As soon as the found out, they had to run for their lives. I guess they could have just left Ellie, but once they left the city I'm pretty sure Joel said it would be impossible to get back in alive. I guess at that point what choice did they have but to go forward?
I wouldn't compare it to a Telltale game either. But I do think the gameplay is actually quite poor.
I was writing up a post to the other thread that just got closed about why I personally think it has poor gameplay, but it got locked. Since it seems kinda on topic here, I'll post it. Maybe someone out there agrees with me.
I think the gameplay in The Last of Us is pretty terrible, so I can give you my reasons at least.
1) The stealth is more basic than Tenchu Z. You basically just crouch and creep around, and the game puts more focus on sound detection. Despite that, jumping over cover spots, dropping down from elevated areas don't seem to make any additional noise. The stealth takedowns are very basic, and mostly are just a rear choke-hold.
It doesn't really need much more than what it offers to achieve the experience it intends. Though I do see your point and accept that you don't like it. Also, how advanced you want stealth takedowns to be? I think the risk of having more kinds of ways of takedowns would lead to a fantastical character, which is not who Joel is.
2) The enemies are very poorly designed.
Clickers are horribly designed for the gameplay systems in place. Clickers are blind, and they are difficult to fight in open combat. So your main strategy is to focus on stealth. However, with no sight capabilities, this means that all you have to do is just walk slow and you will never have any trouble from a clicker. The main way to take them down with stealth hits is to use a shiv. However, killing a clicker doesn't reward you with anything as far as I remember, xp or ammo wise. So the rational choice every single time is to simply walk past the clickers and not burn your shivs, because they are limited, and they're used to open locked doors or for your emergency melee counters.
It is true that the blindness and its 1-hit-kill attack encourages player to sneak past Clickers. This is its intended design, suggesting not to pick fights if you have a choice, in scenarios in which Clickers are not notified of your presence. I understand that not everyone likes it, but I don't think it is poorly designed.
Additionally, the point of contrasting functions of shivs is to create a dilemma on inventory management.
However, there are multiple ways to take down Clickers with ease, even without shivs(Below are my favorite methods).
1) Modified melee weapon kills Clickers with a single hit
2) Sharp bladed weapon, even unmodified kills Clickers as well
3) A staggered Clicker, caused by thrown bricks/bottles, can be killed in a single hit as well with any melee weapon. (Though this is not a stealthy approach, but still economical, using 1 brick/bottle and 1 melee weapon HP)
4) Bow.
5) Nail bomb on Clicker route.
6) On some occasions I used Molotov Cocktail.
So, every time I saw clickers, instead of feeling anything like fear or heightened tension, I instead knew that it meant that I simply had to walk slowly for a long time. Every time I saw a large area with clickers, I would of course still have to explore everything for items and materials I could scavenge. Only now I had to explore it in slow motion. Every time I got to an area like that, it was so mind numbing that I wanted to turn off the game. I don't enjoy 30 minutes of just walking slowly and not doing anything else. And the entire game's storyline was hanging on the clickers, and how well they worked. These are the key element of their version of the apocalypse; these are their new zombies. I wasn't sold on it at all.
30 minutes? Hmm. Also, why just talk about Clickers? Infected combat experience in TloU work best in scenarios that involve the appearance and behavior of all infected types in a single environment.
Clickers also bother me because once they're alerted, they fucking sprint at you at an unbelievable speed and instantly one hit kill you. And in addition to that, this game makes sure that you bob and weave when aiming, so you're not likely to ever routinely defend yourself from a clicker attack. And you can't run because that screws up your aiming even more, even though the enemies are exceptionally mobile and fast.
Clickers are blind, and if they are alerted to you, they sprint towards you where they have last heard the loud noise. You can resolve this by simply running to a safer spot and goes into crouching and start moving away from there, It also mean that you can exploit this behavior, creating instances in which you can lure clickers to the location you want them to be. Additionally, the sway of the aiming is to emulate the experience of trying to shoot while under pressure, and to portray realism in Joel.
