Just finished the story of this amazing game (is it fair to call it a masterpiece?). Don't want to post spoilers in the first post but just wondered what other boardies thought?
If you own a PS3 and haven't played it yet you really need to, your not going to regret it.
I've heard so much good stuff about it that I'm tempted, but I get worried hearing everyone mention 'stealth' and 'the story is amazing'...
Basically, I couldn't care less about game narratives - I skip cutscenes in pretty much everything.
I also get bored in singleplayer games that are too on rails and don't let you explore.
Would I still like it?
Loved this, even though my ADD was strained with cut scenes that went on for almost four whole minutes in places. And what an ending! You get closure all right, but if you're one of these arcade gamers who needs everything spelled out for you, you're pretty much fucked.
I liked how there were roughly three points in the game where it could have ended (the University campus, the end of the winter levels, the giraffes) yet kept going anyway for at least another few hours, making it feel less like a film and more like a season of a tv show, and then when it makes you [spoiler]murder the people trying to save the world[/spoiler] you have absolutely no qualms about doing so - at least I didn't - because you're so invested in Joel as a character and know this is the only thing he can do regardless of the consequences. Did you also notice that the final levels are the first few levels only inverted? [spoiler]You start out as the girl, then Joel's carrying you as he's on the run, then she's dead and Joel is a walking dead man, but at the end, the reverse happens[/spoiler] - not subtle, but the symmetry is a welcome nod to the characters finally moving on from their survivor's guilt, also seen in the game when Joel keeps touching his watch or in the giraffe motif.
My main gripe is with the chapter select afterwards when you reload a game to play an earlier level and then all the levels you unlocked after that are no longer available, and your character build has been reset, too, which is fine for a new game+ playthrough, but not a collectible/trophy cleanup - oh, and it sure does make you work like fuck for your cheevos, as I played through the game and only got two trophies, one of which was for finishing the game on the lowest difficulty.
Brilliant, all the same. A watermark for modern gaming.
Going from what you've just said Radiator I'm guessing you'd hate it, which is a shame. It's a very character driven piece. You do get to explore but in a very linear way, you'll always end up in the same place.
T.Bear if you think 4min cut scenes are bad don't try mgs4, if I remember correctly they reach 90minutes at least twice.
I know what you mean about it having several ending points but glad it just kept going. The winter section is one of the greatest scene in gaming. It was so intense, to the point where it actually "influenced" my dreams on the night lol.
The bit with the giraffes raised a smile as did several other small pieces that can't really be classed as scenes but the game would be lacking without them.
It definitely stays with you and think it will for a long time to come yet...
(Hope they don't do a sequel though, can't help but think it would only take away from the original)
I can actually sit through long cut scenes, I just rarely want to because the writing and acting are so clumsy and painful to watch - there's really little excuse for that kind of thing these days when games have budgets and profit margins akin to the average movie, and the makers go out of their way to chase the look and feel of a movie but for some reason don't think writing and acting in their projects are worth improving. MGS4 is a great example - lengthy cutscenes but the writing and acting in them are fucking horrible to the point that even in a room alone I still feel embarrassed to be watching them - and I've willingly watched Power Rangers for entire seasons at a time (though anything after RPM can go fuck itself).
There's supposedly prequel material coming out about the doomed family in the sewers whose remains you encounter when you're with Henry and Sam, but that will likely be DLC. I'm quite looking forward to it as I found the online multiplayer to be a bit of an unforgiving grind.
Did not realise this was just on the PS3, was looking forward to it, also looking forward to the tie in
http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Faith-Erin-Hicks/dp/1616552123
i wonder is this the prequel material you mentioned Professor James T Bear, and will it matter that I haven't played the game, hope not..
The tie-in comic is not great, and contradicts the game in places. It doesn't have the feel or look of the game, which I think defeats the idea of a tie-in even if it's hardly a new problem for licenced works (the Star Trek comics set in the movie continuity being the worst and most recent examples I can think of).
