Zero Punctuation: The Last of Us

[freakonaleash]

Dang, I was for sure he was going to like this one

 

[TurkeyProphet]

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.

What difference does it make whether it is a review or not? Were the points he was making meant to be a parody of a review or something? That's about the only way in which we shouldn't take them seriously.

 

[A1]

This struck me as a fairly lazy review for what is an interesting game. It's pretty easy to complain that zombies are a fad and that the gameplay was generic (which I don't really agree with). A lot of his complaints were also increidbly weak - the stealth pace was pretty good and his comments about the story smacked of someone that didn't really engage with it. It struck me that he didn't play it very sensibly as well - I got instakilled about twice in the game and the reason Ellie couldn't go and hide in the bin during a fight is that the smartest tactic was usually to kill one person and sneak through which would make her hiding at the beginning of the level a pain.

Really what irritated me is that the game employed so many elements that he has championed in his reviews and in Extra Punctuation and he dismissed it for some fairly cheap and uninteresting digs.

Thank you.

I think that Yahtzee was being very unfair to this game. And this is possibly due to a bias against Naughty Dog. For example yes Joel and Ellie may have done a lot of bad things. But It's hard to hold this kind of thing against them because of the world they live in. The characters are living in a horrible messed up world in which doing horrible messed up things is generally a necessity for survival. And almost all (with maybe a few exceptions on Joel's part) of the people that Joel and Ellie kill wouldn't have hesitated to do the same to them.

Furthermore at least one shot he took at the game was flat out wrong. He said Naughty Dog games tend to dehumanize everyone except the leads and indicated that The Last of Us was doing the same. But as I said this was flat out wrong. Several of the characters that Joel and Ellie encounter and interact with are very human (Tess, Bill, Sam, Henry, Tommy, Maria, etc).

And yes I very much share the frustration you express in your last sentence. Yahtzee has established that he doesn't like regenerating health and prefers health meters. The Last of Us dumps regenerating health in favor of health meters yet he gives the game no credit for it. Yahtzee has also stated that he wants humanity in characters. The Last of Us has this in spades yet he gives the game no credit for that either. Disappointing but not entirely surprising given that hypocrisy seems to be a long standing part of Yahtzee's MO.

Yes I get the distinct impression that Yahtzee was especially disinclined to give this game any credit even if it deserves it because it's a Naughty Dog game. The fact that he talks about about Naughty Dog and the Uncharted series directly seems to make this a very strong possibility.

 

[Merklyn236]

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.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Honestly the only thing I got from this review is one big meh. All Yahtzee did was complain about pop culture and make one good criticism about ally AI or lack thereof. I can't remember anything else, and I just saw the video. It's like he talked a lot without there being much meaning to it.

 

[Something Amyss]

"You don't bring pepper spray to a murder fight" might be my new favourite ZP line.

Also, "fuck you got mine" is pretty much 80% of gaming.

 

[MB202]

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

 

[Casual Shinji]

There's also some flat out intellectual dishonesty. Saying Ellie has no use in gameplay just isn't true, given she throws items at enemies and eventually helps Joel in firefights. Elizabeth in BioShock Infinite had the exact same problem of floating through combat with nary a scratch, but he never found that to be an issue in that game.

This is one I actually agree with. Ellie does suffer from the "untouchable" disease that seems to run rampid among every friendly NPC this generation. But as you said, complaining about it now, hot off the heels of Infinite, feels a bit personal.

 

[Something Amyss]

Also, "I don't like what yahztee had to say so he did a bad job."

Not only did I sum up a lot of comments in this thread, but in most ZP threads, with one line.

 

[Something Amyss]

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.

 

[Arppis]

"Fuck you, got mine!" That's brilliant.

 

[Nico4]

Doesn't surprise me, that he didn't like it that much. While I agree with him on the AI part, and somewhat the predictably of the story, I still find it a pretty good game.

As for the ending: what the hell did he expect? Did he expect them to die or something? While I did have issues with the ending at first, it's one of those 'the more you think about it, the better it get's' endings, because the ending fully realises the point, that no one in that world is morally good, especially Joel.

 

[C14N]

his lack of anything along those lines kind of surprises me considering all the acclaim the game is getting.

Except he did say good things about it.

I do think Yahtzee kind of missed the point a bit though. Joel IS a bad guy and it just becomes more apparent as the game goes on. This is shown especially at the ending. The picture at the end with the characters skipping off into the sun seems really out of place considering it was probably the most depressing ending I've ever seen in a video game.

Other than that, the review was mostly quite amusing.

 

[Quorothorn]

I...kind of was hoping for 'more' from this one, honestly. It felt like a large part of the video was more about the (entirely true) overuse of zombi--I mean "Infected"--in popular culture plus Yahtzee's problems with Naughty Dog in general, than about specifically The Last of Us. I was looking forward to this one as a way to get another take on the game, since the zombie aspect (plus the fact I'm broke) has mostly turned me away from it unfortunately, but this video didn't really help me figure out anything new, whereas usually I find Zero Punctuation quite helpful...ah well.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Also, "I don't like what yahztee had to say so he did a bad job."

Not only did I sum up a lot of comments in this thread, but in most ZP threads, with one line.

Well then, who criticizes the critics?

The whole "You're not allowed to criticize, because you don't agree" line then basically means we're never allowed to call critics out on anything, ever.

 

[Coreless]

Thank you yahtzee for finally putting this game in its place, greatest game ever made ..../eyeroll.

Oh god am I so tired of zombies...why can't they fall down the same hole WW2 games fell into.

 

[Mossberg Shotty]

I normally get consistent chuckles out of Yahtzee's humor, even when it's crass. But that 'motorboat' joke hit me badly. Jokes about underage characters and sexual acts just aren't funny.

The sad thing is, I may very well be the only one who thinks so.

Nah, I guess I'll second that. This review left me a bit disappointed all around, it seems.

Yahtzee, I've been watching your show for five years. Five years. Ever since you got plugged on X-Play and I was still about knee-high to a grasshopper. And I rarely ever post in the comments, but this is the only game I've ever wanted you to like.

You've failed me. ):

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Not sure why people are taking issue with this review. It's not a bad game, but it's safe and predictable. Yahtzee seemed pretty fair.

HOWEVER, it does bear mentioning that Yahtzee should give similar criticism to Valve games.

Why does Yahtzee say "Fuck you Got mine" like it's a bad thing?

Cause he doesn't like it?

I think there are plenty of reasons to not like it, but I'm a little confused by how he applies it to the Last of Us. Considering that Naughty Dog explicitly changed a key part of the ending to make it less happy-end.

 

[Scribblesense]

Pretty much agree with all of it.

I haven't played through the whole game yet, but I've yet to see anything that hasn't been done before.
I will give Naughty Dog major points for the gameplay and environment design, which are what elevate it to the best zombie game I've ever played, though I feel the storytelling was better in The Walking Dead than here (though that's because TWD is nothing but story due to its genre).

It's a good game, great even, but I really don't see why people are proclaiming it to be game of the century.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I feel really bored of this whole "gritty and dark zombie apocalypse" genre. It's been done too death. I was really hoping that this game would do something new with the genre but instead, it just felt like the same territory I've seen a dozen times. It was good, but nothing special IMO.