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March Gameinformer: The Last of Us
- Thread starter mysticwhip
- Start date
- Status
RedAssedApe
Banned
Prequel to Enslaved.
Virtual Ellen Page still kind of creeps me out.
Virtual Ellen Page still kind of creeps me out.
Jason's Ultimatum
Member
Nice screens. Hopefully the music is minimal so we can soak in every detail of mother nature.
@ Amirox
I understand what you're saying and I agree that UC3 did have quite a few moments that you had almost no control at all or that the "cinematic aspect" was a priority over fully controlled gameplay. It's the "curse" of the franchise now and one that many enjoy, but many have come to hate also.
I for one love everything about Uncharted so far and I think Uncharted 3 has enough gameplay, but the game could've been longer tbh, so we could have enough gameplay to cover for those limited controlled bits. Uncharted 2 feels far longer and the fact that Uncharted 3 is shorter, makes the limited controlled bits too many in between the normal gameplay.
I understand what you're saying and I agree that UC3 did have quite a few moments that you had almost no control at all or that the "cinematic aspect" was a priority over fully controlled gameplay. It's the "curse" of the franchise now and one that many enjoy, but many have come to hate also.
I for one love everything about Uncharted so far and I think Uncharted 3 has enough gameplay, but the game could've been longer tbh, so we could have enough gameplay to cover for those limited controlled bits. Uncharted 2 feels far longer and the fact that Uncharted 3 is shorter, makes the limited controlled bits too many in between the normal gameplay.
I think there will be good balance in the music. The composer from The Road is doing this so he definitely has the chops for this type of thing.
EDIT: Not The Road, Brokback Mountain and Babel.
Right and I respect that. I just think the position needs clarifying. There's a reason the latest Uncharted game especially has become a little more polarizing, and why there is a strong vocal minority who thinks there is a problem worth debating in the gameplay design philosophy of the Uncharted games.
I think this is a little more even handed than merely calling people who voice their reasonable concerns "haters." As I said, I was never a Naughty Dog hater - me and Anihawk used to go at it over my like of the Jak games. And I like their early Crash work. It's Uncharted that this issue has risen and it's a very fascinating subject that is a very real problem for people.
Discotheque
Banned
wait wait wait? What?! Nick Cave is on this soundtrack? Are you sure?
I don't even like Naughty Dog that much but this shot up to one of my most hyped of the year.
The Last Of Us scored by Oscar-winner Gustavo Santaolalla
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...us-scored-by-oscar-winner-gustavo-santaolalla
Jason's Ultimatum
Member
Cool. At least the director of The Road isn't directing Last of Us. Talk about a borefest.
Patapwn
Member
What would you define as cinematic gameplay? Is it a cutscene before action? Or a quick time event? I'm really not sure. My understanding of the Uncharted series is that it's lauded (in one aspect) for letting the player play events other games would make a cut scene. This is not a term I've really seen hammered down, and as such, I don't know how it's a negative or how it take 'meaningful control' away from the player.
As for platforming, I'd like to hear how you would change it. I seen alot of people say how it's automated etc. but never is such a criticism paired with an explanation of how to fix the issue. Is it the grab mechanic that latches onto ledges or moving caravans? Is it the jump height? Lack of double jump? Should ND implement a water cannon to get some extra boost while saving the environment? All joking aside, I see this as main issue for many people and I try to envision a version that would make people say 'holy shit mario is done.' while not making the game jarring from a narrative perspective, other areas of gameplay perspective
I fully agree with the glitchy death part. It's odd when sometimes Drake can live though some very traumatic physical abuse yet jumping 10 feet produces 'instant death'. The first game was filled with shit like this but I think it's gotten much better as the games have progressed.
The uncharted games are about a treasure hunter / (thief) who goes after various artifacts some of which are arbitrary, some of which hit a bit closer to home as in the 3rd game. Over the course of the adventure he makes relationships, breaks them, stuff happens, people die, it's very pulpy but it makes me feel like how I did watching Indiana Jones for the first time. And the quality in which it's done is very high. I love the stories be it overall story arcs of 'what happened' to moment to moment gamplay occurrences like the bit with charlie getting shot with crazy juice and maybe we have to kill him?
I don't know if you're saying the story is 'fucking awful' as a serious statement or if that's just hyperbole for effect but I disagree either way. And again, I really don't see how this hurts game play.
