Sony The Last of Us Part II OT - Best Served Cold, update: the story behind the game's realistic facial animations (PlayStation Blog)

[Dodger]

Spoiler

I just can't agree that Abby is any sort of good person, or that what she does is more morally justifiable than what Ellie does. You guys make it sound like Abby is the camp cup cake baker who just has to go kill Joel. The game makes it pretty clear that the WLF are assholes, and that Abby and her friends, except for maybe Mel are garden variety WLF assholes. Probably even worse than that since Abby and her friends seem to be fairly high ranking members of the WLF. Abby and her friends deserve to die for what they do for a day job, if not by Ellie than by somebody else. If we're going by justification here, Lev has the moral high ground to basically slaughter every WLF member still alive in the 3rd game, probably including Abby when they cutscene show she killed his uncle or something. So I just can't sit here and condemn Ellie for killing them when they are clearly not innocent victims

 

Then the game spends the entire second half bending over backwards to make Abby likable and paint her as somehow the good guy (even making Ellie a boss fight). I think just how bad of a person Abby is is getting completely glossed over by the image remake she gets in the second half. And I think helping out Lev and Yara is something that Ellie and Dina would be far more realistic in doing, but they give that to Abby so you'll like her more. Abby sparing Ellie and Tommy is probably more of a plot contrivance than good story telling, because if she kills them after Joel we don't have a game to play. And her friends want her to kill them, so again the friends aren't exactly innocent. 

 

Just about everybody in the game is flawed, just the nature of the game world makes it so a lot of people have done some fucked up shit, I just hated how they tried to paint over it for Abby. 

 

Does Joel deserve to die for what he did? Absolutely, I just didn't like the game jumping through hoops to try and make you sympathize with his killer because short of denying humanity the cure, Abby is just as bad of a person as Joel (and Ellie for that matter) is. Much like for Joel, there's literally hundreds of people who could justifiably kill Abby, again probably including Lev if he stopped and thought about it. 

 

[Amazatron]

Spoiler

Why do you keep arguing that we’re making Abby out to be some “good person”? Nobody is saying that.

 

[Greatoneshere]

1 hour ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

  Hide contents

Yeah I agree with this.

 

I think one of the main problem with TLoU is that because we get to control Joel for so long, it’s easy for players to gloss over the stuff that he said he did in between the outbreak and when we get control of him as a player. And that makes it difficult to condemn him for the stuff he does once Ellie gets kidnapped, where he’s torturing people, and what he does at the end. It’s always been weird to me that some people insisted that “Joel did nothing wrong.” Even if you feel that he was somehow justified in getting Ellie off that operating table... he lies to her about what happened.

 

It’s only in TLoU2 that we see how deep that selfishness goes. He continues to gaslight Ellie for YEARS and only tells her the truth when she threatens to leave. It’s not like he finally cares enough about her to be honest, it’s not like he finally comes to the conclusion that a years long deception is a shitty foundation on which to continue to build a relationship... no. It’s only when he’s sure he’ll lose her that he tells her.

 

Honestly I think TLoU2 stumbles with this a bit too, in that in the last cutscene with Ellie and Joel when they’re on Joel’s porch... Joel says if given the option to do it over, he’d do the same thing. THE SAME THING. This is after Ellie has told him that letting the Fireflies do their thing would have given her life meaning from her perspective. He’s SO SELFISH that he’d rather Ellie live a life that she feels has no meaning than to let her go. I think it’s a testament to Troy Baker’s acting and the time we spent with Joel in TLoU that allows him to be seen in any kind of positive light.

 

With that said, I don’t know that he deserves the death he got; I don’t think anyone deserves to be tortured, let alone to death.

 

I think the “control” problem trickles into TLoU2 also. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Ellie is “the villain” of this game, but most of what she’s doing is... awful. Yeah you can sing for Dina and yeah she cares about her friends but the whole pursuit is just so incredibly short sighted and vindictive. If it wasn’t for the affection we’d built for her in the first game, she’d be a difficult character to root for in this game because she’s constantly making the worst decisions possible at every opportunity. But she too is incredible well acted and we control her for a non trivial portion of the game, so it can be difficult to divorce her intent from ours as gamers looking to advance the story.

