The story is set two decades after a cordyceps-type fungus has killed millions, with nature gradually retaking the abandoned cities and towns. The survivors are hemmed inside quarantine zones, completely under the heel of the United States military, with order and screening for any Infected being viciously maintained under martial law. Joel, a hardened black-marketeer within one of the quarantine zones, goes through an event which makes him promise an old friend that he will get a young, fourteen year old girl named Ellie, away from the harsh regime to a resistance group known as the Fireflies. They begin a journey through the U.S., avoiding the Infected, humanoid creatures whose sole aim has become spreading the fungal infection. Joel and Ellie also have to avoid scavengers that survive outside the quarantine zones who see Joel and Ellie as their latest prey. Adding to their problems, the military is determined to find Ellie and bring her back under their power.
There was no thread minus the locked one, but I decided to create one since the game is out next week. I have been excited for this game since the reveal because it was different compared to Naughty Dog's previous works. I have always been a fan of the post apocalyptic scenario and I was curious and excited to see how Naughty dog will tackle it. The game has been looking great so far and this looks like a must buy for anyone that loves single player games with a good story and characters. The game is using a modified and tweaked engine from the Uncharted series since it looks so similar. It does have a survival element to it since you have to salvage and hunt for items. You can even craft items such as a molotov.
The game has been receiving a lot of positive reviews lately. On average it's getting around the 9.5 to 10 out of 10 score. It is another contender for the Game of the Year award along with BioShock Infinite. Here is a link to NeoGAF's thread with compiled information.
Those review scores are pretty insane. Seems like there are a lot of good PS3 exclusive games out there or coming up. Too bad I dont have the money to get one
On June 06 2013 09:03 AntiGrav1ty wrote: Those review scores are pretty insane. Seems like there are a lot of good PS3 exclusive games out there or coming up. Too bad I dont have the money to get one
Most PS3 exclusives have always been very good such as the Uncharted series, Little Big Planet series, and Journey, along with other good titles such as inFamous, God of War, Yakuza series, etc. Xbox has some good ones too, but only if you're into shooters like Halo and Gears of War.
I was going to wait for the next gen, but maybe I should cancel xbox live, trade it and my games in for a PS3 and this. Then I can also have a blu-ray player finally. I mean this looks amazing, the other exclusives look great and GT6 is going to be on PS3 and not PS4.
I saw a gameplay trailer for this game and i have to say the few minutes of footage i saw looked really scripted and they we're trying to play it off as not (fight scene involving you about to get shot and the girl whacking him with a brick in slow-mo or something like it, everyone cheered like little girls)
Looks like another (albeit well-made) one of the same 3rd person adventure games on rails.
Big reason i picked the Ps3 over the Xbox360 are exclusives like this ( not a fan of the Xbox exclusives ). I'm probably going to wait a little bit when the price goes down a little bit . Which shouldn't take too long .
On June 06 2013 09:03 AntiGrav1ty wrote: Those review scores are pretty insane. Seems like there are a lot of good PS3 exclusive games out there or coming up. Too bad I dont have the money to get one
With some luck you can pick up a used one for relativly cheap on Ebay with some patience . ( I picked up a back then pretty new Slim for ~120€ two years ago ) Just have to invest a little time and well finger crossing. I personally think it should be realistic to get one below one hundred bucks with some time invested into scouting through Ebay .
On June 06 2013 10:22 s3rp wrote: Big reason i picked the Ps3 over the Xbox360 are exclusives like this ( not a fan of the Xbox exclusives ). I'm probably going to wait a little bit when the price goes down a little bit . Which shouldn't take too long .
On June 06 2013 09:03 AntiGrav1ty wrote: Those review scores are pretty insane. Seems like there are a lot of good PS3 exclusive games out there or coming up. Too bad I dont have the money to get one
With some luck you can pick up a used one for relativly cheap on Ebay with some patience . ( I picked up a back then pretty new Slim for ~120€ two years ago ) Just have to invest a little time and well finger crossing. I personally think it should be realistic to get one below one hundred bucks with some time invested into scouting through Ebay .
Shit i'll sell mine with the ~15 games and 2 controllers for like 120 :-D
Looks like it will be a good game. However whether or not it is a great game, to me, will depend on how scripted it is. Hard to tell just watching these short videos as it could go either way. However it should be very good at the least, like an Uncharted with less annoying characters and more gritty.
Also, the main guy (Joel) looks A LOT like Hawke from DA2.
On June 06 2013 12:01 On_Slaught wrote: Looks like it will be a good game. However whether or not it is a great game, to me, will depend on how scripted it is. Hard to tell just watching these short videos as it could go either way. However it should be very good at the least, like an Uncharted with less annoying characters and more gritty.
Also, the main guy (Joel) looks A LOT like Hawke from DA2.
The chick (in some angles) also looks like Ellen Page. A game where you can kill people with Ellen Page? Fuck yes.
On June 06 2013 12:01 On_Slaught wrote: Looks like it will be a good game. However whether or not it is a great game, to me, will depend on how scripted it is. Hard to tell just watching these short videos as it could go either way. However it should be very good at the least, like an Uncharted with less annoying characters and more gritty.
Also, the main guy (Joel) looks A LOT like Hawke from DA2.
The chick (in some angles) also looks like Ellen Page. A game where you can kill people with Ellen Page? Fuck yes.
What's the game coming out that is the spiritual sequel to Heavy Rain? The one that has Ellen Page as the main character. THAT'S a game I'm so fucking pumped to get. For your exact reasoning. Plus... well... Heavy Rain was fuckin' incredible.
On June 06 2013 12:01 On_Slaught wrote: Looks like it will be a good game. However whether or not it is a great game, to me, will depend on how scripted it is. Hard to tell just watching these short videos as it could go either way. However it should be very good at the least, like an Uncharted with less annoying characters and more gritty.
Also, the main guy (Joel) looks A LOT like Hawke from DA2.
The chick (in some angles) also looks like Ellen Page. A game where you can kill people with Ellen Page? Fuck yes.
What's the game coming out that is the spiritual sequel to Heavy Rain? The one that has Ellen Page as the main character. THAT'S a game I'm so fucking pumped to get. For your exact reasoning. Plus... well... Heavy Rain was fuckin' incredible.
Beyond two souls.
Might get it when it will be at a low price. I liked heavy rain but felt a bit sad to have paid 60$ for it, I never touched it more than once. At least it got a playthrough from my girlfriend. And Beyond two souls looks the same, being kind of a movie-game. I'm fine with it but I'll wait for it to come down at 30$.
Beyond two souls will be released in september I believe.
On June 06 2013 12:01 On_Slaught wrote: Looks like it will be a good game. However whether or not it is a great game, to me, will depend on how scripted it is. Hard to tell just watching these short videos as it could go either way. However it should be very good at the least, like an Uncharted with less annoying characters and more gritty.
Also, the main guy (Joel) looks A LOT like Hawke from DA2.
The chick (in some angles) also looks like Ellen Page. A game where you can kill people with Ellen Page? Fuck yes.
What's the game coming out that is the spiritual sequel to Heavy Rain? The one that has Ellen Page as the main character. THAT'S a game I'm so fucking pumped to get. For your exact reasoning. Plus... well... Heavy Rain was fuckin' incredible.
Beyond two souls.
Also a game I would love to play. Sony just keeps on tempting me :D
Reviews are so fucking good! Even from websites that are usually pretty harsh with AAA games... Wanted to buy it this evening after work but I just realized it's not coming out before end of next week :'( Disappointed.
On June 06 2013 16:21 Blisse wrote: Looking to pick up a PS3 for The Last of Us, Ni no Kuni and Journey. Think it'll be worth it? XD
Yeah, not to mention the PS3 has lots of other exclusives worth playing, too (Uncharted series, GoW series, Infamous, Metal Gear Solid, Demon's Souls, and Heavy Rain come to mind).
If you don't already own a 360, you'll have a whole generation of console-only nonexclusives to play, too.
On June 06 2013 16:21 Blisse wrote: Looking to pick up a PS3 for The Last of Us, Ni no Kuni and Journey. Think it'll be worth it? XD
Yeah, not to mention the PS3 has lots of other exclusives worth playing, too (Uncharted series, GoW series, Infamous, Metal Gear Solid, Demon's Souls, and Heavy Rain come to mind).
If you don't already own a 360, you'll have a whole generation of console-only nonexclusives to play, too.
Yeah, I'm only going for the PS3 mainly because of TLOU and Heavy Rain. I'm not really a fan of GoW and I watched the entire Uncharted series on Youtube. Really just collecting up a list of things I want to play if I ever get around to getting one XD I really want to play The Last of Us though. So much hype!
On June 06 2013 16:21 Blisse wrote: Looking to pick up a PS3 for The Last of Us, Ni no Kuni and Journey. Think it'll be worth it? XD
Yeah, not to mention the PS3 has lots of other exclusives worth playing, too (Uncharted series, GoW series, Infamous, Metal Gear Solid, Demon's Souls, and Heavy Rain come to mind).
If you don't already own a 360, you'll have a whole generation of console-only nonexclusives to play, too.
Yeah, I'm only going for the PS3 mainly because of TLOU and Heavy Rain. I'm not really a fan of GoW and I watched the entire Uncharted series on Youtube. Really just collecting up a list of things I want to play if I ever get around to getting one XD I really want to play The Last of Us though. So much hype!
Beyond : Two Souls is probably going to be extremely interesting at the very least.
I just refuse to buy a console because of exclusives. But this game looks very good. :/ Even I can't say it's being overrated, the reviewers I trust are being very positive about it.
I bought a PS3 last week to play Ni no Kuni(it's awesome :D) Well worth the 150€ i payed for the console. Guess i have to get "The Las of Us" now too, huh?
On June 06 2013 16:21 Blisse wrote: Looking to pick up a PS3 for The Last of Us, Ni no Kuni and Journey. Think it'll be worth it? XD
Yeah, not to mention the PS3 has lots of other exclusives worth playing, too (Uncharted series, GoW series, Infamous, Metal Gear Solid, Demon's Souls, and Heavy Rain come to mind).
If you don't already own a 360, you'll have a whole generation of console-only nonexclusives to play, too.
Yeah, I'm only going for the PS3 mainly because of TLOU and Heavy Rain. I'm not really a fan of GoW and I watched the entire Uncharted series on Youtube. Really just collecting up a list of things I want to play if I ever get around to getting one XD I really want to play The Last of Us though. So much hype!
Beyond : Two Souls is probably going to be extremely interesting at the very least.
See, I've never heard of that but I'm really interested already O:
The bonus with the PS3 is that you get a blu ray player out if it too, and it has amazon and netflix streaming. Also online multiplayer doesn't require a subscription like xbox live, even if many people consider xbox live to be a superior online system.
There are tons of great games to pick up, even though I generally prefer PC gaming.
On June 06 2013 23:36 Ippo wrote: I bought a PS3 last week to play Ni no Kuni(it's awesome :D) Well worth the 150€ i payed for the console. Guess i have to get "The Las of Us" now too, huh?
On June 06 2013 22:56 kusto wrote: So is this game a linear Action-Adventure like Uncharted or rather a free-world exploration game? I will buy it anyway, but still want to know.
Its linear. Kinda like Uncharted, but instead of being a TPS you are required to sniff around for salvage items for the next battle, and stealth seems to be a big part of the gameplay.
Footage of the demo version is avaible on youtube.
On June 07 2013 01:31 Leopoldshark wrote: What do you mean tomorrow? It doesn't come out for another week.
Uhhh whoops. A friend of mine said he was going to get it this friday, and I didn't even think to check the actual release (just assumed he knew his shit).
On June 07 2013 01:31 Leopoldshark wrote: What do you mean tomorrow? It doesn't come out for another week.
Uhhh whoops. A friend of mine said he was going to get it this friday, and I didn't even think to check the actual release (just assumed he knew his shit).
if he is a pirate, its out. Can't believe pirates get games faster than release dates...
On June 07 2013 01:31 Leopoldshark wrote: What do you mean tomorrow? It doesn't come out for another week.
Uhhh whoops. A friend of mine said he was going to get it this friday, and I didn't even think to check the actual release (just assumed he knew his shit).
if he is a pirate, its out. Can't believe pirates get games faster than release dates...
Pirate? Maybe for PC gamers. People that get the console version of the game early is usually from a mom and pop store that breaks street date in order to have an edge over bigger retailers.
Some unboxing videos of different editions of the game throughout the world.
On June 07 2013 01:31 Leopoldshark wrote: What do you mean tomorrow? It doesn't come out for another week.
Uhhh whoops. A friend of mine said he was going to get it this friday, and I didn't even think to check the actual release (just assumed he knew his shit).
if he is a pirate, its out. Can't believe pirates get games faster than release dates...
Pirate? Maybe for PC gamers. People that get the console version of the game early is usually from a mom and pop store that breaks street date in order to have an edge over bigger retailers.
There are mod-chips for consoles out there that run with modified OS you can download if you wish . ( There was a huge story a while back how the Playstation OS was hacked a few years back and with some modification allows you to run pirated games ) Not sure if you would need to burn a blueray or it can run from a harddrive . But it works a couple of days back i was looking at PS3's prices on Ebay and quite a few of the consoles are offered with a modified OS .
With Xbox360 it's even easier to mod i know a couple of guys with modded 360's and run pirated games .
So yes even though it's rarer piracy exists on consoles it just a bit more complicated and usually involves more effort to get it to run.
And yes if you search for it on piracy sites / forums there is a last of us version floating around . If it and how it works don't know won't try .
I know how the pirate thing works and I knew about the modded PS3's, if I wanted I would have done it, but I m not too keen messing around with my PS3 in such ways! Although the games are very pricey. 60e each.~
Looking at the perfect IGN score and every other glowing review I can't help but think back to Uncharted 3 which I really disliked. The repetitive and endless fighting with the simplest gun/combat system possible and no breaks in between really sucked out all the fun for me. In additon I just can't get used to games that play like really long movies. Focusing all attention on production values can't hide poorly designed levels and overall gameplay. Hope this game will be a lot different than the Uncharted series.
Can't wait till friday when I can pick up this bad boy! I was worried the game wouldn't live up to the fantastic uncharted legacy, but after all the glowing reviews, I shall never doubt naughty dog again! Very glad to see a game actually live up to all the hype and deliver. I rarely buy full priced console games these days with all the steam sales, but last of us will be worthy of my money. Hope to see some uncharted 4 news this e3 as I absolutely love that series too and need more!
I know that you don't put all your trust to reviews on the internet, but this game just beat the crap out of all those reviewers even some with very high taste of AAA titles. It got perfect score from almost every reviews. Currently hold a 96% on Metacritic O_O. Gonna get this next week .
Just pre ordered it, now i gotta wait on the download software to pop up on my ps3, considering i don't really wanna wait to go to the store and back, and i flipped my schedule around so i can literally spend the second i wake up downloading this game to play it! The wait begins!
Game came out early here, few impressions from my 4 hours with it so far:
- The game is pretty damn gorgeous, its pretty much the best console game I've seen so far. - Atmosphere is tense, very good pacing in terms of both combat and story. You have a good mixture of highly intense and slow moments. - Voice acting is fantastic, immediately liking the game's cast. - Resources are pretty damn scarce, you need to make every bullet and item count. - Enemies' AI is pretty smart, both the infected and normal humans. They change tactics based on the visual feedback they receive. - Lots of stuff to craft and add on. Multiple routes and ways to get through a level. You can stealth kill your way through, kill everyone guns blazing, or go the the quite sneaky route.
I was just banned from Twitch for streaming the DEMO of The Last of Us. No warning, just instant ban after a couple of minutes. Even the title of my stream said "Testing for streaming tomorrow" which is the release date. They just ignored it and assumed i was streaming the full game. Probably happened to tons of other users as well, as there is currently ZERO streaming last of us right now.
While Uncharted games were pretty awesome after 3rd I was hoping that Naughty Dog would move on and they answered my hopes.
Going to go pick this up after work tomorrow, even got monday off from work so several days time to play through it. Just hoping the local stores have managed to put it on shelf so I don't have to go all the way to a gaming store, wouldn't be the first time.
