I just don't like The Last Of Us

[tippy2k2]

And that whole hive-mind really bothers me, because you just know the original opinion from whatever review site that initially said "OMG! LAST OF US IS BEST PONY! If you don't like it, you're a rapist!" wasn't organic or honest, it was completely paid for. Now the resulting video game frenzy could have been organic, if planned, but that match that starting the frenzy was placed there by the developers themselves.

...what?

Now this might come as a surprise but I loved the game (as I stated before) and I have the ability to make up my own mind. A game reviewer telling me that I needed to love the game doesn't mean anything to me. There are plenty of games I love (Sniper Elite; Alpha Protocol) that get throttled in reviews and plenty of games reviewers love (Witcher 2; Metroid Prime) that I can't stand.

Also, because I'm not 100% sure if you're being serious or joking (and if you're joking, my apologies) but do you have any kind of source or proof or anything that any reviewers have said what you stated and that said review was paid for by Naughty Dog?

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

SNIP

...what?

Now this might come as a surprise but I loved the game (as I stated before) and I have the ability to make up my own mind. A game reviewer telling me that I needed to love the game doesn't mean anything to me. There are plenty of games I love (Sniper Elite; Alpha Protocol) that get throttled in reviews and plenty of games reviewers love (Witcher 2; Metroid Prime) that I can't stand.

Also, because I'm not 100% sure if you're being serious or joking (and if you're joking, my apologies) but do you have any kind of source or proof or anything that any reviewers have said what you stated and that said review was paid for by Naughty Dog?

Its part of how review sites work. Sure, no one at Naughty Dogs straight up approached a critic and offered him/her a briefcase full of non-sequential $100 bills. But what they'll do is send out review code to certain critics, then buy add space on the site the critic is attached to. So while the critic is playing said game, ad revenue for that game, from the developers, is up! And if the review is negative, they pull all their ads.

Think of it like Pavlov's Dogs, but instead of salivating at the sound of a bell, critics write good reviews at the sound of AAA release schedules, and instead of getting a treat, they get ad revenue.

So they're not bought in an legal, actionable way. It just so happens that sites get more money the kinder they are to big budget games. Its coincidence. A profitable, mutually beneficial coincidence.

 

[tippy2k2]

Also, because I'm not 100% sure if you're being serious or joking (and if you're joking, my apologies) but do you have any kind of source or proof or anything that any reviewers have said what you stated and that said review was paid for by Naughty Dog?

Its part of how review sites work. Sure, no one at Naughty Dogs straight up approached a critic and offered him/her a briefcase full of non-sequential $100 bills. But what they'll do is send out review code to certain critics, then buy add space on the site the critic is attached to. So while the critic is playing said game, ad revenue for that game, from the developers, is up! And if the review is negative, they pull all their ads.

Think of it like Pavlov's Dogs, but instead of salivating at the sound of a bell, critics write good reviews at the sound of AAA release schedules, and instead of getting a treat, they get ad revenue.

So they're not bought in an legal, actionable way. It just so happens that sites get more money the kinder they are to big budget games. Its coincidence. A profitable, mutually beneficial coincidence.

So no, you don't have anything to back up your accusation.

You could have just said that; would have been a lot easier.

If you can bring me something, maybe we can chat again but until I see...well...anything really that would demonstrate that LoU got high reviews because big bad Naughty Dog paid for them, I'm out.

 

[Spider RedNight]

I respectfully disagree; I think it's engaging and I find the characters okay if only because I love love LOVE Troy Baker in this role. Also I have a soft spot for "father/daughter" relationships so it appealed to me on a personal level. I only had trouble with gameplay during that one section where you play as Ellie though because I'm so used to "powerhouse Joel" that when I went with "half health scrawny girl" I had to give the controller to someone else.

I can see why people wouldn't like it though but at least this thread wasn't nearly as "I'm right you're wrong" as the whole "Frozen" thread a couple weeks ago.

 

[Ravenbom]

Yeah, I've been trying off and on to finish The Last of Us since it came out.

It's well made but just not compelling. Partly because supplies are so scarce you have to search every nook and cranny (which is fine in Fallout 3 where the world and complete freedom in that world compels you, not the story) so that the game loses what momentum it could have had.
Resources aren't common in Resident Evil or Dead Space games either and they're linear like The Last of Us, but you don't have to really go out of your way to search for every little scrap.

