ShadyPingu

@humanity: That fight does feel like the culmination of TLOU's endgame idea of "what if we force the player to do something they may find morally repugnant, like shank a doctor?" Actually, the whole game is kind of an extrapolation of that idea, certainly the California epilogue.

Boy, given how much Vinny disliked the surgery room sequence in TLOU, this game is going to make his head explode.

@humanity: That's all true. While changing the structure would solve my immediate problem of not being engaged by Ellie's story, the 2-part thing does pay dividends later on. Plus it might've even exacerbated the issue: maybe I'd resent Ellie even more if her murder spree was constantly pulling me away from Abby's redemption arc. I guess the obvious solution would be to... make the Ellie part more engaging? I feel like Dina and Ellie's relationship was supposed to provide that emotional grounding, but I didn't feel that they had the chemistry to pull it off. Ah well.

@humanity: Interesting take. I said earlier in the thread that I found the Ellie section to be boring, narratively-speaking, while I was engrossed by the Abby section because the factions are explored more deeply and Abby herself is a more dynamic character.

I ended up wondering if my experience would've been improved if the game alternated chapters: Ellie Day 1, Abby Day 1, Ellie Day 2, Abby Day 2, etc. I can't imagine that possibility wasn't discussed at ND internally, and I realize they had good reasons for splitting the game in two. It just really killed my interest in the first 12-15 hours. If I go for a 2nd round, I probably won't play the Ellie section. How did the structure land with you?

I enjoyed it, though not as much as the first game. It's too long for its own good, certainly. Pacing is probably the game's deepest flaw.

I think Naughty Dog is largely successful in their goal of nudging you to reconsider your moral position on both Abby and Ellie. I thought it was interesting that they are on basically inverse character arcs. We are introduced to Abby as she does the most awful thing she's ever done, then for the rest of our time with her, we see her acting with varying degrees of selflessness. By contrast, Ellie starts the game in a very reasonable place of anger and pain, but by the end she has become a thoroughly pathetic character whose actions are disgusting and indefensible. Thankfully she experiences some much-needed catharsis at the very end so maybe the future will look a bit brighter for Ellie.

So, well done on that, but all this does have an unfortunate knock-on effect: I found the Ellie section to be a slog because she is a fairly static character, while I was engrossed by Abby's section. No idea how one would resolve that, but it definitely colored my experience with the game.

Once again Jason Schreier out here doing God's work. The organizational dynamics described sound pretty rough. A lot of the upper-level mismanagement that led to Anthem feeling unfinished are, pretty much, how we all guessed it happened, but the impact it seems to have had on the people in the trenches... it's really beyond my imagining.

I had a ton of fun making my Interceptor look rad. It's really cool that you can change not only the color of various regions on your suit, but the type of material too. I have reservations about naming that a main draw in the real game, because it's tied to microtransactions. It remains to be seen how many roadblocks there will be on the road to Anthem Fashion.

I don't know what that says about Anthem, also, that the fashion is the only thing that really got me jazzed. I played plenty of Destiny 1 & 2 and have come to the conclusion that I don't have space in my life for that kind of game. I do have space for the games BioWare typically makes, though, and it kind of bums me out that this has taken priority over those.

Not a bad move. Having to buy all the DLC was the primary reason I didn’t upgrade to Forsaken. Of course, now it’s October and I have enough video games to last me until mid-2019, so they missed their window, but...

My dude already secured his place in music history. He deserves as much time off as he wants. I hope his health improves.

I shotgunned the whole yesterday and really enjoyed it. Would like more of the general with the big fuck-off shield, please.

I only own base Destiny 2. For some reason, being required to buy the previous 2 DLCs was the thing that totally broke the whole Forsaken proposition for me. If someday there's a sale I might jump back on board, though. Bows look cool.