The Last of Us is no Masterpiece

[Chaos Isaac]

Every game has flaws and weak points.

...doesn't make the great ones any less awesome. Pick at things as you please, but i'm gonna go have a lot of fun on a great game that was made with a lot of care.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I'll preface this by saying that I haven't played the game, and have little interest in getting it for now (still a little tired of the dark and dreary zombie craze we've been having).

From what I understand, the game, like every other game, has its flaws. It's just that the vast majority of people were blown away by the other aspects of the game to the point where they could easily ignore the flaws. While I myself am not interested in the game right now, usually when something has this level of universal acclaim, it's for a good reason. Maybe it's not a masterpiece for you or I, but for many others, it is.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

ya know, dmc4 had a lock on system.....

So does Bayonetta but I hardly used it and beat the game on the hardest difficulty.

They never said the lock-on wasn't important, they were asking what makes a lock-on centric combat system inherently shit. Of course lock-on is important to Dark Souls, it's the central aspect of its combat system; it would literally be an entirely different game without it.

It's all kind of pointless, though. Lock-on runs counter to your idea of good design. Many people disagree and enjoy that form of combat. The lesson to be learned here is that nobody's ideas of good design are truly universal.

So let's get the topic back onto TLOU!

Personally, I thought the plot was filled with zombie and apocalypse story clichés, but the minute to minute writing and directing made it much less of an issue. I didn't have a problem with knowing people were gonna die, because it gave those deaths weight and importance.

I'm a bit of a weird one, though, in that I liked the game better for its gameplay. It's not incredibly deep or anything, but every shot, every punch, every whack 'round the head with a pipe felt so heavy and powerful. There's such a visceral weight to every animation and sound effect. The stealth was quite simple, but it felt tense and the enemies were dangerous, so it was a lot of fun.

The best bits were the horror based bits though. The flooded hotel basement stands out as my absolute favourite part of the game. The panic run after activating the generator is just tense as fuck.

The game was far from perfect and some bits were very frustrating and seemingly poorly thought out, but for the most part it was one of the year's very best games.

Dark Souls would play the same without lock-on as long as you could strafe and backpedal with a shield raised. The only reason I used lock-on was for defensive purposes. You don't need lock-on for attacking.

TLOU wasn't too cliche for me. The same things happens in many zombie stories because certain shit just will kinda happen like people setting up ambushes to rob/kill others. The biggest threat will be other people, not the zombies. The only thing that felt horribly cliche was when Sam got bit, I knew it the second Henry asked "is everyone OK?" The characters drove the narrative anyways as it was more of a character study on Joel and Ellie than about the story. That generator part was awesome, I'm so glad I found that keycard before activating the generator.

2) I recall that the camera sensitivity wasnt amazingly high in Dark Souls. It's entirely possible that they would have moved by the time you got the camera on where you thought they were.

And the 'shit' shield controls are still a hell of a lot better than your idea of shield and camera controls.

3) I never said that locking on wasnt important in Dark Souls, I asked for your reasoning for why it's shit. So far you've only stated that it is shit without really giving any reason why. You say it' archaic, but WHY is it archaic?

2) Coming up to a corner with an enemy behind it (half sticking out), me pressing lock-on then moving back only to get hit in the back because my character didn't lock-on and turned around instead is shit controls.

3) Don't you notice how every other game like Dark Souls doesn't require lock-on? Many of those games have more complex combat systems as well. It's archaic because automatic lock-on came into it's own during the PS2 era. All you have to do is point the left stick towards the enemy you want to attack, it's that simple. It's also archaic because I can do the same stuff in other games more efficiently than I can in Dark Souls. Lowering your shield to turn really shouldn't waste you any time because if the enemy your facing is not doing an attack, your shield shouldn't be up anyway (so you regain stamina faster). It's just completely unnatural for my character to turn around with a shield raised because no other game does that, it's just engrained into everyone that if you're holding block (shield or no shield), your character is going to backpedal, not turn around. All the no lock-on Dark Souls' videos feature no shield gameplay because the shield is so bad without lock-on. Lock-on has its place in some regard to doing certain things, but shouldn't be used for the majority of combat.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I'll preface this by saying that I haven't played the game, and have little interest in getting it for now (still a little tired of the dark and dreary zombie craze we've been having).

