The Last of Us. Yeah, it's The Good Stuff. (Spoiler free.)

[JagermanXcell]

- Dark Souls (Urrrrgh. Well, those crazy people who like it must have their reasons.)

We "Elitists" like us a challenge! Earning our nice shiny weapons through risk and reward thank you very much!

OT: Geez all this talk of a 17 hour campaign SP, met with engaging setting, characters, story and gameplay REEEEALLY makes me want to get this game now. Not to mention the multiplayer looks rather interesting. If anything I really want this game for the aesthetics, heck I'm willing to turn the difficulty at its highest just so during my struggle to stay alive I can have the time to look around at all the attention to the detail i've seen so far. Picking it up very soon, very soon.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Nice to know that it has your stamp of approval. And that isn't sarcastic. When it comes to the quality of games you are a merciless straight shooter. Your post has made me decide to finally get off the fence and buy it when I get the money.

 

[LetalisK]

- The Last of Us.
- Bioshock Infinite. Played it.
- The Walking Dead. Loved it.
- Journey.
- Amnesia: The Dark Descent. (Horror game.) Hate horror games, but I may check it out anyway on your recommendation.
- Portal 2 In my backlog
- Bastion. In my backlog
- Spec Ops: The Line. Loved it.
- The Mass Effect trilogy. Loved it.
- A Beshesda game or Fallout New Vegas. Started it, then backlogged it for Skyrim. Which was then backlogged halfway through as well.
- X-Com: Enemy Unknown Played it it.
- FTL: Faster Than Light Played it.
- Red Faction: Guerilla In my backlog
- Dishonored Played it.
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution Played it.
- Dark Souls Tried it.
- Batman Arkham City Played it.
- Bulletstorm
- Mirror's Edge

Huh, I guess I'm not as far behind the curve as I thought. I have more stuff I can add to my backlog and can now start prioritizing it.

Now if I can just extricate myself from the Devil's Quicksand Pit known as WoW that I foolishly just re-entered. I wonder if this is what an alcoholic feels like.

 

[Zhukov]

Nice to know that it has your stamp of approval. And that isn't sarcastic. When it comes to the quality of games you are a merciless straight shooter. Your post has made me decide to finally get off the fence and buy it when I get the money.

This makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

(Also, I only just recognized you. Your avatar-switching ways frighten and confuse me.)

 

[Casual Shinji]

I actually didn't like Ellie at the start, because a) she's heavily modeled after Ellen Paige who I care little for, and b) she's a little smartmouth, and I fucking hate that. [small]That goes for you too, Hitgirl.[/small]

But this inturn made me feel more connected to the character of Joel, who was barely tolerating Ellie. Everytime Joel went "Argh, this fucking kid" as too was I.

As the game progresses though she really proves herself as a character and completely outgrows that "child damsel" role. She becomes emotionally engaging not because she's a kid, but because she's a very well written character.

I was kinda "eh" toward her up until she pulled out the magazine in the car, which made me laugh. By the time the university level was over she had well and truly worked her way into excellent character territory.

Absolutely loved the winter chapter. Favourite part of the game.

Props to Naughty Dog and Nolan North for the character of Dave.

Spoiler

The moment you meet him you know something is off about him, but he acts like a decent enough guy. Even when he reveals himself to be "a bad guy" he's still acting genuinely nice and seems to really want to protect Ellie. But then you realize he's only being like this to try and lure Ellie in. Using his good deeds as leverage. It's this mentality that a lot of guys can have toward women... This "I'm nice to you, so be nice to me" mentality, that if not met will result in them losing their temper.

That Winter chapter made this game go from "very well done" to "utterly brilliant".

I think my favourite parts in the game were just walking around those beautifully rendered abandoned houses and appartments, rich with the horrifying and sad past events that occured.

 

[Lygus]

One of the biggest flaws of TLOU is the lack of decisions for player to make INDEPENDENTLY. This alone breaks immersion and makes the game an on-rails experience with a couple of turns right and left at times.

The gameplay, as expected, is formulaic to the bare bones: enter a location - scavenge - kill people/infected - push a metal trashcan / bring a ladder / etc. - leave the location - cutscene - repeat. For approx. 13 hours of playtime, that makes it very repetitive and dirty.

There were some illogical scenes, too. For instance, Joel, the sniper covering Ellie, Sam and his brother from hostiles. You can fire as many shots as you like WITHOUT reloading. I randomly recalled the Saving Private Ryan church sniper scene - firing 7 shots with a Springfield without reloading. Come on.

Naughty Dog played the safe way - they didn't introduce any interesting and challenging puzzles, only pushing things from A to B. I was expecting something similar to HL 1/2 puzzles.

Also, Joel's companions in combat are useless and mostly annoying. Hostiles cannot spot them, kill them, or anything. You can't accidentally hit them, too.

I loved the characters, though. However, the story was weak - typical a teen will save the world, if you escort her to the right location fairy tale. I expected more information to be revealed about how the rest of world are dealing with the infected, etc. I especially disliked the quick skiptime quirks (Summer -> Autumn -> Winter, 20 years later etc.) without telling us ANYTHING. How am I supposed to care about my characters and their motivation, if they can easily settle down and survive for that long? That's bad story+gameplay design.

Voice-acting - one of the best I've ever seen. Too bad all the dialogs were mostly cliche-ruined. I mean - such voice talents deserve a better narrative.