On June 14 2013 00:09 DragoonPK wrote: Game came out early here, few impressions from my 4 hours with it so far:
- The game is pretty damn gorgeous, its pretty much the best console game I've seen so far. - Atmosphere is tense, very good pacing in terms of both combat and story. You have a good mixture of highly intense and slow moments. - Voice acting is fantastic, immediately liking the game's cast. - Resources are pretty damn scarce, you need to make every bullet and item count. - Enemies' AI is pretty smart, both the infected and normal humans. They change tactics based on the visual feedback they receive. - Lots of stuff to craft and add on. Multiple routes and ways to get through a level. You can stealth kill your way through, kill everyone guns blazing, or go the the quite sneaky route.
Thanks for the info.
I am glad that E3 was this week since it made the week go by quite fast. I can't wait to play The Last of Us this weekend along with seeing the Man of Steel. This week has been great so far.
I'll wait for it to drop to ~40€ i think have plenty of stuff to do and also quite a few games still to play laying around here anyway which i would probably never finish if i bought Last of Us now too ^^
Everyone I asked so far has the savegame bug. I didn't have it until now. So if you're playing the game make sure to check if you can save manually, if not you probably lost a lot of progress. Some of my friends lost at least 2 hours, this game is so good but this bug fucks up everything,
/edit: Playing offline is supposed to circumvent the issue for now.
I haven't been that excited for a console in a loooong time! Naughty Dog and Rockstar are always ahead of the competition when it comes to making games. Oh and obv GOTY
Just completed the game. Pretty incredible. Was fortunate enough not to get the savegame bug.
The story was pretty incredible. Amazing depth to the characters, and they really grow on you. At some point I stopped playing the game and wanted nothing more than to push the story forward to give them a happy ending. The game play itself was very enjoyable, if a bit frustrating at times I struggled to deal with the sheer number of enemies.
It really hit everything a game needs to hit for me. Great story, great characters, great gameplay, great graphics and a memorable soundtrack. Really well done. Definitely worth all the received hype.
On June 15 2013 03:32 LimitSEA wrote: Just completed the game. Pretty incredible. Was fortunate enough not to get the savegame bug.
The story was pretty incredible. Amazing depth to the characters, and they really grow on you. At some point I stopped playing the game and wanted nothing more than to push the story forward to give them a happy ending. The game play itself was very enjoyable, if a bit frustrating at times I struggled to deal with the sheer number of enemies.
It really hit everything a game needs to hit for me. Great story, great characters, great gameplay, great graphics and a memorable soundtrack. Really well done. Definitely worth all the received hype.
On June 15 2013 03:32 LimitSEA wrote: Just completed the game. Pretty incredible. Was fortunate enough not to get the savegame bug.
The story was pretty incredible. Amazing depth to the characters, and they really grow on you. At some point I stopped playing the game and wanted nothing more than to push the story forward to give them a happy ending. The game play itself was very enjoyable, if a bit frustrating at times I struggled to deal with the sheer number of enemies.
It really hit everything a game needs to hit for me. Great story, great characters, great gameplay, great graphics and a memorable soundtrack. Really well done. Definitely worth all the received hype.
How long did it take you on what difficulty ?
About 12-ish hours on normal difficulty. I did a lot of needless exploring, though, so maybe shave off a half hour from that.
Could someone explain to me the game story in general and the ending ?I saw someone streaming it today(ItmeJP) and I only saw the ending. I was looking for explanations about why the ending is apparently so sad,what are the fireflies,etc. Basically a resumé would be MUCH appreciated. Thanks in advance. I don't have a PS3 so I'll never have the chance to play this (apparently) top 5 games of this decade.
On June 15 2013 15:50 FlawlessFeeL wrote: Could someone explain to me the game story in general and the ending ?I saw someone streaming it today(ItmeJP) and I only saw the ending. I was looking for explanations about why the ending is apparently so sad,what are the fireflies,etc. Basically a resumé would be MUCH appreciated. Thanks in advance. I don't have a PS3 so I'll never have the chance to play this (apparently) top 5 games of this decade.
EDIT: With spoiler tags obviously, or just inbox.
kk I'll send you a PM message. I watched the majority of JP's entire stream.
On June 15 2013 15:50 FlawlessFeeL wrote: Could someone explain to me the game story in general and the ending ?I saw someone streaming it today(ItmeJP) and I only saw the ending. I was looking for explanations about why the ending is apparently so sad,what are the fireflies,etc. Basically a resumé would be MUCH appreciated. Thanks in advance. I don't have a PS3 so I'll never have the chance to play this (apparently) top 5 games of this decade.
EDIT: With spoiler tags obviously, or just inbox.
Hokay, I post my understanding. Obviously don't click the spoiler tag if you don't want the ending/game spoiled for you.
So the ending is basically that the Fireflies, a militant group who want to use Ellie, who is immune to the viral infection that's taking over the world, to create a vaccine and thus giving mankind hope. The twist is they do it by removing part of her brain, or something like that, which would obviously kill her.
Now you need to understand Joel's history. When the outbreak first happened and shit first hit the fan, Joel lost his daughter, who was roughly the same age as Ellie. He agrees to smuggle her across the country to find the Fireflies, initially only for the pay he'd receive at the end. But as they travel, their relationship grows. They suffer a lot. I feel like Joel sees a lot of his daughter in Ellie, and that she's sort of taken over where her daughter left off.
This is why it hits so hard at the end. When Joel decides to steal Ellie, you're seeing the selfish side of a man who's had everything taken from him. All he wants is a happy ending; for the suffering to finally be over, but to do so would be at the cost of a vaccine that could save the human race. He can't bear to lose Ellie, because it would like losing his daughter all over again.
At the end of the day, though, the best way for you understand why it was sad, and why the story is so hyped, is to play through it yourself. I actually only bought the PS3 the other day for this game specifically, lol.
On June 15 2013 15:50 FlawlessFeeL wrote: Could someone explain to me the game story in general and the ending ?I saw someone streaming it today(ItmeJP) and I only saw the ending. I was looking for explanations about why the ending is apparently so sad,what are the fireflies,etc. Basically a resumé would be MUCH appreciated. Thanks in advance. I don't have a PS3 so I'll never have the chance to play this (apparently) top 5 games of this decade.
EDIT: With spoiler tags obviously, or just inbox.
Hokay, I post my understanding. Obviously don't click the spoiler tag if you don't want the ending/game spoiled for you.
So the ending is basically that the Fireflies, a militant group who want to use Ellie, who is immune to the viral infection that's taking over the world, to create a vaccine and thus giving mankind hope. The twist is they do it by removing part of her brain, or something like that, which would obviously kill her.
Now you need to understand Joel's history. When the outbreak first happened and shit first hit the fan, Joel lost his daughter, who was roughly the same age as Ellie. He agrees to smuggle her across the country to find the Fireflies, initially only for the pay he'd receive at the end. But as they travel, their relationship grows. They suffer a lot. I feel like Joel sees a lot of his daughter in Ellie, and that she's sort of taken over where her daughter left off.
This is why it hits so hard at the end. When Joel decides to steal Ellie, you're seeing the selfish side of a man who's had everything taken from him. All he wants is a happy ending; for the suffering to finally be over, but to do so would be at the cost of a vaccine that could save the human race. He can't bear to lose Ellie, because it would like losing his daughter all over again.
At the end of the day, though, the best way for you understand why it was sad, and why the story is so hyped, is to play through it yourself. I actually only bought the PS3 the other day for this game specifically, lol.
Haha, now do yourself a favour and get a copy of Uncharted 2
On June 15 2013 15:50 FlawlessFeeL wrote: Could someone explain to me the game story in general and the ending ?I saw someone streaming it today(ItmeJP) and I only saw the ending. I was looking for explanations about why the ending is apparently so sad,what are the fireflies,etc. Basically a resumé would be MUCH appreciated. Thanks in advance. I don't have a PS3 so I'll never have the chance to play this (apparently) top 5 games of this decade.
EDIT: With spoiler tags obviously, or just inbox.
Hokay, I post my understanding. Obviously don't click the spoiler tag if you don't want the ending/game spoiled for you.
So the ending is basically that the Fireflies, a militant group who want to use Ellie, who is immune to the viral infection that's taking over the world, to create a vaccine and thus giving mankind hope. The twist is they do it by removing part of her brain, or something like that, which would obviously kill her.
Now you need to understand Joel's history. When the outbreak first happened and shit first hit the fan, Joel lost his daughter, who was roughly the same age as Ellie. He agrees to smuggle her across the country to find the Fireflies, initially only for the pay he'd receive at the end. But as they travel, their relationship grows. They suffer a lot. I feel like Joel sees a lot of his daughter in Ellie, and that she's sort of taken over where her daughter left off.
This is why it hits so hard at the end. When Joel decides to steal Ellie, you're seeing the selfish side of a man who's had everything taken from him. All he wants is a happy ending; for the suffering to finally be over, but to do so would be at the cost of a vaccine that could save the human race. He can't bear to lose Ellie, because it would like losing his daughter all over again.
At the end of the day, though, the best way for you understand why it was sad, and why the story is so hyped, is to play through it yourself. I actually only bought the PS3 the other day for this game specifically, lol.
I see. Thanks a lot for the résumé , well explained. I wish I could afford a PS3 for only one game though.
On June 15 2013 15:50 FlawlessFeeL wrote: Could someone explain to me the game story in general and the ending ?I saw someone streaming it today(ItmeJP) and I only saw the ending. I was looking for explanations about why the ending is apparently so sad,what are the fireflies,etc. Basically a resumé would be MUCH appreciated. Thanks in advance. I don't have a PS3 so I'll never have the chance to play this (apparently) top 5 games of this decade.
EDIT: With spoiler tags obviously, or just inbox.
Hokay, I post my understanding. Obviously don't click the spoiler tag if you don't want the ending/game spoiled for you.
So the ending is basically that the Fireflies, a militant group who want to use Ellie, who is immune to the viral infection that's taking over the world, to create a vaccine and thus giving mankind hope. The twist is they do it by removing part of her brain, or something like that, which would obviously kill her.
Now you need to understand Joel's history. When the outbreak first happened and shit first hit the fan, Joel lost his daughter, who was roughly the same age as Ellie. He agrees to smuggle her across the country to find the Fireflies, initially only for the pay he'd receive at the end. But as they travel, their relationship grows. They suffer a lot. I feel like Joel sees a lot of his daughter in Ellie, and that she's sort of taken over where her daughter left off.
This is why it hits so hard at the end. When Joel decides to steal Ellie, you're seeing the selfish side of a man who's had everything taken from him. All he wants is a happy ending; for the suffering to finally be over, but to do so would be at the cost of a vaccine that could save the human race. He can't bear to lose Ellie, because it would like losing his daughter all over again.
At the end of the day, though, the best way for you understand why it was sad, and why the story is so hyped, is to play through it yourself. I actually only bought the PS3 the other day for this game specifically, lol.
Haha, now do yourself a favour and get a copy of Uncharted 2
I got it for free with the PS3 Haven't had a chance to play it for obvious reasons. xD
I usually love and appreciate cinematic games quite a bit, but this one was a bit odd and didn't sit quite right. I loved the Mass Effect series, Uncharted series, God of War series, the BioShocks, etc.
I think Naughty Dog is the best game development studio in the world. They always push the boundaries with technology, visuals, cinematography in games, and storytelling. However I think they need to spend more time working with more innovative and fun gameplay mechanics for whatever their next-gen games are. This game and Bioshock: Infinite are both incredible stories, and an engrossing story enough to carry me through a game. But they both suffer from gameplay lulls. When I'm at the point where all I want to do is advance the story and not actually play the game, that raises a red flag for me...
To this day, I think BioWare has historically had the best success with merging good stories and a good cinematic experience with meaningful and fun gameplay. Bioshock 1 did the same thing and that's why it was so great. Tons of people still play ME3's multiplayer to this day, and that's a testament to ME3's stellar gameplay. And that series had some great storytelling moments.
I wish Naughty Dog would take a page from that and start by creating a game that's first and foremost fun as hell to play and then crafting a story and cinematic experience around it. That's what made the God of War series so god damned great. I feel like gameplay just didn't get enough attention in Last of Us.
Is this really as amazing as everyone says it is? With Ni No Kuni and this, I regret selling my PS3. I guess the best games really do come out at the final stages of a console's cycle.
what an amazing story, i watched through all the cutscenes right now and can't believe how good it is. It has incredible depth, realism and probably one of the few games that really has that end of the world feeling done right. Probably gonna grab the game as soon as I have finished my exams.
People always praised on bioshock infinite female companion growing on you, but hell, this is much much WAY better.
Wasn't excited about it at all, then I saw some footage...thinking of picking this up soon. First time I've bought an exclusive and a game for a home console in awhile...PC's been kinda dominating things on that front these days.
enjoying Last of US very much but its far from the perfect game many critics are making it out to be. Still really good ^^ Will have to give multi a try after campaign and curious to play the locked difficulty cause am yet to have any troubles regarding ammo or other supplies
either im really bad at console games or this game is really fucking hard. i play each new game on hard and normally dont have big problems, but here.. wow.. i die like 10 times on each combat sequence. i love it!
This is a spoiler but I have an honest question about it: + Show Spoiler +
Does anybody else feel that it was kinda racist that the game introduces a black family than kills them off so soon? It made me feel like they just randomly added token black people in or to appeal to wider demographics.
On June 16 2013 07:17 Ubiquitousdichotomy wrote: This is a spoiler but I have an honest question about it: + Show Spoiler +
Does anybody else feel that it was kinda racist that the game introduces a black family than kills them off so soon? It made me feel like they just randomly added token black people in or to appeal to wider demographics.
You're too sensitive. Remember that white woman they introduce in the very beginning of the game? They killed her off, does Naughty Dog hate white people too? How about women? Does Naughty Dog hate women?
On June 16 2013 07:17 Ubiquitousdichotomy wrote: This is a spoiler but I have an honest question about it: + Show Spoiler +
Does anybody else feel that it was kinda racist that the game introduces a black family than kills them off so soon? It made me feel like they just randomly added token black people in or to appeal to wider demographics.
You're too sensitive. Remember that white woman they introduce in the very beginning of the game? They killed her off, does Naughty Dog hate white people too? How about women? Does Naughty Dog hate women?
It's not about being sensitive, it's just realizing that this is a common issue, and is problematic. You can still enjoy something even if it is problematic. I wouldn't call the game developers racist, but I do think it's strange that they introduce them then kill them off, and I immediately noticed this when it happened, it was really annoying considering the history of minorities in horror .
I don't get your point, Ellie is a major character, has major plot development, and is a women and is not killed off, she is also a pretty strong character at that, fending for herself after awhile(I guess she needed a mans help to get there, but we can't have everything, and everyone needs a hand at some point and everyone needs a teacher. Tess is also a bad ass, so there's that.
On June 16 2013 07:17 Ubiquitousdichotomy wrote: This is a spoiler but I have an honest question about it: + Show Spoiler +
Does anybody else feel that it was kinda racist that the game introduces a black family than kills them off so soon? It made me feel like they just randomly added token black people in or to appeal to wider demographics.
You're too sensitive. Remember that white woman they introduce in the very beginning of the game? They killed her off, does Naughty Dog hate white people too? How about women? Does Naughty Dog hate women?
It's not about being sensitive, it's just realizing that this is a common issue, and is problematic. You can still enjoy something even if it is problematic. I wouldn't call the game developers racist, but I do think it's strange that they introduce them then kill them off.
I don't get your point, Ellie is a major character, has major plot development, and is a women and is not killed off, she is also a pretty strong character at that, fending for herself after awhile(I guess she needed a mans help to get there, but we can't have everything. Tess is also a bad ass, so there's that.
I dunno, I mean I thought they did pretty well at making them realistic characters. I thought they were both like-able, and felt kinda bad about their deaths. It's the zombie apocalypse, good people will get killed sometimes. I don't see it as racist if some of those good people happen to be black.
