I enjoyed it but honestly I don't see it as some amazing, revelatory game. It was a very fun action adventure game with some good mechanics, but really most of the things in The Last of Us I've seen done in other games prior, and oftentimes done better, and it has a fair few faults of its own too. It was definitely one of the better games of the year, but I could easily see someone not enjoying it.
Last of Us is one of my favorite games of last gen but i can understand why some don't like it. The story and especially atmosphere is what i liked the most about the game. The gameplay is ok but then again, Naughty Dog don't have a good reputation for good gameplay, Uncharted 3 comes to mind...
I finished the game and will not buy the remaster. It was an amazing roller coaster ride but i'm done with it.
I've seen people feel they can fully assess a game by watching someone else play it on Youtube a few times now. I can't wrap my head around it. Is it some satirical commentary on the nature of cinematic games?
Honestly, if you haven't played the game at all, you're better off not commenting. That's nothing to do with 'Sony Side' and everything to do with 'Gaming Side'.
That isn't entirely fair to outright dismiss. It does come down to gaming history for that individual and what is actually shown in the recording though. Taken at face value as honest (yeah I'm leaving myself open), I'd say that upon playing the person in question would only find more faults as control timing, AI behavior, and other aspects become more apparent. However, this also wouldn't be lowering the already existing opinion, just giving more specific things to comment on towards why, even though that isn't the focus of the discussion in general. In a sense, it is going from identifying aspects and objects within the game that are what normally associate a title within a genre and how they appear to be executed graduating into finding where the actual skill ceiling exists, where the bugs are, and trying to understand the designer's intent meta gaming your way through the title.
I meant no insult, though looking back it my comment was rather unpleasant, apologies.
While I can appreciate the game and what it was trying to do, I also cannot shake the feeling that at no point did it try to do anything groundbreaking or innovative gameplay-wise. Not that you have to constantly innovate to make a good game. But the game also suffered on a technical level. With buggy AI, and immersion breaking interactions - be it enemies always indirectly know where you are and positioning themselves accordingly, or just the fact that your partner would wander around in front of enemies, and they wouldn't even notice - something that could have been fixed by having them hide somewhere, which would have given the game more strategic depth.
I'm not saying the game IS a movie. I'm saying the game is much better off as a movie, because the narrative it wants to present is static and you have no control over it.
As I think we can all agree - the narrative is the strongest point of the game. So it bothers me that we have to put down our involvement - the very soul of interactive media - because Naughty Dog didn't want to take the risk of exploring the possibilities that video games provide. We are essentially left with a movie, occasionally interrupted by gameplay that doesn't affect any outcome other than the isolated sequence we just played. Sure, the gameplay is put in to well crafted context, but ultimately it adds no meaningful value to the narrative itself. And if the narrative is the most important part of the game - then that's a huge flaw in the game's design.
Therefore I can safely say that I loved the story, but it would have worked better as a movie, because the game's narrative is essentially a static traditional experience.
However for everyone of your critiques or annoyances , as I said, there were things they did right.
Now, seeing as what they had to work with was small, I'm not expecting the AI to be extremely smart. This isn't a PC that they are trying to make this work as. If Respawn had to use the cloud for it's AI in Titanfall, then I can give Naughty Dog a little wiggle room for the not so perfect AI. I can deal with the immersion breaking AI, but I can't deal with being penalized for broken AI. Imagine playing it when the AI bumping into enemies immediately ended the game? That's even much more tedious and frustrating.
Also your not giving credit to when the AI does work. Another thing that's a flaw for critiquing the game like this. And this is most likely why this game passed.
One particular moment in the game that really really made me fall in love with this game was
part where Ellie and Joel get bombarded by the gang of thugs making them crash the car and run into the convenience store.