TLOU poses too many questions and most of them are left unanswered. There's a sequel in the works, but that doesn't mean I forgive the devs for abandoning everything and choosing the worst ending - a cliffhanger. I expected at least 2 endings - as in Metro Last Light. Say, your actions throughout the entire game MUST mean something. For TLOU part, that was very lazy.

Technically, TLOU is a marvel. But it's core is a bit flawed and could've used some tweaking / improvements.

 

[EHKOS]

I honestly though it could be a movie instead of a game. The gameplay is meh and repetitive. Still, the ending really grips you. There was that other giant cliche near the beginning where you find out why you're with Ellie too.

I'm also more cut up about this than I should be, or even have a right to be, but when you have a graveyard area in your game, put the names to good use. No Dave Baggat or Jason Rubin. No Andy Gavin on a Firefly pendant. Sanzaru didn't even have the same ties Sucker Punch did with the other studios and yet it still popped in an easter egg for Insomniac and ND in Sly 4. I mean, Jason and Andy built that studio from nothing, and they weren't even in the special thanks. I can understand Rubin, he crashed THQ, and didn't create the genius code Andy did. BUT STILL. IT STILL HURTS NAUGHTY DOG. With Insomniacs betrayal freshly imprinted on my heart. IT'S OVER. IT'S A TIME GONE BY. BUT IT STILL HURTS.

 

[Balkan]

I don't think that the cliched setting is a problem here. I thought that it would be, but the story never focuses too much on the clickers themselves. For example, The Walking dead often shows the zombies, there is a big variety of clothes, body types and overall appearance for them. In The Last Of Us people just got used to living in a zombie infested world, the zombies themselves are not that much of a threat. The focus is on the survivors and all of them feel like real people, even most of the bad guys. Here I have to mention the biggest minus in the game for me (a very minor spoiler here). There is a story moment that is interrupted by a gun fight. Its sucks, because most of the gameplay mixes well within the story and that particular part of the game was very emotional. But we have to stop for 10 minutes, kill a bunch of random assholes and then resume.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

I only played it a little online round at my friends house but it seems quite good. Needs more game modes and a little gameplay balancing but a squad based stealth game, yeah...something you don't see very often.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Nice to know that it has your stamp of approval. And that isn't sarcastic. When it comes to the quality of games you are a merciless straight shooter. Your post has made me decide to finally get off the fence and buy it when I get the money.

This makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

(Also, I only just recognized you. Your avatar-switching ways frighten and confuse me.)

See as that is becoming a trend, time to go back to my original.

 

[Cranky]

Game was excellent so far. But is it impossible to completely stealth through any encounter? I mean, I play MGS a lot and I believe I'm of somewhat decent stealth skill in games, yet I have never gone through one whole area without some random guy randomly spotting me.

 

[mad825]

Watched a Let's play. It was good however it played out more like a film than it did a game. Innovation? No such thing buddy boy.

 

[Zhukov]

Watched a Let's play. It was good however it played out more like a film than it did a game. Innovation? No such thing buddy boy.

It did have a fair few of those basically-a-cutscene-but-you-have-to-walk-forwards sequences.

However, between the plentiful servings of stealth, combat and scavenging I really don't think it can be given the "trying to be a movie" criticism any more than any other game that has cutscenes in it.

 

[Nfritzappa]

Watched a Let's play. It was good however it played out more like a film than it did a game. Innovation? No such thing buddy boy.

Its a real shame people do this. Watching a lets play is nowhere near the same as playing the game. Now if you do play it, you'll know everything that happens. Its like reading a script before watching a movie - you spoil everything that makes it worthwhile.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Game was excellent so far. But is it impossible to completely stealth through any encounter? I mean, I play MGS a lot and I believe I'm of somewhat decent stealth skill in games, yet I have never gone through one whole area without some random guy randomly spotting me.

I think what makes the enemy encounters so tense and engaging are those inevitable fuck-ups. Those moments where you're stealthing along, then you turn around a corner and suddenly find yourself staring into the barrel of a shotgun, and then having to deal with that.

This is also way I turned off the "listen" mechanic.

 

[mad825]

Watched a Let's play. It was good however it played out more like a film than it did a game. Innovation? No such thing buddy boy.

Its a real shame people do this. Watching a lets play is nowhere near the same as playing the game. Now if you do play it, you'll know everything that happens. Its like reading a script before watching a movie - you spoil everything that makes it worthwhile.

Its a real shame people do this. Making assertions that you need to experience it first hand to have an opinion on it or in fact, experience immersion.

It's like comparing two completely different mediums because you get to make choices in games. TLOU was filled to the brim with choices! Now only if the game wasn't a PS3 exclusive.

Yeah, it was nice talking to you.

 

[Zhukov]

This is also way I turned off the "listen" mechanic.

Hang on, you could actually turn it off?

I remember being a bit annoyed when they introduced it. "It's essentially x-ray vision, I mean, come on, really?" However I ended up completely forgetting it existed 99% of the time, so no harm done I guess.

 

[Goofguy]

Great game, still playing through it and have no idea how far I am from the finish (hopefully, very far). Thanks Zhukov for making a TLoU thread that is spoiler free. I've been wanting to read other Escapist users' opinions on this game without having even one thing spoiled for me.

As for that pacing that a lot of people may take umbrage with, I think it's great. I'm glad that it's not one battle after an other as you move from room to room. And, it makes the cities/towns seem a lot bigger as you quietly traverse through alleys and buildings. If anything, it builds the perfect amount of suspense. Kind of funny to see Joel crouching and stealthily looting the crap out of an empty building while Ellie stands around waiting for him to hurry up.