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The Last of Us - Review Thread [Emargo up, scores in OP.]

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T

TylerD

Member
timmaysmittay said:
You know its funny in pretty much any other situation I would agree with you but when it comes to Naughty Dog if this is just their first attempt at this universe I want to see them go crazy with it next generation, or at least come out with a new IP that sticks to mature themes, that would be a good way to go too.
Click to expand...

Good point. I have a feeling that anything they put out, be it new IP or a continuation is going to be excellent.
 
T

Tricky I Shadow

Banned
nib95 said:
Re-posting my updated reviews banner for all those perfect scores!

8966376018_678ddc49b7_o.jpg
Click to expand...

Putting this in the OP for the OT is a must.
 
P

Pachimari

Member
To me the mechanics and systems are perfect. The controls are smooth and responsive and coupled with the tiniest of animations it will take your breath away.
 
N

nib95

Banned
thuway said:
Nib there are a couple more perfect scores you need to add. Make sure the Empire review is there too :). I want a banner with every perfect score.
Click to expand...

Which am I missing? And Empire is in there! Under the 5 star section! :p

Dragon said:
Joystiq is 5/5 no? I know technically that's the same thing but in reviewland I don't think it is.
Click to expand...

You're right, I might change it. What 10/10 should take it's place?
 
-Plasma Reus-

-Plasma Reus-

Service guarantees member status
When's the OT going up?
I want first post to be one where I congratulate Naughty Dog for making something unique when the NOP for high budget games is to stay as generic as possible.
 
W

Wynnebeck

Banned
Andrew. said:
Any of you guys play "I Am Alive"? I bought it awhile ago and never really started. I figured it'd be a nice warmup to this.
Click to expand...

I Am Alive has literally no comparison to TLoU at all. Think of it as like, "Uncharted platforming + MGS2 grip gauge meets post-apocalyptic setting."
 
A

AkuMifune

Banned
Way to go Polygon! Doing your best to really prove you're not Microsoft owned, really.

Oh I know you don't need to prove anything! Don't get testy! It's ok, just sleep now. Down Kollar, down. Back to sleep in the giant comforting bosom of Major Nelson.
 
C

ComputerMKII

Banned
MilesVor said:
In the 90's, when I would read reviews of games in proper gaming magazines (not like PS-MAGAZINE, or NINTENDO MAGAZINE), but proper impartial ones, they would spend pages and pages breaking down the game to its tiniest elements. It didn't matter if it was a small game or huge blockbuster (well, as "huge" as it got back in the 90s).

Nowadays though game reviews tend to focus on the superficial elements of AAA games, like how "cool" a game is and how "edgy and emotional" the story is. Gameplay and technical aspects are relegated to secondary status.
And when technical aspects are discussed it's about how the framerate goes down a few frames during certain scenes, and what the rendering resolution is, etc.
That's like having a "technical" talk about cars, while only talking about the colour, the speed and effectiveness of the windscreen wipers, and the sound of the engine.

Gone are the paragraphs about the effectiveness of the art style, about the satisfaction and weight of gameplay actions, of the fittingness of the gameplay to the story and vice versa, etc. Even with Bioshiock Infinite, probably the most gorgeous art design I have seen since Wind Waker, it was mostly referred to in non-review articles and briefly mentioned perhaps in the reviews proper. People were mostly focusing on the utterly manipulative but FUN story that has been done a billion times before in movies and novels, but was utterly broken and full of holes and contradictions.
The voice recordings were cool and told you important part of the story? Tough luck, you missed a few. Major plot points were divulged during gameplay? Tough luck, they were, but during huge battles with people screaming and explosions everywhere.
Omg, this was one of the most striking conversations I've had with a NPC in a game before... so emotional. OH WAIT, HERE'S SOME MONEY/AMMO!!!!!
They were focusing on the socio-political context of racism, religious fanatism, and all that gunk, while ignoring that they only formed a simple backdrop to the game. Having no more importance than wallpaper.