The controls suck for a long time and the game is hardly playable until you:
-Get the first aiming upgrade (The single most important upgrade)
-Craft both a second pistol holster and a second long gun holster
-Increase ammo capacity in guns (while never stopping the search for the tool upgrade kits you need for later upgrades)
-Make shivs that last more than one use and upgrade the melee weapons with shiv parts that last more than once (once again looking everywhere for the upgrade books that let your shiv and melee weapon upgrades last longer)
-Get at least the first health upgrade
-Increase your listen range

By the time you're able to do the above on your first playthrough, you're over halfway through the game.

If you can't deal with the shit controls and gameplay until halfway through the game while slowing down the plot to look around to make sure you don't miss ANYTHING which makes the game 4X's as long as it should be, then I don't advise this game to anyone.


Still, it's very well done and I'm finally to the point a year and a half of disinterest later where I feel like I won't mind finishing the game now.

Good game design always moves you and keeps you moving forward, but The Last of Us has a game design that hurts forward progression which made me lose sight of the characters and their motivations.
This is something that Dragon Age Inquisition has a problem with as well. If you try and finish all the quests in the opening area you'll never see the larger epic and the game will lose all it's momentum.

I feel like when I'm able to play a New Game+ in The Last of Us I will be better connected to the story and characters and won't lose sight of forward progression so easily.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I don't have a clue how the clickers work, apparently they're blind but they can see you anyway? It's all very confusing.

The clickers can't see you, but get too close (like 6 feet) and they will sense you almost instantly. When you get close to one you have a very short window to hit that triangle button right quick and shiv 'm, if you have one available. And even while in crouch/stealth mode you need to move very slowly or they will hear you. The echolocation is bullshit in pactice, by the way.

Here's the thing about the the stealth, it's actually very malleable. There's no real "alert phase", you can lose enemies provided you run and hide, similar to the Arkham games. There's two main enemy groups in the game; humans and infected. Both behave differently when they catch sight of you. Infected will bring down the entire horde in a screaming rage if even just one sees you. But if it's all clickers you can give them the slip quite easily, just run and hide and go back into crouch mode. If there's a runner among them though (the ones that can actually see) they'll act as spotters and it becomes nearly impossible to lose them.

Bandits/human enemies will act more cautiously in the event of spotting you and will usually send out two or three at a time to hunt you down. Bandits can be given the slip just as easily as clickers. The stealth versus human enemies is guerilla stealth. It's almost impossible to stealth-kill your way through most of the bandit encounters without getting noticed, but that doesn't matter since bandits will always check out the last spot where you broke stealth (unless you keep making noise obviously), giving you the oppertunity to slip away or behind them. This can be used to scatter enemy groups and lure them away to take 'm out one at a time.

Also, remember to not play the game as a straight-up shooter. Shooting should generally be your last option of offense. Use bricks and bottles, they're the go-to weapon for nearly every enemy. They auto-lock and stun enemies when thrown, and a stunned enemy can be finished off with one hit of a melee weapon and two hits of your fists. But ofcourse remember that you can only melee attack clickers with a weapon. Seriously, use this tactic, it works wonders. You can even apply it to bandit stealth sections. When you're hiding and you see a bandit close by, throw a bottle/brick to bring him off balance go in for a quick melee finisher and run back to a hidey spot.

And one thing I noticed is that when brawling holding down the sprint button significantly increases your attack speed, but only with bare knuckles. When holding a melee weapon it tends to have the opposite effect though.

As for the story, your engagement hinges on whether or not you like Joel and Ellie. If you don't, the story won't do shit for you.

 

[laggyteabag]

Whenever I hear someone say "[Insert Critically Acclaimed game here] wasn't that great" I generally chalk it down to being overhyped for you. Not that I am saying you are wrong, because I have never played the game and from what I have heard, those criticisms are shared by many others, but when you are told that a game is the best thing ever, it is generally very easy to pick it apart and notice faults a lot more.

That being said, with a story driven game like TLoU, if the story doesn't grab you, then there is very little point of playing it, but from what I have seen, it looks like something that would be right up my alley. Not that I have a console that could play it though.

