The Last of Us is no Masterpiece

[Catfood220]

I like how this thread has turned into argument about Dark Souls.

The listen mode thing made for interesting stealthing about, but I also feel like it kinda wrecks the story. I'm still really pissed off at the scene where you are inside a building, mere feet away from a Clicker (who can only detect through sound), and Ellie whistles. Mr Main Character than asks what she's doing and she says that she's trying to learn. *****, there's a death plant monster right outside, stop doing that!!

That started to amuse me after a while, after sneaking through a room full of Clickers, again a enemy that can only detect you through sound. You get past that area and just as you do some character would proclaim, loudly, "phew, that was scary!!" Shut up for fuck sake, they can still hear you, they are still only over there.

As for the game itself, its good, it took me a while to realise this. Its not perfect, it does have its fair share of flaws like the one I've mentioned, but it is still a good game.

 

[Casual Shinji]

There's more yellow than that, stairs that you have to go up will have a yellow strip. Where you have to place a board will be yellow (I linked to a Youtube video in the initial post showing that).

The friendly AI for positioning purposes is really easy to do without them running in front of enemies. Simply code the AI to stay at least one piece of cover behind Joel, but they try to move up past Joel causing friendlies to run in front of enemies. The current friendly AI is more complex than the more simple way of having them not run in front of enemies. Games have dodgy AI because to much focus is on graphics, TLOU is one of the best looking PS3 games. Lower the graphics and give more processing power to AI. I'd rather have PS4 games looking just like PS3 games and all the PS4's extra power going toward better AI because the games would be better, but that ain't gonna happen.

Yes, it's easy to just have A.I. partners follow you like a row of ducklings. Ashley from Resident Evil 4 is the best A.I. partner for that very reason. But if you want characters to appear more individual and less static in their behaviour, you can't just program them as mindless appendages. It's also easy to program an enemy A.I. to completely destroy the player. It's much harder to program them to be threatening, but leave enough room for the player to overcome them.

I'm not saying the A.I. doesn't have problems, it does, and every review of the game mentions it aswell. Naughty Dog weighed their options; Do they want static partners who follow your lead to the letter, or do they want more lifelike, individual characters who run the risk of breaking the stealth immersion on occasion?

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

No, you could still do the same exact thing as you can now but you'd have to have your shield lowered, which it would be anyways.

Not if I'm exploring a new area and not draining stamina at all because I'm not sprinting, but I need to quickly turn to block a trap or ambush. You know, like the example I gave before.
Do you even read what I'm posting?

You need to use a shield to switch directions/targets more when in an actual fight vs exploring a dungeon. You can still quickly turn by releasing L1. The game only has traps in like one fucking dungeon and they're so fucking blatant it's not even funny. I didn't get hit by a single trap in all of Sen's Fortress and I played without a guide.

But it doesnt arbitrarily change my movement and rotation controls while I'm holding RMB.

It doesn't in 1st-person because the standard backpedal/strafe that I want naturally exists in all 1st-person games. And, in Skyrim, holding block makes you backpedal in 3rd-person as well, so it does change movement and rotation in 3rd-person.

That's exactly why it isnt fair to compare the two games. Dogma is a lot faster and seems to lack impact and weight. Like I said before; It's Devil May Cry dressing up in Uncle Dark Souls' dress shirt.
Also, yeah, how dare a clearly purely aquatic creature not move from the lake that it's literally incapable of leaving?
It's simply the height of dishonor.

Dragon's Dogma is far far from Devil May Cry, there's not even any combos. Hydras can move on land...

You still have to watch the enemies to work out their attack and movement patterns to figure out when to attack them without risking too much damage, especially with bosses.

Not really. You can block a chain of attacks with a light shield let alone the better shields. I played as a Dex/Faith character and could block the Knights' triple sword attack fully. Then, learn to lower your shield between attacks and you lose like no stamina blocking. There's only a few bosses that had any kind of difficulty to them.

Looked more like he got greedy and decided to parry one of them, and then got fucked up when his invincibility frames ran out to me.

He literally used it to block an attack in the first 14 seconds. And parrying is still a completely legitimate use of a shield.