A better example of how to make enemies scary, unique, and make them work well with the gameplay systems you have is Resident Evil 4. By comparing clickers to the many, many enemies in RE4, it becomes a lot easier to see how inferior TLoU really is. Look at the chainsaw guys. Their sound effects were a lot more terrifying to me than the clickers were. Both developers wanted you to know these guys were there to drum up the fear, so RE4 had the constant humming of the chainsaw rumbling behind you getting louder and louder, as well as the guy's high pitched screams and wails. TLoU had ... clicking. Yes, it makes sense for sonar detection, but it's not scary. The chainsaw guys also could one hit kill you, and that was the main reason people were scared of them. But, the chainsaw guys were slower than you, and their aim was not perfect. Even with these limitations on their killing ability, they were still terrifying, and still managed to one shot you many times in the game, but they actually made the gameplay systems work. You could stop and aim and get some shots in because they were slower than you, but at some point they would just barrel right through you regardless. TLoU has enemies just sprint right at you and instant kill you, which doesn't enhance the gameplay, it just leads you to a retry screen. Or look at the Regenerators in RE4. These guys were even slower, and could absolutely be outrun if the player wanted to run away. However, they were perfectly designed to enhance a gameplay system that wanted you to stop and aim carefully. You used your thermal sniper rifle scope to find their weak spots and hit them, or else they were invincible. And despite this, they were still completely terrifying. But they managed to make the gameplay better, and make the stop and aim system work better, instead of creating contradictory designs that just lead to a restart screen. And RE has tons more enemies like this, like the blind wolverine with claws that relies on sound (much like the clickers, but still better, and they have you manipulating sound in the environments during gameplay, hitting weak spots on his back, and he can still one hit kill you but not every time, and his aim isn't perfect because he's fucking blind).
I love RE4. It's a really great game
Where RE4 had tons and tons of enemies and bosses that worked flawlessly, TLoU had one enemy to get right, and they totally, completely blew it.
TloU has Runners, Clickers and Bloaters, not to mention human enemies.
Perhaps the only enemy worse than that is the "newly turned," which just literally sit there and do nothing, waiting to be killed. That's possibly the most pointless enemy of this entire generation.
3) The first 4 hours of the game might as well have been a cutscene, because you basically just followed an NPC down a narrow road and watched cutscenes. I love FFXIII, and TLoU's intro was so scripted and linear that even I felt suffocated. Hyperbolic, but I know where you're getting from. I understand and accept that you don't like it.
4) There is very little verticality allowed in the stealth, or the level design. In one of the first missions I was with Tess going to get the guns from the guy who double crossed them. They showed that we were sneaking into a large area and were greatly outnumbered. There were gigantic metal shipping crates stacked all over, with smaller wooden crates next to them making natural stairs. Being a stealth focused game (and a Naughty Dog game) I naturally assumed you could at least do limited platforming to climb a couple boxes and get a better perspective to see the enemy patterns, but you can't at all. Instead of having level design that helps make stealth gameplay organic, they instead had to add x-ray vision for Joel.
5) The partner AI ruins the game's main strength, presentation and immersion. Everyone is aware of this one. You're sneaking around a clicker and Ellie just goes barreling right past them, jumping and talking to you full volume and no one notices. You remember how frustrating I said it was to be forced to walk slowly for 30 minutes? It's even worse when Ellie is able to just run all over and you have to watch. I agreed it hampered immersion, but there's no need for you to over-exaggerate what Ellie and other allies do in stealth.
6) It's a game about two people and the 2nd person is basically non-existent as far as gameplay systems design is concerned. RE4 has you protecting Ashley from damage, sneaking around as Ashley, strategically hiding her in dumpsters instead of making her invisible and invincible. TLoU basically just doesn't even try to make this work. Hmm, not really accurate.
1) In combat, if an ally gets attacked by an infected and needs help, you have to help(even if you are busy on your side)or the ally will die after a determined amount of time.
2) Likewise, your allies will help you if you are in trouble.
