Zero Punctuation: The Last of Us

[Imp_Emissary]

The rest of it I couldn't agree with less. It seemed like complaining for the sake of it and/or deliberately missing the point.

New to Zero Punctuation? That tends to be Yahtzee's thing... taking the piss out of games even if they are generally good.

Normally he seems to try and be humorous about it while being comically over the top, with this it just seems to be a mild rant. Usually even if I disagree with him I can find the humour in it, in this case it felt like somebody just complaining, like in a "Why does everybody love The Last of Us?" thread.

Eh. He did bring up some good points, and he did mention at the end that it may just not be "his thing"(the "Maybe this is one of those things you need a soul for" bit).

That said, I don't see why after the end of the game he hated Ellie. Joel I can understand, but I don't remember Ellie doing anything that bad.

Oh well. To each their own.

 

[Smokescreen]

There did seem to be something lacking in this critique but I think this may be due to timeframe issues.

The Last Of Us is a very well crafted experience but that doesn't mean it's without flaws. What it does mean is that to get at those issues, one can't just toss things out there. Much of Yahtzee's criticisms of bad games have to do with things that are utterly stupid plotwise or broken controls or something else that should have been addressed and wasn't.

TLOU doesn't have those kinds of issues. Everything in that game is about that game and is very, very well crafted. Yet the first HALF of Yahtzee's video was him...whinging, really, about the use of zombies in pop culture.

In addition, there just weren't 'armies of psychopaths' around. Every encounter with people usually had 5 or less of them, and they weren't easy. Encounters with infected had more but that's the point. There is a persistent logic in TLOU that it follows all the way through.

Again; there are some issues with the game, most notable is how the game utterly shifts at the end, becoming far more violence oriented, or how difficult it might be to really sneak past enemies (I had a difficult time of managing this, despite feeling as though I had followed the rules.)

But this video felt a little weak and I think it's because TLOU is well done enough that to really get at the meat, it takes more time than Yahtzee may have had.

 

[ZforZissou]

Especially since it's kinda similar to Spec Ops: The Line (except way better), which he really liked. That too was a game that had way more going on then just its familiar setting.

But The Last of Us rarely tells you how to react or feel about stuff. It doesn't really go "You are bad because you did bad things." It's a lot less heavy-handed and perhaps that's why Yahtzee didn't appreciate it.

 

[A1]

True. This review does seem to reek of anti-Naughty Dog bias doesn't it?

I don't like to attack the messenger and would rather discuss the argument (as I have done above) but Yahtzee has been discussing how exclusives are not 'good' for consumers. So there is a source of bias right there.

To admit an exclusive console game is good may be against his agenda. wow i feel dirty for going there but it had to be said

That's actually a decent point. I didn't think of that. I wonder if Yahtzee's negative feelings towards the concept of exclusivity may be starting to creep into his opinions and perceptions of games?

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

The only part I agree with is the problem with the enemies all ignoring Ellie. In stealth situations having her happily run around and Clickers not even noticing was a little jarring.

The smoke bomb part I agree that they are useless, but not because they are not necessary, it's just that they don't seem to work properly. The enemy never stopped firing at me when I threw them either when it was at their feet or at mine.

The rest of it I couldn't agree with less. It seemed like complaining for the sake of it and/or deliberately missing the point.

Fret not, I have had completely opposing opinions than Yahtzee's before and I'm still looking forward to his ranty reviews. reviewing rants. rantviews.

Currently, I would believe that The Last of Us and the general portrayal of post-mushroom-apocalypse totally rubs him the wrong way. The portrayal of the Fireflies is also something that is bound to not feel alright for Yahtzee. Yahtzee is not a gamer like every other gamer.

He is a fragile flower, growing unprotected in a shit brown world made of shit. He does not like it, but it's the poop that powers his super powers. That's one of the reasons that make him shine and stand out. Then, there is his way with words, which is remarkable and entertaining. He's taken the political edge out of his reviews and does a damn good job, but his convictions and values do shine through from time to time, as they do here. It's nothing personal. It just prevents him from seeing the true value and beauty of The Last of Us.

