The Last of Us is no Masterpiece

[Guy from the 80's]

The walking dead season 1 is twice as good as The Last Of Us.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

you do not seem to believe that several critics could all independantly come to the same conclusion

Because that never happens in any other medium.

Love them or hate them, when you watch a judged sporting event, the judges tend to give very similar scores (within a slight variance) because they are all trained to review the material and see it for what it is. Why would this be any different with any other group of professionals who are in a position to judge something.

Judged sporting events are judged on technical merits and how many technical mistakes the athlete made. Games are not judged purely on technical merits.

Going back to judged sports, the top and bottom scores are usually tossed so as to eliminate a glowing/ glaring review which would not fall in line with the others - because they are aberrations. The fact that only 1 review out of 83 is negative would in fact mean that Sterling's review is an anomaly. You are free to agree with it, but if anything the data suggests that his review is probably too harsh.

Why don't you start a FFXIII poll and see what everyone scores the game? Jim Sterling's review is not an anomaly. FFXIII is a love it or hate it game like Vanilla Sky is a love it or hate it movie.

Since we're arguing semantics, Dark Souls was a spiritual sequel and not a direct sequel.

Dark Souls would be Demon's Souls 2 if Sony didn't own the name.

Unless you play as a mage...
Besides that, I'm not sure I get your point. Every game forces you to play a certain way in order to succeed. Not sure why you think this is a problem with Dark Souls specifically. In Mario I need to jump onto the Goombas as they approach; In Metal gear, I need to sneak past else I am swarmed with enemies; In Halo, I must point my gun at the enemy and pull the trigger to shoot them.

It's just another silly strawman to add to your increasing pile.

You don't get enough magic to kill all enemies until the next bonfire.

An RPG is about a variety of playstyles, you can play different roles. In Mario, you must be Mario; in Metal Gear, you must be Solid Snake. Whereas in Deus Ex, an RPG, you can take several different approaches to everything.

What's with this site and people not understanding the strawman concept. Nice job strawmanning on the judging of judged sports.

why do I then use an bow and arrow to only be noticed by one enemy at a time?
Why do I shoot behind some enemies to make a sound to lure them away from certain areas?

These are stealth elements.
But if what you are asking is "Why doesn't Dark Souls use a stealth system like Skyrim (for example)?"
The simple answer: Skyrim is Skyrim and Dark Souls is Dark Souls. They are different games with different systems and values. And amen to that I must add...

You're only noticed by the enemy that gets hit because the enemy AI is so thick. A stealth character isn't stealthy because he shoots arrows at a wall. Is Batman's only method of stealth throwing batarang's at a wall?

My enjoyment was hindered when such standard tactics like strafing and shooting arrows couldn't be combated by the enemy AI, the game has almost no enemy AI. Even when not playing cheap, the AI is such a pushover.

Did you play Dark Souls 2? Try strafing in that game. I've been a backstab expert since Demon's Souls, but found that is was not nearly as viable in DS2. Because of complaints like yours, now enemies have unrealistic instantaneous 180 degree tracking that can ruin the day of any backstab fisherman

Wow, you keep saying others strawman when you are the one strawmanning. I'm not talking about Dark Souls 2 while you bring it up to defend Dark Souls 1's AI. I shouldn't be able to just strafe around an enemy and backstab in any game. You get to an enemy's back by outmaneuvering him on one of his movements (like him attacking and you rolling behind) or by sneaking up on him (but Dark Souls has no stealth).

Why would I play Dark Souls 2 if I found Dark Souls so sub-par?

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

you do not seem to believe that several critics could all independantly come to the same conclusion

Because that never happens in any other medium.

Guardians of the Galaxy. Movie.
Metacritic records 41 positive, the vast majority of which are 75 or higher, 4 mixed reviews, and one negative review.


Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Movie.
One positive review with a score of 63. 16 mixed and 13 bad reviews.


Under the Skin. Movie.

33 positive reviews, most of which are 80 and above.6 mixed, 3 negative.


Havent Got the Blues (Yet). Music album. 6 positive, one mixed.


American Idiot. Music Album. 22 positive reviews, 4 mixed.


Dark Souls; Prepare to Die Edition. Videogame.
36 positive. 5 mixed. One negative.


