I'm gonna have to add to the sentiment that TLOU really was not groundbreaking at all, in terms of gameplay or narrative, and especially not in terms of interaction between gameplay and narrative. It does a slightly better job than most shooters of reconciling the ridiculousness that ensues when shooters try to have serious stories. I still think that's an issue inherent to the whole genre though.
Let me just say this, in my opinion a shooter (or action game period) isn't the best genre to accommodate a story, setting, and characters like TLOU's.
It has a story, setting, and characters that constantly murder each other in order to survive and that highlight the decadence of humanity 20 years after an effective apocalypse.
I'd argue that a shooter (well, a survival-based, stealth shooter) is the best genre to accommodate this kind of story.
No but on a serious note; I wished there were more risks involved that had permanent change on your experience. Like the multiplayer where your whole base camp died if you couldn't scavenge enough supplies. It was a very simple mechanic that was visualized in a shallow way, but the concept was great and it affected your feeling of every encounter.
In order to feel responsibility, guilt and so on I think the player has to be part of the choice. The player has to put the rifle in Ellies hands and think of the consequences, just like Joel does. The actual consequences will then be felt by both the player and the character in a very direct manner and a connection is created.
I understand that everyone is different when it comes to this. Some people just want to be the audience and then try to place themselves in mindset of the characters, rather than taking over the scenes. You can get emotionally involved either way, no doubt. I just think that there is room for much more experimentation when it comes to games like this, and it should be noted. The Last of Us is a great game, but I just don't believe it pushes the medium as far as some people will claim.
"Game was the best of last year, but really it's pretty mediocre." Implying that the only reason the game was awarded was because of the cutscenes instead of the game as a whole is pretty ridiculous.
You should edit your message and save some face since that claim hasn't been made by me in this thread. Also have the consideration to at least see to what im replying to XD
The game was pretty good but I don't think it will hold up down the line. The gameplay isn't anything memorable, and I don't feel particularly motivated to play it again. To be fair I didn't play the MP, heard that portion of the game was great. The characters and story are very good, but I wouldn't describe it as ground breaking, I thought Hennig's work in LoK was better or atleast more suited to my tastes. Down the line I'll probably buy the HD version when it hits the $20 mark and play through on one of the harder difficulties and see if my opinion of the game changes.
The acting, directing, animations, and context sensitive control shifts are why this game is important. Not the 'child is the cure' zombie survival story.
I remember being luke warm on it in the beginning. Wasn't sure I was going to buy it. I decided to give the demo a try when it first dropped just to see what the fuss was about.
Holy shit.
I never played a demo as much as I played The Last of Us demo. I played it repeatedly over several days. I couldn't even describe what was so addictive. I think it was the perfect fusion of several great elements that made it just an incredible experience.
When I got the final game, alot of times I was just stunned by the in detail of the atmosphere - absolutely breathtaking. I'd find myself poring over every single room in an abandoned house, just drinking it all in. That's when I realized I did the same thing in the Nepal level for Uncharted 2 - another game I played repeatedly just to witness the environments over and over again.
Also, The Last of Us made surviving feel profoundly satisfying. And that's what's perhaps what was most important. I will never forget how this game made me feel.
Can't believe some of the crap in here. Guard don't intelligent search for you? BS. Unlike in MGS where the enemy searches for you with little logic, the enemies in LOU work together to cover a large area.
So in MGS usually breaking line of sight will be enough, you got to keep moving in LOU.
As far as the stealth goes - what more features do you really want. Crawling? A tranq gun? Mark and Execute? Hiding bodies?
With the exception of that last one none of it would fit.
You should edit your message and save some face since that claim hasn't been made by me in this thread. Also have the consideration to at least see to what im replying to XD
Those powerfull emotional moments are relegated to cinematics, those chatting snips during gameplay feel disconnected and do not benefit from the cinematography or the quality facial expressions we see in them. There's no emotional connection been stablished through game mechanics, just move shoot and kill then reward the user with the next cinematic morsel.
