| the-pi-guy said: I just want to preface this first. This isn't directed at any one in this thread, it was more of a response to some reddit threads that I read following the game. And if you feel that some of my criticisms are pointed at things you posted in this thread, I hope that instead of getting bothered, that you'll put some real thought into what I've said, why you actually feel the way you do about the game. Spoiler!
The only thing I knew about the game going into it was that there was a transgender character, and that there was some outrage over a scene. So I played through, clocked about 22 hours of the game wondering what kind of scene would trigger the outrage. I got to the end and was incredibly confused. The whole time I was basically waiting for some kind of scene where a character gets a sex change right on screen, instead I thought it was the biggest nothing to ever get outraged against. I had been avoiding all spoilers, because I wanted to experience the entire game. I did not even watch most of the trailer that were put out. I only watched the ones shown at E3. And I quickly played through the game to join the conversation about the game. And the conversation has been ridiculously disappointing. The game has a lot of flaws. It's weirdly the best incredibly flawed game I've ever played. Some of my favorite games, I have a really hard time thinking of any real flaws with them. Not that they're perfect, but to me they're so darn close, they might as well be perfect games. Bloodborne, Uncharted 2, the original Last of Us, there's nothing I'd change about those games. This game on the other hand to me feels like it has a lot of flaws, and yet I'd rate it almost as highly as those games. Which is crazy. It was overly long I felt. And it was a bit jarring to go back between very long flashbacks, and very long present day gameplay. I think the game would have felt better by cutting out a day for both characters. I think it would have felt better if some of the flashbacks were replaced by more shorter lighter hearted moments in the game. There are other problems that weren't as big of a deal to me, but some brought it up. Basically the game makes you feel bad for things that weren't your fault. It's been frustrating, because there's a lot to discuss with the game. There's flaws to talk about. There are design choices to talk about. And yet a fair amount of dialogue is about things that didn't even happen in the game. Like Abby isn't trans, and she's never suggested in the game to be as such. I watched the first 10 minutes of the Angry Joe review, and he started complaining about things that never happened. It's been frustrating, because people are complaining about the mere existence of certain kinds of characters. LGBT isn't a political position. Strong women isn't a political position. They're people. They're just people. Some of those people want to be represented somehow. A lot of people just want diverse characters and stories. I honestly have no clue, how some people can basically imply that buff women are a political agenda, without face palming themselves. Imagine if someone said "The Last of Us 2 is pushing a conservative agenda, because it glorifies guns as a life saving tool. It also pushes out how important it is to have that right to defend yourself. Skyrim is pushing a conservative agenda by having a semi-capitalistic society, and represents a proud almost patriotic group of white people who are fighting off their oppressors just like us Americans did in 1776. The magic bit here is that if you go into any game trying to find an agenda, if you're clever enough, chances are pretty good that you'll be able to argue that the agenda you expected is actually there. Even more frustrating is that every time a diverse character like I talked about previously exists, people demand that their existence be justified somehow. As if character traits have to be justified somehow. "why is this character male, that needs to be justified" Even more frustratingly this game literally went to lengths to justify the characters. Lev being transgender was part of his story. Abby being buff was part of her story. They weren't just token characters who were just thrown into a regular story to check off some boxes. And yet the outrage was worse than ever. So apparently the issue wasn't that these characters weren't justified. And frankly even if buff women was part of some kind of liberal agenda. Why do you think that pixels on a screen is worth getting upset over? |
Well said from beginning to end. I do have to ask though: Why are liberal 'agendas' considered bad or unsavoury? In my experience (and keep in mind I'm Canadian, not American), liberals stand for progress, inclusion, equality, and acceptance. These are the sort of agendas we SHOULD be fighting for and history has told us WILL prevail. All the current political discourse in the world (BLM, Neo Nazis in America, pretty much everything Trump says or does, etc) boils down to having that last pocket of ignorant bigots crying VERY loudly about their values no longer being accepted and trying their best to not go down without a fight. Racism, sexism, xenophobia...they're dwindling but you'd never know it becuase the people fighting FOR those things are louder and more aggressive than ever. We're more tolerant and accepting of interracial relationships and integration and LGBT+ Rights than we've ever been over in the western world...but the people who find those values to be 'wrong' or whatever are in their death knell and will continue to do so for as long as there's bigotry in this world.
Honestly, I am not looking forward to the next few years. it's going to get worse, becuase entitled, privileged, straight white people feel threatened by the encroachment of...you know, social progress. When you're in power like that, balance and equality feels like oppression. Not gonna be fun.
So yeah, Liberal agendas are good. We need more of them because conservative agendas usually are "HOO RAH GUNS!" or traditionalist or regressive or bigoted. that's not even just my liberal brain speaking, that's observable truth. Modern conservatives stand for regressive beliefs, not progressive beliefs. their entire political standpoint seems to be held up by the idea that all this liberal progress is ruining the world....and it's just not. Their view on progress is provably wrong, but good luck convincing them of that...hence why they fight so loud, are so aggressively resistant, and call out 'fake news' whenever pesky facts interfere with their feelings.
