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Why The Last of Us Was Disappointing (Video)

Krisprolls

Banned
This (past) generation has really created new internet weird behaviours, besides console wars. Game nitpicking. It is getting really tiresome. There are tons of average and bad games, but people need to shit on awesome games just because they dislike them (legit, tastes are like asses, everyone has theirs, just skip it or go for the games you like) or pretend them to be another game ( scripted vs free roaming). MAybe this is some kind of stealth console wars, since most of the affected games happen to be exclusives.

Those are indeed stealth console war threads. Shitting on exclusives. It goes both ways by the way, we had a Halo is dying thread yesterday. It affects mostly the best exclusives, halo, uncharted, mgs4... It's unconsciously painful for them that those awesome games were not on their favorite platform and that they're extremely successful both critically and in sales.

You can see it's console war stuff because as soon as a game or dev is becoming multiplatform, those threads stop. No more hate thread on mgs now that it's multi, and nobody shits on insomniac anymore.
 
I don't understand some of the hostility in this thread. AI was clearly one of the biggest hurdles last gen with memory limitations (as it's always been), it's not as if this is a new thing. And while i didn't have anything close to the severe glitches and idiotic nature of the OP's video during my playthough (and part of a 2nd one), I don't doubt that you can break and cheese the systems pretty easily as you've always been able to do in stealth games or stealth hybrids. And even as someone who ranked TLoU #2 on my GOTY list, it's clearly nowhere near as smooth and dynamic as the E3 showing. There are some of those enemy states and reactions still in there, but they don't always combine to make something as intelligent and fast as what Naughty Dog showed off. I still managed to have some pretty impressive encounters despite that, but I have no doubt it's been significantly toned down, or that E3 video was never 100% realistic.
 
People nitpick games like the last of us and bioshock infinite, yet find all the good in crappy games. I don't get it. A game can be do 8 or 9 things perfectly and get bashed for the 1 thing it doesn't . Then some garbage like deadly premonition gets praised cause it does 2 things right, never mind the 8 things it does wrong.

Popular games, critically successful games get more attention and more people will notice what's wrong with them than less popular games.

Are the criticisms of Bioshock and TLoU sound?

Those are indeed stealth console war threads. Shitting on exclusives. It goes both ways by the way, we had a Halo is dying thread yesterday. It affects mostly the best exclusives, halo, uncharted, mgs4... It's unconsciously painful for them that those awesome games were not on their favorite platform and that they're extremely successful both critically and in sales.

You can see it's console war stuff because as soon as a game or dev is becoming multiplatform, those threads stop. No more hate thread on mgs now that it's multi, and nobody shits on insomniac anymore.

What if


people are just discussing a game
 
DerZuhälter;98626925 said:
I love how people always assume that people have been trying to scam them, because an E3 pressdemonstration looks better than the final game.

Often there are more simple explanations.

The vision cone of enemies is something that can be easily adressed I believe. Some changes I believe are just for the sake of playability, to not frustrate the player.
Because that is what always happens if the AI is too smart. You get frustrated.

It's pure folly to base your expectations of an entire 15-20 hour game based on a demo, which has been optimally tuned, play tested and finessed. The demo is meant to represent the best aspects of the creators vision to an extent, but it's also a work in progress. If you let that colour your enjoyment of the finished product then you're not engaging with the medium in the right way. It's perfectly fine to critique the game versus demo, but to say the game is disappointing based off that exceptionally tuned demo seems a little disingenuous. Like you say, there's also the potential that such an incredibly refined a.i, would frustrate the player more than anything else. It's also unrealistic to expect every encounter to play out as perfectly as the one in the demo.

That's not to say you shouldn't criticise the a.i., but do so in isolation, because the demo doesn't serve the argument that well. A game shouldn't be beholden to a snapshot taken and released to the public in demo form, that is, unless the disparity is deliberately misleading, such was the case with the Colonial Marines footage shown ahead of the game.
 
It's always a double edge sword to experience something long after it has receive so much critical acclaim.

You mean me? I actually played the game day one. I had it pre-ordered. I've been kicking this video around ever since I completed the game, and decided to finally put it out there so I could move on with a clear mind into the games of 2014.
 

terrier

Member
Not all of the games get the GAME OF THE YEAR-Awards and are praised to the maximum. For me, the Last of Us just doesn't do anything mind- or industry-changing to deserve this praise. It is a high quality product with not many real flaws but also not many high points (except the graphics and voice-acting) Otherwise it's a very safe game.

And what is the problem? GOTY awards mean shit. How can you give awards to a thing that depends on personal tastes for starters? Plus most of the time go to popular games, like TLOU or GTA or Halo etc.... just like movies or music.

AS for TLOU, it deserves praise, it is a great game, with its flaws like all fucking games. You didn't like it or it wasn't revolutionary? And what? A lot of awesome games, like Mario Galaxy, goty too, have flaws, play safe and offer more of the same. Let's open a thread each week to shit on each of them just because it is not your cup of tea.
 