If you like Hicks' other comics, though, you might enjoy it, as it is more of the same, only without characters going WAAAH and waving their arms.
i must admit I am a fan of Hicks, not sure why, I know what you mean about the waving arms etc. Thanks for the heads up, might be more inclined to check it out as i don't think I'll get to play the game
QuoteI can actually sit through long cut scenes, I just rarely want to because the writing and acting are so clumsy and painful to watch - there's really little excuse for that kind of thing these days when games have budgets and profit margins akin to the average movie, and the makers go out of their way to chase the look and feel of a movie but for some reason don't think writing and acting in their projects are worth improving. MGS4 is a great example - lengthy cutscenes but the writing and acting in them are fucking horrible to the point that even in a room alone I still feel embarrassed to be watching them - and I've willingly watched Power Rangers for entire seasons at a time (though anything after RPM can go fuck itself).
I tend to think that regardless of the quality of writing and acting, traditional forms of storytelling media just have so many inherent advantages over games as a storytelling medium. Characters in films don't keep dying and coming back to life every five minutes, rewinding the narrative every time. Supporting characters in films don't get stuck in bits of scenery, or walk on the spot, or make bizarre statements at the wrong moments. Or get shot repeatedly in the face and survive. Or repeat the same line of dialogue over and over again, all while the lead character jumps 7 ft in the air while spinning round and round in circles. Outside of 1980s action films, protagonists don't have to slaughter literally hundreds of people per hour to keep things interesting. We're not expected to care if a character in a film dies at a predestined point, even though they've clearly demonstrated that they were 100% invincible up to that arbitrary point in the narrative.
I just think games should concentrate on being
games - fun things to be played with - rather than trying to emulate films or TV. That isn't to say games can't do
atmosphere incredibly effectively, but that's a different thing.
The only game I could think of off the top of my head that has a genuinely good narrative, good acting performances and good dialogue - Half Life 2 - is primarily a game, a sandbox of toys like the gravity gun, or physics puzzles, and has hardly any cutscenes at all. The story isn't intrusive.
Most of my fondest gaming memories - stuff like Perfect Dark multiplayer, or mucking about in GTA (any version), or Driver's survival mode - are entirely narrative-free. The player makes their own 'stories' rather than being funnelled down prescribed narrative paths. Look at the inexorable rise of multiplayer - doesn't that indicate that the vast majority of players care very little for conventional narrative in games?
Wholeheartedly agree about MGS - it is, and always has been, a load of complete and utter gibberish. Some great bits of design buried under megatons of rank bullshit. I don't understand how Kojima gets away with it. 90 minute long cutscenes indeed.
There have been attempts to create more involving stories in games going back to text adventures in the 1980s, it's just the technology wasn't there to accommodate the ambition - but now we have consoles with so much processing power that at one point the PS3 had an app that let it hook up to other PS3s to do Alzheimers research, it'd be daft to not take advantage of it to create more involving narratives. Pong was fine in 1980, but no-one is going to pay forty quid for that today.
I also think it's probably misleading to suggest that games are automatically trying to be tv or movies - these are merely our points of reference for discussing them. Games have a longer play time than the average tv series or movie so the three/five act structures rarely apply, and if anything their best analogue is with the Hero's Journey, but they are really their own thing and TLoU is a very good example of why.
Quote from: allied72 on 28 August, 2013, 01:32:47 PM
i must admit I am a fan of Hicks, not sure why, I know what you mean about the waving arms etc. Thanks for the heads up, might be more inclined to check it out as i don't think I'll get to play the game
I more admire that Hicks gets an idea in her head and then just sits down and hammers out a book - I think I bought Zombies Calling just to see if it was a real comic and not some elaborate internet messageboard in-joke, but it's a real book, and unlike many similar exercises in genre strip-mining from lesser writers it doesn't seem ashamed of - or determined to deny - its creative influences, so fair play.
I dare say in a year or two you can play Last of Us when you pick up a PS3 on the cheap, and the game is being re-released on PS4 so there'll be a few copies of the PS3 version knocking around. As fun as the "my particular household appliance is better than yours" game is when you are 12, I don't really understood why Sony or Microsoft are still - through subsidiary companies like Naughty Dog - doing games exclusively for "their" consoles in this day and age, especially big games like Uncharted or Halo that do movie-beating numbers. It's my understanding that hardware sales make huge losses for both companies but software is hugely profitable, so why they'd cut themselves off from potentially doubling sales is beyond me. I think it must be a man thing.