 

 

Very well put - agreed in all regards!

 

1 hour ago, legend said:

 

  Hide contents

Yeah I agree with the majority of this. I don't think vengeance for vengeance sake is ever justified, but if I can still sympathize with Ellie's vengeance, I can certainly sympathize with Abby's.

 

 

Yeah:

 

Spoiler

Agreed! I even still sympathize with Ellie because regardless of Abby's vengeance, and this is the important part: it doesn't change anything. There's no doctor who can show up and create a cure for Ellie a second time, so other than purely for justice/vengeance, there's literally nothing to be gained from Joel's death and I think Ellie understands that after the huge fuck up and lie Joel committed, it's too late and since he makes her happy, just let him live at that point. I can understand that logic, and it drives Ellie since there was technically no need to kill Joel since it didn't gain Abby and co. anything and it only took away from Ellie, Tommy, Dina, Jesse, and Jackson. As much as I hated the WLF and what they stood for, making me feel okay for killing WLF as Ellie, Abby is much more "in the moral right" in TLOU 2 than Ellie no question.

 

[TheLeon]

Spoiler

Abby gets the same treatment in this game that Joel got earlier, only she gets it after brutally murdering a character we already know and love, so it's a harder pill to swallow. Over the course of these games, Joel and Ellie brutally murder hundreds of people, but it's ok because they're just generic bad guys. To Abby, Joel is more than that, he's the arch-villain of her story. 

 

[Dodger]

 

@SaysWho? What are you in your early 30's? You've seen plenty of fireworks, no reason to go do anything this weekend it's just gonna be the same shit as always, except probably worse because of everything else. Just finish the game. 

[Dodger]

25 minutes ago, Amazatron said:

  Hide contents

Why do you keep arguing that we’re making Abby out to be some “good person”? Nobody is saying that.

 

 

Spoiler

The general reaction to the game is what a great character Abby is and how she has the moral high ground over Ellie, which is a pretty shallow take because the entire second half of the game is contrived to make you sympathetic toward Abby. The problem is you have an entire game dedicated to showing what an asshole Joel is, and then half a game trying to show you how sympathetic Abby is. 

 

Even the Joel murder scene is just Joel falling in Abby's lap by coincidence. You don't think Abby would have killed people in Jackson to get info on Joel? You don't think she would have pressed square to beat information out on where Joel is if she had the chance? The problem is all of Jeol's transgressions were on full display in the first game while you just get a highlight reel of nice Abby in this game and they just imply but don't directly show what a terrible person Abby is like they do with Joel.

 

[SaysWho?]

6 hours ago, Dodger said:

 

@SaysWho? What are you in your early 30's? You've seen plenty of fireworks, no reason to go do anything this weekend it's just gonna be the same shit as always, except probably worse because of everything else. Just finish the game. 

 

Early 30s, yeah. I'm now on staycation, so right now, it's when I'm not with the lady.  

[johnny]

 

[Dodger]

The internet was a mistake.

[Spork3245]

48 minutes ago, Dodger said:

Social media was a mistake.

FTFY

[Kal-El814]

10 hours ago, Dodger said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

The general reaction to the game is what a great character Abby is and how she has the moral high ground over Ellie, which is a pretty shallow take because the entire second half of the game is contrived to make you sympathetic toward Abby. The problem is you have an entire game dedicated to showing what an asshole Joel is, and then half a game trying to show you how sympathetic Abby is. 

 

Even the Joel murder scene is just Joel falling in Abby's lap by coincidence. You don't think Abby would have killed people in Jackson to get info on Joel? You don't think she would have pressed square to beat information out on where Joel is if she had the chance? The problem is all of Jeol's transgressions were on full display in the first game while you just get a highlight reel of nice Abby in this game and they just imply but don't directly show what a terrible person Abby is like they do with Joel.

 

 

Spoiler

This gets back to the main bit of dissonance in this game.

 

When the setup for the conflict is, “one of the randos Joel killed while saving Ellie was someone motivated and capable, so she hunted him down and killed him,” then the gameplay in TLoU2 is constantly rewarding the player for doing that over and over and over again...there’s some dissonance there.

