That's not the reason, it's one of the reasons, or two separate points, or something like that.  I like your reading of it, but I disagree with your reading of some of the evidence that helped you come to your conclusion (eg the giraffes).  The stuff about the strains of cordyceps being species specific (etymology yeah!) is both just a point of information to those questioning animals not being infected, but also a slight disagreement with the notion that it was a deliberate thematic choice.

adkm1979 wrote:

•  I like Tempy's enviro-reading, although I can't fully commit to it.  Each strain of the cordyceps fungus this is based on is designed to target one species and one species only. There's a cordyceps fungus that targets certain ants, one that targets certain moths, one that targets certain grasshoppers.  Given that there are so many infections that are species-exclusive, I always took it for granted that the infection was human only, and didn't think twice about the dogs/monkeys/giraffes not having it.

I'm in the "well obviously it only affects humans" camp too.  However i do still have some sympathy with the enviro-reading, deliberate or otherwise.  As I intimated before, I thought it was a nice touch that in the final stratches of the game the Infected are almost entirely avoidable.  Treat them with the respect they've earned and they'll leave you alone.  Pretty much like any other dangerous wild creature.  Whereas the humans remain incredibly and unreasonably dangerous (whether we're talking about joel or his enemies.)

adkm1979 wrote:

•  On the theme of the infected, I remember being disappointed when I first learned this game had them.  I still am.  The uninfected human enemies are by far the scariest, in all of their guises, and many times more interesting, story-wise.  If we must have infected, keep it to the brainless running types.  The clickers would be an interesting idea in a different game, one that, for example, could sustain the premise for even a single encounter.  However, between inconsistent clicker radar and consistently poor partner AI, the game repeatedly let itself down badly.  The bloaters were, for my money, jumped sharks that nearly had me switching off for good when I encountered the first one.

I think I'm in a minority here, but I actually preferred sections with the infected, to those with people.  Particularly rooms full of clickers/bloaters.  I wasn't a massive fan of the runners/stalkers though.  (The exception being areas with a balance of runners and clickers in which you could target the former whilst avoiding detection by the latter.  I really enjoyed the weird, tense puzzles these produced, and was utterly thrown when it later became clear in some areas there was no way to do it without just torching everything.)  Whilst the bloaters could have proven irritating, the fact that I only ever had to fight one (the first) meant that I regarded them in much the same way as the clickers - terrifying things to be avoided, rather than irritating obstacles.  The human enemies meanwhile I found slightly tedious and repetitive, and could have come from pretty much any game.

adkm1979 wrote:

•  I know it's a game, but gaminess kills this all over the shop.  A pile of old clothes, a generator full of fuel running (pointlessly) nearby and glass bottles strewn everywhere, but I can't make a Molotov because the game says so.  I've got zero ammunition for my other guns and an empty rucksack but I can't take those shotgun shells because the game says so. A world pretty much made of hard, broken sharp things but I can't make a shiv because the game says so.  Frustrating.

Yeah, the gameyness was sometimes irritating.  (The fact that nothing could hear my often bloody noisy NPCs was particularly disruptive.)  I think my tolerance of it was higher than yours though - particularly as they started to subvert some of those elements later on.  But yeah, lots of stuff makes no logical sense in the real world, and the failure to restock between seasons was plain bizarre.

adkm1979 wrote:

•  I could easily see further games in the franchise, but set elsewhere, with entirely different characters.

Seems likely, still not sure how they'll make it remotely fresh though.  I'll be happy to be proven wrong.

Sporopod.

Just got this finished last night. Just thought I'd chuck my two cents in on the ending. After dealing with the surgeons (Knifed first, brained second on counter, torched third with flamer FWIW) and grabbing Ellie I had Joel running to escape the hospital in a panic. At one point I found myself cornered by Fireflies, they manage to grab Ellie from Joel's arms, wrestle him to the ground, and kill him with two bullets to the head. I was convinced that was the ending, and found myself thinking what a bleak, shocking, and realistic note it was to finish on. Joel's dead, Ellie goes under the knife, and it was all for nothing. Hell, with the surgeons dead the Fireflies couldn't proceed with the operation, so you could even have a further chapter involving Ellie living with the Fireflies or escaping to get back to Tommy.

Of course then my retry loaded up, I went "Oh!", carried on and nailed the canon ending. That was fine, I liked the ambiguity of whether she believed him and the notion that just as he was growing to love her as a surrogate daughter, she was getting to the point where she would have to leave him. Would have been happy to see something as brutally final as my own clumsy ending though.

The brutality of Joel in the hospital was fairly shocking. Not as shocking as Ellies attack on David. I liked how they deliberately avoided showing him after. The machete sticking up was enough. A lot of kids dying in this game. From the obvious, Sarah and Sam. to the anonymous mercy killings by many of the parents.

At end? What about? I didn't find anything to cry about. I was a blubbering wreck at end of opening section though.

I only killed the first surgeon too, waited to see what others did. Only killed the first surgeon cos I felt I had to, I don't think there's the option to spare first one, only the other two?

Certainly is quite a deep ending, didn't quite have that emotional impact on me, but it was very thought provoking.

hylian_elf wrote:

I only killed the first surgeon too, waited to see what others did. Only killed the first surgeon cos I felt I had to, I don't think there's the option to spare first one, only the other two?