I'm all for great stories in games. Being drawn in to a game and being allowed to make important decisions that alter narrative gives gaming an immersive edge over movies. Films are great n all but they don't offer the same level of interactivity you get in a game.
Crackers such as Bioshock and Dead Space allow you to explore the world's they put you in. You can delve in much deeper than the surface story, reading posters on wall, exploring sub-quests that reveal more back story. There's certainly none of that in a set-time movie where you're being shown just the director's vision.
We shouldn't really hold up one example (MGS) and claim that cut scenes are shit in general. Play Mass Effect 2. They pretty much damn near nailed the cut-scene/action combo for a near fluid movie like gaming experience.
Ignoring the storyline in some games is not playing the game to its full potential.
There are greater evils than cutscenes, like quick-time events, which are basically unskippable cutscenes which continually repeat themselves if you don't push a button at the right moment.
I dont mind quick time events, gives you something do during cut scenes instead of reaching for the skip button. I don't mind story or cut scenes in games as long as it's well written like TellTales the Walking Dead and not like Metal Gear Solid.
I wasn't a fan of Uncharted 3 at all which Naughty Dog got near critical acclaim for, I thought it was a very pretty game hiding a boring plot, unsatisfying shooting and way too restrictive level design so don't think I'll check out Last of Us especially considering I just don't have the patience for stealth em ups.
QuoteI'm all for great stories in games. Being drawn in to a game and being allowed to make important decisions that alter narrative gives gaming an immersive edge over movies.
I don't think I have ever played a game where I was able to convincingly, satisfyingly alter the outcome of the story, other than in a few contrived, binary 'good' or evil' or 'good/bad' ending scenarios.
QuoteCrackers such as Bioshock and Dead Space allow you to explore the world's they put you in. You can delve in much deeper than the surface story, reading posters on wall, exploring sub-quests that reveal more back story. There's certainly none of that in a set-time movie where you're being shown just the director's vision.
And I would argue that, in terms of visual storytelling, the vast majority of games are light-years behind what the average film is capable of. In terms of lighting, of art direction, of drawing influence from things other than other games or films, of overall considered visual storytelling, the only impressive, sophisticated example that springs to mind is the aforementioned Half Life 2. If you as a developer are expecting players to read screeds of text off background materials to fill in your story, imo you've failed as a storyteller.
QuotePong was fine in 1980, but no-one is going to pay forty quid for that today.
So every game that doesn't attempt to be to tell a 'cinematic' story is old-fashioned or antiquated? Sorry, but that's utter bollocks. Complex, 'cinematic', narrative-heavy games tend to date horribly whereas classic 'true'
game games that concentrate on mechanics and gameplay are often timeless.
I'm not against any kind of narrative per se. I would even go so far as to say the strengths of games as a medium are their ability to convey atmosphere and a sense of location (I would cite Limbo as an example of brilliant, unobtrusive, visuals and interactivity-led videogame storytelling). I am just almost entirely against games that force feed you a linear narrative that gets in the way of the game itself, or try to get you to give a shit about a lunkhead Gears of War character dies in a cut scene. I still find it embarrassing and/or unintentionally funny 99% of the time when a game tries to provoke an emotional response from me.
Quote from: radiator on 28 August, 2013, 03:34:25 PM
QuoteI'm all for great stories in games. Being drawn in to a game and being allowed to make important decisions that alter narrative gives gaming an immersive edge over movies.
I don't think I have ever played a game where I was able to convincingly, satisfyingly alter the outcome of the story, other than in a few contrived, binary 'good' or evil' or 'good/bad' ending scenarios.
While I'd broadly agree with this (along with a lot of the other points you've made) I think that with something like Mass Effect, despite the fact that the ending basically boils down to one of a few 'Choose Your Own Adventure' style conclusions, the story is really about the journey rather than the destination.
It's more about who's lived and died along the way, what has happened to the various species and civilisations and how 'your' Sheppard is regarded within the game world.
As well as being a very fun shooter/RPG Mass Effect has the advantage of letting you make decisions that you'd be shouting at the screen over (Nooo - don't let the Krogans die from the Genophage) had this been made as a film or TV show.