Part of me wonders if this is why the three main groups you feud with here (WLF, Seraphites, Rattlers) all have their final scene with their areas in literal flames... it keeps things “neater.”

 

[Dodger]

1 hour ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

This gets back to the main bit of dissonance in this game.

 

When the setup for the conflict is, “one of the randos Joel killed while saving Ellie was someone motivated and capable, so she hunted him down and killed him,” then the gameplay in TLoU2 is constantly rewarding the player for doing that over and over and over again...there’s some dissonance there.

Part of me wonders if this is why the three main groups you feud with here (WLF, Seraphites, Rattlers) all have their final scene with their areas in literal flames... it keeps things “neater.”

 

 

Spoiler

Well the game has setup a world in which there are probably infinite number of asshole factions that could just randomly pop up and start causing problems. But if you continue just straight from this game, Jackson is pretty much unscathed. So you could have some Joe Rando from Jackson set out to avenge Joel, Tommy, Jesse and Ellie by trying to wipe out what's left of the WLF after sustaining heavy casualties assaulting the Seraphites.. Of course, that kind of just circles back around to the starting point where now you're just out avenging Joel again, and kind of makes Joel the good guy. 

 

Or they could just have Lev set out to wipe out the Rattlers and we find out Santa Barbara was really just outpost 47 and they really have a main camp in LA or something. That whole area did feel like unfinished DLC.

 

There's one other problem with the game, the infected are just kind of there for enemy fodder.  Like you mentioned clickers don't even feel like a challenge since Ellie can just knife them to death, and later in the game, Hulk Hogan Abby can literally just start punching them to death. Fuck her play through was just about a step away from her finishing off Shamblers with the good old running Leg Drop. 

 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

1 hour ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Uhhhh, did you read just a couple posts back up?

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Almost 32 hours. 
 

Spoiler

I did not enjoy that boss fight with Ellie. Easily the most frustrating part of the game. She seemed way too unpredictable with her movements, making it hard to sneak up on her. 

 

I’m quite certain I’ll finish it tomorrow. 

[BloodyHell]

On 7/2/2020 at 5:21 AM, Phaseknox said:

Ellie and Dina aren't oversexualized, and I'm fine with how they look because they look realistic and not unrealistically exaggerated like Abby does IMO.

 

  Hide contents

Like I previously stated, young Abby in her flashback scenes looks good IMO because she looks realistic, but her current muscular appearance looks overdone like she has a male bodybuilder's physique. They could have made her muscular looking without making her look like He-Man.

 

Exaggerated? What are you talking about? She looks like any one of thousands of fitness models. She doesn’t come close to female bodybuilder. 

[SaysWho?]

I'm at the part of the game where everyone's like "Oh I thought it was over."

 

Which is interesting because 

Spoiler

I'm seeing the E3 2018 trailer right now, basically, and I wondered for a while why we didn't see this scene earlier in the game.

 

[SimpleG]

 

4 hours ago, BloodyHell said:

Exaggerated? What are you talking about? She looks like any one of thousands of fitness models. She doesn’t come close to female bodybuilder. 

He already said he was wrong there is no need to bring it up again

 

On 7/2/2020 at 11:51 AM, Phaseknox said:

I didn't know that it was possible for women to get THAT muscular... dayum! I guess that Abby's physique isn't as exaggerated/unrealistic looking as I thought. I admit that I was wrong.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Yeah, Lev is female to male transgendered. I agree that he's one of the best characters in the game.

 

 

[BloodyHell]

Im replaying the original, and this game is still so, so good. Just got to the school with bill. It’s different knowing the outcome now.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Finished. Man, I'm gonna need some time to process this one. 

 

Gameplay was good, loved the environments, the atmosphere, the discovery of notes to tell smaller stories of people from the past. 

 

I still think I liked the story from the first game better. 

 

Spoiler

By the end, it all felt so pointless. Both women lost nearly everything and for what? That final fight was brutal. 

 

I'd like to think Ellie went back to Jackson to reconcile with Dina. What else would she do? 

 

I ended up liking Abby more by the end. Really loved her friendship with Lev. He was the best character in the game. 

 

I'm guessing we won't get another game in the series. At least not with a focus on these characters. 

