Jack The Nipper
Banned
I have a lot of issues with the way ND has handled interaction and gameplay in the UC series mostly stemming from UC2 which is the more tedious and worse entry in the UC series for me. For this reason I have been late to playing the Last of Us.
With that out of the way I want to first say the game is quite a bit better than the 3 previous UC games for me so far (I'm about half way through TLOU, I think) and so far a lot of the gameplay issues as far as interaction are not nearly as present.
However; there are a lot of issues that ND just can't seem to get right when compared to other AAA developers.
AI partners feel silly and often get in my way and won't move, turning around to have an AI be next to you and not being able to move isn't exactly fun or working very well.
I can understand when they are running around and looking silly while running toward enemy AI or in the wrong way that it doesn't affect being seen to make the game easier, but these issues till look very silly.
Contextual game play issues - sometimes I need to go through a specific area that is always determined by a contextual movement path, such as tight spaces to squeeze through, small doorways etc
Sometimes the contextual area for these places are strange and don't really have a smooth area of transition or absorbing the transitions, sometimes you just get strongly shifted over two body sizes to the area it needs, other times you have to go out of the way to where it looks like you actually need to be to even get it to work.
The stair effect - Ok ND, it's cool that our characters touch every step and don't just morph up a ramp but you have created another issue while fixing this one. People actually can skip, jump down and use steps the way they see fit. I do not always feel this method of stair running is the best way to handle it. It needs to be more free moving while your characters animation properly syncs to the stairs in a wider range of generated animation that doesn't hamper running, jumping stairs etc
this feels even more strange in chase scenes when in movies you always see a lot of running and jumping multiple stairs, railings etc
Vehicles, man the vehicles - Well what can I say, they always feel really strange, smooth and like I'm on a roller coaster. The first scene is very evident of this and sometimes these basic things just aren't done very well by ND. I always feel their vehicles are some of the strangest feeling when compared to other similar AAA games (lol Ghost Recon...) most not all at least.
Fuck my shit up Fam - so the last point I think I can make with some of the issues with this game is that it's fine to have some broken, dirty places but surely not every single place would look like this? Surely someone has to keep an area clean even though they may not have running water etc
Surely some areas will be untouched, will not look like some thugs came in and beat the living hell out of it for no apparent reason, I get that it's fine to have areas that have been beat to hell due to boarding up windows and more, but some areas are simply going to be left alone and should actually look similar to how they may have looked before the issues begun, dirty, dusty and maybe water damage here and there, but not I got your shit fucked up fam sort of look. You go through buildings, with many floors and apparently someone had to make sure they go damage every corner of the building up in a fit of baseball frustration or something.
These are my biggest issues that sort of take me out of the experience a bit in an otherwise well made heavy atmosphere world.
Overall, I am enjoying the game but wanted to point out some of these issues that likely often get over looked in the otherwise well made parts of the game.
I am still not sure what happens at the end of the game so I am looking forward to that as I have sort of seen it said in some manner that it's not good but I actually don't have any idea what it actually is.
I do believe this sort of game helps with ND's style a lot more than UC, as story and being more slow and methodical are more a part of this than trying to throw in climbing, jumping etc which becomes overly tedious with how they handled it.
*I have not played UC4 yet, so I am not sure how they have changed or kept some of these issues the same.
Hopefully for TLOU2, they can work on some of these issues to bring a even more realistic experience to the table.
Edit *
Just finished the game, overall I did like it even though apparently posters keep trying to tell me I am lying to myself over and over.
Overall, the story and atmosphere is good. There actually is a less beat to hell location in the game even though I wish it played a bigger role and had more emphasis in the lore (that place is is the farm house) So, at least they did consider it a bit.
I did enjoy the location shifts but the combat and issues from my OP obviously were never going to be rectified. (It was never said or created in the idea that the game isn't good or wasn't made well for what it is) it was to show that the issues of game play and ND design has not changed much.
Overall, I'd give this game around 8.4 out of 10 or so. The ending could have been a little longer IMO but it seems to hold it self up well for a sequel and some other cause (Whatever they wanna do, it seems)
It isn't really the ending I expected but it was good enough, last area of the game was one of the weakest but at least a lot of the stuff before that was overall good
As per Uncharted not sure if I could ever replay it cause it's so constrained and the gameplay isn't that great, if there was a mode where it had no enemies and I could just visit the locations and such then maybe, but knowing the story and have already seen the areas not sure I'd go back to it. Maybe one day in the future if there is ever someone around that is interested in seeing it then I'd do it.