Isn't death the usual result of 'doing poorly'? I think that's tense enough. And many would contend that the gameplay mix in uncharted outclasses many of the heavy weights in 3rd person action gaming. I can account that I've certainly had the most fun playing uncharted 2 over all the other 3rd person action games I've played this generation.
EDIT: I just saw your response to the terminator drake. I do agree with the desert and young drake parts to an extent but at the same time I had fun with them. How did you like the chase parts in the 3rd game? I found those pretty exciting and a good divergence from the young drake segment
Discotheque
Banned
Eh. Brokeback soundtrack was pretty decent.
Oh and F U Jason, Hillcoat is a dope director.
Of course, and I welcome that debate because, despite how much I love the cinematic aspect of Uncharted, I wouldn't want the franchise to turn into a cruise control cinematic.
I have to admit that ND needs to sit down and have a long discussion about how they want to approach Uncharted 4, so they can agree that balance is the key (Uncharted 2 had great balance). Uncharted 3 sits at the edge of the line IMO and if they push the cinematic aspect even more for the next game, it might turn ugly. So, we'll see.
However, I really don't think ND is going for that with The Last of Us. I think they are prioritizing in the characters relation and the gameplay. Who knows though? Maybe they make you walk carefully for 5 minutes over a bridge that's about to collapse.
Seriously. Ellie looks like a creepy ceramic doll in that concept art.
Most of the stuff was answered in this post I just made, so I'll just clarify a bit on the story which yes is pretty bad as far as I am concerned.
Yes, it's pulpy. Yes, it's not serious and yes that disqualifies it a bit from the expectations of a more serious subject movie. But that doesn't forgive the clear narrative problems the games have, which just become worse as the franchise goes on. The games are really really cliche almost clay molded pulp archetypes, the everyman with a wise older mentor who has been down this road before. The wise older mentor makes quips about how out of shape he is, how he's 'too old for this', while simultaneously discussing whether or not it's worth going down THIS trip as opposed to all the other horrifyingly dangerous trips they've gone on.
Drake is basically Indiana Jones-lite, only with crappier writing and far less self-awareness. His entire schtick seems to be saying 'SHIT SHIT SHIT' when something is breaking or crumbling, and remarking coyly about how it's his destiny to get this treasure or that. He has virtually no depth of any note. Even discussing the little minimal expansion of character they attempted in U3, it basically amounted to... Drake is still an empty slate who was a hood rat when he was a kid. We still know nothing about him beyond the sparsest details, and the game gives us no reason to care. He's constantly put in situations where the game desperately wants you to care, but it's impossible to. WHY does Drake so desperately want to pursue THIS treasure anyway? What got him started on that path as a kid? What motivates this character, other than proving some vague point about his competence?
Other characters are even more thinly painted than Drake. In Uncharted 3, the series goes completely off the rails - characters drop in and out of the story with little or no relevance and disappear for the entire game again. We're introduced to Jason Statham and he arbitrarily drops out of the story midway and essentially never reappears, not even for a little - making his participation in the story essentially worthless. An editor of a good story knows how to streamline and therefore give more room for characterizing the central aspects of your story. U3 just goes haywire in forgetting entirely to do this. It has no direction whatsoever. Nothing anyone does make any sense.
People seem to be telling Drake he's taking his adventure too far and endangering others, but there's no real story progression on that front: He goes on the adventure anyway, and everyone forgets how selfish Drake was. It's empty nonsense that is extremely poorly written throughout.
Anyway, that's my take on it. I have problems with game stories in general so don't get it twisted: i think almost all game stories are fucking awful. But certainly I see nothing in Uncharted's favor that makes it different.
Ether_Snake
å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®
Now that I think about it, this game made me remember, what the hell happened to the Tomb Raider game from last E3? Possibly falls in a similar kind of gameplay, but it disappeared.
The new Tomb Raider reboot? I think it's currently a Q3 2012 game, it's coming. They were just having previews recently so it exists.
It's coming out this fall.
sixteen-bit
Member
Was always a late 2012 title. Marketing machine just started too early.
Skiesofwonder
Walruses, camels, bears, rabbits, tigers and badgers.
I 100% agree with everything you said here Amir0x. I played the Uncharted series for the first time when Uncharted 3 was released (played all three back-to-back-to-back) and I was so disappointed with Uncharted 3 because they basically took the small strategy/danger left in the second one and completely stripped it away. In the third game they're scenes so obviously on-rails that it is almost insulting to the gamer to even TRY and trick them into thinking that their movements or actions will have one ounce of an effect on what is coming next.