 

[Evonisia]

Whenever I hear someone say "[Insert Critically Acclaimed game here] wasn't that great" I generally chalk it down to being overhyped for you. Not that I am saying you are wrong, because I have never played the game and from what I have heard, those criticisms are shared by many others, but when you are told that a game is the best thing ever, it is generally very easy to pick it apart and notice faults a lot more.

That being said, with a story driven game like TLoU, if the story doesn't grab you, then there is very little point of playing it, but from what I have seen, it looks like something that would be right up my alley. Not that I have a console that could play it though.

Well I hate to pull a "this", but well... this.

It's exactly what happened to me with BioShock Infinite, Grand Theft Auto V, The Last of Us and Spec Ops: The Line, and I savaged the former two while I gave my appreciation and love (respectively) to the latter two.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Good game design always moves you and keeps you moving forward, but The Last of Us has a game design that hurts forward progression which made me lose sight of the characters and their motivations.
This is something that Dragon Age Inquisition has a problem with as well. If you try and finish all the quests in the opening area you'll never see the larger epic and the game will lose all it's momentum.

I feel like when I'm able to play a New Game+ in The Last of Us I will be better connected to the story and characters and won't lose sight of forward progression so easily.

Half the fun of the game though is scrounging around the environment, looking not just for supplies, but for notes and stories of other survivors and soaking up the history. This is what fleshes out the world so well. Finding the diary of a boy and following the entries from the moment the infection becomes public and him just being glad there's no school tomorrow, to the final one where he has to leave his dog in the wild and his family is forced into a quarantine zone. Heck, one of the best characters in the game is Ish, who is basically just a bunch of notes scattered throughout the sewers.

The area right after the sewers is specifically designed just for walking around empty, abandoned houses and salvaging what's left. It's probably the best part in the game and you don't do much of anything except watch Ellie and Sam discuss an ice cream truck and play darts.

All these down times is what helps you get to know the characters and their motivations.

 

[Evonisia]

The area right after the sewers is specifically designed just for walking around empty, abandoned houses and salvaging what's left. It's probably the best part in the game and you don't do much of anything except watch Ellie and Sam discuss an ice cream truck and play darts.

All these down times is what helps you get to know the characters and their motivations.

Oh that scene perfectly encapsulated my issue with the predictability of the game. I know what it is supposed to represent, but to me it felt like

Spoiler

an obligatory character building scene to remind us to care about the character that will be dead within twenty minute's time. Lo and behold... yeah.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Half the fun of the game though is scrounging around the environment, looking not just for supplies, but for notes and stories of other survivors and soaking up the history. This is what fleshes out the world so well. Finding the diary of a boy and following the entries from the moment the infection becomes public and him just being glad there's no school tomorrow, to the final one where he has to leave his dog in the wild and his family is forced into a quarantine zone. Heck, one of the best characters in the game is Ish, who is basically just a bunch of notes scattered throughout the sewers.

The area right after the sewers is specifically designed just for walking around empty, abandoned houses and salvaging what's left. It's probably the best part in the game and you don't do much of anything except watch Ellie and Sam discuss an ice cream truck and play darts.

All these down times is what helps you get to know the characters and their motivations.

I think you nailed the point of what divides so many people on this game. When I started playing it when it first came out, a lot of people are work asked me about it, because I'm the gamer there. I told them that I loved it and it was the best game I had played in a while. But I also warned them that it's very much like an interactive movie. There are parts where the action is gone, the sense of dread and pressure is gone, and you just wander around. These moments are meant to allow you to soak up the characters, get to know them and the world, and make a connection. For me, these moments succeeded wildly, but there are people out there who don't understand their purpose, or just don't enjoy not having something to shoot for more than a few minutes, and because of that, The Last of Us raises huge red flags.
So yeah, I completely agree with you about the down times. And I would have totally taken my dog. If not, I would have stayed behind. I feel so sorry for that kid and his pet.

 

[Fox12]

Hmm, it depends on your mindset. The narrative isn't anything to write home about, since there isn't one. I loved the gameplay, but I can understand your aversion. The saving grace for me was the characters. They were fantastic, but if you don't like them then you won't like the game. It lives and dies on Joel and Ellie (especially Ellie). I loved it, it made me a fan of Naughty Dog again, and showed me what games could do in terms of emotional investment.

That said, Game of the Generation is pushing it. I'd probably vote for Mass Effect, or even Dark Souls, though The Last of Us was a strong contender. I would put it in my top ten list, most likely, but I can understand your aversion to it. It sounds like the same reasons I LOATHED Bioshock Infinite.

