The Last of Us - The Pepsi Max of Rendering Effects

[Robert_Kendo]

http://the-magicbox.com/1302/game130208c.shtml

its the second picture

[DONNIemo]

this is great site my brother sent me, its more film based, but they have alot on The Last of Us. and some of it looks old.

http://nofilmschool.com/2013/06/last-of-us-interactive-cinematic-transmedia/

[Rombie]

this was the image i was talking about:

http://the-magicbox.com/1302/lastofus02.jpg

i ordered myself a master disc from march,so maybe there is something on the disc thats not in the final version.the disc is from march,but i dont think there will be any differences

It looks close to what the demo with God of War was so I assume its an earlier build of that demo, perhaps the one shown to press earlier in the year then.

[TheSelfishGene]

Finally acquired a second hand copy of this today.
I got up to a stealth part just after... Spoiler:

show spoiler

you find out Ellie is infected, just coming out of the drains

where I must have been on my 15th attempt and the PS3 froze. A good sign to turn it off.
Up until this very part I was really enjoying it. But now it feels like trial and error and it's so frustrating and unrewarding.

[Guest]

I bought a used copy last week and i must say that it's definitely one of best ps3's exclusives ever made ! I'm playing it at hard mode right now and my ass got kicked and mauled to death a dozen times lol, especially by those goddamn clickers !

[GuardhouseMusic]

Welp, finally finished the game and I would say I agree with the scores more around 7-8 than the perfect ones. Of course expectations and the absolute volley of perfect scores will affect my take, but what are you gonna do?

To start, the game felt as fine as Naughty Dog's previous efforts through the Uncharted series. There is always a sense of comfort and absorption in playing them, despite their safeness and linearity. This one is no exception, and matched with the fine visuals (though hardly perfect, they were definitely made with care) and grand as ever presentation, I had a great deal of fun. The combat felt equally smooth, and as I gained more weapons, supplies, etc. it became even more of a sort of playground. Yahtzee was wrong to some degree that the story does not inform the gameplay, because the characters being bloody murders, I never found it fulfilling enough to take a "stealth option" with the encounters. There is definitely something to finding ways to pick off successive enemies- maybe I am a soulless shell of a person =P

Reading some of Carn and others' comments on the aiming and other such mechanics, I can't say I was bothered by any of it. I never was able to read game mechanics on a minute level like that, but I guess that has to do with not playing nearly as much. There were a few times that enemy stamina and narrowly missed shots received shouts of "BULLSHIT!" at the TV, but so it goes sometimes.

The atmosphere is another fine aspect of it, specifically as it pertains to its use of influences, and the different "flavors" (heavy blizzard, underwater, spore-covered areas, etc). Yes, there is mise-en-scene, a good deal of it and well used, but it almost makes me wonder if a game reviving RE's camera angles (or something of that sort) wouldn't be sort of revolutionary as far as that goes. Having so much control of the camera sort of leaves every AAA title with a sense of "yeah, everything's beautiful and all-encompassing, good job." What if some elements were actually stylized, not just completely representational? This is where the progression and presentation of the game can be considered "safe." Verisimilitude is important, but something more than that would help. Maybe this is not the game for something like that.

Spoiler:

show spoiler

I dug the story probably up until the Winter transition, where the issue of Joel getting to safety and bandaged up solely by a 14-year-old girl is swept under and we're told "yeah, it just happened." While I liked the David segments, I think he could have used a little bit more empathy (not sympathy, mind, nobody deserves that in this game). I got that he was eventually driven to the point of dropping his nice guy facade (and his assured calm during the fight was sorta creepy), but if he had been given a last line that reinforced how he was another survivor with as much "post-human morals" as anyone else, or had Joel arrived in the nick of time, cutting his perspective short, I'd have liked it more. Once again, referring back to Yahtzee, everyone's a sick-ass murderer, but Joel and Ellie don't answer quite enough for it as their antagonists do.

The ending ruined my day. I don't know whether it's good because of that, or if I just can't accept how selfish Joel is, but still, fuck him. The transition past them reuniting also didn't really jibe with me, a montage even may have helped. Instead they're just happy to be together after surviving the shit and thick as thieves, finally. I think I need to consider this more.

[Graco]

Yes, there is mise-en-scene, a good deal of it and well used, but it almost makes me wonder if a game reviving RE's camera angles (or something of that sort) wouldn't be sort of revolutionary as far as that goes. Having so much control of the camera sort of leaves every AAA title with a sense of "yeah, everything's beautiful and all-encompassing, good job."

One of my everlasting disappointments with modern RE is that it lost the cinematic quality to the gameplay by removing the fixed camera angles. I keep hoping they'll find a way to retain that aspect, even if it no longer involves the fixed camera.

[Lead belly]

I wish a horror game would come out nowadays with fixed camera angles . I think part of what made TLOU's real time cinematics cool was the "hold x to focus here" feature. It gives the directors the ability to show you exactly how they envisioned someone watching a particular scene. I mean, its a compromise since it doesn't give the developers total control over the atmosphere like perma fixed cameras would because the player HAS TO hold a button to focus on a scene, but at least its an option. Other games will have a near cgi quality canned set piece happening off screen while the player has their camera focused on something else, then they miss it completely.

[Rombie]

For all of us who were discussing the ending, it's worth noting later this month a PAX panel will discuss the original pitch and outline for the game including what was a very different ending from the one in the final product. This news has also been provided with some concept art on Twitter.

Some discussion of what is involved is already being discussed, which you can see at this link:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/naughty-dog-reveals-original-story-details-for-the-last-of-us-6412674

[Guest]

I just finished the game today, man this game made me forget the bitterness that the new RE games had brought me for along time and this game really showed how dramatic survival should be done unlike RE6's "Laughable" survival, also i think the ending fits pretty well cuz the burden of guilt is what they should feel after all these terrible things they have done and the sad fact that their struggle ended up in vain...

[Code_R]

Yeah I loved things that RE has dropped. The first playthrough was fun just thinking to myself Oh wow I remember files! And atmosphere! Hunting for bullets! (the last one being redundant probably half way in when I had some many guns, but still)

[TheSelfishGene]

Finished this game a couple of nights ago now. And I've been thinking about it for a few days; and I just don't get the pepsi max reference...

Thought the ending was very good. All the characters acted consistently with how they'd been painted up until that point...