Last of Us: Let's Pick Some Nits!

[Mikeyfell]

I'm having a really hard time coming to a conclusion on whether or not I like Last of Us or not.

Through out my first playthrough I was enjoying it. It wasn't perfect at all but I chocked those problems up to me "nit picking" too much. But as I went on, and I'm in my second playthrough now the Nits I've picked could choke even the most gluttonous of monkeys, and I really need to get them off my chest. So without further ado, and in no order that would be apparent to anyone but my self these are all the nits I've picked while playing Last of Us.

(And by the way, while I will try not to directly spoil anything I might vaguely or indirectly spoil some things... so tread softly)

#1 Shitty tacked on Multyplayer mode: I'm not going to count it against the overall quality of the game, but I am sick of this trend. It's like serving a gourmet meal on top of a birthday cake. I know you don't have to eat the cake, but it does imply that SOMEBODY thought it was a good idea and everyone just went along with it.

#2 Ellie is invisible?: Enemies will just walk right past her, even when she's in plain sight. It's really immersion breaking when Joel is going super ninja stealth mode and Ellie is just sort of out in the open. And it's exacerbated by some of the enemies saying "Where are you?" or "I know you're out there" Why don't you just ask the little girl? She's standing right in front of you! Even worse there's a part of the game where you play as Ellie And the enemies can see her just fine for those sections!

#3 Death Gargles!: Just like the enemies can't see Ellie, they can't hear their cohorts getting choked out 2 feet away from them, which is fine by me, but it's still immersion breaking.

#4 Joel never closes doors!: That's like zombie apocalypse rule number one (Well that's cardio) but closing the door behind you should be pretty high up there. I know it's linear story progression and no enemies are going to come through that way because THE PLOT SAID SO but it's just another immersion breaking nit pick.

#5 Weird enemy drops: This is one I noticed a lot. Every time (I think every time) Joel stealth kills an enemy they don't drop anything. No bullets, no nothing. Even though they're clearly holding guns. That leads me to believe their guns are all empty. Who goes out on patrol with an unloaded gun? It's even worse when an enemy is shooting at you and they still don't drop bullets when they die, so you expect me to believe that I killed him immediately after he fired his last shot? If his gun was empty why did he pop his head out of cover? I question these people's mental fortitude.

#6 Stop walking away from me!: Last of Us is the kind of game where if you want to survive you have to explore every nook and cranny for supplies. It's also the kind of game where the supporting characters are really well written and acted and they'll talk to you during gameplay a whole bunch. It's also the kind of "Cinematic game" where sections of the game are in a nomans land between cutscene and gameplay where they reduce you to slow walking pace. The game has this weird sound engine that muffles voices if they're coming from behind a wall or too far away. So because of the slow walking pace you'll want to scavenge supplies while characters are talking to you. So they'll talk and you'll scavenge and suddenly they'll say "Murmur murmur murmur." and then you'll try to catch up to them to hear what they're talking about and the conversation will be over before you get there. because of the slow walking pace.
That's less of an immersion thing than a tedium thing, because following them to here the conversation then backtracking to scavenge triples your play time for those areas.

#7 Can I borrow your switchblade? Please: No seriously Ellie. Can I use it for just a second, I'll give it right back I'm out of shivs and there are a bunch of clickers out here. Pretty please.... Well okay. But if I get eaten it's your fault. Joel should just invest in a good switchblade, I mean shit the things never break, screw your Duct tape and broken glass shiv Just find a god damn knife somewhere! I haven't been this annoyed at a character since the Doom Marine refused to tape his flashlight to the barrel of his gun!

#8 Joel can't drop broken shivs: Staying on the subject of shiving guys you can find a couple books that help you make better shivs that can stab 3 guys before breaking. But if you only need to stab 2 guys you'll be stuck with a one use shiv until you find a third guy to stab. Which wouldn't be a big deal but you can only carry 3 shivs, so you can't replace the broken one. And if you have a full inventory of broken glass and duct tape you'll just have to leave supplies behind even though they're exactly what you need!