3) Your ally will help you fight off the enemy that's chasing you, if nothing else is attacking them. Try getting the attention of a Clicker or runner or anyone, and an ally will help you kill it while it's chasing you.
7) The game's "puzzles" and platforming were very bad. Moving around crates and dumpsters felt like a Dreamcast-era box puzzle, something I thought was officially gone from gaming in 2013, let alone a big budget game like this. Moving planks around was equally cumbersome and simplistic. Moving Ellie on a raft is basically another box puzzle, but with water physics added (barely). People trash the tombs in Tomb Raider, but TLoU makes them look like master class puzzles.
The obstacles aren't meant to be perceived as puzzles, but I understand that not everyone is fine with it. This video offers another perspective on it. The Rootwork Building Part 2
8) The crafting system being real time doesn't really add much to the gameplay in my opinion, and it doesn't make as much of a difference as the earlier trailers made it seem like it would. If some of you guys liked it, cool. I really didn't think it added anything.
It is another outlet for decision making. Because crafting can be done anywhere including places where enemies are actively looking for you, and if you are in need of supplies, it can provide the tension that paused crafting cannot give.
9) The game has very, very weak level up abilities that don't add a lot to gameplay, and can probably be skipped if you want. The counter is probably the best one.
It is mainly to provide ease and not as essential means for progression. There is no respec function and pills are missable in TloU, and so it needs to be able to be played to completion without them.
10) I didn't like the handling and the feel of the bow. It might be because Tomb Raider came out in the very same year, and they're kind of similar games. But the handling and feel of the bow in TR was just so much better.
TR's bow feels more comfortable, but I would argue TloU is trying to emulate the realistic aspect of using a bow(on how hard it is to hit a target). I like TR's bow better too, though I don't think TloU's is bad.
11) For a game focusing on story and presentation over gameplay, I thought it was a really weird decision to have such trial and error gameplay that demanded frequent restarts. It took me out of the experience that they tried so hard to prioritize. Just broadly speaking, the gameplay systems don't really further the telling of the story, or the immersion for me. It's a very, very limited trial and error stealth TPS chopped up and grafted onto a story.
I could understand the trial and error part if you are trying to find all possible ways of progressing an area, however I felt that the tools(weapons, bricks, allies, covers) provided by the game and its crafting allows me to choose methods of progression on the fly.
And I didn't think the story was strong enough to carry the poor gameplay. The intro was supposed to be the watershed moment, when
his child dies. But I didn't see why this was better than the intro in Splinter Cell Conviction, or the intro in Mass Effect 3, which people criticized heavily. It's the same weak story hook. A little kid dies, and we only care for the sole reason that its a little kid and that is supposed to be shocking. In Mass Effect 3 I remember laughing at how obvious and transparent the attempt to force emotional content was, and it was a very similar intro for TLoU. We know nothing about this girl, and yet her death is the driving force for the entire story? The intro's only real gameplay was walking around in the house, suspecting a break in or something gone wrong. I thought that this was also extremely similar to the intro to Splinter Cell Conviction, with Sam protecting his daughter from a home burglary attempt. At least in that game, they use that as not just a story intro, but a tutorial to set up the Mark and Execute system, while TLoU feels content with not letting the gameplay start for hours.
Then shortly after that,
you have to go "get your guns back" with Tess. Okay, what are the guns for? They never say. Why is it worth it to take on a suicide mission escorting Ellie for "guns" when they have guns already? They never say. Literally the entire story is hanging on their desire to get these guns. Tess dies because she wants these guns. For a game focusing so much on story, I don't think it even really has a great one.
The opening of TLoU serves several purposes.
1) Sets the tone and mood of the game and what is to come.
2) Introduces the first kind of infected, their behavior and brutality
3) It is significant to point out the fact that death of Sarah is brought by man, not infected, which...
4) Introduces Man as another potential antagonistic force alongside infected
5)Justifies the changed personality of Joel and his mistrust of most people and allowed us, the players not to hate(hopefully) his brutal actions throughout the game, which...