There will be other games, and hopefully more ramblomatic reviews.

 

[Balkan]

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snip 2.0

Agreed with the both of you.

Hell he DOES seem to talk more about Naughty Dog/Uncharted/the zombie trope in general more than the actual game.

I've already played like half of the game, and sometimes I can at least KIND OF see where Yahtzee is coming from with his criticisms, but here I'm just scratching my head going "Umm...did we play the same game, dude? I don't think we did..."

I GUESS maybe the enemies seem "dehumanized" if that's what he means, but how is that any different than Booker Dewitt mowing down literally thousands of soldiers with smug apathy (that came from an otherwise peaceful Columbia) in Bioshock Infinite or, ya know, EVERY other shoot em up game in the history of gaming? He surely can't mean the ally NPCs he and Ellie meet along the way; not only do they have well-fleshed out characters (and awesome voice-acting for everyone, just to mention) for the short time they're there, but these people are indeed the few people Joel DOES legitimately still care about. These people are the few friends he has left, and he has to see them get picked off one by one as this journey continues. Can you REALLY blame the guy for eventually losing his marbles and doing some fucked up shit later down the line? Especially in the name of "Kill Or Be Killed" which is the law of the land? Like, what would constitute as a "good person" in this kind of wasteland universe anyways? Giving out roses and daises to the army/infected and call a truce? Having us all live on an island, find a cure, rebuild society, then make lemonade? [http://youtu.be/U0OvwUlLx08?t=4m55s]

I mean, I don't understand what people want here. It's The Road all over again; EVERYTHING and EVERYONE is fucked, so even if you wanted to be Mr. Superhero, you pretty much HAVE to take a "Fuck You Got Mine" approach if you feel like surviving another day. Hell even one of the characters, Bill, addresses that very idea as to why he travels alone in one of the cutscenes. Joel can't bring himself to go AS far off the rails as his friend has, so to me Joel still seems like a relatively decent dude so far. Again, it's the end of human civilization as we once knew it. There aren't going to be many Mother Teresas or Ghandis running around anymore.

I dunno, maybe it gets "worse" later down the line, again I've only recently met with the Bill character so I don't think I'm terribly far into it yet, but to me it seems like he was coming in already ready to be down on the game (shoulda seen it coming with the "Yeah, Last Of Us next week, whatever" tagline from the previous video). And like others have said, this game does a lot that Yahztee says are important for a great gaming experience, yet ignores/denounces them because...because Me No Likey Zombie/Wasteland stories anymore.

I'm usually a big defender of Zero Punctuation, as he CAN bring a great deal of wickedly intelligent insight that you don't get from most other reviewers, but when he phones it in like this, I...can't really argue with the folks that "don't take him seriously" and that call him a Cynic for Cynicism's' sake.

Spoilers
Spot on, dude. Joel is not a psycho, he just doesn't care about the bigger picture. See, uncharted 2 and 3 ended on the exact opposite note. Nate had to turn his back on the treasure for the good of mankind, despite spending so much time getting to it. Joel goes into "kill or be killed" mode in the very first moments of the game, so it would make sense that only people like him survived the apocalypse(the moral compass goes into the bin from minute 1).Its wrong to say that human life had no value, since the ending was all about saving Ellie. The soldiers killed so they can protect the population of the zone, a very similar plot point to Spec Ops The Line. We can't even talk about characters being dehumanized by the end. The Fireflies were "the good guys" it was morally wrong to kill them.

 

[heroicbob]

I do like the hell out of this game, and I also like how Yahtzee is super critical. He did bring up good points, but here are the two things I disagree with:

I found smoke bombs super helpful, in harder difficulties you have to conserve ammo and enemies can drain your health almost completely with a good power weapon shot. An example is at the very end when you have to get through a hallway full of fireflies all with rifles, I through smoke bombs and was able to take them out tactically because they can't see you nor can they usually shoot you. Also it usually makes enemies think you are at the smoke while you sneak around behind them or avoid them altogether.