Yeah it didn't seem possible, I walked right up to him without raising a weapon and nothing happened, no options. So I choose quick death.


@adkm that was good, but I actually didn't think about any of the adverts or previews ot reviews or anything when playing. I actually stayed away from all that so maybe that helped.

Kazuo wrote:

Just got this finished last night. Just thought I'd chuck my two cents in on the ending. After dealing with the surgeons (Knifed first, brained second on counter, torched third with flamer FWIW) and grabbing Ellie I had Joel running to escape the hospital in a panic. At one point I found myself cornered by Fireflies, they manage to grab Ellie from Joel's arms, wrestle him to the ground, and kill him with two bullets to the head. I was convinced that was the ending, and found myself thinking what a bleak, shocking, and realistic note it was to finish on. Joel's dead, Ellie goes under the knife, and it was all for nothing. Hell, with the surgeons dead the Fireflies couldn't proceed with the operation, so you could even have a further chapter involving Ellie living with the Fireflies or escaping to get back to Tommy. Of course then my retry loaded up, I went "Oh!", carried on and nailed the canon ending. That was fine, I liked the ambiguity of whether she believed him and the notion that just as he was growing to love her as a surrogate daughter, she was getting to the point where she would have to leave him. Would have been happy to see something as brutally final as my own clumsy ending though.

I thought the exact same thing. 

Just beat it right now.  This is an okay game coupled with a good story. 

The 3rd Person shooter genre has been wrung to death this gen and as a result this game feels way to familliar, cover shooting (although it's easier to just stealth) and QTE type things mean the gamey bits feel meandery. It feels like padding over a decent narrative. 

One thing that irks me about games that try to tell filmy plots is that they try too hard to be cinematic when games have an advantage over films by giving player interaction. One thing I realised playing this is that you, better than cinema, the chance to have longer down time (e.g when horse riding with Ellie) for the subtleties of a character to come out.

The plot: I was thinking that they kind of botched it with Joel going mental and killing the fireflies but i think Tin Robot's comment has turned me. It is clear that the story is repeating itself and this time Joel gets the chance to keep his "daughter". On the otherhand I feel like Joel has become a complete nutter, his conversation about his daughter at the end with Ellie just shouted "i have finally replaced her now" to me and had some Davidesque qualities about it, which is not surprising but I think he's fallen off the edge.

I agree with people who have said Winter was the best bit, after that it felt a bit like going through a giant cutscene with peppered game. 

I'm not sure how I feel entirely about this game, it is extremely competent but does it need to be a game? Do I feel like I, Joel, is protecting Ellie? No because she's as invincible as Elizabeth from bioshock. So the one thing that can distinguish this from film is done a bit wonkily and there's really no need for the game to exist as a game.

Overall 4/6.

Well then, completed it and have to say that reading this thread from the start has been a big joy. Revels fanart included.

 I was very anxious in the very final part when the pair are within sight of Tommy's town (I was quite impressed Naughty Dog took the time to include people moving about the town at that distance). When Joel breaks the log and offers Ellie his hand, I was expecting her to run away or slink off into the wild, abandoning Joel and that'd be the end of the game. I rather liked the exchange that finished the whole thing.

 Fireflies are a well handled group since it's obvious they're tailored at the start to appear as the closest thing to the good guys the game world has to offer. Once I found a certain meat locker in Pittsburgh QZ revealing it was the Fireflies instigating an uprising that turned the QZ to total shit, my sympathies took a really big blow. Politically they're a naive group that doesn't realize (or care) they're destabilizing the only stable and relatively safe areas for people in North America, with no alternative. When the hospital comes around i'm careless about killing since I think of them as misguided fanatics and I end up agree with Joel's actions including shooting Marlene since, yeah, he has no other choice if he's taking Ellie.

Crop shipment from Africa IIRC

Was talking to @kazuo today, my biggest memory of the epilogue was loading up as Ellie with the butterfly knife equipped, convinced I was going to kill Joel out of resentment for what he did.

Yes I was thinking the same thing, bollockoff.

Reading through this thread now, just wanted to add my initial thoughts now I've finished it.

Think the game highlights the brutality of the human race. Infected humans peacefully co-habitate with each other regardless of their state of infection and only seek a means to extend their 'family', while the humans are raping, killing and eating each other in a bid to 'survive'. I wouldn't call what many of them are doing surviving.

Sasukekun wrote:

Reading through this thread now, just wanted to add my initial thoughts now I've finished it. Think the game highlights the brutality of the human race. Infected humans peacefully co-habitate with each other regardless of their state of infection and only seek a means to extend their 'family', while the humans are raping, killing and eating each other in a bid to 'survive'. I wouldn't call what many of them are doing surviving.

Exactly my feelings/thoughts.

Plan_XIII wrote:

Sasukekun wrote:

Reading through this thread now, just wanted to add my initial thoughts now I've finished it. Think the game highlights the brutality of the human race. Infected humans peacefully co-habitate with each other regardless of their state of infection and only seek a means to extend their 'family', while the humans are raping, killing and eating each other in a bid to 'survive'. I wouldn't call what many of them are doing surviving.

Exactly my feelings/thoughts.

the fungus people aren't really human anymore. They are a mind controlled vehicle for the spores. While a lot of the humans are bad (there are some good) the fungus just happen to exist right now.