The Last of Us - The Pepsi Max of Rendering Effects

[Carnivol]

Yeah. Not really feeling much of a kick to replay it. Not for the collectibles. Not for any specific scenes/set pieces. Maybe if the game hadn't been so linear or I had some story impacting choices to make along the way?

Still looking forward to what the DLC will bring, but I guess you could already count me as "not interested" if it's just gonna be the Adventures of Tess or some sort of Fireflies thingy.

Maybe if they shake up the formula a bit? (Bill's Tower Defence? )

[Rombie]

I played it through twice, once on Hard, and once on Survivor (with the + stats "glitch" carryover which I think was intentionally left in) - and got everything. Survivor was great... no hearing option at all (not that you can't turn it off anyway, but still) and crap all of anything to scrape together. As a "survival horror" experience, it was amazing. Sneaking through that last tunnel of the game was fricken intense.

It's unlikely I'll play SP again, and maybe try the MP later... but I enjoyed it for what it was. I like the idea that they could do many DLC for the different characters but I suspect they'll go somewhere unexpected with it.

[Rick Hunter]

The game puts you against a multitude of humans for so long, and after so many encounters with them and only Runners/Clickers it all becomes too stagnant for my taste.

That's my problem with this game, I haven't played in more than a week because I find it way too boring and repetitive. The story is lacking as well, it's always going from point A to point B with encounters in-between, but there's barely anything happening in term of events or scenario.

[Code_R]

Winter. It's just. Fffuu.

[DONNIemo]

Ohh where to begin. this game is beautiful and fantastic yes. i agree with all the 10/10's its getting. well maybe a strong 9/10 for me.

i do agree that is does get a bit rinse/repeat with the same enemies attacking you with familiar patterns you learn rather fast. And when you upgrade all the items and weapons (im now on my 3rd play though for fun) it becomes really easy, you cant even die with Clickers now as u have special shivs that dont break.

But the game has what i love, its such a great feeling hunting and looting for all the items you need, i spend hours and really take my time, and the combining items for weapons. I usually take about 25hours each time to complete, thats how long i take enjoying it.

The sneaking is great too, you really do feel a rush when you are hiding. The music i feel is fantastic, i like that is it is less is more.

The fighting is brutal and amazing. The characters are excelently voiced and played, Joel really isnt that nice though, lets face it he is an absolute asshole to Elle 90% of the game. I understand how he feels with his dauther and all, but well hes not that likeable, and i think the end shows that even more because of what he does.

My only complaints would be that there are a few bugs that still remain. I have a horrible one where everytime Elle is holding her little torch out, it does not appear nor the light, so she walks around with her hand and its soo annoying and dark lol.

So yes the ending i also did not like at all. all you went through and fought for, all seemed a waste in the last chapter with the actions that play out.. I was just as annoyed with the horrible ending to Mass Effect 3

it's definately not a happy game, nothing ever goes right for anyone in the game. kind of a downer, but its rare for a game and i think that it makes it better

its actually got me doubting if Beyond Two Souls will be any good now...

[Carnivol]

I always find it curious how long the "annoyances" lists always get when people give a game a "perfect" score. Still wonder if it's just that people get more forgiving of things they like or if it's a statement of the current state of things in the game industry.


One thing I've noticed recently is how the game keeps on selling and how it's sold out quite a lot of places. Good for Sony, I suppose, but working retail, it feels like they're artificially creating demand by undershipping it, to basically extend the amount of time which it'll remain amongst the "top sellers."

So yes the ending i also did not like at all. all you went through and fought for, all seemed a waste in the last chapter with the actions that play out..