The guy was obviously not playing for real. He was trying to backstab without lock-on and pretty much parry every attack. I'm not saying parrying isn't a valid use of a shield but you will easily lose less health if normally block most attacks instead of trying to parry most attacks.

Show me a video of someone fighting a mob of enemies and being able to block them properly (with or without lock-on, I don't care).

I would, but I dont have my recording software installed.

I'm merely asking for a video of one of the Dark Souls pros out there facing a mob of enemies while being able to block properly.

So you want to remove one of the game's tactical defensive and mobility options for no actual gain?
How bout no.

I can already turn around in Dark Souls just fine by lowering my shield. The vast majority of the time I have my shield up, I don't want my character turning around. Stop calling Dark Souls tactical, it's not. And, I'm not even talking about all the cheap shit you can do by exploiting the shitting enemy AI either, the AI can't even defend against circle strafing. Bayonetta's enemies require more strategy, and I'm by no means implying Bayonetta is tactical.

Bayonetta is a lot faster than the Chosen Undead. Bayonetta has a lot more weapons and abilities available to her at a single time than the Chosen Undead. Bayonetta can stunlock enemies for a lot longer due to having combo lists instead of stamina. Bayonetta doesnt die in three hits.
And finally, Bayonetta is a spectacle fighter, not a dungeon crawling RPG. The comparison is even worse than Dragon's Dogma. We've gone from 'Devil may cry during his D&D phase' to 'DMC got a sex change.'

How does any of that influence you following enemies easier with the camera? So what if Bayonetta is faster, it doesn't help you follow enemies any easier. You act like it's so hard to move the camera to keep track of enemies.

Yes, it's easy to just have A.I. partners follow you like a row of ducklings. Ashley from Resident Evil 4 is the best A.I. partner for that very reason. But if you want characters to appear more individual and less static in their behaviour, you can't just program them as mindless appendages. It's also easy to program an enemy A.I. to completely destroy the player. It's much harder to program them to be threatening, but leave enough room for the player to overcome them.

I'm not saying the A.I. doesn't have problems, it does, and every review of the game mentions it aswell. Naughty Dog weighed their options; Do they want static partners who follow your lead to the letter, or do they want more lifelike, individual characters who run the risk of breaking the stealth immersion on occasion?

The friendly AI in TLOU can be programmed to "hang back" like Ashley UNTIL the enemy spots Joel. Then, you can initiate the friendly AI programming where they try to help you via shooting, throwing bricks, etc. That would fix the whole issue of your friendlies running in front of enemies while them still being helpful in a fight, and it's so fucking easy to do.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Sorry I'm late guys.

To the battlements my brothers!

...

Oh. Never mind. This thread is actually pretty mild. More "You liked this too a bit too much", rather than "How dare you like this at all".

All I can really say is that I didn't encounter most of the problems described, despite playing the game about four times through.

I can't see why the yellow colour coding could possibly be a bad thing. It's just a visual cue to tell you that certain ledges can be climbed on. Makes them stand out from the environment.

I actually agree that 'listen mode' is a bit dumb. Thankfully I forgot all about it while playing and it's disabled on the harder (better) difficulties.

Lol

Next time you play, just try to actually carry out the plan (said by the characters, mind you) on the encounter with the rifleman down the block. You can't sneak and take down the rifleman because enemies are scripted to start coming after you once you cross a certain imaginary line. That whole sequence and the spotlight sequence were so disappointing because the game forces action on you for no reason.

 

[Zhukov]

Sorry I'm late guys.

To the battlements my brothers!

...

Oh. Never mind. This thread is actually pretty mild. More "You liked this too a bit too much", rather than "How dare you like this at all".

All I can really say is that I didn't encounter most of the problems described, despite playing the game about four times through.

I can't see why the yellow colour coding could possibly be a bad thing. It's just a visual cue to tell you that certain ledges can be climbed on. Makes them stand out from the environment.

I actually agree that 'listen mode' is a bit dumb. Thankfully I forgot all about it while playing and it's disabled on the harder (better) difficulties.