Fair point, and Mass Effect (and Bioware's output in general) is one of a handful of games that I'd highlight as having a pretty good narrative... having said that, it's also derivative in the extreme. Said it before, but it's basically 45% Star Wars, 45% Star Trek and 10% Halo. There's nothing original or particularly interesting about it as a universe. Speaking of Halo - ISTR the first one was a kind of pastiche/parody of military sci fi tropes, and didn't take itself very seriously - hence the Grunts etc, and the fact that Apone from Aliens is in it. Then it disappeared up it's own arse after it was a huge success and the developers seemed to think they'd created a work of literature.
I still maintain that the very best videogame 'stories' - the ones that you still talk about with your friends years later - are random things that arise naturally through gameplay ('emergent gameplay' if you want to be wanky about it) - crazy flukes, near-misses, that sort of thing. I can still remember playing Vice City with my friends, trying to outrun a SWAT armoured car on a Vespa, swerving wildly left and right whilst looking back to avoid it, while everyone fell about laughing. And you can't script or control stuff like that.
Oh, I agree Mass Effect is very much an amalgamation of ideas nicked from other franchises. The game I really can't wait for - mainly because of the world it's set in - is Cyberpunk 2077.
If the story's even half decent and the world is faithful to the original RPG it will be amazing.
I guess it boils down to what type of games you enjoy playing the most. For me, when playing alone, I like to be taken on a journey like with a book but more interactive, so I firmly believe that a solid storyline is an integral part of certain gaming genres. I happy for them to include cut scenes or to try and emotionally engage me.
These games are a different kettle to 'group' games or online gaming which offer the unpredictability of human involvement. The first 2 Modern Warefare's generated some great conversation at work after a good session online the night before.
QuoteThese games are a different kettle to 'group' games or online gaming which offer the unpredictability of human involvement. The first 2 Modern Warefare's generated some great conversation at work after a good session online the night before.
I don't particularly play much in the way of multiplayer games, that's not really what I'm getting at - I'm talking more about the manner, or language, in which games tell stories.
I guess it all comes down to taste, and what you want from a game. Personally I think it's utterly bizarre that there are people who will blaze through a game on the easiest setting just to enjoy the 'cinematic' story and get a feeling of empowerment, and - though I understand the reasons why - bemoan somewhat that singleplayer games have become so afraid to challenge the player - to the point where they're almost completely linear, passive experiences, shuffling the player from one clearly delineated set of fireworks to the next. I'd rather read a book or watch a film if it's a story I'm after. I play games for the mental and dexterity challenge, for the exploration and discovery aspect, for the kinetic thrill.
Perhaps I'm being unfair on them, but that's why I feel The Last of Us/Uncharted wouldn't be my cup of tea - they seem to represent everything I dislike about modern games.
I liked that bit in South Park where Stan's dad drags his guitar into the living room because he sees the kids playing Guitar Hero, then starts getting angry because they're "not really playing guitar, they're just hitting buttons and having fun."
I've just played about the first 2.5 hours of this game and I have to say that so far I'm a bit disappointed.
Here are my thoughts so far (possible spoilers):
[spoiler]I went in not knowing a great deal about the story other than it was a post apocalyptic thing - I'd heard comparisons to 'The Road'. I was pretty underwhelmed to find out that it's basically zombies. I'm bored to bloody death of zombies. I'd have preferred the enemies to be other survivors trying to scratch a living to be honest. That's more what I was expecting really - the game asks 'What would you do to survive?' Well if a mushroom headed zombie came after me I'd hit it on the head with a plank of wood - which I've already done about 20 times!
I was also expecting some really innovative game mechanics. Haven't seen any so far but maybe it will get better as it goes along. From what I can see it's basically Uncharted mixed with Deus Ex: Human Revolution set in zombie land.
It's a little clunky in places too. Sneaking around, I've found that the NPCs bump into you and generally get in the way. I've seen an NPC get stuck on the side of a staircase too.
After having played a couple of Uncharted games I'd like to tell Naughty Dog that boosting a character to a higher level so that they can kick down a ladder or pull you up does not constitute 'playing'.
I can't say I find the setting particularly convincing either. It's 20 years into this zombie outbreak but it seems that there are plenty of weapons lying around and a stable military structure. The infection is fungal and spread by spores so I can't see why soldiers in breathing apparatus are having so many problems taking down unarmed infected people - especially as half of them are blind! I guess I can't be too critical as I don't know the whole story yet.