First, the enemies did not always know where I was, because planking enemies is what the game rewarded. It was built like that. Secondly, while I took my time to snipe off all the heads I could, I am also blindsided because my direct view cannot see around me. As I was sniping and finished off what I thought, was the last guy, I heard a bottle crack. When I turned around, there was one more guy who found his way behind me while I didn't notice. But before he can grab me from behind, Ellie immediately protected me alerting me pretty much. I had zero health left after getting shot up and when she did that - that was it for me. I have never experienced a moment like that in a video game ever. I will say it did feel like a movie because usually that's exactly what happens in them. However the timing was perfect. There were other moments in the game just like that where I was being attacked and saw her jump her little self on top of someone stabbing them to the ground. I get that it didn't have some ME levels if AI control but when they did move, they did something right. It wasn't all bad.
As for the gameplay not matching the narrative. I disagree. You're in a post apocalyptic world. The crafting system worked. Your not making potions and healing yourself. You are putting together realistic items to temporarily continue. Moving forward in the game, you became less and less amazing as Joel while Ellie got better and better.
But even though this is long, I felt very indifferent about it. I never felt like I was watching a movie. It never felt like a movie narrative. In fact if it was a movie, it would never had come out this good at all but a cheesy one at that, taking until consideration all of the gameplay.
Edit : Sorry for my very terrible word construction here. I'm typing on my phone and its really terrible at correcting properly.
Personally, zombie apocalypse settings don't appeal to me, so a large part of The last of us, and a lot of its purported storytelling and characterization and human drama just leaves me cold, but I do recognize and understand that objectively speaking, it is a brilliant, extremely well done game.
I've seen people feel they can fully assess a game by watching someone else play it on Youtube a few times now. I can't wrap my head around it. Is it some satirical commentary on the nature of cinematic games?
Honestly, if you haven't played the game at all, you're better off not commenting. That's nothing to do with 'Sony Side' and everything to do with 'Gaming Side'.
And never have I been so glad to be proven wrong than in the case of Demon's Souls. When the game was first announced and the gameplay trailer was revealed, I was incredibly underwhelmed. I thought it looked boring and uninteresting. When it finally released in Japan, and everyone was raving about it, I thought people had all gone mad. So I watched a few gameplay clips, and it did nothing but reinforce the notion that the game was boring as fuck.
I admit I did like the look of the game; that dark, medieval theme mixed with the creepy enemy types seemed neat. I came across the Chinese version of the game at my local game store (which has English text and VA), and it was $46, compared to the $60 the US version was going to cost when it finally released (it wasn't out in the States yet), so I took a chance and said, "Fuck it, let's see why everyone is raving about it."
And man, am I glad I did. Videos did absolutely nothing for that game. The feel of playing a game yourself is so far removed from the feel of just passively watching it. Video games are an interactive medium. Even the most cinematic games (like Heavy Rain), have a different feel when playing compared to watching. Being in direct control of the character/camera/combat/flow of the game is vital to a gaming experience.
I can understand watching a "Let's Play" or something, and commenting on the visuals and story, but commenting on the gameplay itself? Makes me scratch my head.
The Last of Us is a game that, much like Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, sings when you are direct control.
Play on hard turn off the button prompts and headphones are a must. I played the first couple of hours without headphones. Once I put my headphones on the game went to another level. The dialogue and sound stage pushed this game over the top.
But they're 'quick time', if you walk up to a door, and a Triangle icon appears to indicate you should open it, the icon will remain there, and you aren't required to press it within a certain time, it's also not an event, but that's a more ambiguous element to debate.
The game is definitely overrated or overhyped at least. It may very well be the best of 2013, but it's not like there was exactly much competition there IMHO. Bioshock was awful in my experience and the other games I really hyped aren't mainstream enough to be GOTYs or even good enough metascore-wise.
I still feel like TLOU is good for gaming because it's like the best of both worlds. Solid gameplay and extraordinary writing. But I do have my gripes, as with Uncharted, about the gameplay being too passive because of too many scripted moments and the overall pseudo-linearity of it.
Moments that are created to build a sense of foreboding, dread or fear. Something Reaident Evil used to thrive on and is now almost totally non existent
Long story short, I don't like The Last of Us. I'm probably not alone, but I also realize that this is undoubtedly an unpopular opinion here, so we tend to stay quiet, those of us who think this way.