Lol

Next time you play, just try to actually carry out the plan (said by the characters, mind you) on the encounter with the rifleman down the block. You can't sneak and take down the rifleman because enemies are scripted to start coming after you once you cross a certain imaginary line. That whole sequence and the spotlight sequence were so disappointing because the game forces action on you for no reason.

Bullshit.

You can sneak through there. I've done it multiple times. You just suck at the game.

In the sniper scenario you can go down either the left side of the road or the right. The left side has more cover, with just one short space right near the start where you will have to expose yourself to the sniper. Just wait for him to fire, then dash, he has a short delay between shots. (You might be able to use smoke bombs to cover your advance, I'll have to try that some time.) The right side has about three open points where you will have to dash from cover to cover in view of the sniper.

Yes, on either side there's a point where it spawns 3-4 enemies that come looking for you, but they don't actually know exactly where you are. Just hide, and they'll spread out to search for you. Then you can either sneak past them or pick them off.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Except the delay from adding those two extra steps could hurt or kill me, Like I said before.
Are you even paying attention?

What delay? You should have your shield down to begin with. Since, you can only strafe with lock-on, you can't actually strafe left or right because you have to circle your enemy so you can't actually strafe in reality.

Of course it isn't literally DMC. I was using that metaphor to highlight the differences between the combat styles.
Also,

Spoiler: Does this thing look like it can fucking walk to you?

DMC and Dragon's Dogma are not even close to similar.
You think a dragon-like creature can't move on land?

I'm aware. Repeating that wont make my recording software reinstall any faster.

You can show a video of anyone else. If blocking is so easy, surely you can find a video of a player efficiently blocking a mob of enemies. Since the Dark Souls community is so "hardcore" and all...

You still haven't mentioned another game where you go to block (with or without a shield) and you don't backpedal or strafe when blocking as Skyrim was a fail in that regard. EVERY game but the Souls' games work like that.

Then Lock on.

I can't even strafe properly when locked-on as previously mentioned.

Stop comparing Dark Souls to Capcom and Platinum games. They have very little in common, and it int fair to compare them.

I'm not comparing Dark Souls to Platinum games, I was merely making a point that it's easy to keep track of enemies manually with a camera even in a game that has much faster and agile enemies. Dragon's Dogma does everything Dark Souls does but better. You want weight, the large creatures in Dragon's Dogma have WEIGHT to them and actually feel like the creatures they are. You won't be taking down a dragon in Dogma by swinging a sword at its chins like Kalameet. Against Dogma's Hydra, you can throw a barrel at one of the heads, it will swallow the barrel, then you can hit the bulge to explode the barrel taking out the head and cauterizing it (so it doesn't regenerate) all at the same time; that's more strategy than anything in Dark Souls right there. The Dark Souls' Hydra doesn't even regenerate heads, come on, like the one thing hydras are known for.

You can sneak through there. I've done it multiple times. You just suck at the game.

In the sniper scenario you can go down either the left side of the road or the right. The left side has more cover, with just one short space right near the start where you will have to expose yourself to the sniper. Just wait for him to fire, then dash, he has a short delay between shots. (You might be able to use smoke bombs to cover your advance, I'll have to try that some time.) The right side has about three open points where you will have to dash from cover to cover in view of the sniper.

Yes, on either side there's a point where it spawns 3-4 enemies that come looking for you, but they don't actually know exactly where you are. Just hide, and they'll spread out to search for you. Then you can either sneak past them or pick them off.

I'm sure if you really take your time, you can sneak by. But the game obviously wants the scenario to have action, a guy even spawns in the house you go in (whether you go right or left), it doesn't make sense. It doesn't even make sense that the enemies know you went right or left to begin with.

 

[Zhukov]

You can sneak through there. I've done it multiple times. You just suck at the game.

In the sniper scenario you can go down either the left side of the road or the right. The left side has more cover, with just one short space right near the start where you will have to expose yourself to the sniper. Just wait for him to fire, then dash, he has a short delay between shots. (You might be able to use smoke bombs to cover your advance, I'll have to try that some time.) The right side has about three open points where you will have to dash from cover to cover in view of the sniper.