6) Gives us(hopefully), the players hope that Joel may return to his former self after time spent with Ellie, AKA redemption. Which may explain why his last actions are so shocking to many players.
Execution of the opening is what separates it from the rest of the games.
As for the guns, Joel and Tess deals in black market trading, which includes selling of prohibited items. Tess's motivation is believing that the hope of a cure.
I can probably think of some more, but that's just off the top of my head.
I can definitely admit it's a gorgeous game, and well made in some ways. But I wouldn't ever rate it as GOTY, and when people do, it makes me a little sad because the game doesn't do much to actually further gameplay in any way, and is far behind RE4, which came out in 2005, in terms of actual gameplay and was one of the first highly influential TPS/stealth/horror games on consoles. The gameplay isn't even better than Tomb Raider.
I think TLoU and RE4 are both great games, equally impressive in what they set out to achieve.
If you're judging their target market in relation to GOTY picks, their target market is GAF. IGN and GAF have had identical GOTY choices for the last five years in a row. They also both picked Mario Galaxy in 2007. That's a whole generation of alignment.
Yeah I agree. They are in alignment. However my opinion and I thought it was common consensus that IGN's target market is broader than GAF. Im not gonna discuss why I think that as it will lead us way off topic.
But I believe im entitled to the opinion that its more satisfying given the depth of their audience. And credit to them. (If your ever in their comments section you will understand their generally a tough crowd to please at time's with vastly differing opinions)
Yeah I am not going to disagree with you on that. I would have liked to know more about Tess, how does Joel know her, and so on. I guess it just didn't fit the narrative of the game. Enough people already complain about the first coupe of hours of the game. If they took any longer to get to the journey (the point of the game), I'm guessing even more would complain.
I repeat to you, TR was involved for gameplay reasons in the discussion, then I used it to talk about the emotional component in the game. I have finished it. From the whole game I had the impression that Lara 'temperament' was extremely pushed to the limits to show the Lara human frailty but the final results was just incredibly fake & irritating, most of time. It seems you haven't noticed this thing but coming to the ND game,I can't avoid to notice how TLoU is superior to TR in this aspect.
Yeah I agree. They are in alignment. However my opinion and I thought it was common consensus that IGN's target market is broader than GAF. Im not gonna discuss why I think that as it will lead us way off topic.
But I believe im entitled to the opinion that its more satisfying given the depth of their audience. And credit to them. (If your ever in their comments section you will understand their generally a tough crowd to please at time's with vastly differing opinions)
Sure, sure, the point is that TLOU winning their GOTY award is nothing special and most of us predicted it would happen since they have a history of giving awards to the kind of games that are GAF favorites.
Yeah, good counter points. I probably could have gone into more detail on the other enemies, but that section was already pretty long. You're right about the AI helping in combat too.
And I agree that ultimately, some of the stylistic decisions and minimalism will ultimately come down to preference, with some people just not liking it in a game, while others do.
I have to give RE4 the clear edge, but I know they're not truly going for the same thing, and I know TLoU is trying to limit itself for realism. I think ultimately, they don't quite succeed, and they sacrificed too much gameplay for the sake of minimalism. It's a popular choice these days, with other GOTY candidates like Gone Home and Journey, and I have the same problem with those games as well. Ultimately you end up with far less game, but its presented as being more.
it's supposed to mean what's written. i don't like mario type games, where is just gameplay and it doesn't have a story or some kind of meaningful objective, i don't have time for this anymore.
therefore, i really like TLOU and similar games, because it's the opposite, i enjoy experiences that i can feel i took something out of it.
Something I'll never understand are comments like "gaming wasn't serious until TLOU", "TLOU is the first mature game in this medium", "TLOU is the first good story in this medium". I've seen these sort of comments posted, and my mind becomes perplexed. It's odd how people can post these declarations and be serious, that in the 40 years gaming has been around the TLOU is some sort of videogame Jesus equivalent.
Merit is due when it's due, but the reception for TLOU is pretty damn goofy sometimes.