I honestly think Prince of Persia (2008) pulled off the same type of ending in a much better fashion. (Just got reminded of how well that was built up through out the entire game in terms of the relationship between the nameless prince and Elika)

[Code_R]

(Aren't we going into vague spoiler territory with this, is that frowned on here?) Spoiler:

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POP'08 annoyed me more. I'd imagined it was building toward the character not being a selfish loser, instead of just cementing it. Joel was beyond that kind of arc, I felt it was his way of surviving inside rather than just staying alive. The execution felt like it needed more build up to it so in that way it's flawed, but in the end I guess the themes were justified, it's not a story about good and evil after all, there are no good guys. It raises questions about the "good" of saving humanity, or the morals of continued attempts at a cure if the chances were slim as suggested by the tapes. The story was about saving yourself at any cost the whole time after all. Mass Effect 3 was a train wreck because of both the incredibly poor execution and the way it threw all sense of thematic continuity out at the last moment.

[Carnivol]

Yeah. Probably best to throw in spoiler tags.

**DRUNK DISCLAIMER**
Spoiler:

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Reason I think PoP '08 pulls things off better than TLoU is that the whole relationship build up through that game works very well from start to end. It's consistent, self-aware of most of its derailing elements, etc. and ultimately delivers a full package with a constant progress in terms of how the relationship between the main characters goes from two people whom basically stand the look of eachother's face to the point where the main character says "Fuck it" to everything they've fought for and basically undoes everything 'cause he "wants the girl".

I'm gonna be harsh now. Pull things a BIT out of proportions, but basically use it to communicate what I feel about The Last of Us' approach; Joel and Ellie are all over the place, to the point where it often feels to me like the writers/director/whatever probably wrote a bunch of "emotional scenes" in early in production, put them into production, and then later on decided that they couldn't scrap/redo them and started to scatter them through out the narrative based on when and where they could just "shoehorn them in". The variable behavior of the characters almost makes it feel like I'm at times watching the Asylum Pictures version of The Silver Linings Playbook or something.

I feel the opening tutorial offers a much better and plausible relationship between several characters, and I'm also kinda puzzled by their lack of inclusion of scenes ala. the part where you carry your daughter in pretty much the entire game, except from the ending bit, of course, but the lack of any "chase" going on there kinda kills it a bit for me. I also find it odd that they didn't really have a lot of parts where you see Joel somewhat forced to care for Ellie. By that; I don't mean pushing rafts around. I'm not entirely sure what the narrative intent of having Joel injured for a while, forcing you to play as Ellie, was either, but I'd say it'd been pretty darned more effective if Ellie was the one who suddenly found herself almost dying or in grave danger. Just look at the part when Joel gets back up on his feet and has to find Ellie. THAT was a moment. In fact, I think the entire part where you play as Ellie should've been excluded from the main game. Also feel they lost some good opportunities for some amazing drama if they hadn't revealed Ellie's immunite so darned early.

Anyway, filtering everything out, Ellie does a lot of stuff here and there, Joel bitches and moans a lot here and there, but at the end of the day, I feel like you have Joel running around being a sourpuss from start to end, with a few "moments" along the road of seemingly no important emotional factors involved, then *bam* he sees Ellie drop her jaw at some giraffes and suddenly he's like daddy of the year. (If you can accept the fact that the game gives you way too much controlled freedom in a situation where the only means for progression is to shoot a doctor.)

As for the whole Good/Evil thing, I touched it in my first post about impressions after finishing my first playthrough, and I'm actually still puzzled by the entire world design in the game. Artistically, it's nice and full of creative smokes 'n' mirrors to mask the dating hardware it runs on, but culturally ... the different fractions, their purpose/intent and so forth makes no bloody sense to me. Again, as with the whole cutscene thing between Joel and Ellie and how I feel things are just a mish-mash of scenes made before they had things entirely nailed down, I feel a lot of the "groups/world design" in the universe is done just like that too. Elements that were made early in production are for some reason kept "as is/recycled", rather than touched up/adjusted along the way ... or just removed if it didn't fit. Could argue that some of the world design could be expanded upon in a sequel or DLC, so for DLC/sequels we'll wait! But until then; as it is now; flawed.