The Last of Us. Videogame. 97 positive reviews. One mixed. No negative.



You are wrong. Completely flat out wrong.

God, everyone fucking strawmans...

The point was NOT about POSITIVE reviews, the point is about OVERALL SCORE. TLOU is sitting at a fucking 95/100 average score from ALL critics. Guardians of the Galaxy is sitting at a 76/100 average score from all critics. You can't even find Best Picture winners with average scores like TLOU or GTAV (which has NO mixed or negative reviews BTW). Even fucking Ghostbusters has negative reviews.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Actually, figure skating and gymnastics are judged on both technical and artistic merits.
Nice try.

The whole point of the judging system is to make it as objective as possible, it literally says that on the Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISU_Judging_System

I'm unfamiliar with Vanilla Sky, other than Tom Cruise being in it, so I'll have to defer judgement on that.

Do you believe there are indeed works of art that are love it/hate it? If so, where's the video game example? I can provide movie, music, TV show, book, etc. examples of that.

But they do and it isn't. It's a spiritual sequel and this does not change the fact the the points on which you nitpick were overhauled for Dark Souls and are in no way reflective of Demon's Souls. My point stands - yours does not.

There's plenty of sequels with overhauled systems. Metal Gear Solid for one changes quite a lot every entry. There's Final Fantasy as well.

Irrelevant, you can still play as a mage and therefore will not solely rely on physical abilities as per your erroneous statement.

Irrelevant, mages don't use melee or ever rely on physical abilities. Dark Souls requires melee.

That depends on your definition of video game RPG. In my view, it's all about stats and levelling.
Playing "different roles" is not the defining point of a video game RPG.

When one discusses RPG elements, they are never talking about playing roles and making choices - they are talking about stats and levels. Pure and simple.

RPGs are not about levels and stats (hell, they aren't even required), they are about the role-playing. You can start DnD at max level and it's still an RPG because you are role-playing. Even the Wiki definition of an RPG [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game] states nothing about stats and levels.

No. But it is a stealth element nonetheless.
Your statement was "there is no stealth elements in Dark Souls". A point that has been successfully countered.

Now can we please stop derailing this thread with this tired DS argument. We've had it before and it's still completely asinine.

And let me repeat again: You are free to like/ dislike it. But don't be surprised that most of us don't share your opinion.

But thanks for the demonstration, proving my point. The contrived arguments, like those you've made in this thread, are EXACTLY why I take your opinions with a grain of salt.

Now its 3am and I have guests coming over in the morning for brunch so that is all I will post here. So get your precious last word in, to make yourself feel better. Ultimately, they won't matter. Most of us in this thread have already countered your arguments several times over and see them for what they are.

Cheers.

One minor stealth element does not make a game have a valid stealth option, which was my point of not being able to play as a rogue (not that there is literally no stealth). I can't believe you didn't bring up the stupid Fog Ring as an excuse for stealth in Dark Souls. Vanquish is totally has a stealth option because you can toss a cigarette to distract enemies. Who's argument is more contrived again?

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

And the point of the guy you were arguing with before was that the low reviews, like from Jim Sterling on FF13, are anomalies. The metacritic scores I showed follow that trend, and I was just picking movies and albums off of the top of my head, or just randomly clicking on a link. And the only reason Guardians has that 75 on metacritic is because of one lone anomalous review that gave it a 25. Which doesnt invalidate my point at all, but rather seems to strengthen it.

Oh, and there is.

Boyhood. Movie. Metascore of 100. 49 reviews. Every single one positive.

The Godfather. Movie. Metascore of 100. 14 reviews, all positive.

Army of Shadows. Movie. Metascore 99. 24 reviews, all positive.

12 Years a Slave. Metascore of 97. 47 reviews, 46 positive.

Ratatouille. Metascore 96. 37 reviews, all positive.


So yeah, like I said before, the trend of reviews all being clustered around one score point with a few anomalous outliers, which you explicitly claimed 'doesnt happen in other industries,' does in fact happen in other industries.