I thought the ending was great. When you finish your quest you find Ellie will have to die in the process of attempting a cure. You of course have grown attached to her like a daughter and have to save her, but you know deep down she would probably agree to making the sacrifice. So you saved her, but at what cost? Sure it may not have worked but you lie to her about it, and presumably you are going to live your lives without her ever knowing you selfishly saved her life. I feel like this drives home the whole morally ambiguous message the story is going for.

my interpretation of the ending was that after seeing all the horrors in their journey and maybe thinking back to all the things he has done too Joel had come to the conclusion that humanity wasn't worth saving or at the very least humanity didn't deserve the sacrifice of the one incorruptible person left (both physically and mentally)

as for your example of a good use for the smoke bomb i just finished survivor difficulty and my attempts to get through that hallway were so awful as to be comedic i eventually resorted to using a Molotov and the flame thrower until there were enough gone that i could just run past them the first smoke bomb i picked up lay in my inventory unused

 

[LAGG]

Another great review Yahtzee, thank you.

Thank you for also calling out the biggest problem with the "zombie apocalypse" setting - that human life you'd think would be treated as something more precious in such a scenario. What was the line that President Roslin had in the BSG movie/series start? "The only way for us to survive is to start having babies." Nah, 6+ Billion people have all been wiped out, humankind is in serious jeapordy of being extinct, and the first thing we need to do is still killing each other because "reasons."

No more zombie games for me thanks.

Oh, that's exactly what I hate in scripted games: the fact that all characters are retarded, and you have to play retarded because you're not yourself, you're roleplaying dumb people so you have to do dumb stuff.

 

[Phuctifyno]

I thought the ending was great. When you finish your quest you find Ellie will have to die in the process of attempting a cure. You of course have grown attached to her like a daughter and have to save her, but you know deep down she would probably agree to making the sacrifice. So you saved her, but at what cost? Sure it may not have worked but you lie to her about it, and presumably you are going to live your lives without her ever knowing you selfishly saved her life. I feel like this drives home the whole morally ambiguous message the story is going for.

I haven't played the game, so I don't have much informing the inquiry, but I'm curious: Did you get to choose? If not, wouldn't that have been more interesting and a better use of the medium?

 

[IronMit]

Agreed with the both of you.

Hell he DOES seem to talk more about Naughty Dog/Uncharted/the zombie trope in general more than the actual game.


I GUESS maybe the enemies seem "dehumanized" if that's what he means, but how is that any different than Booker Dewitt mowing down literally thousands of soldiers with smug apathy (that came from an otherwise peaceful Columbia) in Bioshock Infinite or, ya know, EVERY other shoot em up game in the history of gaming?
Snip
I mean, I don't understand what people want here. It's The Road all over again; EVERYTHING and EVERYONE is fucked, so even if you wanted to be Mr. Superhero, you pretty much HAVE to take a "Fuck You Got Mine" approach if you feel like surviving another day. Hell even one of the characters, Bill, addresses that very idea as to why he travels alone in one of the cutscenes. Joel can't bring himself to go AS far off the rails as his friend has, so to me Joel still seems like a relatively decent dude so far. Again, it's the end of human civilization as we once knew it. There aren't going to be many Mother Teresas or Ghandis running around anymore.

I've only recently met with the Bill character

Snip

You are 1/4 through the game and you seem to have a better grasp of the world building and themes of the last of us then Yahtzee.
Notice how the first few non infected humans to be killed in cutscenes are not by Joel. TLOU is introducing you to this violent kill or be killed 'the road' style world. They got other NPC's to do first few on screen executions so it wouldn't cause such a disconnect between you and Joel.

3 people had been executed before you get to kill your first human goon with Joel yourself.

The hypocrisy of criticising TLOU which fully addresses violence with world building, character development, tailored combat mechanics yet giving Bioshock:Infinite a free pass because 'Booker' has a violent past....so let's shoot everyone in the face FPS style

You're not far into TLOU, you have not experience much of what the game has to offer...stay off the forums and play it!

 

[LAGG]

I think Pop Culture keeps dodging around the term "zombie" because most people, myself included, are getting sick of zombies being everywhere.

Evens straight up zombie movies rarely use the word zombie, though. This goes way back, to boot.