From what I understand, the game, like every other game, has its flaws. It's just that the vast majority of people were blown away by the other aspects of the game to the point where they could easily ignore the flaws. While I myself am not interested in the game right now, usually when something has this level of universal acclaim, it's for a good reason. Maybe it's not a masterpiece for you or I, but for many others, it is.

TLOU does some major TPS things just wrong like the sluggish camera (same with Uncharted) that you can't change the sensitivity on. You AIM with the free look camera in a TPS, it's a big flaw that I can't change my aiming camera's sensitivity. It's like a FPS with no camera sensitivity option, you just don't do that. Hell, if I can't have a high enough sensitivity in a FPS, my thumb hurts after a few hours of play.

Taking player agency away from you in one of the game's more interesting sections just ruined that whole section for me. Every single time you jump over a certain wall, the enemies just spawn/come out no matter what.

 

[Casual Shinji]

- It's poor design to tip-off to player where to constantly go especially in a linear game, there's only like one way to go anyways. I get the same feeling when someone talks down to you like you're a kid. I can figure out where I need to go on my own. It worked in Batman: Arkham Asylum with the Joker teeth because it's the fucking Joker and he probably would do that.

Actually in a "linear" game this is generally the best way to guide the player. Arkham Asylum was more of a Metroidvania type game where the simple fact that things are locked off at the moment guides you in the right direction.

You mentioned the game constantly uses yellow to indicate a passage, but that's only in regards to climbable passages or boost-ups. Everything else whether it be doors or gates you arrive at through the natural progression of the environment.

Naughty Dog lied about the AI like Gearbox but Naughty Dog is safe from criticism. But Ubisoft gets blasted because they lie about graphics? It makes no fucking sense. Better AI makes for a much better game, better graphics makes for a marginally better game.

I think that's because Naughty Dog attempted something no other developer has succeeded at before. When you think about all the A.I. that would need to interact with each other properly to make it flawless -- Ellie with Joel, Ellie with the enemies in relation to Joel, Ellie with Tess and Joel in relation to the enemies, Tess with Ellie and Joel, Ellie with Bill and Joel, Bill with Ellie and Joel, Ellie with Henry, Sam and Joel, Ellie with Tommy and Joel etc, and all that while also managing the stealth -- it'd be sheer lunacy to be able pull that off.

And dodgy A.I. is something nearly all games suffer from.

 

[80sboy]

I didn't like The Last of Us because I am bias against that game. While playing it, I could help but to think " it's still another fucking zombie game, and not really adding anything to the genre that wasn't done in movies before this" so I felt completely bored playing it. All the game is is 28 Days later with Jennifer Lawrence from The Hunger Games. Gameplay wise it wasn't doing much either.

But that's just me.

=/

Oh and... Dark Souls is the greatest game EVAR!

And no sarcasm there.

 

[Goliath100]

The Last of Us is the best version of Gears of Wars anyone gonna bother to make. And that's it. It's the best version of the stupid, Triple-A, unambitious, safe cover-shooter.

 

[ninja51]

I would agree with you on a couple of points, though after playing it through for the first time on the ps4, I do have my own gripes and issues.

Those chest high walls were absolutely ridiculous, I could call every combat scenario before it happened, and that bit at the power plant was the perfect example of stupid combat design. The attack happens, and even though there are walls all around the compound being watched, every enemy is INSIDE THE BASE, like deep deep inside, past the maintenance crew already there. That entire section of the game was pretty bad in my mind on the subject, it blitzes by the story and character interaction to throw action scenario after action scenario at you. There's a two minute talk with Tommy, combat, your companion slips away while you're having a 30 second talk with Tommy and then they'res more combat, then there's a 2 minute talk with Ellie and more combat!