I single 25 score doesn't lower the average THAT much. I only looked up Boyhood as I gotta go, but if you look at the review scores, it's impossible to be averaging a 100, there's something wrong with its score.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

There are three types of average. Mean, Median and Mode. Mean is the sum of all of the values divided by the number of values, or Avg = s/n. Median is the value in the middle if all of teh values are placed in ascending order, so in the set of 1, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18, 2000, the median would be 16. If there are two middle numbers, then it's the mean of those two, like the median of 1, 2, 3, 4 is 2.5. The mode is simply the most common value. The mode of 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... is 1, no matter how many numbers there are in the set.

They could be using the median or mode for their metascore instead of the mean. Both of those methods would result in Boyhood's average score being 100.

That's still irrelevant to my point though, as Metacritic should be using the exact same method for both movies and videogames. Plus my point wasnt mainly about the raw metascore in the first place but was more focused on the amount of good, mixed and bad reviews for films with near universal acclaim or scorn and showing just how many film's there were taht followed The Last of Us' pattern of reception that you claimed 'Didn't happen in any other industry,' despite the fact taht it only took me a few minutes to find that exact same pattern in the review scores for multiple movies.

The best average is the mean and I'm almost positive Metacritic uses average just like GameRankings, RottenTomatoes, Baseball, Bowling, etc. People wouldn't be able to review bomb games on Metacritic if it wasn't a mean average. Also, the 25 review for Guardians would not have an effect on its score if a different method was used. I'm not a fan of Metacritic (I use RottenTomatoes) for movies because there's less than 50 reviews for Guardians when there's way more film critics than that. TLOU has 98 reviews, there's no way there's more game critics than film critics.

I was never arguing the amount of good reviews as I know films get into the 90s on the fresh meter on RottenTomatoes, I was pointing out OVERALL score the whole time. Also, just to throw in another point, big Hollywood releases don't get automatic fresh ratings like AAA games do as you'll see films like Transformers get horrible reviews across the board.

Do you even read the links you are sending me? In the section called "Subjectivity":

"Like gymnastics and diving competitions, judging in figure skating is inherently subjective. Although there may be general consensus that one skater "looks better" than another, it is difficult to get agreement on what it is that causes one skater to be marked as 5.5 and another to be 5.75 for a particular program component. As judges, coaches, and skaters get more experience with the new system, more consensus may emerge. However, for the 2006 Olympics there were cases of 1 to 1.5 points differences in component marks from different judges.[citation needed] This range of difference implies that "observer bias" determines about 20% of the mark given by a judge.[citation needed] Averaging over many judges reduces the effect of this bias in the final score, but there will remain about a 2% spread in the average artistic marks from the randomly selected subsets of judges."

Aside from intra-expert subjectivity, skating is very open to misjudgement from everyday spectators who only see skating casually, i.e. every four years at the Olympics. A skater's jump may look perfect, but the general public will not be aware that the competitor landed on an incorrect edge, therefore receiving fewer points for an element, resulting in the appearance of haphazard or biased judging."

That last paragraph sounds eerily similar to the point of this thread...

But to link it back to games reviews:
Let's use a reviewer you believe is the bees knees to counter your claim:
http://www.destructoid.com/100-objective-review-final-fantasy-xiii-179178.phtml

Video game reviews are NOT objective - they are subjective.

And the vast majority of the link was about how the judging system objectively scores the skaters. There's only a bit of subjectivity that goes into the score. The link even has the point values for every kind of jump and whatnot.

Relevance? This does not change anything about your argument or mine. I'm not even sure why you are bringing it up other than to argue for the sake of arguing - which is mostly what you seem to be doing in this thread.

You argued that Dark Souls is not a sequel because of its systems being overhauled, which isn't the case as Dark Souls would be called Demon's Souls 2 if From kept working with Sony or From never worked with Sony to begin with. Just like if From makes a Bloodborne sequel that's multiplatform, it won't be called Bloodborne 2 as Sony most likely owns the name.

Plenty of mages can use melee as well as magic. But it seems like you forgot that your original argument that all builds in Dark Souls are the same physical only type with one way to play. Which is laughably incorrect.

Again, you are arguing for the sake of arguing and appearing foolish.

Plenty of mages CAN use melee and plenty of mages DON'T use melee either. A playstyle that Dark Souls does not allow for.