Meh, I could go on for hours.
Nowadays it's more important to SOUND smart in a review than to actually be smart.
They want to sell the IDEA of a game, rather than the game itself.
I've read so many damn reviews on TLOU, and it's just mindboggingly bizarre.
Most of them mention "minor irritations" tied to immersion-breaking AI, less interesting side-characters, combat and crafting that have some issues or aren't that well done, of puzzles that can get repetitive, of generic shooting parts that are forced on the player even though throughout the game you were always able to choose whether to sneak past enemies or take them out, etc, etc, etc, etc.

So, the game is hailed as the crowning achievement of this generation, hailed so because of how immersive it is, how awesome the NPC are, how awesome the gameplay is, how great the worldbuilding, the morality themes, and how you can choose wether to sneak or kill...
but it has major immersion-breaking moments, generic controls, boring puzzles, and despite all your sneaking, still forces you to fight the same tired waves of generic baddies (totally breaking its internal moral immersion), etc.

Huh?

Huuuuh?

In the end, in my humble opinion, reviewers will in general always give good scores, perfect scores, to huge AAA games with great production values.
The exceptions are perfectly explainable. Uncharted 3? Uncharted 2 was the high point, this is the third installment, we can risk to give a bit less.
Crysis 3, and other FPS games have amazing production value... but lots of "hardcore gamers" are getting tired of FPS! We can risk giving it a lower score...
Etc.


This is all understandable of course. Need those clicks, bro.
Click to expand...
Amen.

Reviews and scores are now only based on hype. If I want opinions to help me decide whether to buy a game or not, I'd rather listen to word-of-mouth and forums instead.
 
J

jpd1408

Banned
Just watched the first 20 mins of the game on YouTube on iPad so can't post link...but I cried after watching the opening... Best opening of any game I have seen in my life...will not watch or read anything about this game... Wow I can not wait to play!

Never felt the way I do from a video game... And I didn't even play it.
 
R

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
Now I wish more than ever that I had a PS3. This, Uncharted 1-3, Flower, Journey, Infamous 1&2, MGS HD Collection, God of War Saga Collection, Scott Pilgrim and The Darkness (loved the initial 30 minutes I played of it) are tempting the fuck out of me.

But especially this one. Haven't watched anything about it since the video Sony showed at last year's E3 (it was awesome), so I'd be going in totally blind. If only I could find the console for cheap...
 
N

nib95

Banned
RionaaM said:
Now I wish more than ever that I had a PS3. This, Uncharted 1-3, Flower, Journey, Infamous 1&2, MGS HD Collection, God of War Saga Collection, Scott Pilgrim and The Darkness (loved the initial 30 minutes I played of it) are tempting the fuck out of me.

But especially this one. Haven't watched anything about it since the video Sony showed at last year's E3 (it was awesome), so I'd be going in totally blind. If only I could find the console for cheap...
Click to expand...

Wait till after E3. Rumours are they're going to announce a price drop.
 
A

Andrew.

Banned
Wynnebeck said:
I Am Alive has literally no comparison to TLoU at all. Think of it as like, "Uncharted platforming + MGS2 grip gauge meets post-apocalyptic setting."
Click to expand...

Literally huh? I dunno man. Its got a post apoc/The Road-ish setting where supplies and weaponry/ammo are severely limited and fighting enemies take little bit of strategy.

Sounds kinda similar to me. Guess Ill find out this weekend.

Either that or might have to pop in Manhunt again.
 
H

hlhbk

Member
Bulbasaur said:
Well I'm off to play Zombi U while pretending that I'm playing Last Of Us. Curse my one console policy!
Click to expand...

Now is as good as time as any to break that policy. Why limit yourself when there are so many great experiences on all consoles/hand helds/pc?
 