The entire game felt let down by its gameplay and held up on its story. The characters and human models have never been better in a game, but the hugely unbelievably action heavy gameplay and poor pacing in between took a ton of masterpiece points away.

Also, after awhile the plot started becoming really really predictable by just calling the worst that could happen in any scenario. I called the kid and his brothers death, I called the deer man's betrayal, I called the power plant fight, it was annoying after a point as it ALWAYS seemed to take that direction, the edgy sad plot twist you have no control over.

Though the stupidest thing in the entire game was the god damn fucking ps4 controller interactions. THAT CONTROLLER IS 60 DOLLARS FOR A SHITTY SPEAKER AND GLOWING LIGHT GOD DAMN IT!!! Good thing my brother owns both consoles, that forced "innovative" controller interaction assured I shan't be buying a ps4. Xbox One's horrible business practices assure I shan't be buying it either. I'm just gunna borrow one for The Witcher 3 and i'll be perfectly happy without owning either

 

[Compatriot Block]

The biggest lesson I've learned during my time on the Escapist is why I'm wrong to think about why games are good instead of why they are bad.

 

[ninja51]

When I buy a game, I want a game, not "The Citizen Kane of blah blah blah". If you want a compelling story, by all means, but narrative should never EVER ride the front seat, it should never come infront of gameplay.

I'd actually disagree with you there, shit playing The Last of Us helped solidify my feelings on this point. I for the longest time despised games like Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls for being devoid of gameplay almost entirely. After being so into the characters in The Last of Us and their ordeals, the gameplay only hurt the game. Its the same with Telltale games, whenever they throw a quick time event or allow you to walk around I always feel a little insulted. It, and The Last of Us have at their worst examples, the appearance of gameplay, a fake sense of control when there is none at all. That grinds my gears more than anything and these days I'd rather have a video game devoid of gameplay with simply an interactive narrative than a good narrative held down by bad gameplay.

As for gameplay coming first, Dark Souls is a game 100% about the gameplay, with story mostly made out of conjecture and item descriptions. I haven't finished either game. They were funner to play than The Last of Us, but I found myself mentally engaged much less if that makes sense. Of course gameplay driven games have their place, as narrative driven ones do, but just as your 100% gameplay mario's can work, a 100% narrative game can too I think. Developers really just need to stop being afraid of tackling the concept of interactive narrative as only a few RPGs seem to have any clue about it, and they need to stop forcing in shitty non gameplay in place of gameplay because they feel they need it. Games are the interactive medium, forcing me to hit square quickly to progress a cutscene is not taking any advantage of that beautiful opportunity.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Dark Souls would play the same without lock-on as long as you could strafe and backpedal with a shield raised. The only reason I used lock-on was for defensive purposes. You don't need lock-on for attacking.

No it wouldnt. My character wouldnt automatically turn to face her opponent in your system. I'd need to manually turn her and the camera until both are facing the enemy, leaving her open until then. Not to mention that it would get really annoying really fast when you consider how many enemies move laterally around you or just straight past you.

What is with you with the camera? The way Dark Souls actually plays is when you are not lock-on with a shield raised and you press back, your character turns around and the camera doesn't move whatsoever.

Quite frankly, no. The only game I've played that's like Dark Souls is Dark Souls II.
Unless you're stretching the 'like dark souls' category out to spectacle fighters like DMC. But that'd just be stupid.

Sounds more like WoW than Dark Souls. You're vastly oversimplifying Dark Souls' mechanics.

It's not ingrained to me, and like I said before, EVERY FRAME COUNTS. If I'm going through a new unknown area like, oh, I dont know, Sen's Fortress, with my shield up and I trigger an arrow trap. Just flicking the stick towards the arrows coming at me takes less time and mental effort than letting my shield go down, then turning, then blocking again. Time that could hurt me enough to make me waste a flask that I would not have needed to use in the current system, or even outright kill me.