#9 Break his neck! BREAK HIS NECK!!: So this will happen a whole lot. You'll grab an unaware guard and start strangling him, then you'll get spotted. And by the time you're done strangling the first guard every guard in a general vicinity will have your face in their sights ready to fire as soon as you're done murdering their buddy... as soon as Joel gets spotted strangling a guard he should just BREAK HIS NECK! And prepare for a shoot out

#10 Ellie stands right in the way: I noticed this less and less as the game when on, that's probably because the areas kept getting more and more open, but if any stupid glitch makes me lose progress I'm going to complain about it. It was a road packed with cars and I was looking for supplies or collectables and I go inside this bus and walk all the way to the back... nothing there. So I turn around to leave and there's Ellie. Just standing there. And I'm pinned, bus on 3 sides of me Ellie on the other and she won't budge no matter what I do.

#11 The "look 45 degrees to the left" button: I primarily game on the Xbox, and for as bad as the Xbox one announcement is at least Microsoft employes know what HUMAN HANDS are! The Dualshock 3 controller puts "fire the gun" on the bumper which wouldn't be so bad if they didn't put the magical "Look 45 degrees to the left" button on the right trigger. So I'd be in the middle of combat thinking I was playing with a control scheme that didn't suck shit and I'd line up a shot then when I think I'm about to get a head shop I'd just end up looking 45 degrees to the left of my target. So many clickers ate my face because of that fucking button.

#12 Sprint mapped to left trigger: That's just dumb for a lot of reasons chiefly being that move is on the left stick, so when a human's thumb presses the left stick forward their index finger drifts down below the trigger. Your right index finger is ready to go on it's trigger, but that puts you into listen mode which slows you to a crawl. You pretty much need to re-learn how to hold a controller if you want to run in Last of Us (Especially if you're coming from a 360 controller.

#13 The Melee dilemma: The Melee weapons have weapon degradation effecting them, so a 2X4 will only last 4 swings and so on. If you're holding a melee weapon there's no way you can drop it without picking up another one, and there's no way to stitch to your fists. So you'll be in a room with one alerted guard, and the logical thing to do would be to punch him in the face until he dies and save your lead pipe with scissors taped to it for a more hairy situation. Lead pipe + Scissors is a pretty bad ass one hit kill weapon, and bullets are rare and valuable. So you either waste bullets on this guy or come to terms with the fact that the game is so petty it is going to force you to waste your awesome melee weapon on this single solitary mook just because he turned around while you were choking out the second to last guard.

@14 Clickers and one hit kills: I know there's a Joel upgrade you can buy that lets him defend himself, but it's pretty far in before you can afford it, and even then it's completely dependent on your supply of shivs. But I digress, I like the stealth parts of Last of Us, Stealthing around human enemies is pretty fun, but the stealth can turn really shitty really fast if you don't have enough shivs to take out all the clickers then it just becomes a snail crawl across the floor trying to choke out all the regular zombies before pulling out your biggest gun and trying your luck against the clickers

#15 The highest difficulty setting is just a worse version of the core game: What I mean by that is... One of the primary mechanics on the other 3 difficulties (and the only thing gameplay wise that differentiates Last of Us from any other game ever) is the Listen mode. Listen mode lets you hear nearby enemies through walls or smoke or just far away depending oh how loud they're being. And on the highest difficulty the only unique mechanic this game brings to the table is nowhere to be found, basically making Last of Us a more tedious version of Uncharted with a much better told story. It really disappointing that the only Naughty Dog could think to make the game more challenging was to take away a core mechanic.


Those are my nits. And considering that the things I like about it are
It's Beautiful: The best looking game I've ever played, hands down.
Well written: Especially Ellie's character. I wouldn't be shocked if she became the new example of "best female character"
superbly acted
The stealth is above average
the shooting is inoffensive
and the level design is pretty damn good.


With so many immersion breaking annoyances to break the otherwise excellent atmosphere
and so many little control and gameplay annoyances to break the above average gameplay, does that justify not liking a game that does a couple things better than I've ever seen them done anywhere else, and is mostly solid in every other aspect?

 

[Casual Shinji]

That certainly is nitpicking.

You're right on every count (except the last one), but here's the thing: You are playing a videogame - Certain things need to be there to put the player in his/her place so they can't break the game, while others are in place to throw you a bone. Every survival horror game suffers from having to find a key or nonsensical gizmo to open a door, eventhough you've got a perfectly good shotgun or even grenade launcher to blow it open. And every game with a health system either has regenerating health or health packs which instantly heal you. Immersion broken?

As for your final point... The Listen mode is a big fat cheat button. Being the one thing actually making the game tedious, because it subconsciously has you turn every encounter into a waiting game. Without it, the combat feels way more natural, because it means Joel can fuck up. And it's those moments when the enemy encounters are at their strongest.