You are basically saying that any connection a player makes to the characters or the game is relegated to cutscenes with the gameplay basically serving as a vehicle to get to the next cutscene. I find that false. The gameplay only reinforces the strong nature of the cutscenes by giving a sense of "force feedback" to the player. My original statement won't be edited because you are pretty much backhanded complimenting the game.
Are you kidding me? MGS has so many ways to just hide and wait until everyone forgets a suspect was even seen. If you're not going for a perfectionist ghost playthrough you can get caught as any times as you'd like and not suffer for it. In tlou you're more vulnerable, you can't even "pause" and use items at will. Crafting and healing is done in real time. In MGS you have a whole arsenal at your disposal and can change it while the world around you waits for it. Ammo is more scarce..no silencers, just the bow.. and you can't hide bodies either (though i wouldn't call this one a pro)
In TLoU...you couldnt hide bodies....but one thing I did in some parts was study patterns and kill enemies where they were hidden. That worked great towards the end. One time I messed up and I was punished severely for it....also because of lack of ammo...
Again, I still dont understand the gameplay complaints....and when I see ppl wishing they could hide bodies, it lets me know....we all didnt play the game the same.
I really liked the Game but the Pacing was terible. IT was either 1 or crancked up to 11, with easily recognizable hints when theres going to be a fighting gameplay or exploration one. It wasnt RE4 for sure.
I dont know if they were that easily recognizable....especially if you wanna do very thorough exploring. A few sections early in the game had me paranoid for the rest of the game, even one part it seemed like something was going to happen but never did. One part I even thought no one was there, but they were. Caught totally by surprise.
I'm getting this feeling you never actually played MGS.
In what fucking level could you just break LOS and be fine in MGS? Guards usually come from every entrance and sweep the entire level, getting even more complicated in 2 with actual patterns modeled after real military/swat room clearing tactics. It's super common in TLOU for enemies to split up and it allowed me to just keep picking them off. You cannot tell me you could beat MGS on its harder difficulties as easily as I beat TLoU on its hardest, it's just untrue.
It has a story, setting, and characters that constantly murder each other in order to survive and that highlight the decadence of humanity 20 years after an effective apocalypse.
I'd argue that a shooter (well, a survival-based, stealth shooter) is the best genre to accommodate this kind of story.
Well for starters the fact that developers have to constantly invent apocalypse settings to make it even halfway plausible to watch what's supposed to be a human being killing hundreds of people. Mainly, shooters and other action games were designed mechanically to be nothing other than fun. They weren't designed to tell emotional or even serious storylines. More importantly, they weren't designed around taking place in the real world, even a post-apocalyptic version of the real world.
Most of the reason we even have this "ludonarrative dissonance" issue in shooters is because publishers and developers have taken the genre shockingly far away from its origins. I actually think the games that deal with it the best are extremely fantastical shooters like DOOM, Halo, Duke Nukem, or Gears. In those games you aren't even fighting human beings, but literal monsters, and there's no "authenticity" or "realism" restricting what the game designers can put in those games.
If you wanna talk about an emotional post-apocalyptic survival story in a video game, I actually think The Walking Dead tells that kind of story more effectively than TLOU. It's not chained to a genre that wasn't designed to deliver narrative, and in fact subscribes to a genre specifically built around narrative.
Well for starters the fact that developers have to constantly invent apocalypse settings to make it even halfway plausible to watch what's supposed to be a human being killing hundreds of people. Mainly, shooters and other action games were designed mechanically to be nothing other than fun. They weren't designed to tell emotional or even serious storylines. More importantly, they weren't designed around taking place in the real world, even a post-apocalyptic version of the real world.
Most of the reason we even have this "ludonarrative dissonance" issue in shooters is because publishers and developers have taken the genre shockingly far away from its origins. I actually think the games that deal with it the best are extremely fantastical shooters like DOOM, Halo, Duke Nukem, or Gears. In those games you aren't even fighting human beings, but literal monsters, and there's no "authenticity" or "realism" restricting what the game designers can put in those games.
If you wanna talk about an emotional post-apocalyptic survival story in a video game, I actually think The Walking Dead tells that kind of story more effectively than TLOU. It's not chained to a genre that wasn't designed to deliver narrative, and in fact subscribes to a genre specifically built around narrative.