So you posted the definition of table-top RPGs when I clearly stated video game RPGs. They are different beasts all-together.

Here is the wiki definition for video game RPGs. You know, the one that is actually relevant here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_video_game

A quote from the "Characteristics" section:
"Generally, the player controls a central game character, or multiple game characters, usually called a party, and attain victory by completing a series of quests or reaching the conclusion of a central storyline. Players explore a game world, while solving puzzles and engaging in tactical combat. A key feature of the genre is that characters grow in power and abilities, and characters are typically designed by the player.[1] RPGs rarely challenge a player's physical coordination or reaction time, with the exception of action role-playing games.[3]"

Nowhere in the definition does it suggest anything about "playing a role".

Nowhere do I see stats and levels either. RPGs don't change based on the medium (the same definition applies just fine from table-top to live-action to video games). The video game RPG definition is not very good because the first thing developers tried to duplicate in video game form from RPGs was combat instead of actual role-playing. I hope you've noticed that an issue with the video game medium is the unneeded focus on killing things. There's so much more potential in the medium when developers realize you don't have to kill things to have game. It's actually pretty hard to find a AAA game that's not about combat. The medium has an addiction to killing.

One minor stealth element does not make a game have a valid stealth option, which was my point of not being able to play as a rogue (not that there is literally no stealth).

Which is not what you said and I'm not a mind reader. You only mentionned that there are no stealth options in Dark Souls, which I've proven to be false. Now you want to move the goalposts.

I never said there are no stealth options (at least to YOU), I may have used it as hyperbole before. But this whole argument here originated from my following reply to you:

What hindered my enjoyment of Dark Souls was that I couldn't play really any other style but one. The game really forces melee combat on you. Regardless if you're a Dex or Strength character, you're still playing basically the same way, block enemy attack, then attack afterwards. Dex and Strength characters aren't supposed to play so similarly. Even standard combat skills like stealth aren't apart of Dark Souls. Dark Souls has AI problems too. My enjoyment was hindered when such standard tactics like strafing and shooting arrows couldn't be combated by the enemy AI, the game has almost no enemy AI. Even when not playing cheap, the AI is such a pushover.

You're the one that strawmans and misrepresents the argument. How proving this is ONE single stealth element in Dark Souls wins the argument is beyond me. Dark Souls didn't even let me play as a proper rogue, thus I didn't enjoy the game because I don't like playing as standard fighter type characters. THAT WAS THE MAIN POINT.

Why would I bring up a broken piece of equipment that was patched early on? All I needed to do was prove one stealth element to refute your argument - and I did that.

Because another Dark Souls fanboy argued to me that the Fog Ring is Dark Souls' "stealth option" to me in another thread, stealth options are tied to characters, not items. That wasn't my argument....

I haven't played Vanquish. Not my cup of tea. But I fail to see how a TPS has anything to do with an RPG.

Having one stealth element doesn't equate to there being a valid stealth option, which was the whole point.

For someone who's arguments are the equivalent of throwing a bunch of suction-cupped darts toward a dart board, hoping that one of them sticks, failing and throwing another cluster of suction-cupped darts - I'd say yours.

How about arguing the main points instead of strawmanning? If I'm playing with suction-cupped darts, you're throwing your darts at different dart board.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

You said this.

you do not seem to believe that several critics could all independantly come to the same conclusion

Because that never happens in any other medium.

That is what I took issue with.
And that is pretty much definitely what I proved that wrong.

Edit:Added a line and changed some wording a bit.

What I was responding to was s69-5's remark about independently coming to the same conclusion, which was referring to games getting very similar scores across the board, not that all critics liked the game. You go to IGN and see a 8.5, go to GameSpot and see a 8.0. You very very very rarely see IGN liking a game and GameSpot disliking a game or vice verse (I doubt this happens even more than once an entire year). Siskel and Ebert would quite often disagree to where one thought a movie was good while the other thought it was bad. You don't see that with video games.