I dont believe you on either of these points.
Let me guess, you dont like 3D Zelda games either?

- Dragon's Dogma is just merely a much better version of Dark Souls with real classes, different playstyles, better bosses, and way way better magic. Name ANY game beside the Souls' games were when you block (shield or no shield), your character doesn't strafe or backpedal and instead turns around like Dark Souls. The Souls' games are literally the only game with combat I've EVER played that do have shield controls like that.

- Since when is WoW on PS2? I'm talking about games like Prince of Persia and God of War, no lock-on required.

- Show me a no lock-on Dark Souls video where the player uses a shield. How hard can it be if the shield controls work just fine without lock-on? I haven't had a Nintendo console since SNES so I haven't played a 3D Zelda game. I know from watching my friend play Skyward Sword, the controls are horrible, just merely moving the camera is a hassle. And, that's literally the only Zelda he didn't beat because of the shitty motion controls.

You mentioned the game constantly uses yellow to indicate a passage, but that's only in regards to climbable passages or boost-ups. Everything else whether it be doors or gates you arrive at through the natural progression of the environment.

I think that's because Naughty Dog attempted something no other developer has succeeded at before. When you think about all the A.I. that would need to interact with each other properly to make it flawless -- Ellie with Joel, Ellie with the enemies in relation to Joel, Ellie with Tess and Joel in relation to the enemies, Tess with Ellie and Joel, Ellie with Bill and Joel, Bill with Ellie and Joel, Ellie with Henry, Sam and Joel, Ellie with Tommy and Joel etc, and all that while also managing the stealth -- it'd be sheer lunacy to be able pull that off.

And dodgy A.I. is something nearly all games suffer from.

There's more yellow than that, stairs that you have to go up will have a yellow strip. Where you have to place a board will be yellow (I linked to a Youtube video in the initial post showing that).

The friendly AI for positioning purposes is really easy to do without them running in front of enemies. Simply code the AI to stay at least one piece of cover behind Joel, but they try to move up past Joel causing friendlies to run in front of enemies. The current friendly AI is more complex than the more simple way of having them not run in front of enemies. Games have dodgy AI because to much focus is on graphics, TLOU is one of the best looking PS3 games. Lower the graphics and give more processing power to AI. I'd rather have PS4 games looking just like PS3 games and all the PS4's extra power going toward better AI because the games would be better, but that ain't gonna happen.

I didn't like The Last of Us because I am bias against that game. While playing it, I could help but to think " it's still another fucking zombie game, and not really adding anything to the genre that wasn't done in movies before this" so I felt completely bored playing it. All the game is is 28 Days later with Jennifer Lawrence from The Hunger Games. Gameplay wise it wasn't doing much either.

But that's just me.

=/

Oh and... Dark Souls is the greatest game EVAR!

And no sarcasm there.

I'm pretty sure TLOU is better than The Hunger Games. I haven't even watched those movies because they seem nothing but a "lite" version of Battle Royale.

Dark Souls has so many flaws it's not even funny. It's a bad RPG on many accounts; there's a stat that does nothing and a magic that is not tied to any stat. Those are 2 things that shouldn't have even made it out of the conceptual stage let alone into the final game, and Dark Souls was From's 2ND try at it.

I would agree with you on a couple of points, though after playing it through for the first time on the ps4, I do have my own gripes and issues.

Those chest high walls were absolutely ridiculous, I could call every combat scenario before it happened, and that bit at the power plant was the perfect example of stupid combat design. The attack happens, and even though there are walls all around the compound being watched, every enemy is INSIDE THE BASE, like deep deep inside, past the maintenance crew already there. That entire section of the game was pretty bad in my mind on the subject, it blitzes by the story and character interaction to throw action scenario after action scenario at you. There's a two minute talk with Tommy, combat, your companion slips away while you're having a 30 second talk with Tommy and then they'res more combat, then there's a 2 minute talk with Ellie and more combat!