S

Stat Flow

He gonna cry in the car
Wtf. I haven't paid any attention to this game. What's with the insane review scores? I have a PS3 but I haven't really paid attention to this at all.
 
diffusionx

diffusionx

Gold Member
MilesVor said:
In the 90's, when I would read reviews of games in proper gaming magazines (not like PS-MAGAZINE, or NINTENDO MAGAZINE), but proper impartial ones, they would spend pages and pages breaking down the game to its tiniest elements. It didn't matter if it was a small game or huge blockbuster (well, as "huge" as it got back in the 90s).
Click to expand...

No, they weren't impartial.


MilesVor said:
Gone are the paragraphs about the effectiveness of the art style, about the satisfaction and weight of gameplay actions, of the fittingness of the gameplay to the story and vice versa, etc.
Click to expand...

For emphasis. Judging the effectiveness of art style or satisfaction of gameplay actions is, by definition, not being impartial. You are giving your opinion on a game. Why don't you realize this?
 
M

MilesVor

Banned
OwlyKnees said:
To me the mechanics and systems are poor. The controls are unwieldy and unresponsive and coupled with excessive levels of animations it will take your breath away.
Click to expand...

Now this sounds like EXACTLY what the game is pointing towards, when you take almost every other similar game of this generation into account.
TLOU can still surprise me... but you can't ignore its context in time.

diffusionx said:
No, they weren't impartial.

Any time you pass judgement you, are, by definition, not being impartial.
Click to expand...

Uhm, I mentioned later that reviews are by nature somewhat subjective.
Impartial meant that the magazine itself is not affiliated to a certain fanbase.
I like the people at Nintendolife, but I'll never take their review of a Nintendo game as seriously as others.
Seriously.... read.
 
-Plasma Reus-

-Plasma Reus-

Service guarantees member status
Polygon doesn't need to prove anything to anyone. The reviewer may have a different idea of what is good in a game, this must be respected.
It is, however, interesting that its review is so starkly different from the general consensus. The review reveals that Polygon's reviewer, perceives what comprises a good game vastly different from the general consensus.

Polygon's review, to me, is kind of like one of Armond White's reviews.
 
J

JohnsonUT

Member
RionaaM said:
Now I wish more than ever that I had a PS3. This, Uncharted 1-3, Flower, Journey, Infamous 1&2, MGS HD Collection, God of War Saga Collection, Scott Pilgrim and The Darkness (loved the initial 30 minutes I played of it) are tempting the fuck out of me.

But especially this one. Haven't watched anything about it since the video Sony showed at last year's E3 (it was awesome), so I'd be going in totally blind. If only I could find the console for cheap...
Click to expand...

It is really a shame that the PS3 remains priced so high this late in its life. If the PS4 had backward compatibility, I would definitely have picked it up early on just for the PS3 catalog.
 
S

SolidSnakex

Member
JohnsonUT said:
It is really a shame that the PS3 remains priced so high this late in its life. If the PS4 had backward compatibility, I would definitely have picked it up early on just for the PS3 catalog.
Click to expand...

It's almost certainly receiving a price drop this year, maybe as early as E3. And there was a rumor that Sony would be announcing a TLoU pack in PS3 at E3 also.
 
F

Fezan

Member
Seeing this and fuse Reviews have made me realize that how much ND has improved or Insomniac has gotten worse. they were neck to neck in reviews during ps1 and ps2 era
 
H

hlhbk

Member
-Plasma Reus- said:
Polygon doesn't need to prove anything to anyone. The reviewer may have a different idea of what is good in a game, this must be respected.
It is, however, interesting that its review is so starkly different from the general consensus. The review reveals that Polygon's reviewer, perceives what comprises a good game vastly different from the general consensus.

Polygon's review, to me, is kind of like one of Armond White's reviews.
Click to expand...

While I completely agree personal tastes should be respected Polygon's reviews have been so far off from 99% of other reviews and people's impressions something seems off. Also the moment they defended EA for the SimCity debacle they deserved all hate they get.
 
