed over it.

And why the feck were there no spores? no gas masks anywhere? they could have easily weaved that into the traveling through the underground section that they skipped through in episodes 4/5, think of how nail bittingly tense they could have made that section, instead of wasting it on Kathleen and her group of infected fodder..

Anway, overall id give it probably a 6 out of 10, 7 at most..

Grumpypants

Part 1 is out on PC now, and from what I'm reading it's not doing well.

It takes over an hour to build shaders. An hour after downloading and installing your game and you are still sitting looking at that window menu screen as you still can't play it !!

And even then the performance is poor. Stuttering on Low/medium settings and hard crashing.

Zero-Cool

Oh man, ND has been pushing the PC release so hard, sounds like the recent release was justified but they needed to get it out whole the tv show was still hot.

Retr0gamer

Seems that Sony gave the porting job to Iron Galaxy who have been pretty infamous for awful PC ports. Seems they also ported the UC collection with the same issues. It's meant to be incredibly heavy on CPU and CPU limited which is just awful coding. The shader caching sounds a bit extreme but honestly I'd rather it was there than to have another elden ring situation.

I've had issues with God of War in the past, DF hailed it as an amazing port but on my AMD PC and on others with AMD hardware it was awful (it did get patched in fairness). At least the Nixxies ports of spiderman have been excellent.