Here's what I said in my initial post of this whole thread:

I just don't get professional game reviews. There's so many objective flaws to TLOU that you have to take off points, but only 10 of the 98 reviews on Metacritic gave TLOU below a 9/10. I feel the game connected with me just as well as it could for anyone, I had a blast playing it for the most part and loved the characters and story. However, I'd only score the game somewhere between 7.5-8.5/10 just due to the game's flaws. Criticism is supposed to be about criticizing, not about saying how awesome something is, which is what we get with game criticism.

---

Let me repost this from your link as you seemed to have missed it (still not reading?):
"Like gymnastics and diving competitions, judging in figure skating is inherently subjective."

There's no two ways about that statement. It is "INHERENTLY SUBJECTIVE".

Thesaurus for inherently:
http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/inherently

and for subjecive:
http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/subjective

At least half the score given to a skater is OBJECTIVE if you understand how the scoring works. That's why the scoring from judge to judge is much more similar compared to works of art. Are you saying half a game's score is based in OBJECTIVITY?

Nor does this change anything (for the 3rd time) about your argument or mine. You say that they shouldn't have made Resistance or Pyromancy like they did because it was their second attempt. I argued that Demon's Souls did not have Resistance or Pyromancy in the first place, so it was not their second attempt.

It was their 2nd attempt at making that kind of game. I also said both those mistakes are something that should not even make it out of the conceptual stage let alone the final game even if it was their first try...

To make those type of core system mistakes on your first try is pretty bad, let alone your 2nd try.

You can win the whole argument about Dark Souls being their 1st try as that was never my main point as I never played Demon's Souls and Dark Souls was my 1st From Software game anyways. From's mistakes were so amateurish that I really have no faith in From actually making a game with solid RPG mechanics.

---

And still, not what you said. Let me refresh you:

What hindered my enjoyment of Dark Souls was that I couldn't play really any other style but one. The game really forces melee combat on you. Regardless if you're a Dex or Strength character, you're still playing basically the same way, block enemy attack, then attack afterwards.

You are saying that there is only one playstyle - melee combat (and even then only way to play said melee).
I stated that Mages exist therefore this statement is false.

But as per usual, you now attempt to shift the goalposts because your argument was soundly defeated.
The problem is, we don't all have goldfish memories, you know.

You still have to use melee as a mage. Just maybe once you know the game in and out while probably being on new game+, you can play a real mage but definitely not on your first try.

My quote there also states how similar Dex and Str characters play. I wanted to play as a Rogue/Thief as I picked Thief at the start. My MAIN disappointment is that Dex characters are just fighters. Your Dex don't even affect rolling or quickness in Dark Souls, that's pretty bad. I couldn't even be a ranger either because arrows don't do enough damage in a fight or arrows break the game as you can just shoot enemies with arrows and they just sit there. Then, I dabbled in magic but realized you still have to have a decent amount of focus on melee and boringly fight a good deal of enemies regardless of weapons, stats, etc.

(facepalm)
"A key feature of the genre is that characters grow in power and abilities" ie. stats and levels

(facepalm)
God of War's Kratos grows in power and abilities without stats or levels. There's many ways to grow in power without levels or stats.

Goldfish memories, we don't have. I repost this:

Even standard combat skills like stealth aren't apart of Dark Souls.

It's pretty clear there that you said that combat skills like STEALTH ARE NOT A PART OF DARK SOULS.
ie. there are no stealth options

Fish in a barrel...

I'm clearly talking about a stealth skill that you can level to make your character stealthy, which almost every fucking RPG has.

He seems to think we have the memory capacity of a goldfish.
Either way, I'm hoping they lock this thread as it has fallen completely off the rails.

It's not me, it's you. Read my fucking opening post.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Dont turn the issue around. My response to you was a refutation of the idea that "Multiple, unrelated reviewers coming to roughly the same issue on a piece of media doesnt happen outside of the videogame industry."
A notion that I handily debunked.