A

AbandonedTrolley

Member
JohnsonUT said:
It is really a shame that the PS3 remains priced so high this late in its life. If the PS4 had backward compatibility, I would definitely have picked it up early on just for the PS3 catalog.
Click to expand...

Second hand ones can be had for around £100 I don't consider that high considering the back catalogue of great games that can be had on the cheap.
 
-Plasma Reus-

-Plasma Reus-

Service guarantees member status
hlhbk said:
While I completely agree personal tastes should be respected Polygon's reviews have been so far off from 99% of other reviews and people's impressions something seems off. Also the moment they defended EA for the SimCity debacle they deserved all hate they get.
Click to expand...

Wow. That is...interesting.
 
M

MilesVor

Banned
hlhbk said:
While I completely agree personal tastes should be respected Polygon's reviews have been so far off from 99% of other reviews and people's impressions something seems off. Also the moment they defended EA for the SimCity debacle they deserved all hate they get.
Click to expand...

In their defense, almost all early reviews (even by "rebel reviewers" that people like) harped on about the network connection issues, while completely ignoring _HUGE_ issues with AI, pathfinding, etc.
 
J

JoduanER2

Member
MilesVor said:
In the 90's, when I would read reviews of games in proper gaming magazines (not like PS-MAGAZINE, or NINTENDO MAGAZINE), but proper impartial ones, they would spend pages and pages breaking down the game to its tiniest elements. It didn't matter if it was a small game or huge blockbuster (well, as "huge" as it got back in the 90s).

Nowadays though game reviews tend to focus on the superficial elements of AAA games, like how "cool" a game is and how "edgy and emotional" the story is. Gameplay and technical aspects are relegated to secondary status.
And when technical aspects are discussed it's about how the framerate goes down a few frames during certain scenes, and what the rendering resolution is, etc.
That's like having a "technical" talk about cars, while only talking about the colour, the speed and effectiveness of the windscreen wipers, and the sound of the engine.

Gone are the paragraphs about the effectiveness of the art style, about the satisfaction and weight of gameplay actions, of the fittingness of the gameplay to the story and vice versa, etc. Even with Bioshiock Infinite, probably the most gorgeous art design I have seen since Wind Waker, it was mostly referred to in non-review articles and briefly mentioned perhaps in the reviews proper. People were mostly focusing on the utterly manipulative but FUN story that has been done a billion times before in movies and novels, but was utterly broken and full of holes and contradictions.
The voice recordings were cool and told you important part of the story? Tough luck, you missed a few. Major plot points were divulged during gameplay? Tough luck, they were, but during huge battles with people screaming and explosions everywhere.
Omg, this was one of the most striking conversations I've had with a NPC in a game before... so emotional. OH WAIT, HERE'S SOME MONEY/AMMO!!!!!
They were focusing on the socio-political context of racism, religious fanatism, and all that gunk, while ignoring that they only formed a simple backdrop to the game. Having no more importance than wallpaper.

Meh, I could go on for hours.
Nowadays it's more important to SOUND smart in a review than to actually be smart.
They want to sell the IDEA of a game, rather than the game itself.
I've read so many damn reviews on TLOU, and it's just mindboggingly bizarre.
Most of them mention "minor irritations" tied to immersion-breaking AI, less interesting side-characters, combat and crafting that have some issues or aren't that well done, of puzzles that can get repetitive, of generic shooting parts that are forced on the player even though throughout the game you were always able to choose whether to sneak past enemies or take them out, etc, etc, etc, etc.

So, the game is hailed as the crowning achievement of this generation, hailed so because of how immersive it is, how awesome the NPC are, how awesome the gameplay is, how great the worldbuilding, the morality themes, and how you can choose wether to sneak or kill...
but it has major immersion-breaking moments, generic controls, boring puzzles, and despite all your sneaking, still forces you to fight the same tired waves of generic baddies (totally breaking its internal moral immersion), etc.