"As for Tess I'm afraid - not wanting to be rude - that you've clearly completely misunderstood the story or what was going on because the guns are irrelevant and out of the picture by that point. Tess dies for something else entirely. Again, sorry, but you've failed to understand the narrative and character development totally there. Makes me wonder how much this miss-reading might be impacting your reaction if it extends beyond that instance to a broader failure to track the character's motivations and the narrative exposition."
Just to clear this one up, I know she knows about Ellie's immunity.
It's not a subtle or hidden point. She blatantly discusses with Joel at length about how that is worth it and then
makes the choice to stay.
My point was, the only reason she even gets to that point to even discover that is because they decided they had to get the guns. I didn't misunderstand anything in that scene; so if I typed it in a way that makes it seem like I did, that's all it is. Before she discovers Ellie's secret, they had already sneaked past tons of heavily armed enemies and nearly died, and murdered at least a dozen people, so they were fully putting their lives on the line for these guns.
My only point was that this core component of the groundwork of the first 4 hours of the story is really never explained, and I find that odd. Even in this early stage of the story, I found the characters' motivations to be unrealistic and poorly explained.
It wasn't really emotional for me to hear Tess or Joel decide that a cure is worth risking their lives for, because at that point they already did just for some vague guns. If I remember correctly, they don't even know the guns are out of the picture until they arrive at the mansion and find out that they were all wiped out. So right up until shortly before her death, they were doing it for the guns, and Joel definitely was.
All narratives are works of fiction and when they get more complex require the stringing together of objectives for characters to link things together.
In TLOU we learn Joel and Tess are smugglers, they are both risk takers and they are both survivors. They need to get the guns back because that's their livelihood - they were cheated and they are the kind of characters who take action : i.e. seek to recover the guns. They also seek to establish you don't mess with them - they aren't only out to get the guns back but aim to punish the individual who betrayed them in the deal.
This is all completely plausible and realistic and chose for a number of purposes:
it shows that Joel has devolved to a basically meaningless existence however he retains the strong drive to survive (i.e despite having nothing to live for he can't give up either) and he also has to exert himself in the world (hence the smuggling, taking risks going outside the city, etc).
It allows Tess to be initially established as essentially a female version of Joel and equally without any overarching purpose or moral drive - she's an equally ruthless survivor.
It allows them to plausibly leave the quarantine zone and know how to survivice outside of it
It allows them to plausibly be fairly proficient with weapons and confident in their abilities to survive
It allows ND to include within the narrative a tutorial section as the initial combat/stealth scenarios with Tess are all designed as introductory while remaining true to the characters and the setting
It allows ND to introduce the state of the world post collapse and the basics of the infected (which keeping later versions safely hidden)
So we follow Joel and Tess as they navigate their world, we see how desperate and feral it is and we get to eenjoy exploring the gameplay mechanics in smaller, simpler environments initially.
We also get various sub-plots - the fireflies, how people survive outside quarantine zones, etc. - all established seamlessly at the same time as we progress.
The sequence finished with Joel and Tess showing just how brutal they are as they torture and kill to get their guns back and uphold the savage code of conduct they operate by (cross us and we'll kill you).
Of course this is all just a preamble to then segue to the introduction of Ellie, the Fireflies and her quest. The gun sub-plot is slow moved to the back - now you're in a position where you have to help the fireflies to get your stuff back - and the section then builds to Tess surprising Joel with her self sacrifice once she understands the stakes and sees the guns and their smuggling operation is (in her view) irreverent in the face of a chance to find a cure to the infection (which reveals she is not the cold ruthless survivor after all, that she can dream of a better world) and serves to give Joel the impetus needed to undertake his quest with Ellie - because Joel's character as introduced would never do so without some catalyst - he is a broken, closed of man unable to think beyond his own immediate survival needs.
Hence Tess gives her life so Joel and Ellie can escape - the guns and their actions as smugglers are moot at this point - pushed aside in favour of a real goal and chance to make a difference.
TLOU uses classic character and narrative progression (mostly based on film technique but also borrowing from literature too) very well and always has multiple, multiple things going on as it progresses.