Stuff is kinda at a point where I wish Mr. Plinkett would get a PS3 to play it on while his VCR is still not getting repaired.

[DONNIemo]

Was that a refrence to the guys at RedLetterMedia?? I love their stuff (also becuase I have a huge VHS collection and still collect so it makes me laugh)

[imacwesker]

Let's spoil, then.

Spoiler:

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My main grip with the ending is that I was expecting one of the two (Joel/Ellie) to die. The trailers have been hinting this way strongly (Joel on the floor/Ellie aiming a gun [at Joel?]/Ellie's voice over "With all the things I went trough, it can't be for nothing"). So I expected more or less Ellie to kill Joel (maybe because Joel was infected).

The game is about survival of the fittest and it was logical, in my opinion, that one of them would die leaving the other one alone. Either Joel would lost his daughter for the second time, becoming a true "Mad Max"; or Ellie would lost her father for the second time, becoming a female Joel (or a Tess). There was a hint when, during winter, she uses Joel's sentence "That's luck, and we are running out of it" or something like that. I thought that Joel died at the end of fall (how can he survive this kind of wound without major surgery? how can he survive the blood loss? seriously) and was extremely unhappy to see him again during Winter. I also thought that because it takes us/Joel forever to reach Ellie in the hospital that we will be too late to stop the surgeon's scalpel. Wrong again...

So, for both of them to survive at the end of the game, was a major disappointment for me. The fact that Joel lies to Ellie is even more stupid (because all the previous 20 hours of gameplay are based on them trusting each other). And when I said in a previous comment that this ending felt like a comic book ending, it's because we find them both at the end, as if nothing happened during the whole game. Basically, they could have stay in the first town, without doing the whole journey. Joel would still be a grumpy survivor and Ellie a tom-boy.
Maybe because I read too many books in the 80s as a teenager, located in "the world after", where all kinds of bad things (specially emotional ones) happen to survivors, but I was really expecting a more challenging ending ;)

[Code_R]

Spoiler:

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Well yeah, I thought that too. Which means it's predictable, and so a weaker plot development. I don't think ND had it in them. The other options are they both die, wasting our time and still being predictable, or they get a cure, which is too stupid. The previous hours of gameplay were leading here - Joel has become dependent on Ellie. Like I said, it's the execution - after Winter there's a lot missing, and suddenly Joel is talkative and stuff, both saved each other's lives and whatever but there's too short a time period left. Both have changed, that's the point, they couldn't stay in the first town for Joel to take the photo like that. The zoo animals weren't an out of nowhere happy moment, to me it was just a reminder that things didn't have to be terrible all the time. It's hinting that a happy ending is possible but it's not going to be the one people want. Lying to a child to survive is low, and it's way more interesting as an outcome.

[Carnivol]

RedLetterMedia is greatness. Although they've had a few bummer quotes in some of their Half-in the bag episodes and a few oversights every now and then, it's still very obvious that these guys know and love movies, both as consumers and on a technical level.

Spoiler:

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Could've been interesting to have one of them die, but ... man ... speaking of people dying; Tess dying was so darned obvious thanks to the entire promotional campaign focusing so hard on Ellie and Joel. I don't think predictability is a sign of a weak narrative or development. It's all in the execution of it. Doing something unpredictable for the cause of being unpredictable is kinda silly.


Still think the "best" segment of the game in terms of character development and presentation is the whole Bill segment. Everything from how you work together, to how the characters interact, to Joel dancing around Tess' death/whereabouts, to Bill's reaction when he finds his partner dead and whether or not you give him the suicide note, Ellie actually oogling Bill's gay porn collection and her stealing the very magazine that is visible on top of the stack, etc.. THAT is the type of stuff I was hoping you'd see more of. Substance, build up, choices. Heck, I would've loved it if you actually had to deal with Walt and Michael yourself and not just cutscene yourself through Walt's infection and Michael's suicide. Some variables! A feeling of choice. Just like that little thing at the start of RE2 with Kendo, the various ways that scene can play out, but without really affecting the game's narrative or letting you alter the outcome, it still gives you a really good feeling of choice.