Huh?

Huuuuh?

In the end, in my humble opinion, reviewers will in general always give good scores, perfect scores, to huge AAA games with great production values.
The exceptions are perfectly explainable. Uncharted 3? Uncharted 2 was the high point, this is the third installment, we can risk to give a bit less.
Crysis 3, and other FPS games have amazing production value... but lots of "hardcore gamers" are getting tired of FPS! We can risk giving it a lower score...
Etc.


This is all understandable of course. Need those clicks, bro.
Click to expand...

Thats what i think of that sessler guy, in his bioshock infinite review he spends most of the time saying fancy words about the game, about religion and politics and all that crap, and how that makes it an awesome game, like if it was a painting or something... and of course most people love that thing it makes the game feel important, but i think that kind of reviews just suck. Pls someone post a quote of his review, its just hilarious how much time he spends talking about how beautiful and how artistic the game is... Who cares about that.
 
A

AkuMifune

Banned
SolidSnakex said:
It's almost certainly receiving a price drop this year, maybe as early as E3. And there was a rumor that Sony would be announcing a TLoU pack in PS3 at E3 also.
Click to expand...

I hope! I knew I'd have to get another one eventually for this and Journey at least since my launch one died 3 years ago. Can't believe they're still so expensive.

But maybe my 360 slim is worth something trade-in. If there's no exclusives left for it doesn't really matter I guess, could play any console games on the PS3 moving forward.
 
M

MilesVor

Banned
JoduanER2 said:
Thats what i think of that sessler guy, in his bioshock infinite review he spends most of the time saying fancy words about the game, about religion and politics and all that crap, and how that makes it an awesome game, like if it was a painting or something... and of course most people love that thing it makes the game feel important, but i think that kind of reviews just suck. Pls someone post a quote of his review, is just hilarious how much time he spends talking about how beautiful and how artistic is the game... Who cares about that.
Click to expand...

Kinda true. But the fact that Bioshock Infinite was one of the most gorgeous games to ever grace my screen (for most of it anyway) was the only reason I was able to finish it.
The gameplay was another iteration of Captain Bland's Monotonous Adventure.

Jacksonlee said:
i do.

gameplay is second for me. you can't just assume that everyone games for gameplay. (ha!)
whatever's interesting and fun for that individual person, he can enjoy for that part -

not something that's decided by the games community and devs to be the "you must enjoy the gameplay to enjoy the game"
Click to expand...

I know people who enjoy going to the beach because you can meet hot girls there.
You don't need to go to the beach for that.
Games are... dumdumdum... about _game_play.
Not that it needs all kinds of complex gameplay options, etc.
It's about having the perfect type of gameplay for the game.

"Cinematic" games like TLOU shoehorn generic gameplay into an otherwise great story or whatever because it still needs to be a game.
Games like Journey have practically no advanced gameplay at all, but that's because that's what's best for the story.
It didn't shoehorn in classic battles/fights because it didn't fit the game they were trying to make.
 
J

Jacksonlee

Member
JoduanER2 said:
Thats what i think of that sessler guy, in his bioshock infinite review he spends most of the time saying fancy words about the game, about religion and politics and all that crap, and how that makes it an awesome game, like if it was a painting or something... and of course most people love that thing it makes the game feel important, but i think that kind of reviews just suck. Pls someone post a quote of his review, is just hilarious how much time he spends talking about how beautiful and how artistic is the game... Who cares about that.
Click to expand...

i do. i care about that.

gameplay is second for me. you can't just assume that everyone games for gameplay. (ha!)
whatever's interesting and fun for that individual person, he can enjoy for that part - and that part alone

and just because -you (not you specifically) - think that games should be played for gameplay, doesn't mean - i (again, not me Sp) - can't enjoy the game emphasizing a different element.
 
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