 

[endtherapture]

Whenever I hear someone say "[Insert Critically Acclaimed game here] wasn't that great" I generally chalk it down to being overhyped for you. Not that I am saying you are wrong, because I have never played the game and from what I have heard, those criticisms are shared by many others, but when you are told that a game is the best thing ever, it is generally very easy to pick it apart and notice faults a lot more.

That being said, with a story driven game like TLoU, if the story doesn't grab you, then there is very little point of playing it, but from what I have seen, it looks like something that would be right up my alley. Not that I have a console that could play it though.

This is definitely true, it's either hit or miss. Sometimes when you go into a film or videogame being told it's the greatest thing ever, so you feel a lot of cynicism for it and try to pick holes in it. I don't think I did this with TLOU, because I want to think it's a great game, but I'm definitely not enjoying it.

I think we will always prefer a hidden gem we find that hasn't been hugely hyped, over something the establishment and community tells us we should like, because of hipster cred.

 

[Jaggededge11]

Never really cared too much for The Last of Us. The story was ok (Good enough to warrant playing more), the characters were ok (Nothing really memorable), and the gameplay was really bland and uninteresting. Overall, I felt it was an average game (You know, like an IGN 10/10).

 

[Casual Shinji]

The area right after the sewers is specifically designed just for walking around empty, abandoned houses and salvaging what's left. It's probably the best part in the game and you don't do much of anything except watch Ellie and Sam discuss an ice cream truck and play darts.

All these down times is what helps you get to know the characters and their motivations.

Oh that scene perfectly encapsulated my issue with the predictability of the game. I know what it is supposed to represent, but to me it felt like

Spoiler

an obligatory character building scene to remind us to care about the character that will be dead within twenty minute's time. Lo and behold... yeah.

I did not get that at all. First and foremost it grants a well earned rest after the horrid confines of the sewer as well as bandit infected Pittsburgh in general. I can't say any of it felt obligatory, because you don't even have to go into any of the houses, you can just go straight to the end of the area and start the next section. It's not forcing you to interact with the characters or become emotionally connected to them, it just gives you an environment to investigate, the other characters in the meantime are doing their own little thing, which you can chose to observe or not.

Most of the in-game conversations are handled this way. If you want to hear what a character has to say about something specific, there's a triangle prompt right there, but if you don't you can just ignore it and move on.

Spoiler

I can't tell you to not have an issue with the predictabilty, but Sam's death was never about whether or not you saw it coming, because I'm sure most people did the moment he walked on screen. The whole thing is about Joel, Ellie, Henry, and Sam unknowingly becoming a little family unit and gaining some solace/redemption from this, with the sewer section showing just how quickly and easily this can come crumbling down. Added to that is the little side story of Sam having an obvious crush on Ellie, of which she is totally unaware. Then she gives him the toy robot, making it clear to him that she sees him as just a kid. And then she leaves not knowing he's going to spend the rest of the night alone... zombifying.

 

[Lilani]

Has anyone else had similar problems or am I just a lone voice of dissent again this game?

Eh, I haven't played it and I'm not really interested in playing it. It just doesn't seem like my cup of tea and I have too many games on my plate I'm genuinely interested in playing at the moment. So don't worry about it.

[sub][sub]Between you and me, I haven't played a Zelda game, either! *GASP!* Though I do plan on picking up the 3DS ports sometime in the near future.[/sub][/sub]

 

[Evonisia]

Snip

I did not get that at all. First and foremost it grants a well earned rest after the horrid confines of the sewer as well as bandit infected Pittsburgh in general. I can't say any of it felt obligatory, because you don't even have to go into any of the houses, you can just go straight to the end of the area and start the next section. It's not forcing you to interact with the characters or become emotionally connected to them, it just gives you an environment to investigate, the other characters in the meantime are doing their own little thing, which you can chose to observe or not.

Most of the in-game conversations are handled this way. If you want to hear what a character has to say about something specific, there's a triangle prompt right there, but if you don't you can just ignore it and move on.