 

Still, I think it's one of the best of this generation and a fantastic swan  song for the PS4, much like its predecessor was. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Damn, I thought I was thorough in my slightly over 34 hours with the game. Looking at my stats, I missed a decent few collectibles. More than I thought I had. Rats. 

[BloodyHell]

6 hours ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Finished. Man, I'm gonna need some time to process this one. 

 

Gameplay was good, loved the environments, the atmosphere, the discovery of notes to tell smaller stories of people from the past. 

 

I still think I liked the story from the first game better. 

 

  Hide contents

By the end, it all felt so pointless. Both women lost nearly everything and for what? That final fight was brutal. 

 

I'd like to think Ellie went back to Jackson to reconcile with Dina. What else would she do? 

 

I ended up liking Abby more by the end. Really loved her friendship with Lev. He was the best character in the game. 

 

I'm guessing we won't get another game in the series. At least not with a focus on these characters. 

 

Still, I think it's one of the best of this generation and a fantastic swan  song for the PS4, much like its predecessor was. 

Spoiler

That was the point, revenge gains you nothing and loses you everything. Im pretty sure thats why they show us Ellie coming home to an empty house. To show us she has nothing left. That everything she did, in her mind for the ones dhe loved, lost her everyone she loved.

 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

5 hours ago, BloodyHell said:

  Reveal hidden contents

That was the point, revenge gains you nothing and loses you everything. Im pretty sure thats why they show us Ellie coming home to an empty house. To show us she has nothing left. That everything she did, in her mind for the ones dhe loved, lost her everyone she loved.

 

I mean, ya, I know. I was just commenting.

[SaysWho?]

Unbelievable story. Fuck.

 

Gonna read a lot of the spoilers, but there's so much to say.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

13 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

Unbelievable story. Fuck.

 

Gonna read a lot of the spoilers, but there's so much to say.

I sort of feel like I can't add much to what others have said. Kal in particular. 

 

Really phenomenal game, though. 

[SaysWho?]

1 minute ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

I sort of feel like I can't add much to what others have said. Kal in particular. 

 

Really phenomenal game, though. 

 

I'm reading through everything right now, so it's possible one of my next posts will just be quoting 10 people and going, "Yeah I agree."  

 

Except this:

 

On 6/27/2020 at 3:12 PM, Spork3245 said:

  Hide contents

He’s taking so long because he’s probably just dying a lot because he sucks at video games. I know he won’t read this so I can say what we’re all thinking. He’s probably playing on the easiest mode too! 

@SaysWho? make sure you don’t read that spoiler tag until you finish the game!!!

 

Ha!

 

Moderate, though I set resources to hard after what I THOUGHT was a long time. Also, my final playtime.... is it even a spoiler?

 

I'll just say it: 36 hours. wtf?

[Spork3245]

Just now, SaysWho? said:

 

I'm reading through everything right now, so it's possible one of my next posts will just be quoting 10 people and going, "Yeah I agree."  

 

Except this:

 

 

Ha!

 

Moderate, though I set resources to hard after what I THOUGHT was a long time. Also, my final playtime.... is it even a spoiler?

 

I'll just say it: 36 hours. wtf?

I’ve been waiting so long for you to read that

[SaysWho?]

Still reading spoilers, but I'd like to say:

 

Spoiler

The game did a masterful job at hiding things from you. Ex: when you play as Ellie and get to the end of Day 3, Jesse is shot to death. All you know is that Abby is there because the game. So when you play as Abby, you really have no idea if Lev is going to live or not because you didn't see him with Abby. And thank GOD Lev was there, making sure Abby didn't also kill a pregnant woman in her quest for revenge.
 

 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

7 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

Still reading spoilers, but I'd like to say:

 

  Hide contents

The game did a masterful job at hiding things from you. Ex: when you play as Ellie and get to the end of Day 3, Jesse is shot to death. All you know is that Abby is there because the game. So when you play as Abby, you really have no idea if Lev is going to live or not because you didn't see her with Abby. And thank GOD Lev was there, making sure Abby didn't also kill a pregnant woman in her quest for revenge.
 

 

Spoiler

Did you just misgender Lev?

 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

37 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

 

I'm reading through everything right now, so it's possible one of my next posts will just be quoting 10 people and going, "Yeah I agree."  