On June 16 2013 07:17 Ubiquitousdichotomy wrote: This is a spoiler but I have an honest question about it: + Show Spoiler +
Does anybody else feel that it was kinda racist that the game introduces a black family than kills them off so soon? It made me feel like they just randomly added token black people in or to appeal to wider demographics.
i thought they were a nice addition to the game. they really helped put some perspective on joel and ellie's relationship. great example being when they're forced to swap partners.
it also showed that there are still good people out there not just bandits, though the definition becomes ambiguous as they all have to get their hands dirty at one point.
With regards to the black brothers dying. It is not racist but it was a pretty obvious turn. But you do sometimes wonder, why was there a lack of black characters overall in the game if you want to nitpick. hehe! But honestly, I didn't find the lack of diversity in the ethnicity an issue. =) With regards to Ellie's medical state, they said her fungus specifically mutated right? This would mean that if she does bite/infect someone else, they would have the mutated strain and not the original strain. My understanding of that is that the simplest form of the vaccine is actually get the infection from Ellie. What do you guys think? About the ending, I am curious about it. I don't mind how Naughty Dog went with it. I do however have a question. Ellie's infection on her arm, did it grow/change a bit? She keeps looking at it and I just feel there is something there that she is not saying (In terms of what the scene wants to evoke). Those sores didn't look like they were there before but I may be wrong. So I am unsure whether the premise is that there really is no immunity/cure but rather her's was a strain that was just slow to progress?
This is the first time I watched entire game on stream (JP's), but this was totally worth it. I didn't like gameplay as much, but the enviroment/atmosphere and mainly the story and dialogues were awesome. Prologue is masterpiece by itself.
On June 16 2013 23:29 Tuczniak wrote: This is the first time I watched entire game on stream (JP's), but this was totally worth it. I didn't like gameplay as much, but the enviroment/atmosphere and mainly the story and dialogues were awesome. Prologue is masterpiece by itself.
Fuck I couldn't watch all of it because of timezones but I did catch the last couple of hours on Swiftor's stream.
Game looked similar to Bioshock Infinite from what I've seen, in that there's a lot more effort put into the world, the story and the immersion rather than the gameplay, although I must say the combat and other aspects looked to be at least par if not legitimately good as well.
Phenomenally immersive and gripping, and that's only from a viewer perspective. I can imagine playing it yourself can only feel much much better.
Almost at the end when Joel was running away with Ellie in his arms, I thought they will going to shoot him and he will die seeing Ellie and his daughter as one person. Ellie will never wake up and whole journey would be his last struggle to regain what he already lost. I think it would quite good end too, but a lot more depressing.
On June 16 2013 07:17 Ubiquitousdichotomy wrote: This is a spoiler but I have an honest question about it: + Show Spoiler +
Does anybody else feel that it was kinda racist that the game introduces a black family than kills them off so soon? It made me feel like they just randomly added token black people in or to appeal to wider demographics.
i thought they were a nice addition to the game. they really helped put some perspective on joel and ellie's relationship. great example being when they're forced to swap partners.
it also showed that there are still good people out there not just bandits, though the definition becomes ambiguous as they all have to get their hands dirty at one point.
This is why I loved the ending so much. The way the world has been for the last 20 years, is it really worth saving? Much of the time, as Bill puts it, "normal humans scare me more". Many people have gone from normal people to murderers, killing others in cold blood to survive. How can they go back to civilized society after all that? Those who wanted a better life searched for it, like Tommy and his crew.
And as Joel said, it's not about surviving, but about finding something worth fighting for. What's the point of him surviving in that world if he has no reason to want to survive? He's lost literally everyone, and when he finally finds someone he cares about, he's told he's going to lose her?
Sure it's selfish and morally ambiguous, but I'd absolutely make the same call as Joel.
Almost at the end when Joel was running away with Ellie in his arms, I thought they will going to shoot him and he will die seeing Ellie and his daughter as one person. Ellie will never wake up and whole journey would be his last struggle to regain what he already lost. I think it would quite good end too, but a lot more depressing.
I thought the exact same thing, the soldiers kept yelling that they had Joel in their sights and it was his last chance, etc. I guess they didn't shoot in case they accidentally shot Ellie.
I loved the moral ambiguity and grayness of the characters. There were very few characters who were clearly good and clearly bad - in fact Ellie was the only character who was clearly good. Joel was good in some ways, but bad in another - he killed a lot of people, some that they didn't need to, and others in ways that might not be ethical. The Fireflies, although with a seemingly noble cost weren't that moral either, they had no problem killing Joel and didn't seem very sympathetic to him when he was having a hard time letting go of Ellie.
Even that creep guy that you fight in the restaurant - where you have to stab him to death, that guy was introduced as a decent guy, but obviously he was fine hunting down Joel, trying to kill Ellie when she wouldn't join his cause - etc.
After playing Ni-No-Kuni and The Last of Us in the past two weeks I am thoroughly impressed with the PS3 exclusives. I had been playing only Xbox 360 games, my PS3 hasn't been used in years (I own like 25 X360 games and 5-7 PS3 games) but I am very impressed.
Almost at the end when Joel was running away with Ellie in his arms, I thought they will going to shoot him and he will die seeing Ellie and his daughter as one person. Ellie will never wake up and whole journey would be his last struggle to regain what he already lost. I think it would quite good end too, but a lot more depressing.
I thought the exact same thing, the soldiers kept yelling that they had Joel in their sights and it was his last chance, etc. I guess they didn't shoot in case they accidentally shot Ellie.
I loved the moral ambiguity and grayness of the characters. There were very few characters who were clearly good and clearly bad - in fact Ellie was the only character who was clearly good. Joel was good in some ways, but bad in another - he killed a lot of people, some that they didn't need to, and others in ways that might not be ethical. The Fireflies, although with a seemingly noble cost weren't that moral either, they had no problem killing Joel and didn't seem very sympathetic to him when he was having a hard time letting go of Ellie.
Even that creep guy that you fight in the restaurant - where you have to stab him to death, that guy was introduced as a decent guy, but obviously he was fine hunting down Joel, trying to kill Ellie when she wouldn't join his cause - etc.
After playing Ni-No-Kuni and The Last of Us in the past two weeks I am thoroughly impressed with the PS3 exclusives. I had been playing only Xbox 360 games, my PS3 hasn't been used in years (I own like 25 X360 games and 5-7 PS3 games) but I am very impressed.
I love what you said about characters being morally in a gray spot, Joel in particular.
Take a look at it from the perspective of one of those nurses at the end. Some dude starts murdering people in their hospital, breaks into the surgery room, shoots a surgeon and steals the only chance mankind has at a cure. To them, he's essentially evil incarnate.
But we get to see it all from Joel's perspective, so we see exactly why he did what he did. Can't give enough props to Naughty Dog for how the story played out.
Almost at the end when Joel was running away with Ellie in his arms, I thought they will going to shoot him and he will die seeing Ellie and his daughter as one person. Ellie will never wake up and whole journey would be his last struggle to regain what he already lost. I think it would quite good end too, but a lot more depressing.
I thought the exact same thing, the soldiers kept yelling that they had Joel in their sights and it was his last chance, etc. I guess they didn't shoot in case they accidentally shot Ellie.
I loved the moral ambiguity and grayness of the characters. There were very few characters who were clearly good and clearly bad - in fact Ellie was the only character who was clearly good. Joel was good in some ways, but bad in another - he killed a lot of people, some that they didn't need to, and others in ways that might not be ethical. The Fireflies, although with a seemingly noble cost weren't that moral either, they had no problem killing Joel and didn't seem very sympathetic to him when he was having a hard time letting go of Ellie.
Even that creep guy that you fight in the restaurant - where you have to stab him to death, that guy was introduced as a decent guy, but obviously he was fine hunting down Joel, trying to kill Ellie when she wouldn't join his cause - etc.
After playing Ni-No-Kuni and The Last of Us in the past two weeks I am thoroughly impressed with the PS3 exclusives. I had been playing only Xbox 360 games, my PS3 hasn't been used in years (I own like 25 X360 games and 5-7 PS3 games) but I am very impressed.
I love what you said about characters being morally in a gray spot, Joel in particular.
Take a look at it from the perspective of one of those nurses at the end. Some dude starts murdering people in their hospital, breaks into the surgery room, shoots a surgeon and steals the only chance mankind has at a cure. To them, he's essentially evil incarnate.
But we get to see it all from Joel's perspective, so we see exactly why he did what he did. Can't give enough props to Naughty Dog for how the story played out.
Almost at the end when Joel was running away with Ellie in his arms, I thought they will going to shoot him and he will die seeing Ellie and his daughter as one person. Ellie will never wake up and whole journey would be his last struggle to regain what he already lost. I think it would quite good end too, but a lot more depressing.
I thought the exact same thing, the soldiers kept yelling that they had Joel in their sights and it was his last chance, etc. I guess they didn't shoot in case they accidentally shot Ellie.
I loved the moral ambiguity and grayness of the characters. There were very few characters who were clearly good and clearly bad - in fact Ellie was the only character who was clearly good. Joel was good in some ways, but bad in another - he killed a lot of people, some that they didn't need to, and others in ways that might not be ethical. The Fireflies, although with a seemingly noble cost weren't that moral either, they had no problem killing Joel and didn't seem very sympathetic to him when he was having a hard time letting go of Ellie.
Even that creep guy that you fight in the restaurant - where you have to stab him to death, that guy was introduced as a decent guy, but obviously he was fine hunting down Joel, trying to kill Ellie when she wouldn't join his cause - etc.
After playing Ni-No-Kuni and The Last of Us in the past two weeks I am thoroughly impressed with the PS3 exclusives. I had been playing only Xbox 360 games, my PS3 hasn't been used in years (I own like 25 X360 games and 5-7 PS3 games) but I am very impressed.
I love what you said about characters being morally in a gray spot, Joel in particular.
Take a look at it from the perspective of one of those nurses at the end. Some dude starts murdering people in their hospital, breaks into the surgery room, shoots a surgeon and steals the only chance mankind has at a cure. To them, he's essentially evil incarnate.
But we get to see it all from Joel's perspective, so we see exactly why he did what he did. Can't give enough props to Naughty Dog for how the story played out.
When you break into the surgery room and the doctor holds a scalpel at you warning you not to come closer, I didn't want to kill him or the nurses, so I just walked towards him thinking there might be an option when you just break his arm or something, but instead Joel automatically snatches the knife and sinks it into the doctor's neck - pretty gruesome.
Loved the game, I see what the hype was about. Gameplay was just good enough to not detract from the story/world. Can't wait to see what Naughty Dog can do on the PS4.
I've been taking turns playing the game with a friend. Anyways, its his turn, and we're at the fight with the sniper in the 3rd story window down the street. He tries a few times to go down the left, but we're playing on hard, and almost out of supplies. He keeps getting sniped while fighting the thugs by the first burned out building. Eventually, he gets frustrated and says "Fuck it, I'm gonna brick him." He proceeds to sprint past all the thugs in the area, pushes his way past the three at the door, sprints up the stairs and kills the guy.
I've been taking turns playing the game with a friend. Anyways, its his turn, and we're at the fight with the sniper in the 3rd story window down the street. He tries a few times to go down the left, but we're playing on hard, and almost out of supplies. He keeps getting sniped while fighting the thugs by the first burned out building. Eventually, he gets frustrated and says "Fuck it, I'm gonna brick him." He proceeds to sprint past all the thugs in the area, pushes his way past the three at the door, sprints up the stairs and kills the guy.
Very impressed with this game. The world is incredibly immersive and well crafted, the characters and dialogue are very well written and interesting, and all the "zombie" clichés are done incredibly well. IMO the gameplay is no slouch either, lots of games ride on emotional involvement in the place of gameplay (The Walking Dead is a good example) but the combat, crafting, and looting system in this game is pretty darn fun.
I also like how the game isn't a gigantic loot fest a la Fallout or Skyrim. The urgency and importance of scrounging materials is felt (especially on harder difficulties) but the game does it without resort to turning over every single stone and searching every garbage can.
The story and its execution is flawless. And its often the little things that propel it from mediocrity to greatness, which I love. A good example is the powerful prologue. + Show Spoiler [prologue spoilers] +
The fact that you play as short stint as Sarah gets you more emotionally invested in the character. Just a couple minutes of development make a huge difference, we cared about what happened to her and Joel more now than if the game just started out as "Heres a guy, he loses his daughter" (as messed up as it sounds to say that.)
I also enjoyed the development between Joel and Ellie, I think it was handled very well, and it didn't go anything like how I was expecting. Shes also easily the most helpful and non-aggravating ally I've ever had in a video game.
For a game that often sticks close the typical safe zombie story elements, it keeps you guessing and wondering what's next. And when clichés do appear, they are done well enough that they don't feel jarring or forced at all. I often found myself saying "Oh boy this is going to happen, then this is going to happen" and was often wrong. Particularly about the ending.
I suspected it would come down to a "we can save mankind but she'll have to die" type thing, but I had no idea how it would be handled. This was a good example of one of those "happy sad" endings that left me fulfilled and overall happy with the situation, but knowing full well that it was a very selfish and morally ambiguous outcome. I can't remember the last time my heart was beating so hard during a game. The possibilities kept racing in my head. "Oh he's not going to reach her in time. Oh they are going to shoot him as he's running with her for the exit. Oh Marlene is going to change his mind and he's going to give her up." When they first cut to him in the truck I remember thinking to myself "She better fucking be in that back seat." The game kept me guessing, and I love it.
It was also very important in how they put you in certain situations, and used gameplay instead of cutscenes. When I barged into the operating room, the doctors didn't pull assault rifles out of their asses and start blasting me. One goes for a scalpel, another cowers in a corner. It occurs to you that you're dooming countless numbers of people to death by infection, but you don't care. I didn't hesitate. I remember shooting the doctor cowering in the corner and she fell to the floor and started crawling towards the door. Now obviously as someone who plays lots of video games, graphic violence doesn't bother me and I can separate reality from fiction. But I remember a very distinct moment during that situation that very few games give me, and I can only describe it as "channeling my character." In this case, Joel. I knew what I was doing was wrong and selfish, but I didn't care. I aimed for her head and pulled the trigger.
It's the kind of ending that leaves a lasting impact on you. It's not as simple as "a good ending or a bad one" or "happy or sad." It was, just like the majority of the game, gray. Joel is a man who clearly has done bad things and killed innocents, and as unsympathetic or morally ambiguous as the Fireflies seemed, a cure is obviously a invaluable step in mankind's recovery. But I can't say I wouldn't have done the exact same thing. The perspective you gained throughout the game makes the ending that much more powerful.
I got the feeling the ending could have been averted had Marlene discussed the surgery with both Joel and Ellie beforehand, or not discussed the surgery at all. Discussing it with Joel only was a full-retard moment for Marlene.
On June 17 2013 21:57 InVerno wrote: Hey guys, just want to ask, for the first try is the hard difficulty frustrating or kinda doable without doing every zone multiple times?
Hard difficulty felt absolutely perfect to me. Yes you will die a decent amount, but it will be a Dark Souls kind of death, where you know 100% what you fucked up and that if you hadn't you would be alive. The game is literally never unfair, but always pretty challenging because you're always low on ammo. Even though you can take down enemies for free in stealth, the level design and AI makes it so that it's still perfectly balanced, because if you're not super careful about it, you will get spotted (I don't think there was any encounter that I just finished off with stealth... somewhere a long the way something always went wrong and I either died or had to finish the rest of with guns or at least try to bash their heads in).
I'm not sure the game deserves a 10/10 simply because there are other games that I enjoyed more, but if I objectively think about it there is almost nothing wrong with this game. It doesn't have the gameplay depth of some games, and the story is less thoughtful than in other games, but for what it is and what it tries to be, it is pretty much perfect.
The gameplay was for the most part very unimaginative but I really liked the dialogue in combination with voice acting and motion capture. The story itself wasn’t all that great but thanks to a small number of main characters it managed to keep me interested while with most other serious zombie stories I end up hating the retarded characters and there rarely is any actual explanation of what happened and why (it leads nowhere, for example Walking Dead). The game reminds me of Spec Ops: The Line because it’s also extremely linear, cinematic at the expense of gameplay (in order to tell a very specific story with controversial plot points) and within the context of gaming relatively unique.
Overall I like Spec Ops more but so far this year I’d put it at 8/10 with Bioshock Infinite (better world building) and Tomb Raider (better gameplay).