That's not to say I hate it, or that I think it's a bad game. Far from it. It's drop-dead gorgeous, of course (I'm a bit of a graphics whore, so that doesn't hurt). The story so far (I think I'm about a third of the way through) is interesting, if somewhat predictable at this stage.
But I just can't find myself getting engaged by the gameplay, and I can't quite put my finger on why. Gameplay is solid, course, as expected from ND. It's not the stealth element, as I can play the hell out of games like MGS.
Whatever it was, I just found myself unable to get "into" the game like I usually can with most games. I felt like I was struggling to just get to the next part, and I kept wondering where this amazing game was that everyone kept talking about.
Does it get better? Does it change up later, or is it going to be more of this for another eight hours? Because I'm not sure I can slog my way through it if that's the case. People talk about how great the ending is, and I've done a good job of not spoiling it for myself, so I could still experience that if I can just get to it.
Help me, GAF! Help me understand why everyone is pissing themselves over TLOU coming to PS4. Help me give a shit enough to maybe pick it up and go through it a second time. Because as it is right now, I couldn't care less about the Remastered Edition, and I may not even finish the PS3 edition.
The game is definitely overrated or overhyped at least. It may very well be the best of 2013, but it's not like there was exactly much competition there IMHO. Bioshock was awful in my experience and the other games I really hyped aren't mainstream enough to be GOTYs or even good enough metascore-wise.
Its all after the fact now, but its kind of funny when people keep saying its overhyped and overrated. The hype surrounding Bioshock and GTA were much much greater considering they are established and renowned IPs. TLoU was actually the underdog when it came to the mainstream media last year, imo. It wasn't even the highest metascored game (lol) and still won all those GOTY awards.
Now, seeing as what they had to work with was small, I'm not expecting the AI to be extremely smart. This isn't a PC that they are trying to make this work as. If Respawn had to use the cloud for it's AI in Titanfall, then I can give Naughty Dog a little wiggle room for the not so perfect AI.
Hmmm.... The reason Respawn needed the cloud for Titanfall's AI is primarily because it's an online game, not really because it would be too complex to run locally. If the Xbox was supposed to control the enemy AI, then one console would be responsible for keeping everyone else's in sync, and if that person lagged, so would every AI unit in the game. It's why Outrun doesn't have traffic in online games, even though the game has no problem running them when offline, and why Sonic & Sega Allstars Racing didn't have superstar powers when playing online. So I don't think this is a good reason to defend TLoU's AI implementation. That's almost purely down to game design rather than any hardware limitations.
I really the combat in The Last of Us especially on Survivor. I think I prefer it over games like Uncharted and Gears. I found something very satisfying about running up to an enemy and using a brick or bottle. A lot more strategy involved as well, at least how I tried to play.
But they're 'quick time', if you walk up to a door, and a Triangle icon appears to indicate you should open it, the icon will remain there, and you aren't required to press it within a certain time, it's also not an event, but that's a more ambiguous element to debate.
Well the event part sure does imply to me that it's removed from the regular controls you use normally in the game. Is the button prompt in Wind Waker combat a QTE? OR just contextual usage of the button B?
Long story short, I don't like The Last of Us. I'm probably not alone, but I also realize that this is undoubtedly an unpopular opinion here, so we tend to stay quiet, those of us who think this way.
That's not to say I hate it, or that I think it's a bad game. Far from it. It's drop-dead gorgeous, of course (I'm a bit of a graphics whore, so that doesn't hurt). The story so far (I think I'm about a third of the way through) is interesting, if somewhat predictable at this stage.
But I just can't find myself getting engaged by the gameplay, and I can't quite put my finger on why. Gameplay is solid, course, as expected from ND. It's not the stealth element, as I can play the hell out of games like MGS.
Whatever it was, I just found myself unable to get "into" the game like I usually can with most games. I felt like I was struggling to just get to the next part, and I kept wondering where this amazing game was that everyone kept talking about.