Yes, on either side there's a point where it spawns 3-4 enemies that come looking for you, but they don't actually know exactly where you are. Just hide, and they'll spread out to search for you. Then you can either sneak past them or pick them off.

I'm sure if you really take your time, you can sneak by. But the game obviously wants the scenario to have action, a guy even spawns in the house you go in (whether you go right or left), it doesn't make sense. It doesn't even make sense that the enemies know you went right or left to begin with.

Now you're grasping at straws.

You say that it is impossible to sneak up on the sniper. (I don't know why that is so important to you, but whatever.) I describe a straight forward, non-cheat, non-exploit method that allows you to sneak up on the sniper using the game's standard mechanics. You say the game "obviously" wants the scenario to have action", despite the fact that the game allows you to stealth through there if you have a decent grasp on its mechanics.

Also, it makes perfect sense for the enemies to know roughly where you are. To get to the point on either side that causes enemies to spawn you need to expose yourself to the sniper, albeit briefly, so he'd know roughly where you're at. There's even voice cues indicating that he is directing the movements of his buddies. When they spawn he'll say things like, "Get 'em boys!" or "They're hiding in the house, go!" When he loses sight of you he'll say things like, "Where'd ya go?" or "Hey, come on out and play!"

If it really matters so much to you, there are plenty of other points in the game where you are forced into combat. Usually against infected. Occasionally against humans. However, the encounters against humans can easily be turned into a stealth scenario by just hiding for a bit. (In my opinion the AI is a bit too fast to lose track of you. Once they do, they instantly start spreading out to search. I think it would be better if they converged on the last point they saw you, and then went into the search mode.)

 

[Ariseishirou]

I agree, honestly. The mechanics were mediocre to bad, and the story was pretty pat for having been lauded as an amazing, ground-breaking work. Based on the reviews I wasn't expecting yet another "gritty" post-apocalyptic zombie survival game where the moral is yet again "but humans are the real bad guys!!11" complete with a father-daughter narrative that The Walking Dead Game did better already.

If there wasn't so much crowing about it I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more, to be honest. Naughty Dog and several of my friends led me to expect that this was going to be some mind-blowing, paradigm-shifting masterpiece, and what I got was a mediocre zombie TPS with bad stealth mechanics and one of the most thoroughly unlikable protagonists I've ever had the displeasure to play.

 

[TaboriHK]

I hated it. I thought it was an awful game from beginning to end. Hateable protagonist, overly-video game-y mechanics that took immersion and threw it face first through a window, and just an utter lack of a reason to keep pushing forward. Joyless from beginning to end.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Now you're grasping at straws.

You say that it is impossible to sneak up on the sniper. (I don't know why that is so important to you, but whatever.) I describe a straight forward, non-cheat, non-exploit method that allows you to sneak up on the sniper using the game's standard mechanics. You say the game "obviously" wants the scenario to have action", despite the fact that the game allows you to stealth through there if you have a decent grasp on its mechanics.

Also, it makes perfect sense for the enemies to know roughly where you are. To get to the point on either side that causes enemies to spawn you need to expose yourself to the sniper, albeit briefly, so he'd know roughly where you're at. There's even voice cues indicating that he is directing the movements of his buddies. When they spawn he'll say things like, "Get 'em boys!" or "They're hiding in the house, go!" When he loses sight of you he'll say things like, "Where'd ya go?" or "Hey, come on out and play!"

If it really matters so much to you, there are plenty of other points in the game where you are forced into combat. Usually against infected. Occasionally against humans. However, the encounters against humans can easily be turned into a stealth scenario by just hiding for a bit. (In my opinion the AI is a bit too fast to lose track of you. Once they do, they instantly start spreading out to search. I think it would be better if they converged on the last point they saw you, and then went into the search mode.)

If you go left, the sniper has no line of sight on you, PLUS the others are supposed to be distracting the sniper. You also have the option of using a smoke grenade. On my very first try, I moved forward and wasn't seen by the sniper, jumped over the wall and to the left of the building, and then 3-4 enemies run up and take cover in front of me while the guy that spawns in the house starts shooting at me. Once you know the enemy spawns, you can probably stealth through using smoke and throwing things for distractions. When you are forced to throw things for distractions to stealth by, it's poor design as you shouldn't have to reveal your presence.

