The Last of Us has ruined gaming for me

Before I get accused of fanboyism, I'm not saying The Last of Us is perfect. I'm not saying it's without flaws, or that it's objectively the greatest game of all time.

That said, it is a game that has immensely affected me over the year and a half since I first played it. I've played through it twice on PS3, and am on my 2nd playthrough on PS4. When I first completed it, I knew I had played something special, but I was so overwhelmed that it took a while for my thoughts on it to become clear.

Over the last year, upon each subsequent playthrough, each time I saw a screenshot or hear some music or think about Joel and Ellie, it slowly crept up the ranks of my favourite games of all time. First it surpassed Half-Life, then Final Fantasy VII, and on and on it went until games that I had held among my most special experiences for 15 or 20 years were knocked down in favour of this absolute gem. Not a week goes by that I don't think about it, browse through my art book, or throw on the soundtrack.

So why has it ruined games? I'm not a big multiplayer guy, aside from sports games and a couple of shooters. I play games for the story, to get immersed and lost in a unique and exciting world. I play games to fall in love with characters and become invested in who they are and where they go. There's many games I've played where I would have been fine without any combat simply because I just want to experience the story (spare me your "just watch a movie" campaign. It's not the same thing).

Anyways, The Last of Us is simply my favourite game of all time, and has set the bar so high for me in terms of story, characters, and performances that everything I have played since feels hollow. I finish a new game and sometimes I know that it's great, but in the end I always find myself wanting to take another stroll with Henry and Sam through the Suburbs, or ride a horse back into the University.

I'm wondering if anyone else here has a game that stands so tall above everything else that it sometimes makes it difficult to enjoy games you normally would have, if that game didn't exist?
 
Look at this fanboy, amirite?

Seriously though, I kind of agree with you. The Last of Us has made nearly every other narratively driven game look poorly written in comparison lately. It hasn't "ruined" those other games, though, just made me with they were on TLOU's level writing-wise.
 
I wish I didn't read stuff like this before I played it. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more.

It was an average game with a good-great setting and Story and some crazy attention to detail.

To me the best part to the game was the first 20 minutes.
 
I had a similar story with TLoU but I quickly bounced back. After my first playthrough I found several other single-player experiences to not live up to the bar set by ND, so I played a lot of Street Fighter and arcade-like indies such as Spelunky and Super Stardust. After a month or two I was back to enjoying other single player games.
 
The Last of Us is a damned good game, but i only felt the need to play through it once. Once i experienced the game, i didnt feel a need to revisit it multiple times.
 
I enjoyed it, it's a solid 8/10, definitely not the best game ever or anything. Wish the gameplay offered more variety, you can tell the main focus was on the story and presentation, which was fantastic. I still think the original metal gear solid and Soul Reaver have my favorite video game plots
 
I feel this way about Persona 4.

I still love plenty of games, but yeah, Persona 4 is the bar for me. It's a special game.
 
I feel this way about Persona 4.

I still love plenty of games, but yeah, Persona 4 is the bar for me. It's a special game.

That's another game I wish I could just skip the combat stuff. I played 10 hours and was in love with the story and characters but I got stuck at some boss and died 5 times before giving up. Haven't touched it since.
 
Posts like this make me wonder if I should replay it. I enjoyed it a lot when I played it on my PS3 the day it came out, but I've never thought about it as a Top 10 GOAT or something. It was just a great game.
 
Its the best game of all time in my opinion, bu it hasn't ruined gaming for me.
Heck, I spend over 300 hours in Destiny and had lots of fun.
 
Keep hearing all the praise and I still haven't played it. Successfully avoided spoilers to this day. I really should buy the Remastered Edition someday...
 
I'm at exactly the opposite side of the camp. Honestly the game bored the hell out of me. I don't play games for story and the gameplay was dull - the worst of Uncharted without any of the fun bits. It was a struggle to keep attention and play it through to the end.

I played Wolfenstein directly after and its that game which has made me struggle to enjoy anything else since.

Opinions eh
 
No modern game affect my way of seeing games like Dark Souls to be honest. It doesn't have an epic story or lots of cutscenes but rather addicting gameplay, fascinating world and almost perfect level design that will fascinate you and I never saw anything like it before ever since Metroid Prime.

