Zero Punctuation: The Last of Us
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
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Despite owning a ps3 I have not played the game yet because I don?t generally buy games that cost 50 bucks.
From what I?ve seen it does look like the video game equivalent of Oscar bait, which I guess doesn?t have to be a bad thing, but it also has you gunning down entire armies of bandits so it?s still trying to be a mainstream game.
From what I?ve seen it does look like the video game equivalent of Oscar bait, which I guess doesn?t have to be a bad thing, but it also has you gunning down entire armies of bandits so it?s still trying to be a mainstream game.
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 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.
Zombies have too much lore behind them and they are fundamentally a ridiculous concept which I think anyone trying to create a sense of realism would be best avoiding. The thing is - they weren't the living dead and a pivotal part of the plot is that there could be a cure for the infection. How can you cure death? We know they are basically zombies - the writers know they are zombies. We don't need to call them zombies though because it's just silly for a world to acknowledge the idea of a mythical creature like that.Mick P. said:
This game is 10/10 therefore this review is wrong and I will waste internetz space whining about it. /sarcasm
Should have brought the popcorn for this
Should have brought the popcorn for this
Yahtzee, thank you for this review. As someone who grew up on pulp SF and then spent his teens reading fanzine fanfic, I got worn out on the nihilist theme, particularly in an apocalyptic context, over ten years ago and have yet to recover. Your dislike of the ending fills me with warmth because now I know there's someone else out there who saw the ending and didn't scream "CITIZEN KANE OF GAMING I LOVE YOU!", and indeed had similar misgivings as I did.
It's nice to know I'm not alone.
It's nice to know I'm not alone.
Wait. Yahtzee, a man whose legacy depends on him disliking popular games, blew a popular game's faults out of proportion? Let me get my fainting couch. I never understood why people need to defend their favorite games from this guy. I've played Last of Us four or five times now, and I still got a pretty good laugh out of this video. Who cares? It's not even a question of "but then people won't buy it as much" anymore, because the game's already sold better than Bioshock Infinite did across both consoles, and it's a PS3 exclusive.
Live and let live, people. Unless you're the type of person who's just now saying "Well, now that I know Yahtzee doesn't like it, I can safely disregard it." That kind of person is an idiot. So you've seen all the universal acclaim this game has gotten and, despite the fact that it came from all kinds of sources (if you don't like IGN or Gamespot, why not look at Edge, which has only given a perfect score 10 or so times in its entire existence?), you decided that the only thing that mattered was the 4-minute humorous opinion of a snarky British man? You're an idiot.
Live and let live, people. Unless you're the type of person who's just now saying "Well, now that I know Yahtzee doesn't like it, I can safely disregard it." That kind of person is an idiot. So you've seen all the universal acclaim this game has gotten and, despite the fact that it came from all kinds of sources (if you don't like IGN or Gamespot, why not look at Edge, which has only given a perfect score 10 or so times in its entire existence?), you decided that the only thing that mattered was the 4-minute humorous opinion of a snarky British man? You're an idiot.
I love Yahtzee and all and he does fairly often bring up valid points... but I couldn't disagree more with that review and now I'm just genuinely curious who and what would qualify as good character and good story in his book (except Prince of Persia and Garret).
Sure we use "zombie" all the time to mean a braindead person but there is also the monster that is a "zombie" that is some slow walking dead freak that only wants to eat human flesh and in this context we think of the latter. If someone had some weird plant disease that may them crazy I wouldn't call them zombies and I think it's way more hokey for a character in a story to acknowledge that these zombies used to be a fantasy monster from horror films but are now real monsters they have to face. It's silly and it robs the enemies of any humanity and it raises a bunch of question about what the enemies are. If the enemies are called Zombies I assume something supernatural has happened in the world and that magic exists. If they are infected I know the world is like my own for the most part.Mick P. said:
I also seriously doubt that anyone would honestly called their sick daughter a "zombie" the day after they had to murder her in self defense.