I agree, honestly. The mechanics were mediocre to bad, and the story was pretty pat for having been lauded as an amazing, ground-breaking work. Based on the reviews I wasn't expecting yet another "gritty" post-apocalyptic zombie survival game where the moral is yet again "but humans are the real bad guys!!11" complete with a father-daughter narrative that The Walking Dead Game did better already.

If there wasn't so much crowing about it I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more, to be honest. Naughty Dog and several of my friends led me to expect that this was going to be some mind-blowing, paradigm-shifting masterpiece, and what I got was a mediocre zombie TPS with bad stealth mechanics and one of the most thoroughly unlikable protagonists I've ever had the displeasure to play.

If you play/played the Uncharted games, they all share the same TPS mechanics issues because Naughty Dog doesn't know how to make a TPS yet after 4 tries now, it's kinda sad at this point. I thought Joel was a good character, not that he was a good/great person, but his character was understandable. If you didn't like Joel, NEVER play Max Payne 3. I only expected a bigger twist due to coming across a thread about TLOU ripping off Nier's story (which is way overrated as well), but TLOU is nothing like Nier's story.

I'm not going to bother replying to the rest, because it's completely obvious that you either ignore my actual points, or forget them five minutes after reading my posts.

---

Her entire debating style seems to be based on ignoring shit and grasping at straws.

You've completely ignored my points as well. You can't even name a game with the same blocking system as Dark Souls, there's a reason why NO OTHER GAME does blocking like Dark Souls. I even messaged a friend that plays that game non-stop who played Metal Gear Online that MGO had better shield controls than Dark Souls and even he agreed. You can't trouble yourself to find a Dark Souls pro curbstomping a mob of enemies either, which should only take a few minutes if the shielding controls are as good as you say. I can find MGO shield montage in less than a minute demonstrating more player skill than anything you'll see in Dark Souls video.

I'm not a "her" and you're ignoring simple requests just as I mentioned above. Dark Souls fanboys are the worst, an RPG with a useless core stat, a magic that isn't stat dependent, and has almost no actual role-playing is the GREATEST RPG EVAR!!!

 

[Zhukov]

[snip]

If you go left, the sniper has no line of sight on you, PLUS the others are supposed to be distracting the sniper. You also have the option of using a smoke grenade. On my very first try, I moved forward and wasn't seen by the sniper, jumped over the wall and to the left of the building, and then 3-4 enemies run up and take cover in front of me while the guy that spawns in the house starts shooting at me.

There is a point on the left side where the sniper can see you no matter what. It's right near the start, either when you move up behind the tree on the raised area or when you hop over the wall on the lower area.

Once you know the enemy spawns, you can probably stealth through using smoke and throwing things for distractions. When you are forced to throw things for distractions to stealth by, it's poor design as you shouldn't have to reveal your presence.

Lolwut? Having to use distractions is automatically bad design?

How them straws holding up buddy?

 

[Timpossible]

Is "The Last of Us" a perfect game? Nope. It has it's flaws. If you binge it the gameplay can become repetitive. And there some AI bugs.

For the "AI-Allie is ignored by Enemy" thing. Everything else would just be frustrating. Because even the best AIs can make mistakes. Moden Games-Codes are complicated as fuck. Something can go wrong.

The Combat System is kinda "sluggish". But I think this is part of the game's style. It should feel like everything has a weight. I should feel like that killing is not just some easy move. The Gameplay serves the Story and not the other way around.

For the Story: Yes. It uses "clichees". But it uses them so fucking good. It takes the things we know and creates something so amazing out of them. The Charakters and even more the interaction between them. It is the best game of this generation and one of the best every made. I understand if people say: "not my cup of tea" Gameplay or Story. But saying the game is bad because the gameplay has a "sluggish" feeling? I think it's like saying "I don't like the Godfather, because they speak so much italian!" (<- Family Guy reference there)

I still think you miss a great thing but this game is something great. Something that showed what an interactive narrative can do. Some say: "why didn't they just do a movie?". Because the interactivity of the this games makes it so great. YOU do the things. You are not just consuming. You are part of this. You have, in parts, control of the pacing.