That said, I still have enough faith in Naughty Dog to get excited about what they can bring to the table with the Last of Us. I have always believed that ND is better at being pushed up against the wall, having to innovate and bring a new IP to the table then they ever were at making sequels (excluding Uncharted 2).
Ether_Snake
å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®
Oh Ok.
On topic, I agree with Amirox, but my problem is not only with Uncharted. It's just cinematics in general interupt the games too much. It's the easy way out. Telling a story and making cinematics is easy, and to me the self-congratulations of telling "awesome stories with awesome characters" is a bit over valued considering these are video games, not movies. Try to make characters that are interesting and tell a great story without taking away the control from the player; THAT is much more difficult yet if done right will be much more rewarding and impressive.
ND are basically saying "we can make a half-game, and a half-movie, and then put them together". Some like it, some don't. I love the artistic quality, some of the effects they have done (sand, snow, water, etc.), but the whole on-rails feel makes the games really boring to me.
One of the most impressive moments to me was at the start of MGS4, when the Gekkos attack and you are in full control. The way the camera just zoomed into play, and how everything around the player kept on going like in a cinematic, that was incredible. It was a great match of cinematic-flair in actual gameplay. Same thing for any other cinematics that transitioned in real-time to gameplay, there was a sort of "omg" feel for a few seconds. Sadly such moments were very few, and didn't last long enough, and quite often the game didn't manage to follow-up in terms of animations during actual gameplay.
But eliminating the line between those cinematic "wow" moments and actual gameplay is what IMO can be celebrated. Cinematics, especially the action-oriented ones, just remove any sense of danger or tension.
For a game like TLOU, RE, etc., cinematics are the cheap way to do things. It's the easy way out. Make me feel the tension, the fear, the stress of being found, of having to save someone, of running away, etc. don't just show it.
edit: First Uncharted game I played was Uncharted 2, and just falling down the train after making my way halfway up felt like I had been teleported back into 1998. It was telling me to do something VERY simple, in what was supposed to be a VERY tense moment, only to result in the equivalent of Mario falling in a hole and having to start over. It brought the whole facade down, just because I didn't read that pole right. Now look back at PoP: Sands of Time. When you died, the narrator would go "wait wait wait, that's not how it happened", as he was re-telling the story. That was in a game released in 2003 (so in dev since like 2001). That was a nice attempt to blur the line between story-telling and gameplay, and that IMO is something I can respect. Ten years later, most games still don't even get it.
On topic, I agree with Amirox, but my problem is not only with Uncharted. It's just cinematics in general interupt the games too much. It's the easy way out. Telling a story and making cinematics is easy, and to me the self-congratulations of telling "awesome stories with awesome characters" is a bit over valued considering these are video games, not movies. Try to make characters that are interesting and tell a great story without taking away the control from the player; THAT is much more difficult yet if done right will be much more rewarding and impressive.
ND are basically saying "we can make a half-game, and a half-movie, and then put them together". Some like it, some don't. I love the artistic quality, some of the effects they have done (sand, snow, water, etc.), but the whole on-rails feel makes the games really boring to me.
One of the most impressive moments to me was at the start of MGS4, when the Gekkos attack and you are in full control. The way the camera just zoomed into play, and how everything around the player kept on going like in a cinematic, that was incredible. It was a great match of cinematic-flair in actual gameplay. Same thing for any other cinematics that transitioned in real-time to gameplay, there was a sort of "omg" feel for a few seconds. Sadly such moments were very few, and didn't last long enough, and quite often the game didn't manage to follow-up in terms of animations during actual gameplay.
But eliminating the line between those cinematic "wow" moments and actual gameplay is what IMO can be celebrated. Cinematics, especially the action-oriented ones, just remove any sense of danger or tension.
For a game like TLOU, RE, etc., cinematics are the cheap way to do things. It's the easy way out. Make me feel the tension, the fear, the stress of being found, of having to save someone, of running away, etc. don't just show it.
edit: First Uncharted game I played was Uncharted 2, and just falling down the train after making my way halfway up felt like I had been teleported back into 1998. It was telling me to do something VERY simple, in what was supposed to be a VERY tense moment, only to result in the equivalent of Mario falling in a hole and having to start over. It brought the whole facade down, just because I didn't read that pole right. Now look back at PoP: Sands of Time. When you died, the narrator would go "wait wait wait, that's not how it happened", as he was re-telling the story. That was in a game released in 2003 (so in dev since like 2001). That was a nice attempt to blur the line between story-telling and gameplay, and that IMO is something I can respect. Ten years later, most games still don't even get it.