[Code_R]

Well ND do make their games by thinking up random scenes and worrying about how they fit together later, at their own admission.

[Rombie]

Let's spoil, then.

Spoiler:

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My main grip with the ending is that I was expecting one of the two (Joel/Ellie) to die. The trailers have been hinting this way strongly (Joel on the floor/Ellie aiming a gun [at Joel?]/Ellie's voice over "With all the things I went trough, it can't be for nothing"). So I expected more or less Ellie to kill Joel (maybe because Joel was infected).

The game is about survival of the fittest and it was logical, in my opinion, that one of them would die leaving the other one alone. Either Joel would lost his daughter for the second time, becoming a true "Mad Max"; or Ellie would lost her father for the second time, becoming a female Joel (or a Tess). There was a hint when, during winter, she uses Joel's sentence "That's luck, and we are running out of it" or something like that. I thought that Joel died at the end of fall (how can he survive this kind of wound without major surgery? how can he survive the blood loss? seriously) and was extremely unhappy to see him again during Winter. I also thought that because it takes us/Joel forever to reach Ellie in the hospital that we will be too late to stop the surgeon's scalpel. Wrong again...

So, for both of them to survive at the end of the game, was a major disappointment for me. The fact that Joel lies to Ellie is even more stupid (because all the previous 20 hours of gameplay are based on them trusting each other). And when I said in a previous comment that this ending felt like a comic book ending, it's because we find them both at the end, as if nothing happened during the whole game. Basically, they could have stay in the first town, without doing the whole journey. Joel would still be a grumpy survivor and Ellie a tom-boy.
Maybe because I read too many books in the 80s as a teenager, located in "the world after", where all kinds of bad things (specially emotional ones) happen to survivors, but I was really expecting a more challenging ending ;)

Well...
Spoiler:

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I kinda agree with CodeR.... to me any potential ending idea had been done before, I think no matter the ending someone would have enjoyed it and others wouldn't have. So if there had been an ending you'd enjoyed, I suspect others might have been upset one of the characters actually died. I don't think there is a right answer to this.

The lie is missing the idea of the fact Joel is selfish. He is at the start and he is at the end, and so yeah maybe you could argue about the point of a journey. Different reasons for it but he is. My biggest issue is how, obviously Ellie doesn't believe him really, but just agrees to it. I just don't see the issues with the ending like you did. It's not any more comic book to me than someone being killed or forced to kill. And I suspect too if Ellie had to kill Joel too many people would have been comparing it to.... double spoiler here... the heavy simularity of the ending of The Walking Dead game by Telltale.

I also agree with Carn regarding Tess and the obviousness of her demise. I think it would have been a better dynamic for her not to have been bitten. Instead for when they reached the Capital Building and realised the Firefly's were an actual dead end that she decided she was going to chance it back into the city and her and Joel have an argument over it being impossible, only to be interrupted by govt troops arriving and they have to split up for some reason. It could have started a sub story in the background where she bumps into Marlene's crew when trying to get back in who she joins up with to make their way to the Firefly lab to meet up with Joel and Ellie. They could have then had a sub-situation once Joel arrives which has Marlene threating to kill Tess in front of him over his actions in the lab putting more drama into the final standoff.

I still don't think it's not got it's flaws as a game, but I still think it stands as a great concept on what you can do with narrative in gaming.

[DONNIemo]

Heck, I would've loved it if you actually had to deal with Walt and Michael yourself and not just cutscene yourself through Walt's infection and Michael's suicide. Some variables! [/spoiler]

I might be tired but tho on earth are Walt and Michael??? Did you mean Henry and Sam??? Im so confused.