 

Except this:

 

 

Ha!

 

Moderate, though I set resources to hard after what I THOUGHT was a long time. Also, my final playtime.... is it even a spoiler?

 

I'll just say it: 36 hours. wtf?

I finished in just over 34. Did you miss many collectibles? I did, compared to how thoroughly I searched. I missed like 9 coins in that first chapter alone.

[SaysWho?]

On 7/1/2020 at 9:44 PM, skillzdadirecta said:

This fucking game... I feel like I'm watching an amazing season of a cable TV show. And I really cant say enough about the gameplay.

 

On 7/2/2020 at 10:14 AM, Kal-El814 said:

 

Stuff like this drives me nuts. We can quibble about what they might mean by “most ambitious” but... no. It’s not that.

 

Interesting article in general though, none of the cut content they talk about is from where I assumed most of it would be.

 

I’ve been thinking about the gameplay a bit, having not touched the game since I finished, and have come to the conclusion that one of the groups is a bit of a missed opportunity from that POV.

 

  Hide contents

The Seraphites are... kinda disappointing? When you first run into them, they’re whistling, and I was pumped that we’d see a change in tactics from the WLF... but we don’t. Other than a couple of them holding bows, they’re no different from any of the other, human enemies. This is kind of a bummer! It’s clear from the stuff they build and the way they approach conflict with the WLF that they wouldn’t be able to hang in straight up open combat or a frontal assault. It would have been rad if they approached combat in a stealthy way or if encounters with them were different. Sneaking around their home turf doesn’t feel any different than being in a random, abandoned building... but maybe it should!

 

 

5 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

  Hide contents

Did you just misgender Lev?

 

 

Oh shit, and I even knew better. I'll edit that.

 

4 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

I finished in just over 34. Did you miss many collectibles? I did, compared to how thoroughly I searched. I missed like 9 coins in that first chapter alone.

 

I missed some things but actually found most collectibles/artifacts. I received trophies for finding all work benches and safes (loved that they made you think a little more to find out some of the combinations), and I may have missed a journal entry or two.

 

Gonna start compiling some thoughts on this, including the debate I read.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

1 minute ago, SaysWho? said:

 

 

 

Oh shit, and I even knew better. I'll edit that.

 

 

I missed some things but actually found most collectibles/artifacts. I received trophies for finding all work benches and safes (loved that they made you think a little more to find out some of the combinations), and I may have missed a journal entry or two.

 

Gonna start compiling some thoughts on this, including the debate I read.

I found all the benches and safes and manuals. Just several artifacts and coins/cards and a few journal entries. Don't know if you're aware, but the chapter selection shows your completion on those things.

[SaysWho?]

Just now, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

I found all the benches and safes and manuals. Just several artifacts and coins/cards and a few journal entries. Don't know if you're aware, but the chapter selection shows your completion on those things.

 

Yup, that's where I saw the numbers. I actually thought I was going to miss more only because I read your post about missing a lot.  

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Now I wonder where ND goes from here.

[SaysWho?]

Okay, so about the debate and other impressions of the game:

 

Spoiler

What I got out of this game is that Abby had more of a higher moral ground, but it had many shades of gray. The first things I noticed about the WLF is it seemed forward-looking: you ha crops, you had an ample supply of weapons, you had attacks dogs trained but many members who loved and played with them, you had food for everyone. But they also show you the dark underbelly with Isaac and their plan to kill all the Seraphites, and the guy he was torturing who looked thin and frail. So the organization did look as if it had a better idea for the world, and Abby and friends definitely had a better idea of the importance of the vaccine, but they're doing some shady things behind the scenes.

Abby lost her father. Ellie lost her father figure. They both wanted revenge on the person who killed him. What I find fascinating about how this game tackled it is that when you see Abby in the theater with Tommy on the ground, all you really think is that she's part of the WLF and she's angry that her friends died. But once the stories converge, you realize that she's out of the WLF, her last conversation with Mel was an argument due to Abby's intimate moment with Owen, and she had been to hell and back just to come back to losing her friends and her lovely dog and protector Alice. And when I left Owen and Mel for the last time prior to their deaths, I felt sad for them because Owen didn't want to kill anymore and he was the one who stopped the other WLF people from killing Tommy and Ellie. He straight up says they did nothing wrong, and Abby agrees. And Mel was freaked out by the grotesque murder of Joel, even if she thinks he deserved it, was carrying a kid (I actually missed this detail since when she died, it was on her stomach just for a little bit, so I thought Ellie was just having a panic attack because no one could tell her where Abby was), and helped save a life.