But the story of Joel and Ellie are done. So says some articles.
They could technically continue it, but the better question is, 'should they?' The game ends on such a perfect note and feels so complete. Plus, with Naughty Dog's track record it's not like they need to rely on safe brand recognition friendly sequels to move sales.
This game is really making me wish I had bought a PS3 instead of a 360...but since I am planning on buying a PS4...anyone know if it will be backwards compatible in any way, shape or form? If it is literally impossible for me to play this game, I'll just watch one of the youtube videos that sums up the story for me, because it looks amazing from what I've seen.
On June 18 2013 14:40 ZasZ. wrote: This game is really making me wish I had bought a PS3 instead of a 360...but since I am planning on buying a PS4...anyone know if it will be backwards compatible in any way, shape or form? If it is literally impossible for me to play this game, I'll just watch one of the youtube videos that sums up the story for me, because it looks amazing from what I've seen.
They're using Gaikai to stream PS3 games (and presumably PS1/PS2 as well).
But the story of Joel and Ellie are done. So says some articles.
They could technically continue it, but the better question is, 'should they?' The game ends on such a perfect note and feels so complete. Plus, with Naughty Dog's track record it's not like they need to rely on safe brand recognition friendly sequels to move sales.
agreed, if anything, they should do the story in the view point of one of the major forces, be it fireflies or gov
But the story of Joel and Ellie are done. So says some articles.
Wouldn't this kind of be a spoiler?
If I may paraphrase what Swiftor said at the end of his stream (an opinion that honestly I tend to agree with) the scenes are so beautifully crafted that even if someone spoils something (by the way I don't necessarily agree that Disengaged spoiled anything) you will still be compelled by them, even knowing what was going to happen. They're that good.
I'm a few hours in now and the friendly AI's frequently running past enemies without the enemies reacting in any way is bit of an immersion breaker and combat involving a dozen enemies at a time can be a pain in the ass but otherwise I'm quite enjoying the game.
On June 18 2013 20:52 Vaelone wrote: I'm a few hours in now and the friendly AI's frequently running past enemies without the enemies reacting in any way is bit of an immersion breaker and combat involving a dozen enemies at a time can be a pain in the ass but otherwise I'm quite enjoying the game.
That's probably my only real gripe with the game. Enemies seem to have the attention span of a goldfish and generally react very late or in odd ways.
I've only played 8 hours so far and apart from that the game is really great and addictive.
On June 18 2013 20:52 Vaelone wrote: I'm a few hours in now and the friendly AI's frequently running past enemies without the enemies reacting in any way is bit of an immersion breaker and combat involving a dozen enemies at a time can be a pain in the ass but otherwise I'm quite enjoying the game.
I agree it's immersion breaking but playing a stealth game with AI followers aggroing enemies is one of the most frustrating things you can have so I can understand the design decision.
On June 18 2013 20:52 Vaelone wrote: I'm a few hours in now and the friendly AI's frequently running past enemies without the enemies reacting in any way is bit of an immersion breaker and combat involving a dozen enemies at a time can be a pain in the ass but otherwise I'm quite enjoying the game.
Yeah that is kinda wierd at times. Funniest part i had so far was when one of my AI allies ran circles around the soldier i sneaked up on.
But the story of Joel and Ellie are done. So says some articles.
They could technically continue it, but the better question is, 'should they?' The game ends on such a perfect note and feels so complete. Plus, with Naughty Dog's track record it's not like they need to rely on safe brand recognition friendly sequels to move sales.
They could just make some DLCs to expand the Last Of Us world, but a sequel would just be a cop out.
On June 17 2013 21:57 InVerno wrote: Hey guys, just want to ask, for the first try is the hard difficulty frustrating or kinda doable without doing every zone multiple times?
Hard difficulty felt absolutely perfect to me. Yes you will die a decent amount, but it will be a Dark Souls kind of death, where you know 100% what you fucked up and that if you hadn't you would be alive. The game is literally never unfair, but always pretty challenging because you're always low on ammo. Even though you can take down enemies for free in stealth, the level design and AI makes it so that it's still perfectly balanced, because if you're not super careful about it, you will get spotted (I don't think there was any encounter that I just finished off with stealth... somewhere a long the way something always went wrong and I either died or had to finish the rest of with guns or at least try to bash their heads in).
I'm not sure the game deserves a 10/10 simply because there are other games that I enjoyed more, but if I objectively think about it there is almost nothing wrong with this game. It doesn't have the gameplay depth of some games, and the story is less thoughtful than in other games, but for what it is and what it tries to be, it is pretty much perfect.
Thanks a lot for the advice, i've really enjoyed this game on hard difficult, hope will turn even harder on next difficulty!
Btw i see a lot of talking about the ending but none have talk about the thing disturbed me most, really was painfull to watch
At the end when Joel swears he said the the truth about fireflies, i mean, after a one year travel together shoulder to shoulder, everyone can imagine how important trust the other is, when it comes to live together in a survival situation described like a carnage.. this can be a very selfish act, because you know from now on Ellie will live in a lie. The moral dilemma behind that lie is very deep and tense, more than "savetheworld vs ellie'slife" but "Ellie living in a lie with me vs Ellie living (or dying) in the truth without me". I believe Joel has a great sense of the humanity, everyone is playing a part and he's trying to play his part at his best. In a world like that, there is no assurance that ellie will stay with him forever, maybe the day next he will loose her in an ambush from fireflies, but for today he will do the best to keep her with him. Everyone can criticize that choice, but it's the sublimation of the entire moral dilemma of the story "where's (if there's) the line between be selfish and be good when it comes to live or die?" because everyone can joke around being selfish or altruistic in the normal choices of the life, and even judge the others in that, but when it comes to the extreme situations like that, the existance of that line is not certain like it seems before. (sorry for bad english if is the case)
On June 18 2013 20:52 Vaelone wrote: I'm a few hours in now and the friendly AI's frequently running past enemies without the enemies reacting in any way is bit of an immersion breaker and combat involving a dozen enemies at a time can be a pain in the ass but otherwise I'm quite enjoying the game.
I agree it's immersion breaking but playing a stealth game with AI followers aggroing enemies is one of the most frustrating things you can have so I can understand the design decision.
Yeah I understand why it works the way it does but I would have preferred if they for example made the AI's sit back a bit more instead of having stick on me no matter what kind of stupid pathing they have to take.
Game was meh. Glad I rented it and didn't buy it. I don't think it did anything extraordinarily well. It''s got decent game play, decent story, decent crafting, decent characters etc. That's not to say it was a bad game, but there's nothing in it that makes me go "dang I really like this part of the game."
My biggest complaint was how the game reduces enemy units if you die a few times. Like towards the end + Show Spoiler +
Fighting the fireflies
there's a whole bunch of enemies. I stealth/combat kill about 10 and there's still another half a dozen or so. This section was super fun and I finally found a reason to use my crafted items (full inventory for the rest of the game another minor gripe.) or ammo. I finally got to make a "do I use my final bullet" type decision. I die a few times. Then I re-spawn and there's only 4 enemies the whole zone. If I wanted to lower the difficulty I would have taken it off hard.
I would only really recommend this game to people who like getting immersed in the story, and I would put bioshock infinite as a better game in that regard.
On June 18 2013 20:52 Vaelone wrote: I'm a few hours in now and the friendly AI's frequently running past enemies without the enemies reacting in any way is bit of an immersion breaker and combat involving a dozen enemies at a time can be a pain in the ass but otherwise I'm quite enjoying the game.
I agree it's immersion breaking but playing a stealth game with AI followers aggroing enemies is one of the most frustrating things you can have so I can understand the design decision.
Yeah I understand why it works the way it does but I would have preferred if they for example made the AI's sit back a bit more instead of having stick on me no matter what kind of stupid pathing they have to take.
I agree that sometimes there's a bit of immersion that's broken by Ellie or another character running right by an enemy, or speaking very loudly as we sneak by a clicker - but in my play-through on hard difficulty, I can only think of two times that it happened.
The first time was the very first building encounter with runners/clickers and I found that Ellie/Tess would be talking when clickers/runners were roaming - obviously if you even move too quickly they come running so it was a bit odd.
Another time Ellie kind of bugged out and ran right into a hallway where a guard was patrolling even though I was hiding behind some furniture. The enemy just reacted as if she wasn't even there, but Ellie did wind up jumping on his back and strangling him so it's not like there was no reaction made.
Lastly, I know that some people have complained about the immersion being broken when you can just go through a door to 'lockout' enemies as it loads the next zone and starts you off in the next zone on a blank slate - so even if ten enemies were on your tail, the second you go through a certain doorway, the game forgets about the fact that ten soldiers were right behind you.
In my playthrough this happened exactly one time. At the very end + Show Spoiler +
in the hospital trying to save Ellie
you can get by all the enemies by sneaking if you're good and with a bit of luck, so I did that, and just as I was approaching a door to go through an enemy spotted me and they swarmed - so I sprinted to the door, went through it and it played an animation of Joel going through the door, then grabbing a bar to jam the doorway - obviously if a pile of soldiers were a foot behind me this never would work - they would be shooting at me, slamming the door, etc.
On June 17 2013 08:40 erin[go]bragh wrote: Very impressed with this game. The world is incredibly immersive and well crafted, the characters and dialogue are very well written and interesting, and all the "zombie" clichés are done incredibly well. IMO the gameplay is no slouch either, lots of games ride on emotional involvement in the place of gameplay (The Walking Dead is a good example) but the combat, crafting, and looting system in this game is pretty darn fun.
I also like how the game isn't a gigantic loot fest a la Fallout or Skyrim. The urgency and importance of scrounging materials is felt (especially on harder difficulties) but the game does it without resort to turning over every single stone and searching every garbage can.
The story and its execution is flawless. And its often the little things that propel it from mediocrity to greatness, which I love. A good example is the powerful prologue. + Show Spoiler [prologue spoilers] +
The fact that you play as short stint as Sarah gets you more emotionally invested in the character. Just a couple minutes of development make a huge difference, we cared about what happened to her and Joel more now than if the game just started out as "Heres a guy, he loses his daughter" (as messed up as it sounds to say that.)
I also enjoyed the development between Joel and Ellie, I think it was handled very well, and it didn't go anything like how I was expecting. Shes also easily the most helpful and non-aggravating ally I've ever had in a video game.
For a game that often sticks close the typical safe zombie story elements, it keeps you guessing and wondering what's next. And when clichés do appear, they are done well enough that they don't feel jarring or forced at all. I often found myself saying "Oh boy this is going to happen, then this is going to happen" and was often wrong. Particularly about the ending.
I suspected it would come down to a "we can save mankind but she'll have to die" type thing, but I had no idea how it would be handled. This was a good example of one of those "happy sad" endings that left me fulfilled and overall happy with the situation, but knowing full well that it was a very selfish and morally ambiguous outcome. I can't remember the last time my heart was beating so hard during a game. The possibilities kept racing in my head. "Oh he's not going to reach her in time. Oh they are going to shoot him as he's running with her for the exit. Oh Marlene is going to change his mind and he's going to give her up." When they first cut to him in the truck I remember thinking to myself "She better fucking be in that back seat." The game kept me guessing, and I love it.
It was also very important in how they put you in certain situations, and used gameplay instead of cutscenes. When I barged into the operating room, the doctors didn't pull assault rifles out of their asses and start blasting me. One goes for a scalpel, another cowers in a corner. It occurs to you that you're dooming countless numbers of people to death by infection, but you don't care. I didn't hesitate. I remember shooting the doctor cowering in the corner and she fell to the floor and started crawling towards the door. Now obviously as someone who plays lots of video games, graphic violence doesn't bother me and I can separate reality from fiction. But I remember a very distinct moment during that situation that very few games give me, and I can only describe it as "channeling my character." In this case, Joel. I knew what I was doing was wrong and selfish, but I didn't care. I aimed for her head and pulled the trigger.
It's the kind of ending that leaves a lasting impact on you. It's not as simple as "a good ending or a bad one" or "happy or sad." It was, just like the majority of the game, gray. Joel is a man who clearly has done bad things and killed innocents, and as unsympathetic or morally ambiguous as the Fireflies seemed, a cure is obviously a invaluable step in mankind's recovery. But I can't say I wouldn't have done the exact same thing. The perspective you gained throughout the game makes the ending that much more powerful.
Remember the scene with the Giraffes outside the hospital? Remember how much it seems to affect Joel? Well if you pay attention to your room when you play as Sarah, you'll notice there's a stuffed Giraffe in one of the corners.
On June 19 2013 19:54 InVerno wrote: Btw i see a lot of talking about the ending but none have talk about the thing disturbed me most, really was painfull to watch
At the end when Joel swears he said the the truth about fireflies, i mean, after a one year travel together shoulder to shoulder, everyone can imagine how important trust the other is, when it comes to live together in a survival situation described like a carnage.. this can be a very selfish act, because you know from now on Ellie will live in a lie. The moral dilemma behind that lie is very deep and tense, more than "savetheworld vs ellie'slife" but "Ellie living in a lie with me vs Ellie living (or dying) in the truth without me". I believe Joel has a great sense of the humanity, everyone is playing a part and he's trying to play his part at his best. In a world like that, there is no assurance that ellie will stay with him forever, maybe the day next he will loose her in an ambush from fireflies, but for today he will do the best to keep her with him. Everyone can criticize that choice, but it's the sublimation of the entire moral dilemma of the story "where's (if there's) the line between be selfish and be good when it comes to live or die?" because everyone can joke around being selfish or altruistic in the normal choices of the life, and even judge the others in that, but when it comes to the extreme situations like that, the existance of that line is not certain like it seems before. (sorry for bad english if is the case)
I kind of suspect Ellie knew that Joel didn't tell the truth, but still accepted his answer. She may still live a lie, but she is aware of it and accepting it.
From the source: The original ending that for a long time we discussed is Ellie would believe the lie and you’d see them walking off to Tommy’s town and the camera would track up and you’d feel like, they’re going to be okay. It was about a week before we shot that scene and we thought, this isn’t honest, this doesn’t feel right, Ellie would know, I don’t buy it, we have to change this.
This is an Ashley (voice actress of Ellie) thing but no matter what the acting direction is, she’s going to nod her head and be like, ‘okay…okay’. And throughout shooting, a lot of her improvisation for Ellie involved saying, ‘okay’. And I thought, you have to end on that. Whatever it is Joel tells her, she has to just be like, ‘okay’.
But I really enjoyed the game, the setting and the story. Starting my Survivor playthrough now.
One thing I will keep wondering about thought is + Show Spoiler +
what Joel is saying to Ellie in that scene where you are in the burning house and she just killed David. It probably was a good directing choice, but it was the same in Lost In Translation at the end. It just keeps you wanting to know, but you'll probably never know.
It says a lot about the industry that a story as trite and manipulative as this is regarded as 'the citizen kane moment'
I won't lie, it's a lot better than the average game, but this game is to the greatest films and novels of all time as far as duke nukem forever is from it.
Like, they said it was inspired by The Road. Even the road, which is great but unexceptional in the grand scheme of literature, beats the everliving shit out of it as a narrative. With a poleaxe.
Just because a game is far and away better than what you are usually playing, this does not make it 'good' in an objective sense. It just makes it better than what you are usually playing.
If what you are usually playing is the usual buggy, trite, derivative, uninspired, often misogynistic or racist tripe, congratulations, welcome to the realm of a game that is worthy of the amount of money spent on it. Something that enhanced your life in a meaningful way by its consumption, rather than just killing time.
On June 20 2013 17:55 Thereisnosaurus wrote: It says a lot about the industry that a story as trite and manipulative as this is regarded as 'the citizen kane moment'
I won't lie, it's a lot better than the average game, but this game is to the greatest films and novels of all time as far as duke nukem forever is from it.
Like, they said it was inspired by The Road. Even the road, which is great but unexceptional in the grand scheme of literature, beats the everliving shit out of it as a narrative. With a poleaxe.
Just because a game is far and away better than what you are usually playing, this does not make it 'good' in an objective sense. It just makes it better than what you are usually playing.
If what you are usually playing is the usual buggy, trite, derivative, uninspired, often misogynistic or racist tripe, congratulations, welcome to the realm of a game that is worthy of the amount of money spent on it. Something that enhanced your life in a meaningful way by its consumption, rather than just killing time.