The entire game felt let down by its gameplay and held up on its story. The characters and human models have never been better in a game, but the hugely unbelievably action heavy gameplay and poor pacing in between took a ton of masterpiece points away.

Also, after awhile the plot started becoming really really predictable by just calling the worst that could happen in any scenario. I called the kid and his brothers death, I called the deer man's betrayal, I called the power plant fight, it was annoying after a point as it ALWAYS seemed to take that direction, the edgy sad plot twist you have no control over.

Naughty Dog is still pretty bad at organic level design. The worst of the worst is Uncharted 1, that game is just plain bad, it's really just a tech demo. The game forces action on you on a few sequences that shouldn't require action, that's was the worst aspect of it for me. I enjoyed the gameplay for what it is, you really do have to be smart with using your shotgun, bombs/molotovs, and such. Like I said, I really think I enjoyed the game as much as someone can, and even then, it's no masterpiece. The game is more about the characters than the plot. I didn't think the twist was really edgy and sad, I think going the other way would've been much more sad. I didn't mind not having control over it because that's what Joel would do every single time, TLOU is not an RPG.

The biggest lesson I've learned during my time on the Escapist is why I'm wrong to think about why games are good instead of why they are bad.

I LIKED/LOVED TLOU for the most part. My point is more about how game critics overrated everything score-wise. There's no reason why TLOU should have 88 of it's 98 reviews at a 9 or better, that happens in no other medium. For example, the average review score for the most recent Best Picture winner (12 Years a Slave) is at a 9.0/10 whereas TLOU is sitting at a 95/100.

 

[ninja51]

I didn't mind not having control over it because that's what Joel would do every single time, TLOU is not an RPG.

That's a good point, I suppose in these types of linear storied games better gameplay is as great a solution one needs. I guess the memories of the game are still fresh in my mind, and the gameplay problems only grated me more and more as the ending approached. It just needed some more progression to it, they introduce the concepts of 6 craftables, 6 permaboosts, bricks, and being a trashman/professional ladder mover early on and they just stick with it. You're still a trashman and nothing more by the end of the game. New concepts need to be introduced as it goes on, especially with an spotty plot. The game is an amazing character study true, I guess I was just hoping for something more than a beautiful portrait of characters soaking in grey milk. Damn... I'm pretty sure this is what Great Expectations was about... Disappointment.... haha

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I know. What you're proposing would fuck that up. That's why I dont like your idea.

-Skyrim. I havent played Dragon's Dogma much, so I cant comment. But from the bit I did play, and this video I'm watching it seems like Devil May Cry is pretending to be a Souls game, Skyrim and Shadow of the Colossus all at the same time. Faster, less deadly, more of a focus on looking flashy, and with a fraction of the weight and strategy. I'd say you cant really compare the two fairly.

-And did I say that lock on wasnt important? No, I fucking didn't. It's damn important to the combat style, shield or no shield. The reason WHY it's important is that it keeps your focus on the enemy, letting you concentrate fully on maneuvering, which isnt really possible with just a shield in vanilla, or in your system.

No, you could still do the same exact thing as you can now but you'd have to have your shield lowered, which it would be anyways.

-Skyrim, you backpedal/strafe with a shield up. Most play Skyrim in 1st-person and pressing back in any 1st-person game causes your character to backpedal (whether blocking or not). You actually have to turn the camera around to move backwards. Watch a Dragon's Dogma Hydra fight, it makes Dark Souls' Hydra look extremely pedestrian; Dogma's Hydra can eat you and it takes a couple minutes to swallow you and the thing is way faster than the Dark Souls' Hydra that doesn't even move. LMAO, there's no strategy in Dark Souls; block enemy attack, then attack yourself = 99.9% of Dark Souls' fights, you fight 1v1 just about all game. Or just run around the enemy and backstab them because the enemy AI is so awful.

