TLOU 2 seems to have quite the amount of polar opinions on it.

yeah, I have seen some conflicting opinions, but mostly positive. Some people are pretty upset about it though. 

Oh yes! I'll be looking out for this on Xbox, where I see it's also published. 

It's quite cool. 

I don't like strategy RPGs, but I did play one this year that I enjoyed.  And that was The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics.  Of course, a lot of the reasons why I liked it have to do with how much I enjoyed the Netflix show.  But I still say check it out if you can.  Both the game and the show.  I'll definitely be giving the game a mention when I write my 'Game of the Year SO FAR' blog later this month.

I was really into Dark Crystal when I was a kid too. But I can't concentrate on movies and TV shows anymore. I don't know why. But hopefully, someday I'll be able to watch the new show. 

Ooh, that game IS pretty! Of course, maybe I should play those nice copies of FFT and Tactics Ogre on my PSP first...

well, if it makes you feel any better, I haven't beaten those games either. 

i watched a video highlighting eshop sales and this game received a lot of  praise. I'm very interested in buying it. 

TLOU1 was a game I skipped on first release, mainly because I don't really like Naughty Dog games and I was over playing directed single player games at the time. I'm not sure the polarizing reviews are encouraging. 

I'm curious if there are any post-apacolyptic games where people don't turn into murderers, but seem more optimistic?  I remember a term 'hopepunk' being used a while back.

I always felt the Mega Man games had that vibe to them. Even the X series, while darker, definitely had cool futuristic scenery and hopeful characters. Even though I'm personally loving TLOU 2, I totally get what you mean. 

I think Horizon might potentially fit your description since I only remember murdering robot dinosaurs in that one.

actually, there's a literary / science fiction genre called "Solarpunk" which is hopeful/utopian stories of a post climate change world where a lot of our current problems don't exist anymore. It's an interesting twist. I've never read any, but I've got a book of it I've been meaning to read. Maybe soon. 

okay. I'll look into it. I adore zombie games, but honestly would like a different take on end of the world will be hell, instead of more optimism like Star Trek. Hopepunk is the only thing I was familiar with. 

I'm loving TLOU 2, but it is very similar to its predecessor in so many ways. Maybe I should have played the first one right before to really see the difference, but it even looks pretty much like what I remember from the original, though I'm sure the textures are much smoother. 

Anyway, the story so far is definitely intriguing to me but I doubt I'll wind up saying it is the best game story ever made. Never say never though. 

yeah, I guess it's all subjective. My favorite game stories are Final Fantasy IX and KOTOR2, and those aren't "cinematic" at all. I guess it all depends. 

Those games sound like they'd be more book-ish, if anything, which makes sense for your tastes. Although one of the reasons I love Yakuza so much has nothing to do with its cinematic storytelling, but how I feel like I'm living out a novel about urban Japan when interacting with NPCs. 

Yeah, there are many different forms of storytelling. I read a long essay recently about the "novelistic" storytelling of HBO's The Wire. I need to rewatch that. 

I love that show but it's one of those things where my friend is a bit too obsessed with it to the point I almost don't want to admit to him how good it is cause it's not the be all end all of cultural humanity. It's his Yakuza, to use my exact same character flaw as an example. 

But yeah, I've heard the same thing about the show. I think mostly what people seem to mean by that is how it jumps between lots of different characters and connects between seasons, which was much less commonplace before streaming. I think that's why The Wire had to find so much of its audience later: people were not necessarily ready for televsion to veer from its episodic (re: self-contained episodes like Law and Order) nature in the 2000s. 

well the other reason they call The Wire novelistic is because it deals with social issues, which is more common in realistic novels than movies or TV. I think that's where the show really excels.