If a game is not this good, it is a BAD GAME.
Developers know their audience. If you don't like it, while millions of other people do, it doesn't mean the game is bad, it means you are not part of the target demographic.
On June 20 2013 17:55 Thereisnosaurus wrote: It says a lot about the industry that a story as trite and manipulative as this is regarded as 'the citizen kane moment'
I won't lie, it's a lot better than the average game, but this game is to the greatest films and novels of all time as far as duke nukem forever is from it.
Like, they said it was inspired by The Road. Even the road, which is great but unexceptional in the grand scheme of literature, beats the everliving shit out of it as a narrative. With a poleaxe.
Just because a game is far and away better than what you are usually playing, this does not make it 'good' in an objective sense. It just makes it better than what you are usually playing.
If what you are usually playing is the usual buggy, trite, derivative, uninspired, often misogynistic or racist tripe, congratulations, welcome to the realm of a game that is worthy of the amount of money spent on it. Something that enhanced your life in a meaningful way by its consumption, rather than just killing time.
If a game is not this good, it is a BAD GAME.
I agree with this 100% (haven't played the game but the idea of modern games sucking so any above average game seems legendary).
People who have played this... is The last of Us really as good as, or better than these games: - Portal 2 - Baldurs Gate 2 - GTA Vice City - Bioshock 1 (or Infinite for that matter) - Zelda Ocarina of Time - TES Skyrim/Oblivion - Star Wars KOTOR - Final Fantasy 7/10 etc - Diablo1/2 - Deus Ex - Thief 1/2
etc. etc. All games equal to or surpassed by TloU on Metacritic? With the obvious conflicts of interests we are seeing over and over with game reviewers it is clear to me that review scores have been inflated over time. Very very few modern games come close to the depth or polish of older games like those on the list (though some are more recent). I hope TLoU isn't just some scripted movie essentially, since in my book that should never be rated above games that have story AND gameplay,, but in general I think my point about inflated scores still stands. There are some terrible games getting respectable scores (DA2 are you fucking kidding me?!).
It's really tough to measure or compare to other games. Also in the end it's still a matter of taste and that's always debateable.
From the games above I played: BG2, Vice City, Bioshock 1, Skyrim/Oblivion, FF10, Diablo 1/2, Deus Ex, Thief 1
While I did enjoy all of those games, I also enjoyed The Last Of Us. I was compelled to keep playing and that's a good enough sign for me that I was enjoying it. Popped in the disc when I got it, played for 7 hours straight and wanted to quit when I find the right moment, which I did not find and then forced myself to quit since I had to work the next day.
Most of the old games also have a lot of nostalgic value going on for them, but many also had their flaws that you begin to overlook with time. TLOU also has a lot of flaws (especially the AI), but it also has a lot of strong points for me.
Meh, anyways... it all comes down to: Did I enjoy playing the game? And I can just answer this with a straight yes.
I bought a lot of games lately, that I never finished because I lost interest. TLOU was the first game in a long time that I actually finished within a few days because I just wanted to keep playing and progressing in the story.
Thinks I particularly liked: The story, while generic, was still interesting and while I had a strong walking dead vibe, they still made it their own The atmosphere and general design of the areas The interactions and relationships between the characters The voice acting Actually enjoyed the scavenging/scrapping and upgrading aspect It didn't rely on cheap scares Overall excecution of story telling, I don't know why but I really liked the scene after you get the car, was a strong scene for me There are so many little details to find
Things I kinda didn't like that much: The predictable AI with an attention span of a goldfish Sometimes I felt there were too many enemies Clickers (god I hate them)
Developers know their audience. If you don't like it, while millions of other people do, it doesn't mean the game is bad, it means you are not part of the target demographic.
Millions of people like mcdonalds. That doesn't make it good. Millions of people think every muslim is evil. That doesn't mean it's true.
If your value judgement of a piece of media is based on how many people buy it then wii sports is the greatest game of all time, by a factor of 2: http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/ (though admittedly this chart goes console by console for sales instead of putting the two together IIRC, it's still wiisports just by slightly less of a lead)
Aside from all this, I never claimed the game was bad. It's good. Compared to the average videogame the industry puts out it is exponentially ahead of the curve in sophistication, polish, pacing and attention to detail.
When the average game the industry puts out has less of all of these values than call of duty, that is still not saying much.
Very very few modern games come close to the depth or polish of older games like those on the list (though some are more recent).
I think there's a bit of rose tinted nostalgia there, I mean I loved those games too but they were full of plenty more holes than TLOU. It's fair to give them a little more leeway because their budgets were far smaller and they had less of a body of established knowledge to work from- for all of its strength TLOU does literally nothing innovative but some clean recombining of existing mechanics and stylistic choices, even the fungus zombies have been done before, as far back as system shock 2. But in an objective comparison, ignoring all context, many of those games would be panned these days, even if given a simple coat of polish
Just saw a full play through. While it certainly seemed like some gameplay elements were lacking and the AI seemed rather incompetent most of the time, I found the character development quite nice.
Just as a passive viewer I found myself somewhat caring for Ellie and that means a lot when it comes to a video game.
All in all, there are hundreds of video games with amazing gameplay but very few that can actually generate any level of emotional response so I say this is a good game. While of course this is no Planescape: Torment, the story was at least interesting, the characters felt human and the world felt realistic.
Just as a passive viewer I found myself somewhat caring for Ellie and that means a lot when it comes to a video game.
All in all, there are hundreds of video games with amazing gameplay but very few that can actually generate any level of emotional response so I say this is a good game. While of course this is no Planescape: Torment, the story was at least interesting, the characters felt human and the world felt realistic.
mmmm, this is one of the things I'm really not sure whether to be ok with or hate the game for. People say that they somewhat care for characters like Ellie or Alyx or Elizabeth etc. let me run down some narrative design stuff here
1) All of these characters are young, spunky and female for a reason. It's an age old combination that triggers emotional investment in pretty much every human, regardless of gender or orientation, the 'underdog complex', I guess it could be called. Because of that, there's a kind of compounded effect. You're inclined to feel attached to such characters naturally, but because literature is so saturated with them the tendency becomes amplified by conditioning. The result is that this sort of character is the easiest in the world to write if you want to manipulate a person's instincts towards protectiveness and fairness
2) creating emotional investment *is not hard*. It's a basic character design skill, which anyone who writes books, screenplays or stageplays learns at the freshman level. The culture and objectives of interaction based entertainment in videogames sometimes rub against this in a way that disrupts the normal process, but it's still not a massive challenge.
3) because of this tendency towards caring for particular character archetypes combined with the simplicity of the overall task, competent writers can literally overload your brain with teh feelinz with a few simple, manipulative tricks. It's a similar process to how mcdonalds makes its food taste good- overload everything with sugar and salt and people will normally overlook the underlying simplicity and blandness of what they're consuming. Both Sarah and Ellie are perfect examples of this. Neither is actually an interesting character- they have no flaws, no desires other than to not die horribly and do what you tell them to do. They are nothing but helpful to you as a player. There is literally no potential for conflict here, though It's covered a little more subtly than, say, Elizabeth who both literally and narratively exists purely to fulfill your every desire.
It's testament to how shallow these designs are that Ellie can never get you into trouble outside of pre-scripted situations, something that has been made fun of quite a bit. Apart from detracting from the immersion, the true thing to take away from this fact is just how scared games writers are to make real, human characters. Even inconveniencing the player by attracting attention was considered too much of a character flaw, let alone curling up in a ball when seeing someone eviscerated, or the corpse of another child, wetting themselves when inches from death, giving up hope, failing to shiv someone in the knee while you're being punched up or simply just running the fuck away from your intolerant abusive ass in a fit of pique.
Now, I don't think this is a terrible, terrible thing. I just want to point out how it's not all that special. In the same way I'm happy to eat mcdonalds once in a while, I'm happy to be manipulated into emotionally investing in a paper doll once in a while. What I'm not ok with is people saying this is groundbreaking work. I think games CAN be groundbreaking, create emotional investment that beats all other forms of literature, but I think that effort is done a disservice by saying this sort of thing is a big step along that road. As you say, getting someone to care about a snarky flaming skull without sad violins and cinematic framing of a single tear is a bit more of a challenge.
Apparently it's so easy and yet every single Hollywood movie in the past 20 years manages to fail simple character creation.
But on a serious note. You can talk about how easy it is however you want. The fact is that it hasnt been done before like this in games. Bioshock infinite and Last of us are the first games that brought these kind of engaging characters and immersive worlds into modern gaming. That is why they are being praised and rightfully so. They are the best what gaming has to offer in that deparment. To criticize them as some people do for not making a groundbraking change across all fields of entertainment/fiction is absurd.
I realize we had great characters in games before and i experienced them when they first came out. They were great for their time as ellie/joel and elizabeth are now.
On June 21 2013 09:09 Thereisnosaurus wrote: 2) creating emotional investment *is not hard*. It's a basic character design skill, which anyone who writes books, screenplays or stageplays learns at the freshman level. The culture and objectives of interaction based entertainment in videogames sometimes rub against this in a way that disrupts the normal process, but it's still not a massive challenge.
And yet the vast majority of movies, books, TV shows and specially video games generate no emotional response from me. All we see are plastic characters following an archetype and playing a role in the story.
The Last of Us clearily wanted you to feel pathernal (or mathernal) about Ellie. Make her brave and strong for her age yet vulnerable and worthy of protection. It's pretty obvious, the question is whether it achieves that or not.
When Joes started killing the Fireflies, even the unarmed doctors, he's called a monster. And he most certainly he was but for me that felt good and right. He was doing a horrible thing but for a very human reason, for selfish love. And I honestly felt that I would have done the same.
That's what sold the story for me, that even with the clunkyness of the gameplay and the limited scope for storytelling the story felt human, I could identify to some degree with the chracters and in the end their actions had some relevance for me.
Does that makes this game some incredible masterpiece of storytelling like the world has never seen before?, of course not, it's a video game. The worst and lowest medium for telling a story. But it made me care at least a little bit about a bunch of pixels and very few stories actually do that for me.
Apparently it's so easy and yet every single Hollywood movie in the past 20 years manages to fail simple character creation.
Yep, it's really sad isn't it? Though I think 20 years of hollywood have managed a few here and there and cinema in general has come up with plenty. Games have too, really. I think Chakwas from ME is a really good character, albeit not a central one (apparently Jack is also ok during the third game). The lieutenant from Space Marine is a good example of a female support character who's not a complete washout. Jaheera in BG, but that both goes without saying and was a long time ago. So they succeed plenty of times in isolation, but a lot of these games stumble at the higher narrative.
It's weaving the two together- characterisation and then using that to make a broader point- that's very rare and special. I think in some ways TLOU does succeed at that, I'm just kind of sad that the point is 'beautiful, perfect children are worth not brutally slaughtering, even if it's for the greater good'. A real challenge- and real achievement- would be conveying the same point using a normal, imperfect child.
it's a video game. The worst and lowest medium for telling a story
I think you'll find, in terms of potential, the opposite is true. No other genre allows you to inhabit and invest so much in a narrative as a videogame. It may be the hardest in which to successfully tell a story, but this does not make it inherently the worst.
On June 21 2013 09:09 Thereisnosaurus wrote: 2) creating emotional investment *is not hard*. It's a basic character design skill, which anyone who writes books, screenplays or stageplays learns at the freshman level. The culture and objectives of interaction based entertainment in videogames sometimes rub against this in a way that disrupts the normal process, but it's still not a massive challenge.
And yet the vast majority of movies, books, TV shows and specially video games generate no emotional response from me. All we see are plastic characters following an archetype and playing a role in the story.
The Last of Us clearily wanted you to feel pathernal (or mathernal) about Ellie. Make her brave and strong for her age yet vulnerable and worthy of protection. It's pretty obvious, the question is whether it achieves that or not.
When Joes started killing the Fireflies, even the unarmed doctors, he's called a monster. And he most certainly he was but for me that felt good and right. He was doing a horrible thing but for a very human reason, for selfish love. And I honestly felt that I would have done the same.
That's what sold the story for me, that even with the clunkyness of the gameplay and the limited scope for storytelling the story felt human, I could identify to some degree with the chracters and in the end the actions had some relevance for me.
Does that makes this game some incredible masterpiece of storytelling like the world has never seen before?, of course not, it's a video game. The worst and lowest medium for telling a story. But it made me care at least a little bit about a bunch of pixels and very few stories actually do that for me.
I do not understand this idea that videogames suck at telling stories. What about them makes them intrinsically bad for storytelling? Did you guys play Morrowind? How about KotoR? Mass Effect 1?
Lots of videogames having shitty stories doesn't mean videogames are bad for telling stories. Most movies aren't Citizen Kane, most books aren't 1984.
Apparently it's so easy and yet every single Hollywood movie in the past 20 years manages to fail simple character creation.
Yep, it's really sad isn't it? Though I think 20 years of hollywood have managed a few here and there and cinema in general has come up with plenty. Games have too, really. I think Chakwas from ME is a really good character, albeit not a central one (apparently Jack is also ok during the third game). The lieutenant from Space Marine is a good example of a female support character who's not a complete washout. Jaheera in BG, but that both goes without saying and was a long time ago. So they succeed plenty of times in isolation, but a lot of these games stumble at the higher narrative.
It's weaving the two together- characterisation and then using that to make a broader point- that's very rare and special. I think in some ways TLOU does succeed at that, I'm just kind of sad that the point is 'beautiful, perfect children are worth not brutally slaughtering, even if it's for the greater good'. A real challenge- and real achievement- would be conveying the same point using a normal, imperfect child.
it's a video game. The worst and lowest medium for telling a story
I think you'll find, in terms of potential, the opposite is true. No other genre allows you to inhabit and invest so much in a narrative as a videogame. It may be the hardest in which to successfully tell a story, but this does not make it inherently the worst.
All of your posts just come off as you being some literature hipster, and that anything that isn't William Falkner is bad. If someone plays it, and enjoys it, that means it was good for them. For you it was a "bad game, and only good compared to others of its time." That's fair. You don't have to spend so many posts telling people whether or not objectively it is a bad game. Because if a game makes you want to keep playing it has succeeded in its job.
If you're looking for Video games to change your life, you're looking in the wrong area.
On June 21 2013 09:09 Thereisnosaurus wrote: 2) creating emotional investment *is not hard*. It's a basic character design skill, which anyone who writes books, screenplays or stageplays learns at the freshman level. The culture and objectives of interaction based entertainment in videogames sometimes rub against this in a way that disrupts the normal process, but it's still not a massive challenge.
And yet the vast majority of movies, books, TV shows and specially video games generate no emotional response from me. All we see are plastic characters following an archetype and playing a role in the story.
The Last of Us clearily wanted you to feel pathernal (or mathernal) about Ellie. Make her brave and strong for her age yet vulnerable and worthy of protection. It's pretty obvious, the question is whether it achieves that or not.
When Joes started killing the Fireflies, even the unarmed doctors, he's called a monster. And he most certainly he was but for me that felt good and right. He was doing a horrible thing but for a very human reason, for selfish love. And I honestly felt that I would have done the same.
That's what sold the story for me, that even with the clunkyness of the gameplay and the limited scope for storytelling the story felt human, I could identify to some degree with the chracters and in the end the actions had some relevance for me.
Does that makes this game some incredible masterpiece of storytelling like the world has never seen before?, of course not, it's a video game. The worst and lowest medium for telling a story. But it made me care at least a little bit about a bunch of pixels and very few stories actually do that for me.
I do not understand this idea that videogames suck at telling stories. What about them makes them intrinsically bad for storytelling? Did you guys play Morrowind? How about KotoR? Mass Effect 1?
Lots of videogames having shitty stories doesn't mean videogames are bad for telling stories. Most movies aren't Citizen Kane, most books aren't 1984.
You don't have to kill the doctors. That's totally up to you.
Quite simply, gameplay considerations and the expectations of modern gamers. You can't have a modern game with hundreds of thousands of lines because the average gamer doesn't want to read that much and expects all dialogue to be voiced acted.
