Okay, so I was checking out a bunch of reviews for The Last of Us Part II today. So far it's being scored (to my surprise) very comparably to the original. And by similarly I mean that various outlets that were around back in 2013 are often scoring the sequel exactly the same as they did the original. Representing the polar ends of the spectrum, for example, IGN scores it a 10 while GameSpot scores it an 8, both identical to their scores of the original. I've watched a lot of these review videos and read a lot of the articles at this point (and yes I'm familiar with the contents of the leaks too) and based on what I've seen and heard so far...well the main takeaway for me was that I still have to wait and see for myself...but also that I suspect I will have an overall very high but nuanced opinion of the final product. Just wanted to say that right away so that nobody takes me the wrong way. ANYWAY...
The IGN review (10/10, which is notoriously commonplace for them anyway) has been watched the most times so far, and the gamer reactions thereto can thus I think perhaps be taken as the overall most reflective of the views of the gaming community. That's why I want to highlight a bunch of examples that were up-voted below, which really are typical examples. You'll notice that definite themes prevail, and I mean besides the fact that the respondents, with pretty absolute consistency, replied in the form of sarcastic non-quotations that were apparently supposed to be funny. Check out the sense of humor:
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“This game made everyone here at IGN turn in to lesbians including David and me” -10/10 (383 up-votes)
"Stunning and brave it makes you feel like an oppressed lesbian" 10/10 (262 up-votes)
"This game really made me feel guilty about being a white male." 10/10 IGN (178 up-votes)
“It really makes you feel like your wife took the kids” 10/10 IGN (174 up-votes)
"This lesbian really made me feel like game." 10/10 - IGN (147 up-votes)
"The Las of us part II is a love letter to Anita Sarkesian" 10/10 - IGN (116 up-votes)
"I feel shame on myself everytime I remember i'm straight" IGN- 10/10 (94 up-votes)
“If I don’t give this game a masterpiece, I’m a sexist” 10/10 -IGN (92 up-votes)
“My wife left me two weeks ago” -10/10 -IGN (66 up-votes)
"Has a lesbian protagonist. 10/10 - IGN Has a trans woman. Masterpiece - IGN" (53 up-votes)
(Spoiler: There is no transwoman character in TLOU2 that we're aware of as yet. The above remark is either hyperbole or paranoia. Just pointing it out for context. -- My note.)
"The protagonist is a girl" IGN - 10/10 (53 up-votes)
"IGN: “this game makes you feel like a true lesbian” 10/10 IGN (32 up-votes)
"The last of lesbian 2" IGN: 10/10" (27 up-votes)
"My wife's boyfriend really like this game" IGN- 10/10 (12 up-votes)
"orange man bad" - 10/10 IGN (7 up-votes)
"this game felt like my wife pegging me" 10/10 IGN (6 up-votes)
"It really makes you feel like you're looting in Minneapolis" 10/10 - IGN (5 up-votes)
"Lesbian" 10/10 - IGN (4 up-votes)
"The game makes you feel like a very angry lesbian" IGN - 10/10 stunning and brave (3 up-votes)
"the most authentic lesbian and golf simulator" 10/10 - IGN (3 up-votes)
"How two lesbians and a Ma'am made me a better father." IGN 10/10 (1 up-vote)
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Those are just some randomly-selected examples that I ordered by number of up-votes for convenience. I literally could have quoted hundreds of similar comments because they really do seem to go on and on forever, but you get the idea at this point. It's impossible to ignore how consistently misogynistic attitudes really do lie at the heart of nearly everyone campaigning against this particular game, or the fact that essentially all detractors are obviously political conservatives who feel that characters simply being female or being lesbians or being muscular and female at the same time constitute political statements by themselves, and reasons why a game should be scored lower.
The campaign against this particular game has never been about its game play quality or about its technical merits. Neither has it ever been for love of Joel and Ellie as characters because, as we can plainly see above, this game's premature detractors hate Ellie for being a lesbian character. This campaign, rather, is motivated by simple, straightforward, easy-to-understand, impossible-to-miss, hatred of women in general and lesbians in particular. (No, not "gay people", not "LGBT people", not "queer people", lesbians. Lesbian is the term they use.). That is all. Just wanted to put that in cement tonight because I'm tired of people being as disingenuous as they are about their motives here and pretending like they've ever intended to evaluate this game objectively. The second they learned Ellie was the main character in the sequel, the campaign began and what you see above are its main contents. End of debate.
Last edited by Jaicee - on 13 June 2020