And you honestly didn't notice all those times Joel closed and barricaded a door throughout the game, cause he does it a lot.

 

[Jegsimmons]

Its made by the same people who made the shitty and boring uncharted series and is PS3 only.

 

[Mikeyfell]

That certainly is nitpicking.

You're right on every count (except the last one), but here's the thing: You are playing a videogame - Certain things need to be there to put the player in his/her place so they can't break the game, while others are in place to throw you a bone. Every survival horror game suffers from having to find a key or nonsensical gizmo to open a door, eventhough you've got a perfectly good shotgun or even grenade launcher to blow it open. And every game with a health system either has regenerating health or health packs which instantly heal you. Immersion broken?

As for your final point... The Listen mode is a big fat cheat button. Being the one thing actually making the game tedious, because it subconsciously has you turn every encounter into a waiting game. Without it, the combat feels way more natural, because it means Joel can fuck up. And it's those moments when the enemy encounters are at their strongest.

And you honestly didn't notice all those times Joel closed and barricaded a door throughout the game, cause he does it a lot.

Most of the times I noticed Joel not closing doors behind him was after long stealth sections. There was one really early on, when you're looking for Robert. I didn't kill any of his guards and that's the first time I noticed Joel leave a door open I was thinking "Any one of those guards would notice that the door was closed a second ago, they'd probably investigate that"

What makes the immersion breaks more damaging in Last of Us than in other games is that it's not supposed to feel Arcadey. When ever Joel leaves a door open my first thought is "Well that was dumb" and my second thought is "Oh, I guess I'm done with that encounter" And now I'm thinking about this game as a sequence of encounters instead of a flowing narrative.

Joel did close a few doors, but it was usually Ellie or another supporting character who would close the most doors.


And I'm not going to back down on the last point. Without listen mode encounters become Trial-and-error-o-thons. You can't deny that listening was the only original mechanic in the game, and the game was designed for it. The part I'm stuck on right now is the apartment level after you get the car fixed up, that's complete bullshit making every corner completely blind. I'll sneak out to choke out a guard and then get shot to death and have to start over the whole 20 minute encounter just because I didn't notice that there were two guys walking down the hall.

In the dark it's nearly impossible to tell a clicker from a regular zombie (Assuming that there are two zombies near each other) without seeing their silhouettes, And you can't shine your light at them because regular zombies can see your light. And they take it away from you on the highest difficulty. (The person who suggested it was probably the same person who thought adding Multyplayer was a good idea)

 

[Mikeyfell]

Its made by the same people who made the shitty and boring uncharted series and is PS3 only.

That is true, but it's also made by the same people who made the excellent and amazing Jak and Daxter series on PS2 and the super fun Crash Bandicoot series on PS1.

So between making two of the best game series in history and Uncharted which... wasn't very good, I still need to believe they still have the soul that made Jak 2 the best game ever made!

Now they made Last of Us which is really good, except for all those little problems that just pile up until my "benefit of the doubt meeter" rises right up to the "fuck this" point, then I'll get another great cutscene that'll bring me back down again.

 

[Casual Shinji]

And I'm not going to back down on the last point. Without listen mode encounters become Trial-and-error-o-thons. You can't deny that listening was the only original mechanic in the game, and the game was designed for it. The part I'm stuck on right now is the apartment level after you get the car fixed up, that's complete bullshit making every corner completely blind. I'll sneak out to choke out a guard and then get shot to death and have to start over the whole 20 minute encounter just because I didn't notice that there were two guys walking down the hall.

In the dark it's nearly impossible to tell a clicker from a regular zombie (Assuming that there are two zombies near each other) without seeing their silhouettes, And you can't shine your light at them because regular zombies can see your light. And they take it away from you on the highest difficulty. (The person who suggested it was probably the same person who thought adding Multyplayer was a good idea)

It really isn't anything new though. It's basically a radar system on screen - The Batman; Arkham games had that.

During my first playthrough I turned it off halfway through, because it makes the game piss easy. Even if you get discovered, all it takes is a good dash to break the enemy's line of sight and gather yourself for a counter attack. And during those moments, enemies generally give their position away by shouting taunts at you or conversing amongst themselves. And the not knowing exactly where the enemy is, again, is what makes the encounters so thrilling. The Listen mode just decapitates that, since you can see where everyone is and just connect the dots.