Typical Yahtzee review of a Naughty Dog game. Lot's of superficial critiques and asides, little discussion about the core game, bile for bile's sake since he finds giving positive reviews of well reviewed games boring.
And then in several months he'll off handedly mention something about the game that was "revelatory" like he did with Uncharted 2. Because it is a fantastic game.
It is strange that he didn't grasp the meaning of the ending though. Seems like just about everyone but him understood why Joel made the choice he did at the end, and thematically he's not all that different than the protagonist of Spec Ops: The Line, which was Yahtzee's GOTY last year.
But whatever, cue the fanboys, who had already made up their mind to hate this game because it's a Sony exclusive or because it's just cool to hate on AAA games, storming comment sections using this as "proof" that The Last of Us is bad or overrated.
And then in several months he'll off handedly mention something about the game that was "revelatory" like he did with Uncharted 2. Because it is a fantastic game.
It is strange that he didn't grasp the meaning of the ending though. Seems like just about everyone but him understood why Joel made the choice he did at the end, and thematically he's not all that different than the protagonist of Spec Ops: The Line, which was Yahtzee's GOTY last year.
But whatever, cue the fanboys, who had already made up their mind to hate this game because it's a Sony exclusive or because it's just cool to hate on AAA games, storming comment sections using this as "proof" that The Last of Us is bad or overrated.
I like Yahtzee's analyses, so it's disappointing to so him totally shrug something off because of he's a knee-jerk reactionary. It won't affect my perception of the game, but it will affect my likelihood to read and watch interesting material about the game written by Yahtzee.runujhkj said:
Well what is the point of a comment section of a review if not to agree or disagree with the points raised in the review? I also don't think it's a case of Yahtzee shitting on anything popular. He liked Bioshock Ifinite and that had much much bigger flaws than this and in general his comments on games seem a bit more fair and a bit more relevant. This isn't another mindless CoD game. It has good writing, a great game world and uses the videogame medium to tell the story very well. He just ignored all that to laugh at some minor issues with the gameplay and then said he didn't get the ending as though he were 11 years old.runujhkj said:
It was kind of annoying to see him treat the Uncharted series so flippantly, even though I don't like it equally as much as him, but superficial critiques are more valid for a superficial game. The Last of Us wasn't anywhere near as superficial as Uncharted was though, so it's a shame to see him treating them as though they're basically the same game.wyldefire said:
When did Yahtzee mention Uncharted 2 was special out of curiosity?
Hmm, I wouldn't be surprised if what your friends say is actually the truth, for I too had encountered such situations. And, since AI is in, um, lower grades of intelligence, I stopped playing this game after about 20 times Ellie was noticed by a zombie (yes, those are zombies, pop-culture).Eternal_Lament said:
Currently watching a Lets Play of it, for the story sake.
That implies that this is a review rather than a comedy video. Occasionally he reviews games. This is not one of those. How comprehensive can a "review" be in the span of 5 minutes, when it also has to be comedic as well? Not to mention how much of the video was talking about Uncharted, making it entirely irrelevant.TurkeyProphet said:
No that is the primary meaning of the word "chimera" although it is used in other context. I'm not sure what your point is with that anyway. Zombies have connotations of witchcraft and magic in our modern meaning of the word. People would not start calling sick people "Zombies" unless they were being cynical or humorous. I have no idea why you think they would. I certainly wouldn't call my sick mother a zombie and since the infected weren't actually zombies doing so would add a level of camp that is associated with zombie films and would make it confusing because they aren't zombies but they are being ironically called zombies by he jaded characters.Mick P. said:
She will assist you in fights by throwing bricks and bottles at enemies heads and even stabbing enemies if your already going through an execution and the enemy sees you.Yuuki said:
Later in the game shes given a gun so i don't get where this useless in gameplay comes from, during my play-through she saved my ass or made things easier multiple times.