Compared to it most titles like Mass Effect and the like are very simplistic and basic in how they operate (although ME does create very good characters, it's just the exposition and plotting which is very pain by numbers and of course the basic premise is inherently flawed for gameplay purposes vs TLOU).
Something I'll never understand are comments like "gaming wasn't serious until TLOU", "TLOU is the first mature game in this medium", "TLOU is the first good story in this medium". I've seen these sort of comments posted, and my mind becomes perplexed. It's odd how people can post these declarations and be serious, that in the 40 years gaming has been around the TLOU is some sort of videogame Jesus equivalent.
Merit is due when it's due, but the reception for TLOU is pretty damn goofy sometimes.
Ok, game was really good and it totally deserves awards but nothing could make me like that guy, Joel. Irritating fella, quite depressing he is. Not the hero gaming world needs. Thank god ND is returning to adventures of Mr. Drake, the guy with a real sense of humor, even it's quite bad.
Ok, game was really good and it totally deserves awards but nothing could make me like that guy, Joel. Irritating fella, quite depressing he is. Not the hero gaming world needs. Thank god ND is returning to adventures of Mr. Drake, the guy with a real sense of humor, even it's quite bad.
Joel is so much more interesting than Drake is. Joel just seems more real, not sure how you find him irritating, but the game is a little depressing to begin with. Nathan on the other hand is sooo incredibly one dimensional by comparison. But to each his own.
Sure, sure, the point is that TLOU winning their GOTY award is nothing special and most of us predicted it would happen since they have a history of giving awards to the kind of games that are GAF favorites.
Yeah its a strong testament to IGN Journalists themselves as they likely would label themselves as core gamers at least similar to GAF enthusiasts, its their Job after all.
Its great that Goty does not go automatically to the game with the highest sales, falling in line more with sites like GAF as it teaches the broader market that perhaps there is more to games than just Fifa/Madden and COD.
Its more appeasing im sure to most that we see the casual gamer adopt more the core gamers enthusiasm rather than having Publishers try and target the casual broader market.
There will always be games of all genres so no one has anything to worry about. The more money this industry can make and applied to in the correct manner (not Activision), the better it is for all of us. Games like the last of us with its technology and immersion can suck some more casuals in. PS4 will hopefully open up an entire new depth of tech + game immersion and realistic story telling and believable AI - Similar to TLoU, as long as its aimed at the Core market and about gameplay, publishers can bring casuals to the game and not the game to casuals.
I am waiting... if you have seen it many times I'd like an example. It should be easy to find one, there are plenty of threads to choose from. You realize you are now sounding as goofy as the people you are complaining about.
I have to give RE4 the clear edge, but I know they're not truly going for the same thing, and I know TLoU is trying to limit itself for realism. I think ultimately, they don't quite succeed, and they sacrificed too much gameplay for the sake of minimalism. It's a popular choice these days, with other GOTY candidates like Gone Home and Journey, and I have the same problem with those games as well. Ultimately you end up with far less game, but its presented as being more.
Shinta, you bring up some valid posts earlier in your large outline of the issues you encountered but several of them lead me to believe that you didn't really explore your options in the gameplay department. Making everything sound like a slow trudge as being the only thing you can do is not at all how my first playthrough went. It'd be interesting to think about how to fix the the immersion breaking moments with the partner a.i. without sacrificing gameplay and enjoyment.
A lot of the design choices are exactly for that even if they deter from consistency of presentation. Many would be pissed if you're trying to be stealthy and Bill's loud footsteps actually broke your ability to sneak up. I also think some more explanations of how the combat works could help people who may not experiment with all the tools and abilities they are given - such as being able to insta-kill clickers with brick/bottle safely, get insta-head shot opportunities, and how to chain between that stuff and context-sensitive hand-to-hand stuff.
Unfortunately I never did get past the first few hours of Tomb Raider for too much hand-holding and repetitive shoot galleries. Had the same problem with Bioshock Infinite, which was basically you and your powers inside of a few rectangular spaces, occasionally with a roller coaster ride thrown in. Far too repetitive for me and the magic of Elizabeth's initial reveal was eventually replaced with "useless character" syndrome.