Honestly, I'm more sick of the concept than the diction anyway.

People think not using the word will make them less derivative.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

From what I can tell, responses to this review seem pretty... split. I haven't played this game, so I just enjoy Yahtzee's commentary.

Personally, I've never been a fan of zombies - mainly because they terrify me. Yes, "spore-based" zombies is a nice change of pace, but when you get right down to it, they're still zombies.

And since this is so conveniently fitting: http://www.toplessrobot.com/2013/07/9_reasons_the_zombie_fad_must_die.php

 

[gjkbgt]

I was seriously planning on getting a ps3 just to play this game
but now i'm not going to.

I got into a massive argument after the E3 2012 gameplay demo

i hated how after an apocalypse everyone just starts killing everone else for no real reason

As the man says now these less of us surely the value of human life should have gone up. I mean if everyone i ever cared about was dead i'd do everything i could to avoid more pointless death.
Yes people would be angry and hate filled but at the ones who took there loved-ones away. The clickers not the humans (don't want to get into that)

So yes great review saved me a lot of heartache and £160

 

[IronMit]

I haven't played the game, so I don't have much informing the inquiry, but I'm curious: Did you get to choose? If not, wouldn't that have been more interesting and a better use of the medium?

This is a character driven story. You are not roleplaying, you do not make any choices you just experience it. A choice at the end would of altered the entire point of the story, about what motivates Joel and redemption style thing that happened at the end.

'spec ops: the line' is similar but it did do something very interesting. It gave you a few fake choices throughout. It was not a roleplaying game but it made you consider what was right/wrong, the difficulty of decisions that Konrad has to make. But in the game Konrad mirrored the Player. There was some strange parallel thing going on.
You make a final choice at the end about how you feel about everything that transpired.

I'm not sure if this would of worked for the Last of Us. There's a lot of people discussing the cure at the end at weather it would of worked. I feel this is missing the point..even if it was 100%, Joel decided to save Ellie based on a mixture of love and the selfish survival instincts that are a theme throughout the entire game. -You meet 6 couples ranging from brothers, lovers, friends, spouses - so it's a consistent theme throughout. Allowing someone who 'doesn't get' the story to choose might not work.

 

[IronMit]

i hated how after an apocalypse everyone just starts killing everone else for no real reason

The game explains it well. Just like 'The walking dead' tv show, 'the Road', 'Mad max' etc etc.

If you can't fathom why the world will become chaotic after the collapse of Law & order then I guess this story will annoy you

 

[Historyism]

i hated how after an apocalypse everyone just starts killing everone else for no real reason

As the man says now these less of us surely the value of human life should have gone up.

That's kind of the point. This is billed as a zombie game; however, the real enemies in The Last of Us are other humans (a character even remarks on this theme explicitly). The game is trying to convey to the player how easily humanity degrades in the face of a great threat. Very few people care about the greater good or the survival of humanity as a whole; everyone just wants to survive and do what's best for themselves.

Joel does the same thing; he act selfishly, because otherwise he and the people he loves would die. The ending, especially, plays into this theme.

Basically, saying that Joel is a bad person or the people in the game are unsympathetic is kind of missing the point. The game repeatedly reinforces the moral grayness of the characters. We're not supposed to sympathize with them necessarily, or think they're heroes.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

I figured the title "The Last of Us" refers to the final remaining fragments of Ellie and Joel's humanity. So "the last of us," as in the last pieces of who we were, rather than the last of humanity itself.

Spoiler

Joel lost his daughter 20 years ago and declined into a spiral of depression and self hatred, to the point where he even tried to commit suicide. He turns to smuggling, killing and even admits to being in a bandit group at some point, effectively murdering innocent people. There is very little of his humanity left.

Ellie starts off a relatively innocent girl who knows very little of the outside world. She's got a smart mouth and she's pretty sharp but her knowledge is limited to the point that it could be considered naivety. To survive she has to learn how to wield a gun and become desensitised to death and killing. After the "Winter" chapter she can pretty much take out entire groups single handed and she also narrowly escapes a rather lecherous man by stabbing him repeatedly in the face.