Spoiler

I can't tell you to not have an issue with the predictabilty, but Sam's death was never about whether or not you saw it coming, because I'm sure most people did the moment he walked on screen. The whole thing is about Joel, Ellie, Henry, and Sam unknowingly becoming a little family unit and gaining some solace/redemption from this, with the sewer section showing just how quickly and easily this can come crumbling down. Added to that is the little side story of Sam having an obvious crush on Ellie, of which she is totally unaware. Then she gives him the toy robot, making it clear to him that she sees him as just a kid. And then she leaves not knowing he's going to spend the rest of the night alone... zombifying.

Well I can kinda understand the dropping of the obligatory part, though I do get the impression that you are supposed to venture through these houses, especially because most of the game's storytelling comes from the world building rather than the actual character interaction. The ice cream truck thing does have Joel involved (albeit for one, maybe two lines), but I'll leave that aside as I did notice it on my play through regardless as I had finished investigating a nearby house. It still left me a bit cold, especially because of that scene you mentioned which did such a good job at closing off that cycle of new characters (mostly).

Spoiler

I feel like Sam's last scene with Ellie was perhaps a highlight of the game. I saw it not as say the ending of the love triangle immediately before the death, but rather a scene which would later give him some dignity posthumously. The kid exited the story in the best possible way without ruining the whole family thing they had building. A better way of handling his character I'd say than giving us a very brief character moment before Zombie Zombie Growl Bite.

We'll leave aside how silly the post-death cutscene is.

 

[Vivi22]

I can't buy the idea that after 20 years shit is still totally fucked.

I can't believe that shit ever got that bad. I mean, we're talking about zombies that don't need headshots to be killed. I can't believe for one minute that some zombies which have all of a humans weakness (as in the beginning there would be no clickers) that couldn't be contained by the Police, the Army, the Air Force and even the Navy, with all their high tech weapons as well as armed civilians. This shit should of been stamped out in a week at most.

Sure there would be deaths and civilian casualties, but this would never of happened.

Unless, of course the Armed Forces, the Police and armed civilians sorted the problem of the zombies, went "its cool folks, crisis over" and humanity as a whole went "no, fuck it, zombies means civilisation has fallen and we like it" and they defeated the Armed Forces, the Police and armed civilians. Which is equally unlikely.

It's funny because the game actually has the one zombie plague that makes some sense could destroy civilization. Aside from the fact that armed civilians are largely useless in a crisis like that, or that the military and police would have difficulty dealing with the panic that would set in on it's own, never mind identifying the actual cause and dealing with it, you're still dealing with a plague that's essentially a fungus that can survive outside the human body as well, spread through spores just as, if not more, easily than though bites, and would stand a very good chance of infecting a lot of people before they figured out the cause. Hell, if we assume that even after the host body is dead the fungus can continue to grow and release spores (which seems like a fairly reasonable assumption), even if they wiped out the infected in an area early on, you'd likely still end up with the emergency personnel trying to deal with the outbreak getting infected before they know what happened.

I think people overestimate just how effective the military and police would be in dealing with something like this. They wouldn't be trained for it, wouldn't be prepared for it, and would likely lose most of their members to infection trying to contain it. Doesn't take long for a civilization to fall when the people doing the protecting start dropping like flies.

 

[default]

It's the same shit with Spec Ops: The Line.

It got hyped out the ass by everyone and their dog, so when you play it you're expecting this mind-blowing transcendant gaming/story experience, when all they are at the end of the day is just very nicely put together games with quite strong stories and some fantastic little moments.

I finished The Last of Us recently and thoroughly enjoyed it. Great characters, great acting and mo-cap, some really intense and emotional moments (that scene as Ellie in the burning hotel? Amazing) and decent (not fantastic, but perfectly functional) gameplay. Not the 10/10 experience everyone gave it. Number ratings like that are stupid, it leaves no room for improvement. A 10/10 for me is an utterly perfect game for what it is, and The Last of Us is definitely not perfect. It can be a bit shoddy and a little frustrating at times from a gameplay perspective. The controls aren't great and the AI can be awful.

And generally, if you don't fucking like stealth and third-person shooting, you aren't going to enjoy playing The Last of Us or be engaged in the story no matter how many people say it's 'story focused'.

 

[Bat Vader]

I didn't care for The Last of Us either. I beat it just to say I beat it and then returned the rental. I liked the story but I hated the enemies. I was hoping for a post apocalyptic game with just human enemies.

Suffice to say I was disappointed with the clickers. Plus, after Telltale's The Walking Dead it felt more like a re-hash.