And if the appartment complex already got you stuck, you're gonna be snapping many a controller by the time you reach the end. I got stuck literally on the very final enemy encounter with half a section of health left, one el Diablo bullet, 18 rounds in my assault rifle (which ain't shit), and a smoke bomb. So close yet so far away.

I can't say I ever had trouble discerning the clickers from the runners, their big blooming orange heads being an immediate give-away even in the dark... And ofcourse the clicking, too.

 

[Zenn3k]

I think the multiplayer is awesome. I dunno why you think its just tacked on, its very fun, probably the best multiplayer I've played in ages.

 

[Shanshu_Prophecy]

A note on point 13 Melee Dilemma. There are other ways to melee. Mainly you can stun an opponent by throwing a brick or glass bottle at them, then rush them and press the melee button. Joel will one hit kill them, using only one tick of the weapons durability. Throw by readying the bottle/brick (press down once to select) and right bumper when the target highlights with auto-lockon (don't hold down left bumper aim).

A better way is to always carry a brick. Select the brick as above. Then charge the guard and press melee. Joel will smash their head in with three hits. Lots of bricks around usually. The bottle will break after one hit, so it is just like a stun.

I have had the situation where Joel will use his fists even when he has a melee weapon, but I've never tried to figure out how to consistently glitch it. You will also usually have a brief moment if you are patient where the guard is approaching your hiding spot and before he turns and sees you you can grab him and choke him out, even if he is alerted.

For point 14, use clickers hearing ability against them. Toss a bottle or brick in the middle of a bunch of clickers, they all swarm to the sound and then chuck in a Molotov. You've wiped out 3-5 clickers with one weapon. Sometimes you just need to throw the Molotov since the glass breaking will draw them. But they don't always catch fire after the Molotov has already burst, they need to stand in the fire for 2-3 seconds to catch. Clickers can also be taken with the stun and rush melee kill. Arrows can kill with a headshot, though that is hard unless they are still. Misses will draw them away though.

For point 2, if the game allowed companions to be seen and heard, it would become the worst escort quest game ever. It is immersion breaking but there was really no other way to have traveling companions and a decent stealth game at the same time. I think the trade off was worth it, as the conversations and companionship really bring so much heart to the game. But man I cringe every time I hear Bill's boots THUMP THUMP THUMP.

Can't say the controls gave me problems, especially not after playing through it once completely. YMMV I suppose. On my second playthrough now and I'm so efficient at the stealth that I hardly use any other weapons/items unless forced to or just want to change it up.

And last comment on break his neck. After you grab a human you can move them a little ways, so you can drag them behind cover before choking/shivving. Helps avoid being spotted. But I just assume Joel is so focused on taking out the person that he doesn't notice his surroundings until he finishes. So it doesn't break immersion at all for me, just means I didn't survey the situation well before I acted.

I agree with all the other points though. Some things Naughty dog just didn't consider (eg. dropping shivs) others were just compromises for gameplay/story (No knives to be found during the playthrough, and you already won't give Ellie a gun, you are going to take her knife too? Joel can be heartless at times, but man...).

 

[Mossberg Shotty]

I really do hate when people complain about enemies not noticing Ellie when she's out in the open and Joel is sneaking around. That's the pettiest complaint of an amazing game I've ever heard, and if someone can't grasp why it's there, then their opinions probably aren't worth listening to anyway. "Oh, but they notice Ellie when I'm playing as her!" You seriously have to wonder why? The answer is right there in the question, because you're playing as her.

If Naughty Dog had gone the opposite route here and made enemies notice her, the entire game would pretty much be broken. I promise that way more people would complain about that.

 

[Robot Number V]

#1 Shitty tacked on Multyplayer mode: I'm not going to count it against the overall quality of the game, but I am sick of this trend. It's like serving a gourmet meal on top of a birthday cake. I know you don't have to eat the cake, but it does imply that SOMEBODY thought it was a good idea and everyone just went along with it.

Haven't tried multiplayer, so I don't know how good or bad it is, but as long as the single player is great (which it is) then...Why is it a problem to have more content? I mean, I get this complaint on PRINCIPLE, but in this particular case, it seems like they pulled it off.

#2 Ellie is invisible?

I've seen this one a lot, and I have to say, I don't get it. This is only my personal experience, but I only saw this happen, like twice. In the entire game. 99% she stayed out of sight. At least, for me.