 

Spoiler

And let's not forget Alice. When I played as Ellie and encountered Alice, she was just an attack dog, so the first thing I thought was, "Shit, how many WLF people are here? Did they hear this? Am I about to fight a bunch of them?" But you walk in Abby's shoes and you get to play with Alice, you see how Alice reacts to Scars with love and excitement, and you think, "FUCK, I killed this dog!" 

By the end, I didn't want to kill Abby. I didn't want Ellie to suffer, but I didn't want to kill Abby. And I was hoping, with Abby telling Ellie where the boats were, that maybe there would be a conversation, or just a few things said, but once it flashed back to Joel for an instant, I knew the last fight was coming, seeing as this was the same area that you see in the title screen.

 

So as far as the main themes of TLOU2:

 

Spoiler

The game ultimately shows that violence begets violence. Joel kills people who want to find a vaccine that, by eliminating the virus, will save countless lives. That includes Abby's father, who had a good heart and wanted to better the world. So Abby gets revenge and kills Joel. Joel is a father figure to Ellie and one with whom she wanted to reconcile, even if it would be a long, painful process. So Ellie gets revenge. Ellie kills most, if not all, of Abby's friends, including her love interest and a pregnant woman to whom Abby can never seek forgiveness, not to mention Alice. So Abby goes to get revenge and kills Jesse. Abby lets Dina and Ellie live with help from Lev. Then Ellie tries to get revenge. Ultimately, she would find no relief from killing Abby, so she lets her go but loses Dina and the child, plus her ability to play guitar. She lost her love for no reason; she could have stayed home. 

I'd say this could have been avoided had Joel just let the Fireflies save humanity, but all of these story pieces could have been avoided had the characters opted to not seek revenge. It's sad, but at the same time, it's not 100% sad because I do not think Abby deserved to die having spared more lives in those crucial moments than Ellie, and while Ellie has no closure, she did the right thing. Maybe her wanting to forgive Joel made her spare Abby. Maybe she can "forgive" Abby for a moment. I dunno, but she chooses the better option. I don't know what this means if she goes to Jackson and truthfully tells Tommy that she couldn't do it, but she just went through hell and lost everything herself and would have every reason to tell Tommy to piss off, as much as I do like Tommy and understand his anger.

 

When they announced TLOU2, and when I saw the great reviews, I still wondered how the story would compare and if the game as a whole wouldn't be the swan song the first was. But it is the swan song. I mean, we still had Iron Man and Persona 5 Royal and FFVII Remake and RE3 and Nioh 2, and have Ghost of Tsushima and Cyberpunk and all that, and 2013 had a lot of quality in itself, but TLOU2 is a potentially seminal work in story-building in the video game medium and a marvelous game on its own. 

 

I don't think there's necessarily a need to rank the stories opposite each other. By all accounts, TLOU2 had me on the edge of my seat and verbally cheering and gasping in ways the first didn't, but the first also had to create this world and characters, while sequels have the benefit of having much about the characters already stated. 2 had a worthwhile story to tell and makes the first story even better for me. Kudos to both, and bravo for the risk of telling the story how they did and soaring to the stratosphere. 

[SaysWho?]

Forgot one thing:

 

Spoiler

Sniper fight was excellent, and once again, a change of expectations. I thought, "Okay, the first game, I killed the sniper but I wasn't able to respond to a prompt and do it. This time, hopefully I get to nail this guy." The Tommy reveal was SO FUCKING GOOD! And as has been pointed out, it's a microcosm for the game as a whole.

"I hate this sniper. I'm gonna kill this guy. FUCK, he killed Manny. Shit, he's dangerous, maybe he's in this restaurant. Oh shit, it's him.... TOMMY?!?!?!?"

 

That would NOT have worked as well in a non-interactive medium. That plays best as a video game.