 

[Evonisia]

The listen mode thing made for interesting stealthing about, but I also feel like it kinda wrecks the story. I'm still really pissed off at the scene where you are inside a building, mere feet away from a Clicker (who can only detect through sound), and Ellie whistles. Mr Main Character than asks what she's doing and she says that she's trying to learn. *****, there's a death plant monster right outside, stop doing that!!

That started to amuse me after a while, after sneaking through a room full of Clickers, again a enemy that can only detect you through sound. You get past that area and just as you do some character would proclaim, loudly, "phew, that was scary!!" Shut up for fuck sake, they can still hear you, they are still only over there.

As for the game itself, its good, it took me a while to realise this. Its not perfect, it does have its fair share of flaws like the one I've mentioned, but it is still a good game.

Late to this, but I also have issue with the Bloater enemy. They're AI is beyond broken. The first one is an unavoidable boss fight (fine) but the fact that he knows where you are is just mad. I wouldn't have even known that they were supposed to be blind like the Clickers going off that fight. And startling them will make it so they always know where you are regardless of where you move to and hide in later sections of the game.

For sanity's sake, Gears of War 1 from 2006 had a blind enemy (three of the same, actually) and that enemy didn't have bananas AI (and I know some people at Naughty Dog played Gears of War, Uncharted rips the shooting off from it). The Last of Us at least has nice level design for all the blind enemies.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Huh..finally someone that doesn't think that TLOU is the second coming of Christ for which I commend you sir.

Because I get assaulted by it's insane fanboys everytime I say the game is overrated.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

One thing a Dark Souls fan never could answer is why is Dark Souls the only game where when you have a shield up (not locked-on) and move backwards, you character turns around instead of backpedaling? That one little thing that seems very minor makes it so you can't fight more than one enemy at a time properly do to the game's dependence on its lock-on system. No other game has your character turn around when using a shield (or blocking in any sort of way), even MGS4 has better shield controls than Dark Souls.

Eh, Zelda games have that as well.
If you have your shield up and Z-target someone, you will move backwards while facing the enemy.
However if you don't Z-target the enemy, you will just turn around even with your shield up. As far as I know, this is the case with pretty much every single 3rd person game I've played that has a lock-on feature. Having the enemy locked on will turn on the "strafe" while having it off you have the regular control mode.

Honestly, it would be way worse if it was the way you want it to be.

Also I agree. TLOU is overrated. While I don't own a PS3, I played it for a while at a friends place. It's a 7.5/10 at best. While the story may or may not be interesting (didn't finish the game so I wouldn't know, but from the spoilers on the internet it seems meh), the gameplay is above average but nothing special. There is only so much you can do to hide the gameplay flaws with a good story, music and graphics.

As a note, my scoring system goes with 5 as a average and not 8 like it seems that most people do. 7-8 is good, 9 is great and 10 is almost impossible. It's reserved for those games that can be said have revolutionized gaming.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Late to this, but I also have issue with the Bloater enemy. They're AI is beyond broken. The first one is an unavoidable boss fight (fine) but the fact that he knows where you are is just mad. I wouldn't have even known that they were supposed to be blind like the Clickers going off that fight. And startling them will make it so they always know where you are regardless of where you move to and hide in later sections of the game.

I'm afraid you're wrong on that. The very first Bloater encounter at the school will chase you around the place despite being blind and is basically a Boss fight, the later Bloaters certainly won't if you're sneaky enough.

If you startle one they'll generally start to throw spore bombs, but only at the place where the sound originated from. If you shoot one while crouched and sneak away, they'll target the place from where you fired that shot. This is why you can lure them (as well as Clickers) to one spot by throwing a bottle or brick. This is ofcourse assuming a Clicker or Runner hasn't alerted the entire horde to your presence.

If you disturb a Bloater he'll remain in a state of aggitation, stomping around and throwing spore bombs, but he will loose you if you remain quiet and stay out of its way. The Bloater in the university I killed (after getting rid of the Clickers first) by simply leading him around through the rooms, always staying well out of reach and sneaking away after each shot I fired.