#3 Death Gargles!: Just like the enemies can't see Ellie, they can't hear their cohorts getting choked out 2 feet away from them, which is fine by me, but it's still immersion breaking.

Again, this didn't really happen to me. Usually if I was choking someone close enough for another enemy to hear, they were either infected (which aren't the smartest bunch anyway) or they were human, in which case they WOULD notice.

#4 Joel never closes doors!: That's like zombie apocalypse rule number one (Well that's cardio) but closing the door behind you should be pretty high up there. I know it's linear story progression and no enemies are going to come through that way because THE PLOT SAID SO but it's just another immersion breaking nit pick.

.......

....Seriously?

#5 Weird enemy drops

This one I can actually get behind. It was really annoying to kill an enemy who was JUST SHOOTING AT ME, only to find that he didn't drop anything. Especially since ammo is so scarce. A couple of times, I would actually think to myself, "OK, I'll have to use some ammo, but he clearly has a gun, so this is a good time to use it" And then...nope.

#6 Stop walking away from me!:

Actually, I kind of thought this added to the immersion. Joel doesn't strike me as someone who would give much of a shit what others are talking about while he scavenges, so I thought hearing muffled conversations in the background while Joel just happily looted around the house actually added to his characterization. Sure I'll miss some conversations, but I always planned on playing the game more then once, so I don't really mind.

#7 Can I borrow your switchblade?

Yeah...this is pretty bad. This means that Ellie is just WATCHING Joel scavenge for duct tape and broken glass while she's already got a damn knife in her pocket. You could make the argument that Joel knows about the knife and wants her to have it to compensate for, you know, the fact that she's a 14-year old girl. But they never actually HAVE that conversation in the game so....It remains an annoying detail.

#8 Joel can't drop broken shivs

I don't get this at all. If your inventory is full, and you have 2 full shivs and one broken one....Just wait until the broken one runs out, then IMMEDIATELY make a new one. Why bother replacing it sooner then you have to? It seems like you're using the principle of "Reload your gun now, so you don't have to do it in battle" but Joel doesn't have to DO anything to switch shivs. Once one breaks, he can immediately use another one, so there's no situation where dropping a shiv would useful. Unless you need to stab NINE enemies in quick succession.

#9 Break his neck! BREAK HIS NECK!!:

Yeah, I have to admit, after playing the Uncharted games, I was wondering why Joel takes his bloody sweet time in dispatching psychopaths. I suppose from a gameplay perspective, you're getting an one-hit-kill that doesn't expend any resources, so an action that comes with such a great bonus has to be balanced out with considerable risk. But from a story perspective, there's really no reason Joel can't move a little quicker. Probably. I won't pretend I'm an expert in the area of neck-snapping.

#10 Ellie stands right in the way:

Again, this just didn't happen to me. If she was ever in my way, she'd move in just a few seconds.

#11 The "look 45 degrees to the left" button

Nope, sorry. I don't get it. I play games primarily on my Xbox as well, and I have absolutely NO inclination to use the PS3's fat shoulder buttons as triggers. I couldn't play one of my favorite games of all time (Bioshock) on a PS3 simply because of the fat triggers. On a PS3 controller (which is much shittier then an Xbox controller, I agree with you there) I think it's FAR more comfortable to use the skinny shoulder buttons for triggers. I DID, however, accidentally press this button because I kept trying to "focus Joel's hearing" while aiming. So I guess I DO sort of agree with this, but for different reasons.

#12 Sprint mapped to left trigger

Man, we just don't use controllers the same way. I never like having functions for pressing the analog sticks down, because I invariably use it accidentally while in the middle of a crisis. (As in, when I'm trying to aim very quickly) and I can honestly say that I never came close to going into listen mode when I meant to sprint. Like I said, I prefer gaming on my Xbox, but I never had any problems with The Last of Us' control scheme. Well, not big problems.

#13 The Melee dilemma:

....Holy shit, I never even thought of that. It is a good point though. There should be an option to switch to your fists.

@14 Clickers and one hit kills:

While the clickers definitely killed me more then anything else, I didn't really mind. You can just sneak past most of the areas without killing anyone, so it was never really a problem. I just always thought of the Clickers as an interesting challenge. Except for those few rooms where you're actually forced to stand and fight. This goes against everything the game teaches you, and they're my least favorite parts of the game.

#15 The highest difficulty setting is just a worse version of the core game

Eh, I haven't tried it myself but...Yeah, taking away a core mechanic is a pretty cheap move. I'm honestly not sure if it's better or worse then the standard "More enemies with more hit points, less player health and bonuses" standby for higher difficulties.