I'm waiting for something to happen to Tess as all of the marketing concentrates exclusively on Joel and Ellie.
All in all it's a bit 'meh' and I'm currently of the opinion that the best of these third person adventure/shooter games has been Tomb Raider.
As I say though, I'm only a couple of hours in and I genuinely hope that it's going to pick up and blow me away!
[/spoiler]
Well, if you don't mind spoilers, read on, but the short and spoiler-free version is "it's going to be fifteen hours or so of game at the very least, and all those points are covered or subverted sooner or later."
But if you don't mind spoilers: [spoiler]People of various factions are the main antagonists the further you go into the game, the mushroom zombies are just part of the setting and plot McGuffin - though the latter becomes less important over time and eventually you are simply "on a journey with another character". Until you get to the Massachusetts courthouse, the levels you're playing are essentially a long tutorial and world-building.
This is more opinion, I suppose, but the fact the controls aren't total dogshit is possibly the greatest innovation in survival horror in the last decade. Resident Evil and Silent Hill are pretty unplayable unless you have grown up playing Resident Evil and Silent Hill games, but TLOU has industry-standard controls (ported from Uncharted, admittedly), making it - if anything - far too easy.
Sneak mechanics - and successful use thereof - are dependent on the difficulty level, and on very easy, your NPCs blunder around and even walk in front of enemies and you won't be discovered. The harder levels are a shock, though - especially if you've got used to that spidey-sense listening thing.
Like yourself, I thought there was too much boosting and ladder-fetching in this (and other recent Naughty Dog games), but it does change as the game goes on to accommodate other types of puzzle, especially when you have to get characters who can't swim across a river or a flooded street, or when you try boosting and it suckers you by springing an action sequence.
Don't know about "lots of weapons laying around", as even on the easiest difficulty you don't get ammo from all fallen enemies, even if they had a gun, while the opening levels are based around retrieving weapons because they're so valuable - again, ramp up the difficulty and there's a lot less ammo and weapons around. The military also isn't as stable as it looks, which becomes apparent later when you start seeing the cities they've lost. As for why the mushroom people have been a threat, that applies equally to regular old zombies and why they could ever be a threat, but part of the infection cycle involves spores spread on the wind, usually by infected who stumble into the buffer zone around the military-controlled areas, and then people hide their infections from others - this is a plot point several times in the game - because there's still hope that a cure exists, a rumor spread by the Fireflies and which your characters have bought into.
Although Joel and Ellie are the central protagonists, you play with different NPC companions throughout the game - at least four off the top of my head - and there are others who tag along with you and your companion at various stages.[/spoiler]
I'm finally playing this and, while adoring the graphics (my missus actually asked me what I was 'watching' when she came in during a cutscene and got a surprise when she realised it was a game) and loving the characters, the gameplay is leaving me very, very cold.
I'm normally a good gamer, but have found myself running around in circles on this one several times. I'm currently with Bill sneaking through a load of gardens filled with mushroom faces and I'm sick of getting instantly killed and having to go back to the start of the section.
That's the crux of it for me, at times, the game stops being fun and engaging and just becomes a tedious slog.
I'm in exactly the same place as you and feel the same way about the game too.
While very well produced, the game play is nothing special, it's like a even more linear, cut down version of the Arkham games mixed with some rudimentary RPG style crafting.
Never fight when you can run, as your character isn't Batman, he is 49 years old when the game starts and we are constantly assaulted with reminders what a pushover he is despite his gruff voice and scowling ways.
I was on a half-hearted trophy mop-up of the Uncharted games and recently decided to get back to Uncharted 3, which I did almost immediately after getting put off by the difficulty of the later Winter chapter of Last Of Us*, and despite playing both on the second-hardest difficulty I was surprised at what a breeze Uncharted 3 was in comparison. I recall having the odd death on even the easiest difficulty, but this time I was just waltzing through it on Very Hard. I have thus concluded that The Last of Us is a hard game.