You say that you cannot stretch the definition of the genre to make it work, and that you can't stretch the setting by being post-apocalyptic to make it work. You've constructed a situation where it's literally impossible to satisfy your requirements. Small wonder, then, that you didn't think the game succeeded.
I'm getting this feeling you never actually played MGS.
In what fucking level could you just break LOS and be fine in MGS? Guards usually come from every entrance and sweep the entire level, getting even more complicated in 2 with actual patterns modeled after real military/swat room clearing tactics. It's super common in TLOU for enemies to split up and it allowed me to just keep picking them off. You cannot tell me you could beat MGS on its harder difficulties as easily as I beat TLoU on its hardest, it's just untrue.
Getting caught in MGS is a death sentence, yes. But I see what he is saying. In TLOU, you really do have to keep moving due to the fact that once enemies lose sight of you, they begin a patrol mode. But the game, while I personally believe to be heavily stealth oriented, is also a combat fiasco. MGS IS completely different in that boss fights are the only forced fighting scenarios and even then, they still require a degree of stealth (minus MGS4 easy aiming).
When you are caught in MGS, you MUST keep moving. In TLOU, when you are caught, you MUST keep moving. Both games really establish chaos well when the player is caught. And both can be incredibly difficult when detected by enemies. But they are two different experiences entirely. Bad comparison, if anything.
You've got to be kidding me. You're seriously still at this? Persistent little thing. Check OED entry 2, definition 2, usage c. And if you don't know what any of that means, you have no business entering into this discussion, let alone calling me a liar.
Nor can I even begin to figure out what you're trying to say about the game at this point. Say something interesting or don't. But don't pretend like you know etymology. It doesn't suit you.
As for the RE4 comparisons, the shooting is objectively more basic, not to mention RE4 had so much more variety. The gunplay functioned completely differently and had far more of an emphasis on crowd control and precision shooting.
The graphics really stand out for a last gen game. Clickers, Runners and Bloaters were petty ingenious and intimidating at times.Some scenarios were great and unforgettable.
try getting through that bunch of clickers in the spored-up room without alerting the bloater at the end... sneak past him...great way to exit that area, heh. Save your arrows for this. It's worth it to see.
Anyway, I think the blend of dealing with clickers/runners/humans (often in combinations) is enough to overcome the "just another 3rd person shooter and/or stealth" feeling. Also, although ultimately you are on rails, the game offers plenty of chances to explore and not only find much needed supplies but a lot of little side stories that really add to everything. Treading old ground here, but yeah. I'm kind of jealous of people that will play this on the PS4 for the first time.
You say that you cannot stretch the definition of the genre to make it work, and that you can't stretch the setting by being post-apocalyptic to make it work. You've constructed a situation where it's literally impossible to satisfy your requirements. Small wonder, then, that you didn't think the game succeeded.
Impossible to make a shooter (or action game) with a gripping, emotional story that doesn't also look like a ridiculous premise by nature of its gameplay? Perhaps it is impossible. That's why I said I think that story would probably be better served by other genres.
Among shooters Wolfenstein: The New Order is an interesting case -- it manages to have well-executed characters while embracing the inherent fantasy of shooters.
I'm getting this feeling you never actually played MGS.
In what fucking level could you just break LOS and be fine in MGS? Guards usually come from every entrance and sweep the entire level, getting even more complicated in 2 with actual patterns modeled after real military/swat room clearing tactics. It's super common in TLOU for enemies to split up and it allowed me to just keep picking them off. You cannot tell me you could beat MGS on its harder difficulties as easily as I beat TLoU on its hardest, it's just untrue.
You really picked the wrong person to point that finger at. I'm a hardcore fan. No alert runs, European Extreme, Big Boss emblems, whatevs.
Here's a video of me playing Ground Zeroes on my channel though.
2 is indeed a different story because guard searches were way more intense and there were much fewer hiding places. Its easily the hardest MGS game. It's the exception rather than the rule though.
Just today I was playing GZ screwing around and I got an alert, I was running over to the beach area near the old prison where you can extract - as I was on the hill guards were shooting at me so they knew where I was. I walked into the little alcove and three minutes later the alert was called off.