Now, as for my own nitpicks....Why the hell can't Joel find a real knife? Seriously, he can find enough shit to make 50 smoke bombs, but fucking switchblades are damn near a thing of the past?

I kinda hate Bloaters. This is supposed to be a relatively grounded, stealth-action game. What game did these guys wander in from?

Spoiler: Spoilers for the Spring chapter

It felt rushed as fuck. Particularly the bit at the dam. I thought it would've been much better if Joel and Ellie had actually stayed in the town for few days, and actually taken some time to make the (pretty massive) choices they make over the course of the chapter.

Also, Tess alerted some enemies a few times early in the game. That was annoying.

OH! I almost forgot. My fucking small weapons holster kept vanishing. If I went to a work table, it would say that I built one, but then I would only be able to carry one small weapon at a time. It randomly came back after a few deaths, but it was still really annoying. I also had this problem when I first found the shorty. It just disappeared from my inventory right after I LEFT the area where you find it. Which is a shame, because you find pretty much JUST shorty ammo in this area.

 

[IronMit]

I love this game but I agree with all your points. (except the controls...running and aiming was always solid for me)

I would also like to add when so many aspects of the game strive for this harsh gritty realism, the ludonarrative dissonance of taking out an army of 12 guys by yourself ends up being more jarring then Uncharted. Also, some combat was forced and obvious pandering; in the 'Fall chapter' and the random sniper with spawning enemies).


An ideal fix for me (obviously it's not a straight fix as setpieces, enemy layout would need to be redone to make it work)-
Half the enemies, reduce the amount they can shoot and the number of them that are armed. but make them smarter and more aggressive. lower Joel's health. Done. This also solves the problem of why they have a lack of ammo. Maybe the reduced number of them would make programming easier so Ellie isn't in their line of sight.

I guess when it comes to balancing difficulty, fun& pacing in a brand new IP, which isn't just a typical FPS or 3rdPS clone, then they are not going to get in completely right;
In TLOU there was new AI, unique combat, new stealth with companions, crafting & maintaining the illusion of limited supplies, a solid flushed out character driven story to balance out.

Compare this to Bioshock infinite's gameplay that is basically a 2 gun FPS skin..but with left hand vigor/plasmids that have already been trialled from the previous outings.- It's a lot easier to get right.

What I found absolutely unforgivable though was strangling people within inches from each other...especially infected with enhanced hearing. Just spread them out/reduce them. Don't make strangling completely silent and vibration free and then place enemies right next to each other. sigh

TLOU somehow raised the bar beyond anything that I had imagined and then fell short of it. I find that if you can pick out specific problems with a game it's because they got so much right. I feel this way about Deus ex:HR too. Whereas with an actual rubbish game my mind can't even begin to imagine how it could be better.


In reply to that last little bit of your post.
No game has that same high level combination of stealth, AI, world building, story, convincing motion cap, graphics, enemy variety, level design, unique combat, clever inventory balancing etc.

I can't wait for ND's next game nextgen.

 

[Mikeyfell]

I think the multiplayer is awesome. I dunno why you think its just tacked on, its very fun, probably the best multiplayer I've played in ages.

You picked Fireflies didn't you?

The MP is wickedly unbalanced to the point where playing Hunters isn't even fair.
Or maybe I just happened to play against people who had all the perks unlocked, either way it's not balanced.

It's not so much the quality of the MP it's the existence of it.
If you're going to do MP just do MP if you're going to do SP just do SP

Do one thing well instead of tacking extra shit on

 

[Mikeyfell]

It really isn't anything new though. It's basically a radar system on screen - The Batman; Arkham games had that.

During my first playthrough I turned it off halfway through, because it makes the game piss easy. Even if you get discovered, all it takes is a good dash to break the enemy's line of sight and gather yourself for a counter attack. And during those moments, enemies generally give their position away by shouting taunts at you or conversing amongst themselves. And the not knowing exactly where the enemy is, again, is what makes the encounters so thrilling. The Listen mode just decapitates that, since you can see where everyone is and just connect the dots.

And if the appartment complex already got you stuck, you're gonna be snapping many a controller by the time you reach the end. I got stuck literally on the very final enemy encounter with half a section of health left, one el Diablo bullet, 18 rounds in my assault rifle (which ain't shit), and a smoke bomb. So close yet so far away.