Joel is so much more interesting than Drake is. Joel just seems more real, not sure how you find him irritating, but the game is a little depressing to begin with. Nathan on the other hand is sooo incredibly one dimensional by comparison. But to each his own.
Exactly. Being so real is why I found him irritating. This is a video game, even in most suspenseful enviroments, the protagonist must be lovable and full of life, like in Leon S Kennedy (ok, he might not full of life but he's deifnitely nothing like Joel). Games need more fun and one dimensional characters, I use them to get away from boring three dimensional real world.
I am waiting... if you have seen it many times I'd like an example. It should be easy to find one, there are plenty of threads to choose from. You realize you are now sounding as goofy as the people you are complaining about.
Yes, I'm going to comb through many random threads, some with hundreds of posts, to find posts that are ridiculous. Disregard my point then, I'm not here to prove myself to you.
Exactly. Being so real is why I found him irritating. This is a video game, even in most suspenseful enviroments, the protagonist must be lovable and full of life, like in Leon S Kennedy (ok, he might not full of life but he's deifnitely nothing like Joel). Games need more fun and one dimensional characters, I use them to get away from boring three dimensional real world.
I strongly disagree. Good on your for realizing that Leon isn't full of life. There isn't really anything compelling about Leon, he doesn't really even have that much of a personality other than basically being like a soldier. That doesn't lend itself well at all to a game like tlou where the protag isn't trained and is simply surviving. One dimensional characters have their place, TLoU is definitely not the place for them. And I think we have more than enough one dimensional characters.
Something I'll never understand are comments like "gaming wasn't serious until TLOU", "TLOU is the first mature game in this medium", "TLOU is the first good story in this medium". I've seen these sort of comments posted, and my mind becomes perplexed. It's odd how people can post these declarations and be serious, that in the 40 years gaming has been around the TLOU is some sort of videogame Jesus equivalent.
Merit is due when it's due, but the reception for TLOU is pretty damn goofy sometimes.
Yes, I'm going to comb through many random threads, some with hundreds of posts, to find posts that are ridiculous. Disregard my point then, I'm not here to prove myself to you.
Well maybe you shouldn't use "many" as the way you describe the frequency of these posts then. Yes, you don't have to prove yourself to me, but at this point I don't even think you believe what you are writing.
Not to overly simplify your post, but for me the words "plausible and realistic" just get stuck in my throat in your explanations. The way you present it all sounds fine and good, and you did a thorough job of explaining it. I guess I just needed a lot more details for it to be plausible and realistic. For some reason, the story was just not doing it for me, and this was a game I was psyched about playing and just spent $60 on.
I could buy into the idea that this game was about realism, and these were gritty survivors. To me, it just seemed insane for 2 people to take on that many like it was nothing. I expected them to survive by not putting themselves in overwhelmingly dangerous situations like that where they were almost guaranteed to die, unless it literally was a life or death situation and they had no choice. For that level of risk, I just needed to know more about those guns, and that back story. And for them to realistically succeed, I wanted more planning or manpower. It was going for realism, but right off the bat the game basically portrays them as superheroes.
In the end, it just didn't work for me. It was just red flag after red flag telling them that this was an awful idea, and Joel basically was saying that. And they executed the guy for not having the guns, then right after that, they let a total stranger hold their guns hostage and demand they go on an additional, exceptionally dangerous mission with no guarantee of payment. I mean, the woman was near death and may not have even been alive by the time they did what she asked.
Oh well. I just wasn't feeling it. That's all I can say.
That's not what I meant at all. Me not being a fan of TLoU doesn't mean that I unconditionally approve of everything Nintendo, especially the latest Mario games.