Does it get better? Does it change up later, or is it going to be more of this for another eight hours? Because I'm not sure I can slog my way through it if that's the case. People talk about how great the ending is, and I've done a good job of not spoiling it for myself, so I could still experience that if I can just get to it.
Help me, GAF! Help me understand why everyone is pissing themselves over TLOU coming to PS4. Help me give a shit enough to maybe pick it up and go through it a second time. Because as it is right now, I couldn't care less about the Remastered Edition, and I may not even finish the PS3 edition.
I'm the same way OP, I did not find the gameplay fun or interesting. Gameplay is the main thing I care about in any game, everything else is supplemental. I just didn't have fun playing it the first hour or two and shut it off (I was borrowing the game).
The story, which is what everyone always talks about, was incredibly generic and emotionally manipulative. This kind of cheesy narrative is what I expect in a lot of games, but when I just hear people in my University, or a review, or on forums saying how amazing the story is, I expected more. In fact, whenever I hear people talk about this game it usually is about the story ("Remember when this happened? What about when that happened?").
Uncharted I loved because it was a great action game and the mechanics all worked excellent for it. Last Of Us seemed like a low key Uncharted in stealth mode. Uncharted is going for an action movie type feel sot he generic story makes sense and works with the game, it is like Indiana Jones where the story is cheap but the characters are great.
I am not saying this is definitively how TLOU is, this is just my opinion on the game and it definitely wasn't for me. I don't get the game. I am glad many people have a game they love, it just is not my kind of thing.
OP if you don't like a game don't let others tell you your opinion is wrong or that you are playing it wrong, it is your own opinion and thoughts on the game, which we are all entitled to. If you didn't enjoy it before I doubt you will enjoy it now.
I don't get MOBAs, sports games, Dark Souls, and Fez, but a lot of people do. I'm not going to hate them for it because a lot of people don't like what I like to play. I guess you saw The Last of Us for its shortcomings more than a lot of people did.
Well the event part sure does imply to me that it's removed from the regular controls you use normally in the game. Is the button prompt in Wind Waker combat a QTE? OR just contextual usage of the button B?
I don't actually know what in Wind Waker you're referring to (I have never played more than a couple of hours of it around a decade ago), so I can't really say. The regularity isn't a factor though, you can have QTE that happens frequently throughout the game. For example if you had a prompt to press A to dodge a certain type of attack, and that dodge was dependant on the attack happening (so pressing A at other times doesn't cause you to dodge continuously), then that dodge is a QTE regardless of how frequently it is employed. It wouldn't require the removal of the rest of the character's controls, hence the RE4 kick qualifies despite you maintaining full control of Leon otherwise.
As a rather "out there" example. Adding a button prompt for parrying in Street Fighter 3 would turn it into a quick time event, as the existence of the parry requires the event of an opponent's attack, is applicable for a limited time window, and rewards the player for succeeding. Of course doing this would be absolutely hilarious due to the frequency the prompt would be displayed.
Its all after the fact now, but its kind of funny when people keep saying its overhyped and overrated. The hype surrounding Bioshock and GTA were much much greater considering they are established and renowned IPs. TLoU was actually the underdog when it came to the mainstream media last year, imo. It wasn't even the highest metascored game (lol) and still won all those GOTY awards.
In my experience, most 1st party/console exclusive titles will get over hyped to some degree. It's not that surprising since these games are primary ammunition for console wars and often times used as justification for choosing a specific platform. As a result, people are more quick to champion them as well as look past their flaws.
I have some Xbox only friends who swear Alan Wake was one of the best games of last gen, but to me it was a completely forgettable experience. Yea, the atmosphere/presentation were nice, but I found the actual gameplay incredibly boring and repetitive.
I think TLOU was a solid game, but it wasn't overly memorable in the end. It's definitely one of the most impressive of last gen when it comes to graphics. The overall atmosphere was superb and the writing/story were above average for a video game. Gameplay wise, it didn't do much for me though. While I am glad I experienced it for myself, I don't feel compelled to revisit it ever again.
If you don't like it, there's nothing more to "get" really. Everyone values attributes of games in their own way. Either finish it to experience the story or move on to the next game.