I can't say I ever had trouble discerning the clickers from the runners, their big blooming orange heads being an immediate give-away even in the dark... And ofcourse the clicking, too.

I agree that the Arkham games are Last of Us's closest relative, which isn't a bad thing I loved the Arkham games.

The Arkham games didn't take away Detective Vision on the hardest difficulty.

I felt the Stealth was extremely necessary especially when the enemies start shooting at you with guns, or when they start strategizing to flush you out of cover then pick you off with rifles. Getting spotted is sort of a death sentence in most situations with hoards of zombies or heavily armed enemies.
Taking away Listen mode changes LoU from a stealth game to a limited ammo twitch reflex shooter. I fucked up on normal difficulty and had 3 Clickers after me and I couldn't do shit about it. There are a few sectons late game that I don't even know how I'm going to get passed without being able to rely on stealth.

Not being able to tell Clickers from Runners might be a me problem, I just feel like every time I grab the Clicker and get spotted by the Runner when I was trying to do it the other way around because Clickers can't see (Thank god for that)

 

[Mikeyfell]

#4 Joel never closes doors!: That's like zombie apocalypse rule number one (Well that's cardio) but closing the door behind you should be pretty high up there. I know it's linear story progression and no enemies are going to come through that way because THE PLOT SAID SO but it's just another immersion breaking nit pick.

.......

....Seriously?

You're telling me you never noticed Joel leave doors open?
Somebody else in the thread said the same thing, but I notice it all the damn time. The only times I've seen him close doors are in cutscenes.

#6 Stop walking away from me!:

Actually, I kind of thought this added to the immersion. Joel doesn't strike me as someone who would give much of a shit what others are talking about while he scavenges, so I thought hearing muffled conversations in the background while Joel just happily looted around the house actually added to his characterization. Sure I'll miss some conversations, but I always planned on playing the game more then once, so I don't really mind.

It makes sense in that context but the voice acting is so good I don't like missing it.

#8 Joel can't drop broken shivs

I don't get this at all. If your inventory is full, and you have 2 full shivs and one broken one....Just wait until the broken one runs out, then IMMEDIATELY make a new one. Why bother replacing it sooner then you have to? It seems like you're using the principle of "Reload your gun now, so you don't have to do it in battle" but Joel doesn't have to DO anything to switch shivs. Once one breaks, he can immediately use another one, so there's no situation where dropping a shiv would useful. Unless you need to stab NINE enemies in quick succession.

Usually when you leave an area with a cashe of supplies you can't return to it after the next encounter begins.
I'll admit it's a very minor nit, but it made the pack rat inside me die a little every time I had to let some tape go.

control snip

I had a lot of problems with the controls. My muscle memory is finely tuned to the Xbox controller. Hense why my finger wants to slip off the left trigger all the time. I'm not used to the left stick being down so far.
And I like the idea of sprint being on click the stick, I think it's intuitive to put "walk" "run" and "sprint" on the same thumb.

I kinda hate Bloaters. This is supposed to be a relatively grounded, stealth-action game. What game did these guys wander in from?

If you throw a Molotov at them then a head shot or two while they're on fire, they drop like flies.

OH! I almost forgot. My fucking small weapons holster kept vanishing. If I went to a work table, it would say that I built one, but then I would only be able to carry one small weapon at a time. It randomly came back after a few deaths, but it was still really annoying. I also had this problem when I first found the shorty. It just disappeared from my inventory right after I LEFT the area where you find it. Which is a shame, because you find pretty much JUST shorty ammo in this area.

I never had that happen to me, but I would lose collectables between checkpoints. (I know I found 'em all but the trophy didn't pop!)
There are some bugs. It's long over due for a patch.

 

[zalithar]

And I'm not going to back down on the last point. Without listen mode encounters become Trial-and-error-o-thons. You can't deny that listening was the only original mechanic in the game, and the game was designed for it. The part I'm stuck on right now is the apartment level after you get the car fixed up, that's complete bullshit making every corner completely blind. I'll sneak out to choke out a guard and then get shot to death and have to start over the whole 20 minute encounter just because I didn't notice that there were two guys walking down the hall.