With that out of the way I want to first say the game is quite a bit better than the 3 previous UC games for me so far (I'm about half way through TLOU, I think) and so far a lot of the gameplay issues as far as interaction are not nearly as present.
However; there are a lot of issues that ND just can't seem to get right when compared to other AAA developers.
AI partners feel silly and often get in my way and won't move, turning around to have an AI be next to you and not being able to move isn't exactly fun or working very well.
I can understand when they are running around and looking silly while running toward enemy AI or in the wrong way that it doesn't affect being seen to make the game easier, but these issues till look very silly.
Contextual game play issues - sometimes I need to go through a specific area that is always determined by a contextual movement path, such as tight spaces to squeeze through, small doorways etc
Sometimes the contextual area for these places are strange and don't really have a smooth area of transition or absorbing the transitions, sometimes you just get strongly shifted over two body sizes to the area it needs, other times you have to go out of the way to where it looks like you actually need to be to even get it to work.
The stair effect - Ok ND, it's cool that our characters touch every step and don't just morph up a ramp but you have created another issue while fixing this one. People actually can skip, jump down and use steps the way they see fit. I do not always feel this method of stair running is the best way to handle it. It needs to be more free moving while your characters animation properly syncs to the stairs in a wider range of generated animation that doesn't hamper running, jumping stairs etc
this feels even more strange in chase scenes when in movies you always see a lot of running and jumping multiple stairs, railings etc
Vehicles, man the vehicles - Well what can I say, they always feel really strange, smooth and like I'm on a roller coaster. The first scene is very evident of this and sometimes these basic things just aren't done very well by ND. I always feel their vehicles are some of the strangest feeling when compared to other similar AAA games (lol Ghost Recon...) most not all at least.
Fuck my shit up Fam - so the last point I think I can make with some of the issues with this game is that it's fine to have some broken, dirty places but surely not every single place would look like this? Surely someone has to keep an area clean even though they may not have running water etc
Surely some areas will be untouched, will not look like some thugs came in and beat the living hell out of it for no apparent reason, I get that it's fine to have areas that have been beat to hell due to boarding up windows and more, but some areas are simply going to be left alone and should actually look similar to how they may have looked before the issues begun, dirty, dusty and maybe water damage here and there, but not I got your shit fucked up fam sort of look. You go through buildings, with many floors and apparently someone had to make sure they go damage every corner of the building up in a fit of baseball frustration or something.
These are my biggest issues that sort of take me out of the experience a bit in an otherwise well made heavy atmosphere world.
Overall, I am enjoying the game but wanted to point out some of these issues that likely often get over looked in the otherwise well made parts of the game.
I am still not sure what happens at the end of the game so I am looking forward to that as I have sort of seen it said in some manner that it's not good but I actually don't have any idea what it actually is.
I do believe this sort of game helps with ND's style a lot more than UC, as story and being more slow and methodical are more a part of this than trying to throw in climbing, jumping etc which becomes overly tedious with how they handled it.
*I have not played UC4 yet, so I am not sure how they have changed or kept some of these issues the same.
Hopefully for TLOU2, they can work on some of these issues to bring a even more realistic experience to the table.
Edit *
Just finished the game, overall I did like it even though apparently posters keep trying to tell me I am lying to myself over and over.
Overall, the story and atmosphere is good. There actually is a less beat to hell location in the game even though I wish it played a bigger role and had more emphasis in the lore (that place is is the farm house) So, at least they did consider it a bit.
I did enjoy the location shifts but the combat and issues from my OP obviously were never going to be rectified. (It was never said or created in the idea that the game isn't good or wasn't made well for what it is) it was to show that the issues of game play and ND design has not changed much.
Overall, I'd give this game around 8.4 out of 10 or so. The ending could have been a little longer IMO but it seems to hold it self up well for a sequel and some other cause (Whatever they wanna do, it seems)
It isn't really the ending I expected but it was good enough, last area of the game was one of the weakest but at least a lot of the stuff before that was overall good
As per Uncharted not sure if I could ever replay it cause it's so constrained and the gameplay isn't that great, if there was a mode where it had no enemies and I could just visit the locations and such then maybe, but knowing the story and have already seen the areas not sure I'd go back to it. Maybe one day in the future if there is ever someone around that is interested in seeing it then I'd do it.
but that's ok