-Notice how he got curb-stomped when he went into that room with a bunch of enemies because you can't block properly. He was just using the shield to parry though, he wasn't using it as an actual shield. Show me a video of someone fighting a mob of enemies and being able to block them properly (with or without lock-on, I don't care). The point of asking to show a video of someone blocking properly with no lock-on was why the Fog Ring got nerfed because you can't block properly without lock-on and you should be able to with or without lock-on, every other game does it.

-My system doesn't remove lock-on from the game. I just said I should be able to backpedal & strafe with a shield up and not locked-on in Dark Souls. I never said to remove the lock-on. I said lock-on shouldn't be necessary for the majority of combat, not that it should be removed. I can show you loads upon loads of Bayonetta videos facing faster and more agile enemies than Dark Souls could even dream of without the player using lock-on and being able to keep track of all the enemies just fine. I know Bayonetta is obviously a very different game but if people have no problem manually moving the camera to follow Bayonetta's enemies, then there is no issue manually moving the camera to follow Dark Souls' much slower enemies. I wouldn't use lock-on at all in Dark Souls if I could backpedal/strafe without it.

being a trashman/professional latter mover early on and they just stick with it

Naughty Dog is horrible with puzzles, they literally give you the answers in Uncharted. What's the point of a puzzle if I'm given the answer.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I hate these kinds or topics or even people that label their favorite games as masterpieces. No game is perfect.

I love The Last of Us. It's a fun game with a lot variety in terms of gameplay. The story is also engaging for those who just want the focus of the story to the people involved and not the full-blown event of the infection. But it is by no means perfect or a masterpiece. It has a lot of flaws, especially the AIs. Hell, my favorite game, Shadow of the Colossus is great. But I wouldn't call it the embodiment of gaming perfection that can be understood and loved by all gamers and non-gamers alike.

Also just to make this topic a bit more engaging, I'd like to ask a question to the people who, of course, will bash the game's "masterpiece" label. What game do YOU consider a masterpiece and perfect?

The closest I ever played to a 'perfect' game was the original XCOM, taken in the context of the time it was released. Other candidates would include the original System Shock (wildly ahead of its time), Planescape Torment (although it had to cope with the clunky Infinity Engine) and Ultima IV-V. None of those would strike anyone as "perfect" today, given age. And none of them were "perfect" then, either, just largely devoid of flaws.

The Last of Us is part of the recent surge of strong narrative/naff game play titles along with Bioshock Infinite, The Walking Dead, Gone Home, To The Moon, Bastion, etc, etc. It wears a "Very Serious Game" hat a lot of the time and mires itself in tedious, hackneyed mechanics. So it seems less overtly like a digital novel than some of its fellows, and it is far less ambitious in terms of narrative than Infinite, thus avoiding the rage of autistic math prodigies who thought the entire game was about quantum mechanics. But at the end of the day it's a good story with strong characters draped over a kind of but not entirely shitty game. Which is fine, you know. To The Moon was fucking BRILLIANT and I'm not sure I've ever played a "game" that was more catastrophically useless. Different games have different merits. The Last of Us has merits like "story" and "character", and occasionally good if not quite excellent mise en scene. You can't really put it up alongside, say, DOTA, and slam for its lack of sophisticated game mechanics, because the two titles aren't remotely similar.

It's why we really need to diversify game awards. The time of "GOTY" has really passed us by.

 

[Zhukov]

[snip]

[snip]

Sorry I'm late guys.

To the battlements my brothers!

...

Oh. Never mind. This thread is actually pretty mild. More "You liked this too a bit too much", rather than "How dare you like this at all".

All I can really say is that I didn't encounter most of the problems described, despite playing the game about four times through.

I can't see why the yellow colour coding could possibly be a bad thing. It's just a visual cue to tell you that certain ledges can be climbed on. Makes them stand out from the environment.

I actually agree that 'listen mode' is a bit dumb. Thankfully I forgot all about it while playing and it's disabled on the harder (better) difficulties.