Also, in most modern games the word "linearity" has become almost taboo. Something horrible to be avoided at most times. Player's choice and open world have become the most wanted qualities, but you can't have an open world and meaningful player choice while still keeping and deep and complex narrative of a great novel.
Not to say that there aren't games that have truly deep, original and interesting stories, the best example being Planescape: Torment, but that game was more of a good novel with some gameplay strapped on and it sold horribly even when it wasn't submmited to modern expectations.
Many video games can have interesting and coherent plots like the original Deus Ex and the Mass Effect trilogy, a few others can have true emotional impact such as Silent Hill 2 or TLoU. But a game in the end is that, a game, the story, the characters and the plot are only an element of the game, and sometimes one of the least important, for gamers.
You don't buy a book for the gameplay nor you watch a movie in order to make choices that influence the plot. These elements means that video games in their current form can have meaningful stories but they are by far the least ideal medium to present them.
On June 21 2013 09:09 Thereisnosaurus wrote: 2) creating emotional investment *is not hard*. It's a basic character design skill, which anyone who writes books, screenplays or stageplays learns at the freshman level. The culture and objectives of interaction based entertainment in videogames sometimes rub against this in a way that disrupts the normal process, but it's still not a massive challenge.
And yet the vast majority of movies, books, TV shows and specially video games generate no emotional response from me. All we see are plastic characters following an archetype and playing a role in the story.
The Last of Us clearily wanted you to feel pathernal (or mathernal) about Ellie. Make her brave and strong for her age yet vulnerable and worthy of protection. It's pretty obvious, the question is whether it achieves that or not.
When Joes started killing the Fireflies, even the unarmed doctors, he's called a monster. And he most certainly he was but for me that felt good and right. He was doing a horrible thing but for a very human reason, for selfish love. And I honestly felt that I would have done the same.
That's what sold the story for me, that even with the clunkyness of the gameplay and the limited scope for storytelling the story felt human, I could identify to some degree with the chracters and in the end the actions had some relevance for me.
Does that makes this game some incredible masterpiece of storytelling like the world has never seen before?, of course not, it's a video game. The worst and lowest medium for telling a story. But it made me care at least a little bit about a bunch of pixels and very few stories actually do that for me.
I do not understand this idea that videogames suck at telling stories. What about them makes them intrinsically bad for storytelling? Did you guys play Morrowind? How about KotoR? Mass Effect 1?
Lots of videogames having shitty stories doesn't mean videogames are bad for telling stories. Most movies aren't Citizen Kane, most books aren't 1984.
You don't have to kill the doctors. That's totally up to you.
Quite simply, gameplay considerations and the expectations of modern gamers. You can't have a modern game with hundreds of thousands of lines because the average gamer doesn't want to read that much and expects all dialogue to be voiced acted.
Also, in most modern games the word "linearity" has become almost taboo. Something horrible to be avoided at most times. Player's choice and open world have become the most wanted qualities, but you can't have an open world and meaningful player choice while still keeping and deep and complex narrative of a great novel.
Not to say that there aren't games that have truly deep, original and interesting stories, the best example being Planescape: Torment, but that game was more of a good novel with some gameplay strapped on and it sold horribly even when it wasn't submmited to modern expectations.
Many video games can have interesting and coherent plots like the original Deus Ex and the Mass Effect trilogy, a few others can have true emotional impact such as Silent Hill 2 or TLoU. But a game in the end is that, a game, the story, the characters and the plot are only an element of the game, and sometimes one of the least important, for gamers.
You don't buy a book for the gameplay nor you watch a movie in order to make choices that influence the plot. These elements means that video games in their current form can have meaningful stories but they are by far the least ideal medium to present them.
Player-influenced plots aren't necessarily bad for storytelling, and neither is gameplay. I feel that both actually can improve the story of a game by making the player more invested in said game. They care more about it when they are the ones making choices and progressing the story, rather than it just happening in front of them.
Further, books and movies are not inherently better. Just as for every Planescape: Torment, there are thousands of Gears of War; for every Of Mice and Men, there are thousands of Fifty Shades of Grey. For every Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, there are thousands of Transformers.
No one has ever really been able to explain to me why video-games are inherently worse at telling stories. They just assert that they are.
Dialogue requiring voice acting is not a flaw. If movies can do it, so can video games.
On June 21 2013 05:37 ayaz2810 wrote: Trade in value: $18
What in the actual fuck.
$26 base at GameStop right now, so $33.80 with a 30% promo, $36.40 if you're PUR Pro, or $41.60 if you have a 50% TIV coupon to use.
Alternatively, I sold my copy for $56 shipped on eBay within a couple of hours of listing it. That's only $47 after fees + shipping, but w/e.
@On_Slaught: I think TLoU is pretty directly comparable to Bioshock Infinite, and I'd have to say that it's superior. The plot is obviously something you'd be familiar with if you've read any postapocalyptic fiction (especially The Road), but characterization is far better done, and you don't run into the issue of Infinite's corridor gunplay segments actively detracting from the storytelling.
It's testament to how shallow these designs are that Ellie can never get you into trouble outside of pre-scripted situations, something that has been made fun of quite a bit. Apart from detracting from the immersion, the true thing to take away from this fact is just how scared games writers are to make real, human characters.
Um, no. From tim~
you cannot be held responsible for the actions of a character you cannot control. If the jig was up everytime the pathing glitched out and Ellie ran right in front of an enemy when moving between cover, even though you were being super sneaky, it would be incredibly frustrating.
you cannot be held responsible for the actions of a character you cannot control. If the jig was up everytime the pathing glitched out and Ellie ran right in front of an enemy when moving between cover, even though you were being super sneaky, it would be incredibly frustrating.
This is basically saying "we're incapable of coding an NPC whose AI can cope with the situation we wanted to convey. So we're going to do it anyway and hope you're so used to this shit you'll be able to ignore it"
Thus, shallow design. Deep design would be to find a way around this that seems less artificial. That's for the second part of the statement. As to the first, not being held responsible for the actions of a character you cannot control, that is LIFE. Art imitates life. Not being held responsible for anything not directly of your making is a utopian fantasy. For certain game scenarios that is of course alright, For a gritty, deliberately messy and morally ambiguous post apoc narrative, I don't think it's justifiable in any sense but to excuse failings of the writing and execution team.
Again, I'm not saying that success in that regard would have been easy or perhaps even possible at this time with the maturity of the industry where it is. but there's a world of difference between saying 'you cannot be held responsible for X' and 'we're not capable of creating a scenario in which the player is held responsible for X that adds to our game'. The moment anyone says 'cannot' in relation to the medium of games, you know which end the words are coming out of. There are a few, very few, exceptions. This is not one of them.
you cannot be held responsible for the actions of a character you cannot control. If the jig was up everytime the pathing glitched out and Ellie ran right in front of an enemy when moving between cover, even though you were being super sneaky, it would be incredibly frustrating.
This is basically saying "we're incapable of coding an NPC whose AI can cope with the situation we wanted to convey. So we're going to do it anyway and hope you're so used to this shit you'll be able to ignore it"
Thus, shallow design. Deep design would be to find a way around this that seems less artificial.
Like what, removing the character all together?
The options are either make life hell for the player, in which case the game would be awful, or code around it and hope that people are okay with very, very, very minor breaks with reality that serve to increase the experience with your personal character
Game was definitely one of the best games that I've played since Bioshock 1.
It lasted just long enough before it started to get boring and it actually had gameplay mechanics that reminded me of Bioshock.
My only gripe with the game is that there was no decision making regarding morality in this game......+ Show Spoiler +
there were multiple points in the game where I thought I would be given an option to kill a storyline character such as the black man after he ditched you and the guy that helps you find a car but I was unable to and it was a let down as the game was toted as having morality options throughout the game.
Maybe some sort of incentive such as if you kill a main character after they screwed you over while Ellie is saying "please don't!" will allow you to have the NPC's special items that they have (maybe body armor and a special gun for example) while also changing the way that Ellie interacts with you via a love/hate system and how much she helps you in say, combat is effected by that love/hate system.
So you can choose to kill the character in the game because he ditched you and because you want his specialized rifle and body armor for combat but now Ellie hates you a little bit more and keeps her distance from you more in combat. That would have added a nice twist to the game and multiple endings would have spruced it up quite a bit as well.
The linearity in the game also prevents me from wanting it to play it again so I'll probably just sell it and get most of my money back but it's definitely the best single player game I've played within the past 5 years......I just wish that there were more options for you to make decisions in the game that would effect the outcome and effect the gameplay as you play along.
The stealth was also good but having to kill each group of bandits or zombies to be able to go to the next area was a con.
The gun play for a third person shooter was definitely amazing especially for a console game.
On June 20 2013 17:55 Thereisnosaurus wrote: It says a lot about the industry that a story as trite and manipulative as this is regarded as 'the citizen kane moment'
I won't lie, it's a lot better than the average game, but this game is to the greatest films and novels of all time as far as duke nukem forever is from it.
Like, they said it was inspired by The Road. Even the road, which is great but unexceptional in the grand scheme of literature, beats the everliving shit out of it as a narrative. With a poleaxe.
Just because a game is far and away better than what you are usually playing, this does not make it 'good' in an objective sense. It just makes it better than what you are usually playing.
If what you are usually playing is the usual buggy, trite, derivative, uninspired, often misogynistic or racist tripe, congratulations, welcome to the realm of a game that is worthy of the amount of money spent on it. Something that enhanced your life in a meaningful way by its consumption, rather than just killing time.
If a game is not this good, it is a BAD GAME.
I agree with this 100% (haven't played the game but the idea of modern games sucking so any above average game seems legendary).
People who have played this... is The last of Us really as good as, or better than these games: - Portal 2 - Baldurs Gate 2 - GTA Vice City - Bioshock 1 (or Infinite for that matter) - Zelda Ocarina of Time - TES Skyrim/Oblivion - Star Wars KOTOR - Final Fantasy 7/10 etc - Diablo1/2 - Deus Ex - Thief 1/2
etc. etc. All games equal to or surpassed by TloU on Metacritic? With the obvious conflicts of interests we are seeing over and over with game reviewers it is clear to me that review scores have been inflated over time. Very very few modern games come close to the depth or polish of older games like those on the list (though some are more recent). I hope TLoU isn't just some scripted movie essentially, since in my book that should never be rated above games that have story AND gameplay,, but in general I think my point about inflated scores still stands. There are some terrible games getting respectable scores (DA2 are you fucking kidding me?!).
DA2 is a shame when it comes to critic score. The fact that player score is at like 4 says a lot for a game that didn't suffer from connection issues etc.
As for the game you listed, its pretty hard to compare it like that. Like how am I supposed to compare diablo and the last of us ??? Did I had more fun from 10h of diablo or 10h of tLoU ? Probably tLoU. Will I have more fun playing 100h of diablo or doing 10 times tLoU; probably Diablo. Is being scripted good or not ? Is being ugly matters or not ? etc.
You see ? You cannot put every game on the same scale. It makes absolutely no sense. You have to first indicate the scale (or scales) you are comparing them on. A great game is a game that does great in what its trying to do and for me tLoU achieved that mission so far (haven't finished it yet). The same way BG2 went to be the best cRpg or Skyrim the best open world RPG. But could you say whether Skyrim or BG2 is the best ? Non-sense. But all those games, being great for what they are deserve to be recognized as such and I feel tLoU as a third person shooter with on rail story really deserves the praise; its just one of the best at what it does.
Anyway I'll agree that metacritic in itself means nothing. I don't even know why people follow it. Pick a few reviewer that seems to have the same tastes and follow that.
On June 20 2013 17:55 Thereisnosaurus wrote: It says a lot about the industry that a story as trite and manipulative as this is regarded as 'the citizen kane moment'
I won't lie, it's a lot better than the average game, but this game is to the greatest films and novels of all time as far as duke nukem forever is from it.
Like, they said it was inspired by The Road. Even the road, which is great but unexceptional in the grand scheme of literature, beats the everliving shit out of it as a narrative. With a poleaxe.
Just because a game is far and away better than what you are usually playing, this does not make it 'good' in an objective sense. It just makes it better than what you are usually playing.
If what you are usually playing is the usual buggy, trite, derivative, uninspired, often misogynistic or racist tripe, congratulations, welcome to the realm of a game that is worthy of the amount of money spent on it. Something that enhanced your life in a meaningful way by its consumption, rather than just killing time.
If a game is not this good, it is a BAD GAME.
Artistic taste varies wildly from person to person, and especially among gamers who are a diverse public. Some find Bioshock profound, but to most academics, Ayn Rand is a joke. Xenogears references Nietzsche, Freud, and Lacan, but is essentially an overambitious manga than literature. I completely trust that the Last of Us's story is trite and manipulative, and I cringe every time I hear reviewers speak of "emotional involvement" like it's a golden standard. But despite all that, I don't think video games should ever be judged for their literary worth. In fact, making aesthetic judgements about literary worth is rarely ever a good idea in popular culture simply because there's no end. The guy who enjoys Tarantino will say comic book movies are unsophisticated. The guy who worships Cassavetes will call Tarantino an idiot.
What I really loathe about modern console games more than anything is the dumbed down gameplay at the cost of trying to play like a movie instead of an actual video game. I actually enjoyed Uncharted's plot but fighting the same dumb AI using the same methods in the same settings while getting dragged from level to level with nothing but cutscenes in between was not fun, at all. I'm still on the fence about getting this game because of how painful Uncharted 3 was for me.
On June 20 2013 17:55 Thereisnosaurus wrote: It says a lot about the industry that a story as trite and manipulative as this is regarded as 'the citizen kane moment'
I won't lie, it's a lot better than the average game, but this game is to the greatest films and novels of all time as far as duke nukem forever is from it.
Like, they said it was inspired by The Road. Even the road, which is great but unexceptional in the grand scheme of literature, beats the everliving shit out of it as a narrative. With a poleaxe.
Just because a game is far and away better than what you are usually playing, this does not make it 'good' in an objective sense. It just makes it better than what you are usually playing.
If what you are usually playing is the usual buggy, trite, derivative, uninspired, often misogynistic or racist tripe, congratulations, welcome to the realm of a game that is worthy of the amount of money spent on it. Something that enhanced your life in a meaningful way by its consumption, rather than just killing time.
If a game is not this good, it is a BAD GAME.
Artistic taste varies wildly from person to person, and especially among gamers who are a diverse public. Some find Bioshock profound, but to most academics, Ayn Rand is a joke. Xenogears references Nietzsche, Freud, and Lacan, but is essentially an overambitious manga than literature. I completely trust that the Last of Us's story is trite and manipulative, and I cringe every time I hear reviewers speak of "emotional involvement" like it's a golden standard. But despite all that, I don't think video games should ever be judged for their literary worth. In fact, making aesthetic judgements about literary worth is rarely ever a good idea in popular culture simply because there's no end. The guy who enjoys Tarantino will say comic book movies are unsophisticated. The guy who worships Cassavetes will call Tarantino an idiot.
What I really loathe about modern console games more than anything is the dumbed down gameplay at the cost of trying to play like a movie instead of an actual video game. I actually enjoyed Uncharted's plot but fighting the same dumb AI using the same methods in the same settings while getting dragged from level to level with nothing but cutscenes in between was not fun, at all. I'm still on the fence about getting this game because of how painful Uncharted 3 was for me.
Your "literary worth" reminds me of that film, The Dead Poets Society.
On June 20 2013 17:55 Thereisnosaurus wrote: It says a lot about the industry that a story as trite and manipulative as this is regarded as 'the citizen kane moment'
I won't lie, it's a lot better than the average game, but this game is to the greatest films and novels of all time as far as duke nukem forever is from it.
Like, they said it was inspired by The Road. Even the road, which is great but unexceptional in the grand scheme of literature, beats the everliving shit out of it as a narrative. With a poleaxe.
Just because a game is far and away better than what you are usually playing, this does not make it 'good' in an objective sense. It just makes it better than what you are usually playing.
If what you are usually playing is the usual buggy, trite, derivative, uninspired, often misogynistic or racist tripe, congratulations, welcome to the realm of a game that is worthy of the amount of money spent on it. Something that enhanced your life in a meaningful way by its consumption, rather than just killing time.