In the dark it's nearly impossible to tell a clicker from a regular zombie (Assuming that there are two zombies near each other) without seeing their silhouettes, And you can't shine your light at them because regular zombies can see your light. And they take it away from you on the highest difficulty. (The person who suggested it was probably the same person who thought adding Multyplayer was a good idea)

Seriously without listen mode the game feels really good still. All you really have to do is check your corners and sneak past more encounters. On my survivor runs I only killed about one quarter what I did on hard.
You really think this mechanic is original? It's a re-skin of the old see through walls mechanic that slows you down instead of draining energy. It's not original and dropping the mechanic all together makes the experience more immersive.
Also clickers seem to glow slightly, so just look at their head and you'll find 'em.

Now to go over your original points:
#1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10; all true but they were put into the game for a reason. The multiplayer is actually decent but has serious dick moves. I lost all my unlocks last night and had to restart from zero; because no one on my team got downed in three matches. DICK MOVE!

#11,12; that's really just you being bad with a dualshock 3. I've been using dualshock since the PS1 and the controllers are kick ass. I always felt that the Xbox controllers where over-sized and way to heavy because of the battery pack; but they still kick the shit out of the PS2 madcatz controllers I got, those things were fucking tiny.

#13 especially when you don't have a brick or bottle to use for melee instead. I really hated that.

#14 you can sneak past them. Though I noticed something strange on my survivor first play through; IT IS POSSIBLE TO PUNCH THEM TO DEATH! I was shocked when I found this. Bill got grabbed by a clicker and I didn't want to waste my ammo or have a melee weapon so I just punched it repeatedly, AND IT DIED! Then later I saw an AI partner (chapter 9) punch a clicker and then push it and when I went to stab it, it fell over dead.

#15 already addressed above.

 

[Zenn3k]

I think the multiplayer is awesome. I dunno why you think its just tacked on, its very fun, probably the best multiplayer I've played in ages.

You picked Fireflies didn't you?

The MP is wickedly unbalanced to the point where playing Hunters isn't even fair.
Or maybe I just happened to play against people who had all the perks unlocked, either way it's not balanced.

It's not so much the quality of the MP it's the existence of it.
If you're going to do MP just do MP if you're going to do SP just do SP

Do one thing well instead of tacking extra shit on

I've played both sides through 12 weeks.

There is no difference in the teams, they are 99% the same. The ONLY differences are whats said by the voice work and the color of the nail bombs on the ground (blue or yellow). In fact, you can be fireflies and your friend can be hunters and you can play on the same team...its literally 100% cosmetic (sorta like TF2)

As I said, it doesn't feel tacked on to me at all, its very fun and tactical. You can outsmart an enemy if you're know what you're doing.

You might wanna, know what you're talking about before you nitpick something? Just a thought

If you're referring to the weapons being unbalanced, the only thing I find a bit too strong is the bow. However the bow is very hard to use in 1v1 situations. I prefer the semi-auto, silenced of course, thats pretty much a requirement.

 

[Mr Mystery Guest]

The best days in my life in order:

My daughter being born
Playing The Last of Us
Wedding day

There is nothing wrong with this game.

 

[Reevesith]

The only nit pick I have for it is not telling us when we've encounter a stalker zombie for the first time. Honestly my brother & I thought they took it out or something, all zombies that are not clickers/bloaters acted the same.

 

[Zenn3k]

Now to go over your original points:
#1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10; all true but they were put into the game for a reason. The multiplayer is actually decent but has serious dick moves. I lost all my unlocks last night and had to restart from zero; because no one on my team got downed in three matches. DICK MOVE!

Just a little FYI, and you might consider this cheating.

But if you sign out of PSN (or as I do, just yank out my ethernet cable) mid-game, the game won't count at all. Doesn't matter where you are in the match, could be loading screen, could be you're the last man standing...you sign out, its as if it never happened. Day doesn't advance, K/D doesn't count, missions don't progress. Only thing that DOES still happen is your 1-use items still get used up if you select one.

I do this more often then I'm willing to admit, but it certainly comes in handy when you get screwed out of downs or executions during a Hunter/Firefly attack.

 

[Zenn3k]

The only nit pick I have for it is not telling us when we've encounter a stalker zombie for the first time. Honestly my brother & I thought they took it out or something, all zombies that are not clickers/bloaters acted the same.

I thought the same thing for awhile.

Difference between Stalkers and Runners:

Runners come right at you, always.

Stalkers will run towards you, turn around and hide around a corner.


Also, Stalkers have incredible hearing and are almost impossible to sneak past.

Visually, stalkers resemble clickers in that they have a lot of face fungus.