I could buy into the idea that this game was about realism, and these were gritty survivors. To me, it just seemed insane for 2 people to take on that many like it was nothing. I expected them to survive by not putting themselves in overwhelmingly dangerous situations like that where they were almost guaranteed to die, unless it literally was a life or death situation and they had no choice. For that level of risk, I just needed to know more about those guns, and that back story. And for them to realistically succeed, I wanted more planning or manpower. It was going for realism, but right off the bat the game basically portrays them as superheroes.
In the end, it just didn't work for me. It was just red flag after red flag telling them that this was an awful idea, and Joel basically was saying that. And they executed the guy for not having the guns, then right after that, they let a total stranger hold their guns hostage and demand they go on an additional, exceptionally dangerous mission with no guarantee of payment. I mean, the woman was near death and may not have even been alive by the time they did what she asked.
They didn't really have a choice did they? I mean they could have killed her and then they'd have to go kill/steal all the guns back from the fireflies if they even knew where they were hiding the guns. Plus I didn't think the Robert thing was too crazy,
we meet Tess right after she is jumped by 2 of his men out to kill Joel and Tess. I think that gives them enough reason to go after him.
I also didn't get the feeling they survived by playing it safe, after all they
are smugglers in a quarantine zone that has a no tolerance policy. That alone is way unsafe.
That's not what I meant at all. Me not being a fan of TLoU doesn't mean that I unconditionally approve of everything Nintendo, especially the latest Mario games.
Your post was written much better, but it gave me the same vibe as the other post. I didn't mean to say you unconditionally approve of everything Nintendo, just that like the other guy wants more this and less Nintendo, you seem to be the opposite of him.
After the way they handled that guy, I thought they'd start on her with a kneecap shot and basically demand she tell them where they are or move to the other knee.
That's essentially what they just threatened to do to the guy to get him to talk just minutes earlier. That's why it just seemed strange they'd go along with it.
Like I said, oh well. It worked for you guys, didn't click with me.
After the way they handled that guy, I thought they'd start on her with a kneecap shot and basically demand she tell them where they are or move to the other knee.
That's essentially what they just threatened to do to the guy to get him to talk just minutes earlier. That's why it just seemed strange they'd go along with it.
Like I said, oh well. It worked for you guys, didn't click with me.
They seemed to be on better terms with her than him, but I wont argue the gun thing was a strong point in the narrative. That first part of the game (after the prologue) was the weakest part of the game for me outside of Tess as a character.
Something I'll never understand are comments like "gaming wasn't serious until TLOU", "TLOU is the first mature game in this medium", "TLOU is the first good story in this medium". I've seen these sort of comments posted, and my mind becomes perplexed. It's odd how people can post these declarations and be serious, that in the 40 years gaming has been around the TLOU is some sort of videogame Jesus equivalent.
Merit is due when it's due, but the reception for TLOU is pretty damn goofy sometimes.
That would be assuming that they have been gaming for 40 years and have played all the games you would consider in having a great story which holds for very few people.
I'm sure quite a few people believe its one of the best stories if not the best story told in video games of which they have experienced and its not like its an astounding opinion either.
That would be assuming that they have been gaming for 40 years and have played all the games you would consider in having a great story which holds for very few people.
I'm sure quite a few people believe its one of the best stories if not the best story told in video games of which they have experienced and its not like its an astounding opinion either.
It is usually understood that when you say something is "the best ever", you have at least experienced (or at least know enough about) much of what was previously the cream of the crop.
Otherwise that claim holds no merit.
Shattered Memories brought more to the table regarding narrative in video games than 3 Last of Us's combined.
And it came out in the same generation. So sad.
It is usually understood that when you say something is "the best ever", you have at least experienced (or at least know enough about) much of what was previously the cream of the crop.
Otherwise that claim holds no merit.
I mean it came out for Wii/PS2/PSP. And "the best ever" is someone's opinion, which holds more merit than the original person he is quoting has in his claim.
Ok, game was really good and it totally deserves awards but nothing could make me like that guy, Joel. Irritating fella, quite depressing he is. Not the hero gaming world needs. Thank god ND is returning to adventures of Mr. Drake, the guy with a real sense of humor, even it's quite bad.