If a game is not this good, it is a BAD GAME.
Artistic taste varies wildly from person to person, and especially among gamers who are a diverse public. Some find Bioshock profound, but to most academics, Ayn Rand is a joke. Xenogears references Nietzsche, Freud, and Lacan, but is essentially an overambitious manga than literature. I completely trust that the Last of Us's story is trite and manipulative, and I cringe every time I hear reviewers speak of "emotional involvement" like it's a golden standard. But despite all that, I don't think video games should ever be judged for their literary worth. In fact, making aesthetic judgements about literary worth is rarely ever a good idea in popular culture simply because there's no end. The guy who enjoys Tarantino will say comic book movies are unsophisticated. The guy who worships Cassavetes will call Tarantino an idiot.
What I really loathe about modern console games more than anything is the dumbed down gameplay at the cost of trying to play like a movie instead of an actual video game. I actually enjoyed Uncharted's plot but fighting the same dumb AI using the same methods in the same settings while getting dragged from level to level with nothing but cutscenes in between was not fun, at all. I'm still on the fence about getting this game because of how painful Uncharted 3 was for me.
I get what your saying about the dumbed down gameplay, its becoming quite common and repetitive in a lot of modern games. However regarding uncharted,I didn't mind as much since i'm a big fan. I can safely say though that the last of us is nothing like the uncharted series in terms of gameplay and repetition. The gameplay is unique and just when you feel that things are becoming too similar, the game throws in a new element to approaching enemies/encounters. It is a bit like Uncharted 3 in terms of placing such high emphasis on the story and the emotions it makes you experience, but I wouldn't say it is just the story that makes the game good. The combination of the narrative and the innovative gameplay is what makes this game unique and amazing in every way. When playing you don't feel like your mowing down hordes of mindless AI's just to get from point A to B; you really feel that your trying to survive against equally determined and intelligent people. There's also many different ways to deal with encounters instead of shooting your way through uncharted style. Trust me when I say this game is incredibly made, from start to finish, it is definitely worth buying, especially if you are a fan of the uncharted stories. In fact I would say it has a better narrative than uncharted and this is coming from an uncharted fan boy.
I read an interview with a designer from the game who said "ellie and joel's story is complete, but there are more stories to tell in the universe" which I think implies that story DLC or a sequel would revolve around the story of different characters. Which I'm totally cool with. I don't think there is anything left to add to the story.
I'm the sort of player that doesn't really care about story at all. It's great for justifying gameplay scenarios but other than that I would say that there are no meaningful stories that are better told through games than other media. Bioshock games have cool stories but every time they would probably be better told as a novel.
The Last of Us is for me a really really good gameplay experience, maybe the best linear single-player game since HL2. The narrative works really well sure but for me it was the gameplay that makes the game so great. The game offers probably the best blend of survival and action ever created (IE endlessly weaving between feelings of vulnerability when low on supplies to feelings of power when overcoming the odds).
The zombies in the game are the most interesting zombies I've seen in a game from a gameplay perspective: dumb yet powerful and allow the player multiple ways to deal with them. Instead of just being boring shooting galleries, the zombie levels offer thrilling stealth levels AND tense shooting sequences(depending on how you chose to play).The shooting segments are fantastic: really terrific open level design (the linear levels of the TLoU are more open-ended than the story missions in most open-world games) with really good AI and a great sense of tension and encouraging of improvised strategy that you rarely see in shooters. The AI may not be the smartest AI ever but I think it's definitely top-tier, they do pretty much everything you could ask of them (they are aggressive without be overly-so, they react to most things going on in the environment (seeing dead bodies, hearing gunshots, etc), and are very mobile (will retreat and flank you, chase you up multiple floors in buildings, etc). I can't think of the last shooter I played where I could replay a gun-battle and have it pan out so differently so many different times. + Show Spoiler +
I think that last level where you fight soldiers with assault rifles shows just how good the AI is: if you try to play it as a normal shooter you get your ass kicked becuase the soldiers have great LoS (unless you are hiding), flank well and have very accurate shots.
Even the more "boring" gameplay segments are pretty good. Exploring/scavenging the environment works great because every supply you find is so useful (and the environments are large and interesting to explore as well). The puzzles are probably the "weakest" part becuase they are incredibly easy, but even they aren't intrusive or too long and are usually filled with some good story quips to keep you interested.
Lastly the game has incredible pacing because it weaves the 5 main gameplay loops (exploring/scavenging, puzzle-solving, zombie-shooting, human-shooting, story-telling) together so well that you never feel burned out or bored. It's funny becuase you can compare it to the Uncharted games in how well it paces the game, but TLoU does it so much better because it has more gameplay loops to mix it up with (and even the similar ones are better in TLoU).
It really sort of bums me out that everyone is just talking about the narrative in this game, becuase I think it offers the best evolution/take on the cover-based shooter gameplay since Vanquish, maybe even best yet.
I read an interview with a designer from the game who said "ellie and joel's story is complete, but there are more stories to tell in the universe" which I think implies that story DLC or a sequel would revolve around the story of different characters. Which I'm totally cool with. I don't think there is anything left to add to the story.
Source? I recall an interview that said that the story is complete in of itself, which has does not rule out a prequel or sequel if they choose to make one.
I read an interview with a designer from the game who said "ellie and joel's story is complete, but there are more stories to tell in the universe" which I think implies that story DLC or a sequel would revolve around the story of different characters. Which I'm totally cool with. I don't think there is anything left to add to the story.
Source? I recall an interview that said that the story is complete in of itself, which has does not rule out a prequel or sequel if they choose to make one.
I think the world is ripe for more stories, but as far as the journey Joel and Ellie goes on [sic] it ends with this game. We were very conscious that we didn’t want to leave this story dangling. If we never do a sequel we’re OK with it, because we told the story we needed to tell.
Not exactly clear-cut in regards to other journeys. We'll see in a decade.
I had a feeling that The Last of Us was going to be a great game when I first saw the debut trailer. Naughty Dog has created a lot of great games in their company's history. I was really excited when I found out that Naughty Dog was developing this game because it was so different compared to their previous games. I was curious to see what they will do in a post-apocalyptic setting. This game was a lot more violent, grittier, and darker too.
Story
The story wasn't anything amazing, but it was great nonetheless. I liked that they didn't make the story too complicated that will take you away from the game. It was enough to keep you questioning and wondering what happened before and after the outbreak. It was cool of Naughty Dog to have journals or diaries around the world. It was scary and saddening when you read a journal about the initial outbreak and the writer's demise. An example would be the scene near the end of the game where you can go into a RV and you find a note that says "Forgive us" and you see multiple bodies in the RV with blankets over there. It didn't help that the front of the note was a picture of a family.
Characters
I will admit that I did not like Ellie at all in the beginning, but she definitely grew on me over time. I loved Joel since the beginning despite him making some decisions that I did not agree with throughout the game. Regardless, I understood why he did since living in this world can make almost anyone like Joel. I appreciate Naughty Dog letting us play Sarah during the outbreak since very few games let us play during the initial outbreak of a virus. It was well structured and it had an eerie vibe because you knew what was about to happen.
Supporting characters such as Marlene, Bill, Sam, Henry,etc were great also. I would like to see more of Tommy in the future and to see Joel and Tommy's relationship expanded. Anyone else wish Tess was still alive? We didn't get a lot of time with Tess, but I thought the developers did a great job making a short lived character so impactful. She was the driving force in the beginning that convinced Joel to transport and protect Ellie. It was brave of her to hold off the soldiers and to sacrificed herself.
The acting from the majority of the characters are well done. You can see the emotion in the character's faces during cut scenes. A lot of games use mocap suits when it comes to cutscenes and gameplay, but Naughty Dog did an amazing job. You can really feel what the characters were going through especially Joel and Ellie halfway through the game. The way they handled the Sam and Henry scene was superb especially the transition.
Designs and Visuals
I was really impressed by the graphics of this game especially on an older hardware. Naughty Dog did a great job showing that the PS3 is still pretty powerful. The art team did a fantastic job creating a believable world where humanity is crippled and elegant cities are now in ruins and covered by mother nature. I loved that a house is an actual house. Whenever I entered a home, it felt like a legit home with a kitchen, living room, two or three bedrooms, and a backyard. Each home felt different too such as size and how it looked. When it came to the infected, they were pretty creepy at times. The first encounter with an infected reminded me of "I Am Legend" since you were in a dark room and you know you're not alone. The game's lighting is great since it had different depth depending on the angle. The dusk scenes were nicely done since it definitely made things a little harder to see while being paranoid whether or not to use your flashlight. The part that stuck out to me when it came to sound was in the beginning of the game where you were in an office building. It is raining hard at night and you can see the ran splatter on the windows. You can tell how hard it was raining just by the sound alone. It was really convincing and realistic.
Gameplay
The game is using the same engine that the Uncharted series used, but with tweaks here and there. The gun play is the same as the Uncharted games, but the melee combat is really cool. I liked how the camera would zoom in when you engage in a fist fight. It is definitely more creepy when you fight an infected person since you can see a closeup of their face. Some of the finishing moves are pretty crazy too such as Joel slamming someone's face into the wall and shoving a knife into a neck.
The crafting system is nice and simple. Anyone else in love with the bomb that Bill showed us? Because I know I was when I was playing the game. The game can get repetitive and frustrating at times, but it is rewarding and satisfying when you clear out a room silently. A room of infected is challenging though since they are more sensitive to you.
I found the AI to be quite wonky at times. There are times that the AI is smart while sometimes the AI is really dumb. I know that if the AI was too smart, then you would get spotted and caught much easier since there were times that Ellie would crouch in front of an enemy and there would be no reaction.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack is superb especially near the end during the hospital escape. The song used and the execution during the game was beautiful. It was somber, yet frantic trying to rescue Ellie and escape. During the halfway mark of the game, I thought Joel was going to die for a second because of how well the song was used and how desperate the two were trying to get out of the school. The composers did a great job putting this soundtrack together.
Conclusion
The Last of Us and BioShock Infinite are great games to end the current generation and they are goth Game of the Year contenders. Speaking of BioShock Infinite, the voice actor for Joel is the voice actor of BioShock Infinite's Booker DeWitt and the Joker in the upcoming Batman Arkham Origins. I cannot wait for what Naughty Dog has in store for this universe and whatever they are working on. I am confident to be apart of the 5/5 and 10/10 team because this has to be my favorite game this generation.
I really liked this game. Some times I wanted to move somewhere the game blocked due to being a linear game. That was my major complaint. That is how good the game is.
I would recommend playing on hard the first time. It was fun, it also connects well with how deadly and uncaring the world is. I died 181 times in my play-through. I played mostly in melee combat since I never could get used to the gamepad and guns, making a few sections where one had to use guns a bit of a drag.
What makes the game stand out for me is choosing not to heal since I only had one medpack and I might reach the next chapter of the story without having to use it. Then dying 8 times before finally completing the section. Or seeing 6 enemies and moving through them without them noticing me and thus saving that ammo and hp.
It really is a game of sparse resources, at least on hard. I'll look forward to playing the game again when I can find some time. Instead of any of the 50 games I own but havn't played yet on steam. I'll try it on survivor next time, but I think that might be too much sneaking for me.
Fininshed the game in 16 something hours with ~80 deaths on Hard and besides some flaws i really like it . I originally wanted to wait until it gets cheaper but then didn't . Oh well no regrets at least it also has 30 days of PS+ in it to give me other games for free as well .
was when you rescue Ellie from the Fireflies you can chose not to kill any Firefly besides the Doctor. I shot him in the foot and he apparently had a Vital Organ in there Maybe i could've tried a warning shot anybody tried that ? Worked in Spec Ops the Line with the angry Civis .
On June 23 2013 21:38 s3rp wrote: Fininshed the game in 16 something hours with ~80 deaths on Hard and besides some flaws i really like it . I originally wanted to wait until it gets cheaper but then didn't . Oh well no regrets at least it also has 30 days of PS+ in it to give me other games for free as well .
was when you rescue Ellie from the Fireflies you can chose not to kill any Firefly besides the Doctor. I shot him in the foot and he apparently had a Vital Organ in there Maybe i could've tried a warning shot anybody tried that ? Worked in Spec Ops the Line with the angry Civis .
I killed him as well after trying a lot of different stuff. I read you could unequip your weapon to change your options. Didn't try if it would work though.
On June 23 2013 21:38 s3rp wrote: Fininshed the game in 16 something hours with ~80 deaths on Hard and besides some flaws i really like it . I originally wanted to wait until it gets cheaper but then didn't . Oh well no regrets at least it also has 30 days of PS+ in it to give me other games for free as well .
was when you rescue Ellie from the Fireflies you can chose not to kill any Firefly besides the Doctor. I shot him in the foot and he apparently had a Vital Organ in there Maybe i could've tried a warning shot anybody tried that ? Worked in Spec Ops the Line with the angry Civis .
I killed him as well after trying a lot of different stuff. I read you could unequip your weapon to change your options. Didn't try if it would work though.
I straight up headshotted him and the other doctor standing next to him, was about to spare the one cowering in the corner but then she called me a monster or something and that was it for her. Figured if their doctors are dead they're less likely to come after Ellie as well.
Is the multiplayer worth checking our or is it just the usual deathmatch that gets forced in every new single-player story game these days?
On June 23 2013 21:38 s3rp wrote: Fininshed the game in 16 something hours with ~80 deaths on Hard and besides some flaws i really like it . I originally wanted to wait until it gets cheaper but then didn't . Oh well no regrets at least it also has 30 days of PS+ in it to give me other games for free as well .
was when you rescue Ellie from the Fireflies you can chose not to kill any Firefly besides the Doctor. I shot him in the foot and he apparently had a Vital Organ in there Maybe i could've tried a warning shot anybody tried that ? Worked in Spec Ops the Line with the angry Civis .
I did not want to kill anyone, but then I found out I had to, so I thought I had to kill every one. I hated myself the whole time I was doing it, but that it was the only way. On the last nurse I took my time, got as close to her as I could and gave her a execution style head shot so she wouldn't suffer. Then I get online and read that I just needed to kill the doctor, I feel terrible every day when I think about it.
could anyone tell me what the "Weapon Sway" upgrade does (or is supposed to do)? I upgraded it to 1/2 but couldnt really feel a difference while shooting
On June 26 2013 00:51 Enox wrote: could anyone tell me what the "Weapon Sway" upgrade does (or is supposed to do)? I upgraded it to 1/2 but couldnt really feel a difference while shooting
Crosshair sways less, with 2/2 it doesn't sway at all, at least this is how it seemed like to me.
ahh, okay. guess ill give it a 2/2 on survival then. overall im a bit disappointed with the pill upgrades. only the shiv master and increased health is useful. weapon sway on 2/2, too i guess, though i didnt really have any aim issues on my hard playthrough without it
Amazing setting/scenery, great atmosphere, touching story. Loved it. Lots of really brutal and gruesome moments in the game, like just about the whole time you're playing as Ellie. Running around stabbing dudes in the neck, fucking awesome.
Anyone enjoying the multiplayer? As a big fan of SOCOM I and SOCOM II I don't find this to be a replacement, but it's an excellent game that reminds me of those experiences, I thoroughly have been enjoying survivor mode. Too many games don't have a (popular) game mode where it's one life per round - I don't enjoy respawn.
On June 20 2013 17:55 Thereisnosaurus wrote: It says a lot about the industry that a story as trite and manipulative as this is regarded as 'the citizen kane moment'
I won't lie, it's a lot better than the average game, but this game is to the greatest films and novels of all time as far as duke nukem forever is from it.
Like, they said it was inspired by The Road. Even the road, which is great but unexceptional in the grand scheme of literature, beats the everliving shit out of it as a narrative. With a poleaxe.
Just because a game is far and away better than what you are usually playing, this does not make it 'good' in an objective sense. It just makes it better than what you are usually playing.
If what you are usually playing is the usual buggy, trite, derivative, uninspired, often misogynistic or racist tripe, congratulations, welcome to the realm of a game that is worthy of the amount of money spent on it. Something that enhanced your life in a meaningful way by its consumption, rather than just killing time.
If a game is not this good, it is a BAD GAME.