You simply can't do this stuff in LOU because the game cheats. The huge area where
Ellie is giving you sniper cover
you can go wherever you want unseen, multi-levels - and guards will be drawn in your direction immediately.
We've both got our opinion at the end of the day and I'm got gonna go as far as to do something childish like ask if you've ever actually played Last of Us, but what I will say is the number of time's my hiding spot has been flanked in LOU and I've been totally surrounded outnumbers the times that happened to me in the MGS series by a stupid amount.
You really picked the wrong person to point that finger at. I'm a hardcore fan. No alert runs, European Extreme, Big Boss emblems, whatevs.
Here's a video of me playing Ground Zeroes on my channel though.
2 is indeed a different story because guard searches were way more intense and there were much fewer hiding places. Its easily the hardest MGS game. It's the exception rather than the rule though.
Just today I was playing GZ screwing around and I got an alert, I was running over to the beach area near the old prison where you can extract - as I was on the hill guards were shooting at me so they knew where I was. I walked into the little alcove and three minutes later the alert was called off.
You simply can't do this stuff in LOU because the game cheats. The huge area where
Ellie is giving you sniper cover
you can go wherever you want unseen, multi-levels - and guards will be drawn in your direction immediately.
We've both got our opinion at the end of the day and I'm got gonna go as far as to do something childish like ask if you've ever actually played Last of Us, but what I will say is the number of time's my hiding spot has been flanked in LOU and I've been totally surrounded outnumbers the times that happened to me in the MGS series by a stupid amount.
You know Ground Zeroes was absolutely the last MGS on my mind when I was thinking about the comparison.
Probably why I mentioned 2 in every example I gave. It's funny how you call 2 the exception to the rule then use GZ as an example. Ground Zeroes is absolutely nothing like 1-3 in any significant way, so why you're even trying to use that to show how I'm wrong is beyond me.
You know Ground Zeroes was absolutely the last MGS on my mind when I was thinking about the comparison.
Probably why I mentioned 2 in every example I gave. It's funny how you call 2 the exception to the rule then use GZ as an example. Ground Zeroes is absolutely nothing like 1-3 in any significant way, so why you're even trying to use that to show how I'm wrong is beyond me.
irregardless of what was on your mind when you wrote your post you asked me on what level in a MGS game you could break line of sight and be fine. Gave a personal example that happened to me today.
GZ's isn't that far removed from Peace Walker/MGS4 in terms of mechanics, and you know the same dodgy guard searches apply which is why you've narrowed your argument to MGS1-3. Yeah, MGS2 is hard and MGS1, well guards don't search for you do they - they just come in off screen.
But yeah, its easy to do in MGS3 as long as you're micro-managing your camo and you're in a decent sized area. Like the area just before the Ocelot boss fight, I've escaped alerts hundreds of times there when I've been screwing around with the dynamite - hide under the copter, beds, in the grass, certain parts of the trenches - I've even got lucky in the supply shed sometimes.
I'm not a dev and I've got no clue how the guards path-finding works in MGS3. All I know is its really easy to beat where as in Last of Us you're going to have large groups cornering you, not unlike MGS2 really. The difference being you've got huge open environments in LoU and corridors in MGS2.
Look man all I'm saying is regardless of your opinion, you gotta understand something.
Irregardless isn't a word. Like it doesn't even work as slang. Cuz there's regardless, with regard, so irregardless is...not...regardless.
MGS3 is definitely one of the easier MGS games though for sure, but when I think of MGS stealth, I think of the original series before it started seriously allowing silly shit, same way I'm sure people think of Resident Evil when they talk about survival horror.
Look man all I'm saying is regardless of your opinion, you gotta understand something.
Irregardless isn't a word. Like it doesn't even work as slang. Cuz there's regardless, with regard, so irregardless is...not...regardless.
MGS3 is definitely one of the easier MGS games though for sure, but when I think of MGS stealth, I think of the original series before it started seriously allowing silly shit, same way I'm sure people think of Resident Evil when they talk about survival horror.