And The Last of Us while it was great, it's not the game changer people claim it to be.
 
Is the thread title a meme? Put it into Google and you'll find a thread in ever single forum with the same thread title, lol
 
I wish I had enjoyed this game a fraction of as much as you did, OP. I waited to play it on PS4 and got to the part where you first get
the bow and arrow
before giving up because the gameplay was so boring to me.

If I had to pick a game that I judge others against, it might be the original SOCOM. I don't think I've had as much fun with a game as I had with that.
 
Is the thread title a meme? Put it into Google and you'll find a thread in ever single forum with the same thread title, lol

Seriously? I swear I did not know that, it's just a thought that came to my head. I suppose it's comforting to know I'm not alone :P

I wish I had enjoyed this game a fraction of as much as you did, OP. I waited to play it on PS4 and got to the part where you first get
the bow and arrow
before giving up because the gameplay was so boring to me.

Honestly the game really picks up after that, it's a shame you couldn't see it through. But I don't blame you, there's too many games and too little time to slog through something you aren't enjoying.
 
I played it for a couple hours and got bored. Played some other stuff instead. I'll get back to it eventually and try to just do it all in a day or two from the beginning so I can enjoy it right.
 
There's still gameplay-based games.
I'm out of love with story-based games since a long time, honestly. It takes pretty rare exceptions.
 
last of us is great, I am playing the remaster right now and loving it

but man the friendly ai kinda kills it for me. IIRC Half Life 2 had similar problems when the AI blocked the doors and shit, but that friendly AI in that game wasn't as retarded as the friendly AI in TLOU (mostly because it is unscripted)
 
I feel that way about souls games and can see why that would happen to people with last of us.

it's like this real proof that the exact ideas i want could exist in a game; they just only seem to do so in this one place.
 
Yeah, same here.
That`s the reason why I don`t want to play RE Revelations. Saw some cutscenes and...well...I really don`t want to.
 
That's another game I wish I could just skip the combat stuff. I played 10 hours and was in love with the story and characters but I got stuck at some boss and died 5 times before giving up. Haven't touched it since.

Play on Easy. Or just grind for that boss. Chances are its the only boss in the game that is hard. You probably just need Black Frost and Mind Charge.

I liked the combat, but I think it was mainly for the music. I never got sick of it.
 
I've been gaming for a long time so there is a whole slew of games that are really memorable for me. I don't think I could ever say 1 is my favorite of all time.
 
Try playing some non narrative mechanics driven games instead.

I do have some games that I play for gameplay and those are still enjoyable (OlliOlli, Counter-Strike, MLB etc). It's just that the majority of titles that appeal to me are story-centric and those are the ones that I've found hard to love the way I might once have.
 
Its like how Demon souls (and dark..) ruined every RPG that was released after that, for me.

Played stuff like the witcher 2 and Dragon Age and just got bored with the lineair stories and quests and simplefied fighting mechanices. (but Mass Effect still holds a soft spot..)

Is not like the story is outstanding in DS (most of it plays in your head anyways) , but the satisfaction of conquering a level or defeating a boss, i have never ever experienced stuff like that in any other rpg.
 
The Last of Us tells a standard story very well, and I enjoy playing through it when I load up the game. But my favourite games toy with the delivery a story, regardless of the subjective quality of that story. Earthbound, Killer7, No More Heroes, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, and 999/Virtue's Last Reward all do something unique with how the story plays out that I find very enjoyable.
 
Anyways, The Last of Us is simply my favourite game of all time, and has set the bar so high for me in terms of story, characters, and performances that everything I have played since feels hollow.


This is exactly how i feel. Just after playing The Last of Us on PS4 (i've played on the PS3 and though it was boring), i was so immersed and passionate for the game that... It's even hard to explain. So, what is the next game i play after TLOU? The Evil Within. It felt like The Last of Us done wrong.

In every game that get's released, there's a little bit of me that hopes for "another The Last of Us", until now it was no made a game like that. I though maybe The Order would be as good, but i was terribly wrong.

Maybe Uncharted 4? Don't know. Feeling that i'm not playing another "The Last of Us" game make me scratch my head. I'm scare to never play a game like that again.

Please Neil Druckmann.
 
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