I never was arguing that as I'm clearly aware of films getting into the 90s on RottenTomatoes. Boyhood is probably, by far, the highest rated movie I've seen on RottenTomatoes and it's at a 9.4/10, still lower than TLOU or GTAV. The problem is 7/10 is really what an "average" game gets nowadays thus leaving only 7-10 for good games. So, all the good games end up getting all bunched up with like 0.5 separating a good game from a great game. Game scores are inflated across the board due to that. Getting back to all reviewers basically giving the same score. Just tell me how many games from last year IGN liked and GameSpot disliked or vice verse. Pick any 2 movie reviewers and you were quite often see one liking a film while the other dislikes the same film because art is completely SUBJECTIVE. All forms of art have certain works that are love it or hate it (which is reflected by critics, not just the public), where's an example of a game getting several bad and good scores? FFXIII was a love it or hate it game yet it has only 1 negative review on Metacritic. The core problem with game reviews is that reviewers try to objectively rate games like how figure skaters are judged (which makes sense there, but not here). Just read Greg Tito's review of GTAV and you can clearly tell he disliked the game, yet gave it a 7/10. Jim Sterling, on the other hand, will give a game he dislikes a below average score like Batman Arkham Origins or Assassin's Creed 2. How about when GameSpot gave Skyward Sword a 7.5/10 and it was a big deal, and it was still a positive review. You don't see that in movies, and in movies, a critic will just straight up trash a movie not just like it slightly less than everyone else, and no one really cares.

If you really think there's no difference in game reviews vs other mediums' reviews, you're just deluding yourself.

I'm clearly talking about a stealth skill that you can level to make your character stealthy, which almost every fucking RPG has.

I'm just going to ignore most of what you've posted as you are clearly beaten and have warped the discussion so much that you've lost sight of where it is. Face it, you are grasping at straws, moving goalposts and trying your damndest to have even one salient point (and failing at that). Just quit already.

But I do want to address this last point (again).

First, you were not clearly talking about a "Stealth Skill" that you can level. You have to say what you mean as we are not mind readers. Adding it late to the discussion (moving the goalposts) and then getting exasperated does not change anything.

Second, I disagree that "most" RPGs have a "Stealth" skill that is levelled to make your character stealthy. In fact, I can only think of a tiny fraction (most of them of the Bethesda variety). And again, even as you repeat your goto, "I have no real retort", ad nauseum, what does it matter if "every other RPG" has it or not. Do I need to post that pic again? Should all games become a homogenous sludge as that's what you are clearly and repeatedly suggesting with the calls of "everybody does it, so this should too".

That being said, Dark Souls does allow the player to use stealth in far more creative ways than "With a stealth rating of 76, you can duck and sneak up even from the side and backstab for 4x dmg). Like anything Dark Souls does, it's been incorporated organically and is up to the player to discover and use (like drawing out enemies with a bow). If I had to compare, I'll take the Dark Souls style every time.

But that is subjective opinion and you are also entitled to your own. If you prefer the former, more power to you. However...

Third, and most importantly, IT DOESN'T MATTER. Dark Souls is not Skyrim. Dark Souls is Dark Souls. Faulting it for being Dark Souls is (I repeat) disingenuous. If you want Skyrim - go play Skyrim.

I WAS talking about a stealth skill to level, I never wasn't. It doesn't necessary have to be literally a skill named stealth or sneaking or whatever. You can improve your character's stealth abilities without a stealth skill as well. For example, Deus Ex gives you augmented abilities that make you more stealthy without an actual stealth skill. The Dex stat in Dark Souls could decrease the noise of your footsteps as you level it without need of an actual stealth skill. That's what I mean by stealth option with my character. Dark Souls has nothing along those lines. Leveling Dex does nothing but scale weapon damage with Dex weapons. Dexterity is about quickness and agility, which is not reflected at all in Dark Souls. My original complaint that I made to you about my enjoyment being hindered was that Dex and Str characters really play no different. I would be happy if I could at least feel like a rogue without or without stealth. Dragon's Dogma and Kingdoms of Amalur feature very offensive rogues but they are still very roguish in how they play, and Dragon's Dogma doesn't even have stealth.

I'm not trying to make Dark Souls into Skyrim as I HATE Bethesda games (both gameplay and writing). I gave Dark Souls a try because I heard it has good combat unlike Bethesda games. If the main thing I'm doing in a game is fighting enemies, the combat better be good. Thus, I normally don't play RPGs because you fight more than anything and the combat is usually shitty. That is why you see that I played a Dragon's Dogma and Kingdoms of Amalur and NOT Skyrim (I saw a dragon fight in Skyrim and it sucked).