Patapwn
Member
I find it very difficult to disagree with any of this... twas a great post. But still, it feels overtly harsh. I feel like Uncharted 3 somehow managed to rise above many of these rushed elements, and fulfill some continuity of 'I went here to do this, then I went here and did this because of that' so at the end I felt very satisfied. Like as if the disappearing of characters and plot holes like SPIDERS! were little in the way of telling the journey.
It'll be interesting how ND handles TLoU. Because if they screw up it's going to be a hell of a fall
AgentChris
Member
I hope we get to see some gameplay soon.
Skiesofwonder
Walruses, camels, bears, rabbits, tigers and badgers.
Agreed. I have always said that video games should never take away control from the character, period. But games like Portal 2, Prince of Persia, and Half-Life 2 do much better jobs at this compared to Uncharted 3 (IMO). Because it's not always enough to just blur the line between cinematics and gameplay. You also need to give the option (or illusion) to interact in a meaningful way that would potentially change your gaming experience.
Uncharted 3 doesn't have that option or illusion, and most of their "interactive" scenes come off more like the MGS4 scenes between chapters when you can change the viewing/camera angle.
DcLevartho
Member
Does anyone else just think the hobo is him nice backscratch? The lack of motion blur doesn't make it seem like an impact.
In any case, I think gameplay is needed to tip a lot of people over the edge on this game, I agree with Salz01, right now it's just "meh"
LightofRohan
Member
Games looks great. Sad a lot of you are against it.
Good! More for me! Now leave!
Good! More for me! Now leave!
No, but I do think that the hobo in the floor heard "cut" too soon.
FantasticMrFoxdie
Mumber
Damn Sexy. We need moar!
akilshohen
Member
Joke post? People were mentioning it in like the first page of the reveal trailer thread.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=33351390&postcount=9
I was at the VGAs and my friend next to me kept saying that...she thought it WAS her. lol
Looks pretty good, some parts of the screenshots looks painted (like the hair), kind of cool, though texture quality and some other parts look kind of dull. Can't wait for some gameplay footage, I'm sure I'll enjoy it. Hope meleeing isn't a huge focus and if it is I hope it's not garbage like the ones in UC3. But I think as long as it's not too restricted and be more dynamic and not intrusive, it would work well.
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
Gorgeous screens.
I really would not mind that to be honoust. Enslaved was a diamond in the rough.
HyperBitHero
Member
Please stop comparing this to Enslaved. You have no idea how much of a bad thing that is for me. Enslaved is terrible.
andherewego.gif
To stay at topic -
I love the screenshots, but first time I saw that homeless man hitting our "hero" in the back I though what the hell. As other member wrote - without the blur it looks like backscratch.
I can't wait for this to come out...need gameplay videos!
Also date...
To stay at topic -
I love the screenshots, but first time I saw that homeless man hitting our "hero" in the back I though what the hell. As other member wrote - without the blur it looks like backscratch.
I can't wait for this to come out...need gameplay videos!
Also date...
badcrumble
Member
Enslaved is a game with very nice art and music and mocap (just like Heavenly Sword) and absolutely terrible everything else. I hope this is nothing like that.
Black Lawn Finale
Banned
I'm expecting we will get snippets of info from now until a few weeks before E3 where we might get some more info and then gameplay at Sony's E3 conference. So far, this is my most anticipated game of the year so far just like Uncharted 3 was.
SO you want this game to have terrible art, music and mocap?
ProfessorMoran
Member
It doesn't have to be like Enslaved in order to have great art, music and mocap.
he said he wanted it to be nothing like enslaved, NOTHING LIKE.
The character models look (to my untrained eyes) exactly the same... but something about the art style is different. Clearly. Maybe it's lighting?
I don't know. But the trailer has the CG feel and the new screens look more like concept art... both are pretty cool, but I think there's obviously some difference.
ehh yeah, the left is a blurry desaturated screenshot, the right is a clean screen cap.
jump_button
Banned
Looking more like Mad Max then a zombie game
Hydrargyrus
Member
OMG
Looks really fantastic!
Looks really fantastic!
this post doesnt make sense - be thankful that this game isnt just another bleak, bland,brown and grey game.
Yeah, fuck the game that wants to look realistic and good, it's all about the grey.
dragonelite
Member
Colors don't disappear when zombie apocalypse happen.
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