I agree with this 100% (haven't played the game but the idea of modern games sucking so any above average game seems legendary).
People who have played this... is The last of Us really as good as, or better than these games: - Portal 2 - Baldurs Gate 2 - GTA Vice City - Bioshock 1 (or Infinite for that matter) - Zelda Ocarina of Time - TES Skyrim/Oblivion - Star Wars KOTOR - Final Fantasy 7/10 etc - Diablo1/2 - Deus Ex - Thief 1/2
etc. etc. All games equal to or surpassed by TloU on Metacritic? With the obvious conflicts of interests we are seeing over and over with game reviewers it is clear to me that review scores have been inflated over time. Very very few modern games come close to the depth or polish of older games like those on the list (though some are more recent). I hope TLoU isn't just some scripted movie essentially, since in my book that should never be rated above games that have story AND gameplay,, but in general I think my point about inflated scores still stands. There are some terrible games getting respectable scores (DA2 are you fucking kidding me?!).
it can't really be compared to most of them since the game style is different. I enjoyed it much more than vice city, portal 2, skyrim and deus ex and definitly bioshock infinite. bioshock infinite definitly isn't better polished, elizabeth keeps teleporting, random "here's a coin" comment destroying what she was saying etc. combat becomes more one dimensional compared to the previous boishock etc. bioshock is more praised for its atmosphere building and story depth. skyrim has that weapon forging that kinda defeats the purpose of grabbing unique items.
anyway my point is, the game is definitly amazing in its own way. If it's an interactive movie, why can't it get a score as high as those games. FF7 and FF10 were also not famous for its gameplay as well, FF12 were a breakthrough but failed the story department and it is one of the least popular in the series
just finished it. Great stuff. Made me think a lot about life and stuff:D Also did it in about 16 hours, but it felt like a lot longer really. Overall a very special experience.
Anyone been playing the multiplayer of this game? I have been playing Survivors mode and while the game is a lot of fun, I find the lack of online community support to be really disappointing. It would be great to have an actual team, custom lobbies, an in-game clan-war system - that would be awesome. Right now I find that not many people even communicate and it's not very easy to find like-minded people who are interested in doing so. I know you can look for clans/join clans externally on the internet, but I hope they add some features really soon or else I may become disinterested and go elsewhere.
I was actually happy for Joel at the end. Losing Ellie after losing Sara too would have felt worse imo, even if it was a selfish decision. I guess that's part of what makes the story so good is how there can be varying interpretations of it. I sympathized with Joel's motivations though. I played through on survivor recently with my g/f watching and she thought that by the end I was the "bad guy". Using my flame thrower on the doctors probably didn't help D:
I was actually happy for Joel at the end. Losing Ellie after losing Sara too would have felt worse imo, even if it was a selfish decision. I guess that's part of what makes the story so good is how there can be varying interpretations of it. I sympathized with Joel's motivations though. I played through on survivor recently with my g/f watching and she thought that by the end I was the "bad guy". Using my flame thrower on the doctors probably didn't help D:
"You just keep finding something to fight for" was pretty much him explaining his motivation and the whole ending. And I'm sure Ellie realized something was off when she asked him at the very end, but she'd rather take the lie and live as if it were the truth. At least that's my take on it. Phenomenal story either way.
I was actually happy for Joel at the end. Losing Ellie after losing Sara too would have felt worse imo, even if it was a selfish decision. I guess that's part of what makes the story so good is how there can be varying interpretations of it. I sympathized with Joel's motivations though. I played through on survivor recently with my g/f watching and she thought that by the end I was the "bad guy". Using my flame thrower on the doctors probably didn't help D:
I do agree. Still felt depressed and sad afterwards, maybe because to me, Ellie knew that Joel lied to her about the fireflies etc.. What Joel did, i would've probably done also.
I was watching Day9's playthrough last night and in the last scene where you play as Ellie, people in the chat said to look into the backpack of Ellie's. What was there? I know you were able to check it in the winter scene at least. Does it differ?
I can't remember the last time I truly and sincerely praised a game and thought it was fully worth its retail price. It may never have happened before. The Last Of Us is the best single player game I have ever played. For years now, I hadn't been able to really enjoy a game all that much when I was alone, it passed the time. TloU was different - I reluctantly turned on the PS3, because I didn't want to blow through the game too quickly... but I ended up doing the last third of the game really quickly because I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen. This game was simply amazing. I finished it last night and I'll carry some feelings around for a few days.
At first I hated that it was on PS3 because I'm horrible with a controller, but then I actually loved it. Me, enjoying a PS3 controller for a FPS is inconceivable, but it works for this particular game it works because I suppose Joel and Ellie should not have competitive Counter Strike aim...
Ending spoilers, but if you have finished it, read and please tell me what you think: + Show Spoiler +
The ending made me sad but kind of satisfied, it feels like the story arch is very much closed on a bittersweet note, which bothers me a bit but I can live with that ending. On the other hand, that game did something to me which no other games have managed to do since I was a little impressionable kid. I want more of that, and so I would love a sequel.
Unfortunately, it's possible that the story is best left untouched... I have very mixed feelings - for one I'm selfish and I desperately want more of Joel and Ellie because it's the only way I can enjoy gaming again, but on the other hand it could just ruin the story (in which case I would just blow off the sequel as not canon, that's how I roll).
As much as the story feels completed, there could be room for a sequel, but given that I'm not a writer or creative in any way, I don't immediately see how they would make it interesting. I've seen some people suggest having different characters in the same world, which at least to me would completely ruin the setting. There's something about Joel and Ellie that just works. So what do you guys think? Will we see more? ;(
I think they did a pretty good job of exploring the state of the world and don't have much else to add, even if it was a different story with someone else. They introduced the infected, quarantine zones, hunters, crazy governor-esque type dude/town, the resistance fighters, looking for a cure, and humanities new/clean start with Joel's Brother's place. What new elements do you think they have yet to introduce to the Last of Us universe?
I think they did a pretty good job of exploring the state of the world and don't have much else to add, even if it was a different story with someone else. They introduced the infected, quarantine zones, hunters, crazy governor-esque type dude/town, the resistance fighters, looking for a cure, and humanities new/clean start with Joel's Brother's place. What new elements do you think they have yet to introduce to the Last of Us universe?
I don't know. It's both a good and a bad thing - perhaps they have what it takes to surprise us... It's what I desperately hope for... but I guess I shouldn't keep my hopes up because I have no idea what I'd do with it if I were the writer.
I finished that game last night and I'm having all kinds of feels about it. Really happy with the game, really (really) sad that it's over... I want more, but I don't want a cheap story to be tacked on this. I'm not all that interested in side stories frankly
I've played through this game twice now and I'd consider it easily one of the very best games of this generation. It's not very often that you get a game with characters and an ending that provoke discussion not necessarily of how cool they were, but of individual interpretations of characters and events.
I really appreciated that the ending left me feeling uncomfortable and a bit melancholy because it fit well with the tone set throughout the rest of the game. Almost nobody is purely a sinner or a saint, everyone operates with their own agendas and goals in mind, and a lot of the time they're really understandable and sympathetic. You understand why Marlene is willing to kill Ellie, she's weighing one life against the potential to ensure that humanity has at least some kind of future, but at the same time her refusal to even wake Ellie up and give her a choice or at least look her in the eye and tell her what she needs comes across as really low and cowardly. On the flipside, you've got Joel making this largely selfish decision with potentially massive and disastrous consequences, but you understand completely that after everything he's been through with Ellie, she's essentially become a second daughter to him and he won't let her come to harm for any reason.
The lie he tells her at the end is interesting, and I got the impression based on her making him swear and her long pause before saying "okay" that she knew he wasn't being honest with her but was willing to accept it, at least for the time being. I was also conflicted about the lie itself because on the one hand, hiding the fact that he killed Marlene in cold blood is a really big thing to keep from Ellie, but on the other, she had obviously been dealing with some really serious survivor's guilt/PTSD since the winter and the truth of what happened at the hospital might simply be unwise to tell her given her state of mind. Parents do lie to their kids to protect them, and often with good reason.
I don't really know how I feel about the prospect of DLC or a sequel, what Naughty Dog created here is something that's extraordinary exactly as it is. Joel and Ellie are fantastic characters and I'd love to see more of them, but their story has been told and told well. Anything added to it would have to be very carefully considered and add something meaningful.
I almost started crying at the end when he was running with Ellie in his arms, pretty much like the game began. And that music with it.. going "I've got you baby girl".. damn.
So is this even more impactful than the walking dead? I assume so...I really need to get it and play it on my brother's ps3. God I absolutely despise the controllers for that console, makes me want to vomit up my intestines...but this seems like the game I have been waiting for and I need to play it.
Story DLC that was revealed during the PS4 launch event tonight.
The Last of Us: Left Behind is Naughty Dog's first ever single-player DLC. Bruce, Neil, and the rest of the team are getting close to wrapping work on this new campaign, which will meet the quality and gameplay what you've come to expect with The Last of Us, along with a few surprises.
She's back! Ashley Johnson reprises her role as Ellie in The Last of Us: Left Behind single-player DLC. Left Behind takes place while Ellie is attending a military boarding school in the Boston quarantine zone, prior to meeting Joel and the events in the main campaign of The Last of Us.
In just a few short months since the release of The Last of Us, you have made it clear that Ellie has become one of your favorite characters in games. Today, we're excited to confirm that you play as Ellie throughout the entirety of Left Behind.
Joining Ellie on this new adventure is Riley, her best friend and also a mentor of sorts at the military boarding school. Just as The Last of Us focused on the bond between Ellie and Joel, Left Behind explores the bond between Ellie and Riley through a series of events that will forever change both of their lives.
Bringing Riley to life through our performance capture process is the talented Yaani King, who we had the pleasure of working with on the DLC.
If you just can't wait until the DLC drops to get more of The Last of Us, go out immediately and read the Dark Horse comic series, The Last of Us: American Dreams – which is conveniently available in the recently released paperback collection. I cannot recommend this series enough and it's even more relevant now, as in the comic you will learn more about how Ellie and Riley first became friends, giving you even more insight into Ellie's story in The Last of Us universe. And it's also just plain great!
The Last of Us: Left Behind will be releasing in early 2014 – we will announce a specific date as soon as we iron out all the details. The awesome news is that Left Behind is included in the The Last of Us Season Pass, which also includes a ton of multiplayer DLC, and is the best deal you can get for all the DLC content we've planned to release – over 75% worth of savings compared to buying all the DLC separately. If you're only interested in the single-player DLC, you can pre-order it starting November 19 on the PlayStation Store for $14.99.
Imo the last 25% of the game (from Joel injury) shows how they start to lose their humanity/sanity, imo their only way of redemption would have been to do what Joel couldn't. But Joel has lost it at the end, he refuses to lose another daughter basically, and that makes him become totally irrational and selfish. The very last scene, Ellie explains to him that she's ok to sacrifice herself by finally sharing what's happened to her friends, and he lies to her when it's very out of character. For him it's not about Ellie or the world anymore, it's about finishing his life in a lie with a daughter 2.0. As long as he's happy, he doesn't even care about her, he wants his artificial paradise with his newborn dead daughter. Nice ending at least, it looks like a happy end but it's not a happy end at all, it's a bad ending with no sanity left.
A little sad you can't choose the ending by the way, at the very end the game force you to go rescue Ellie when I just wanted the game to end here basically. And not only you rescue her, but you have to kill some civilians doing so. so Joel's descent in hell is complete.
Imo the last 25% of the game (from Joel injury) shows how they start to lose their humanity/sanity, imo their only way of redemption would have been to do what Joel couldn't. But Joel has lost it at the end, he refuses to lose another daughter basically, and that makes him become totally irrational and selfish. The very last scene, Ellie explains to him that she's ok to sacrifice herself by finally sharing what's happened to her friends, and he lies to her when it's very out of character. For him it's not about Ellie or the world anymore, it's about finishing his life in a lie with a daughter 2.0. As long as he's happy, he doesn't even care about her, he wants his artificial paradise with his newborn dead daughter. Nice ending at least, it looks like a happy end but it's not a happy end at all, it's a bad ending with no sanity left.
A little sad you can't choose the ending by the way, at the very end the game force you to go rescue Ellie when I just wanted the game to end here basically. And not only you rescue her, but you have to kill some civilians doing so. so Joel's descent in hell is complete.
Except for three things. First, they never even ask Ellie if she's ok with the operation, they just start getting ready as soon as she shows up. She's unconscious the entire time she's there. She never gives consent. Second, if you listened to all the audio logs, you'd know that they had found other immune people before, and the operation failed each time. Last, you don't have to kill any civilians. In fact, the only doctor you have to hurt is the one with the knife, and you can just punch him out. You don't have to even touch the nurses, they just cower in the corners. Joel was right.
Imo the last 25% of the game (from Joel injury) shows how they start to lose their humanity/sanity, imo their only way of redemption would have been to do what Joel couldn't. But Joel has lost it at the end, he refuses to lose another daughter basically, and that makes him become totally irrational and selfish. The very last scene, Ellie explains to him that she's ok to sacrifice herself by finally sharing what's happened to her friends, and he lies to her when it's very out of character. For him it's not about Ellie or the world anymore, it's about finishing his life in a lie with a daughter 2.0. As long as he's happy, he doesn't even care about her, he wants his artificial paradise with his newborn dead daughter. Nice ending at least, it looks like a happy end but it's not a happy end at all, it's a bad ending with no sanity left.
A little sad you can't choose the ending by the way, at the very end the game force you to go rescue Ellie when I just wanted the game to end here basically. And not only you rescue her, but you have to kill some civilians doing so. so Joel's descent in hell is complete.
Except for three things. First, they never even ask Ellie if she's ok with the operation, they just start getting ready as soon as she shows up. She's unconscious the entire time she's there. She never gives consent. Second, if you listened to all the audio logs, you'd know that they had found other immune people before, and the operation failed each time. Last, you don't have to kill any civilians. In fact, the only doctor you have to hurt is the one with the knife, and you can just punch him out. You don't have to even touch the nurses, they just cower in the corners. Joel was right.
So I got around to playing this. Really not impressed at all. Just another of the many games where you don't feel at all in danger, just run around in circles kiting zombies and using stupid finishing move style things like hitting them with bricks followed by takedown. Medium atmosphere but not that much. Graphics alright. Story alright. Standard linear thriller really. 7/10 game, felt like a cheap all you can eat buffet or a reasonably compelling pulp fiction book. Disappointed because some people have been going on like this was the next step in great zombie games. But alas, that moment has not yet come to pass. Still sitting here waiting for a truly good zombie game that ticks the boxes.
Just wish there could be a video game that captures the feeling you get from dawn of the dead or 28 days later - not being invincible and being able to gimp your way through hordes of zombies. A game where you really care about every piece of ammo and even killing one zombie is scary and difficult without a gun. Something non-linear that also contains an element of story. Was hoping that this game would be it (from the way it was described to me rather inaccurately I thought it was) but it definitely wasn't :/
What difficulty did you play on sc4k? By making the incorrect assumption that new items dropped at a set rate I had a lot of problems on the harder difficulties. If I had known how the drop rate was set I would likely have had a similar experience as you did regarding the difficulty.
did anyone play left behind yet? i bought and finished it today and was massively disappointed by it's length. i liked what was in it, but in my eyes it's not worth 15€ and is far from being as good as the original game. the were some really cool ideas in it, but the fact that it basically only illustrates what we already knew dissappointed me.
On December 28 2013 22:48 Yurie wrote: What difficulty did you play on sc4k? By making the incorrect assumption that new items dropped at a set rate I had a lot of problems on the harder difficulties. If I had known how the drop rate was set I would likely have had a similar experience as you did regarding the difficulty.
I played it on the max difficulty it allowed me to, can't remember what it was. Btw I'm not saying I didn't die plenty, it's just I never really felt in danger. The fact that if I died I would restart about 10 seconds away wasn't very threatening (as opposed to, for example, the first Resident Evil games), and the fact that the most effective combat tactic seemed to be running around in circles picking off your opponents with kiting was a bit lame and ruined the atmosphere. The game just didn't seem immersive enough to be honest. Started off promisingly and just kind of fizzled out, much like Metro 2033.