* [spoiler]Where you take over as Ellie and ammo is nonexistent, it takes longer to reload than it takes infected to crawl through the window and run at you, and everything kills you the instant it makes contact with your character.[/spoiler]
I was the same, when I played it I found it frequently frustrating. The way the characters are written and performed is incredible, it possibly has the best mocap I've seen in a game, but I couldn't really find anything else in it that was up to that level of polish. I almost hate to give my opinion of it because I know people love it and I've been torn to shreds for suggesting it's not perfect (apparently I'm just playing it wrong) so please bear in mind all of this is just my opinion.
It does a very bad job of tipping you off to what's expected of you in any given area. It purports to be a stealth game for the most part, but there are areas where I would spend a great deal of time sneaking around the enemies to avoid them, before finding out that the game won't then progress because the next scripted event doesn't trigger until you kill everyone. There were also set-pieces where sneaking wasn't an option at all and you were expected to hold off enemies, and these parts seemed really terribly balanced for the game's combat controls. Also, I'm not totally against enemies with one-hit kill attacks, it makes a lot of sense in a sneaky game, but if 3 of them spawn in the same spot at once and run at me simultaneously, making it impossible to kill one without another getting me, then that's just poor design. There was one point where a poor choice of dialogue and an objective that contradicted previously learned behaviours led me to believe the scripting had broken, and googling that particular 'bug' brought up a ton of forum posts about the same thing. It wasn't broken, it was just presented very badly.
I'm glad I played it, because the story is brilliantly told and still lingers with me (and the opening to the game is one of the best prologues I've seen in gaming), but I spent more time sighing and shaking my head at it than I did immersed in it. It was a 3/5 game for me, and far from the medium-defining experience many found it to be.
I gave up on it.
I honestly thought it was terrible. It utterly bored me and after getting about halfway through and realising that none of the time spent with it had been fun I sold it on ebay.
It is a stone cold fact that you can't please everyone, as I feel the same way about Gears of War, FIFA and the latter WWE games. Also those racing games where you just slalom the car constantly trying to point it in the right direction, which wind me up something rotten to the point I wish the game had a face SO I COULD PUNCH IT IN THE BALLS.
I do like that there's a guy on Amazon who gave TLoU 1 star and insists that it is the worst game ever because it won't start. He's checked forums and other people have had the same problem so "it's not the disc", and if I'm the only one who thinks it's awesome that there's a guy somewhere fuming because the rest of the gaming world has played some sort of long con on him to steal his 30 pounds, then so be it.
I completed this yesterday and it grew on me a whole lot by the end. It was, perhaps, the most beautiful game I've ever played and the character models were stunning. The story and acting were great but unfortunately the gameplay was, at best, good (and often f**king annoying.)
I'm pleased I played it, but give me Uncharted any day.
I am currently on 360 but the reviews for this game have been stunning!
Not a huge hit out here, but all those that have played rave about it.
Bought the Left Behind dlc on Friday and got around to finishing it this morning and it's a superb add-on to what was already one of the last generation's crowning gaming achievements. The changes in gameplay mechanics seem tailor-made to frustrate and enrage critics of the main game, as the entire storyline and attendant game experience is tailored towards fleshing out a bit of character backstory while breaking with the full game's travelogue motif in favor of a single-location survival horror experience (it feels like the Mall section of Silent Hill 3, only playable, with decent dialogue, and fun), but for those who prefer to be entertained rather than constantly frustrated it's a daft couple of hours well-spent.
I do not call it lightly that it seems tailor-made to enrage certain quarters of the gaming community, either, as they've responded with depressing predictability to the minor reveal about Ellie [spoiler]being gay[/spoiler], but it's not really a proper weekday without the gaming internet letting itself down yet again.
Should you be interested in the various gameplay changes, minigames and additions, they are (spoiler tags because half the fun is having some of it spring on you):[spoiler] playing a beat-em-up game without visuals (it makes sense in context), some platform puzzles, tricking monsters/pursuing humans into fighting each other as a stealth tactic, smashing car windows with bricks, posing your character For Reasons, and a watergun battle.[/spoiler]
I've probably forgotten things, but that's about the gist of the gameplay stuff apart from some pretty manic chase sequences and a couple of tense stealth takedowns against the clock which seem harder than in the regular game, though that might have been me insisting on playing through on the hardest difficulty (almost no salvage or ammo, and no "listening" mechanics) without using medical kits for some reason that escapes me.
Brilliant, but all too brief.