Both characters have been through so much and changed to the extent that they are no longer the same people. The game explores those final fragments of their previous selves. It literally explores The Last Of Them.

...at least, that's how I see it.

 

[A1]

i hated how after an apocalypse everyone just starts killing everone else for no real reason

That's kind of the point. This is billed as a zombie game; however, the real enemies in The Last of Us are other humans (a character even remarks on this theme explicitly). The game is trying to convey to the player how easily humanity degrades in the face of a great threat. Very few people care about the greater good or the survival of humanity as a whole; everyone just wants to survive and do what's best for themselves.

Joel does the same thing; he act selfishly, because otherwise he and the people he loves would die. The ending, especially, plays into this theme.

Basically, saying that Joel is a bad person or the people in the game are unsympathetic is kind of missing the point. The game repeatedly reinforces the moral grayness of the characters. We're not supposed to sympathize with them necessarily, or think they're heroes.

Or I guess to put it another way let's turn to this exchange between Kotaku's Kirk Hamilton and Creative Director Neil Druckmann regarding the character of Joel:

"Is that how you saw him, as a monster?"

"I mean, a sympathetic monster, but sure! He did monstrous things!"

"Yeah. But who didn't in this world?"

 

[Unknown Warrior]

This'll be my first post ever here.

I can understand some of the gripes Yahtzee had. The overdone and post-apocalyptic "zombie" setting? Sure. The generally useless and invincible companion AI? Alright. The uselessness of certain game-mechanics like Smoke Bombs? Yeah, they are very situational.

HOWEVER;

1. Why the fuck does he talk about Uncharted for such a considerable part of the video? Is it that hard to judge a game on its own merit? Overall I had the feeling Yahtzee came in and reviewed it like it was Uncharted 4: Post-apocalyption. Which does a disservice to both the game and his reviewer credentials.
2. Why is he complaining about moral ambiguity of its main characters? The fact that Joel did some shifty shit during the 20 years is heavily implied even as Chapter 2 begins. This is only more touched upon in his interactions with Tess (the casual shooting of Robert, "shitty people"), him referring to be on both sides of highway bandit encounters, his mano-a-mano with his brother and explicitly shown in the few instances he's seperated from Ellie. Why does Yahtzee feel they need to be punished for their actions (even when they were arguably justified)? Was The Godfather's* ending bad because Michael Corleone didn't get jailed for his actions? To touch upon my first critique, maybe it's because he was assuming Joel to be Nathan Drake V2.0, imbued with all his generic heroic male charm, but still...
3. Could he at least not acknowledge TLOU did some things right? I particularly liked the fact that I could run (or more accurately; sneak) past several encounters, as I did with one particular Bloater encounter. The fact that Joel isn't a walking tank and actively has to scavenge to save his life was also quite refreshing.


Maybe it's just that Naughty Dog is his antithesis of Valve, where the former can't do anything right and the latter single-handedly (re-)invents and popularises all of its features (like in Fuse's review and that asinine implication that Valve and L4D are the sole reason for the popularity of 4P co-op).
For people arguing that the setting is overdone and therefore the game doesn't warrant its reviews/popularity: fine, you are entitled to your opinion. But just remember that every word, setting and situation has already been written, but that doesn't mean there can't be any more good books.

Alright, back to lurking quietly for me.

*: I do not necessarily think TLOU and the Godfather share the same pedestal, I just highlighted it because it was a prime example of unheroic main character. Personally, TLOU rates a solid 8.5 to 9/10 for me. A bit too slow at times and unpleasant at times (but maybe that was the point?) and the bat hearing mechanic was kinda weird.

 

[gjkbgt]

snip

This is exactly my point

I hate that!

The whole everyone is really just a psychopath forced to not murder by society this is utter ball-shit
Human didn't always have society, we only invented that about 5000 years ago.

So what you think before then every random encounter ended in murder?

And yes we all (99%) would kill rather then be killed but we'd be unset about it and try not to do it again.

I mean even the wild west didn't have a murder rate all that high, (about the same as some of the worse mexican drug war cartel towns now)

So those messages always fall flat for me