Ctrl-C + Ctrl-V the relevant parts of the script into your OP or don't bother. A bare bones statement like "why TLOU was dissapointing" and a link to your video reeks of personal interest click-bait and self promotion.

you're competent at making videos and I've watched them before, but dissapointment was not a feeling TLOU presented me with.

Edit: and to the mod who wrongly banned me for this post saying "at least watch the video before posting to acuse someone of clickbait", I did watch the video before posting, that's how I know it was clickbait. What else do you call a 5 sentence OP that doesn't offer any conversational value without clicking his monetized video? There's nothing to discuss here that couldn't have been said via copy and pasting his script, which btw still hasn't been done. This is a text based forum not a promotional blog and many people view GAF from work or school where youtube is blocked, so I wonder how many people clicked the thread and had to turn around because there's no argument to be made in the text. As far as I'm concerned, make a point and then illustrate it with pictures/gifs/videos if you must. This isn't even an attack against an individual, it's a criticism regarding the presentation of an idea, and I don't see how it's a wrong interpretation to make regarding "clickbait".
 
I understand your point about the AI. I swear I read somewhere that before release the advanced AI had to be cut at some point. I think it was in NaughtyDog's 2 AMA on Reddit.
The Last Of Us wasn't disappointing to me one bit. Sure, the AI looked awesome, but it was a beta. Things get scrapped. What they show at E3 isn't representative of the final game. And it's not like THAT much changed (unlike the Aliens: Colonial Marines game), the game is fantastic.
Also, 5 of your 9 topics you've made have been self promotion, dude. Jeez.
 
I agree with a lot of points, and i even think naughty dog agrees with some of those points. Especially the Ai being less advanced than i expected (eventhough the ai was still not bad at all.)
I still think the game was great. Not my GOTY, but still great.

You started your video in the dumbest and elitist way possible imo with the expecting Bioshock to be bad part.
Not that it was a great game imo, but expecting it to be BAD is ridiculous. Maybe it's your age or inexperience in life and personality building. But you might want to look into why you are feeling the need to say things like that, in that way.
 
Well, for starters it shows enemies running away from guns, something you said they don't.

You mean the enemy at 1:25? If so, no it doesn't. It's just an enemy that can't make up its mind if it wants to take cover or not. When the player aims at him, he's already going into cover, and there's no reason for the enemy to be running in and out of cover anyway. Compare that to the E3 and PAX demos. It isn't at all the same.
 

Krisprolls

Banned
Popular games, critically successful games get more attention and more people will notice what's wrong with them than less popular games.

Are the criticisms of Bioshock and TLoU sound?



What if


people are just discussing a game

Then people would discuss multiplatform games too. That's not what happens. Only exclusives get hate threads.
 
I don't understand why you're trying to lecture me on what difficulty I played it on, when I said in the video that it's almost all from survivor difficulty. If it isn't survivor, it's on hard. I specifically chose to play on the highest difficulty, because I knew people would try to use "well, you gotta play on the hardest difficulty" as a scapegoat to discredit my opinion. I wouldn't do a video criticizing the AI in the game, without first testing stuff on the highest difficulty. If I went up to Survivor and it was all of a sudden brilliant, I would have scrapped the video immediately.

I'm sorry. Guess I missed that part. It's also strange because I never encountered that many problems with the AI. It was the opposite really.

So again, I apologize for not paying attention, Now you need to understand that many of us didn't get the shitty AI you did.
 
I'm having a very hard time believing this. This is TLoU in Survivor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiJ0ZBGkEUU

That video shows how wrong many of your claims in your video are.



1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Didn't happen to me but I think i remember a GAF member saying yes.
4. They can hold you, not sure if they hold you specifically for someone else to shoot you.

ZnqQ5.gif



Thank you for proving what many have said. There are some blatant lies or discrepancies in the video in the OP saying ambushing and enemies running away was not in the game.

Also its disingenious to say the video in the Op represents the usual gameplay since we don't know how many hours OP sat there getting the footage. Of course edited all together in the video makes it seem as if its common.


But it doesn't. That video shows AI on-par my recordings. What is impressive about the video? That he dies? Also, you have no reason to think I'm lying to you. I have no idea why you would instantly go there. What the hell.

On par lol. It shows things you claimed were taken out of the game.

"In the actual enemies with melee weapons are only capable of running at you in a straight line with no reaction of you pointing a gun straight at their face."

Bullshit.
 

Alienous

Member
Are YOU serious? An uncut playthrough vs several playthroughs with specially cut sections from them from god knows how many hours on whatever difficulty level to focus on the bad stuff.

Does it matter if it's an "AI test" whatever that means. It's not pushing anything, its me playing the game. And the video disproves many of the things he said.

It's potentially as misrepredentative as anything in the OP's video. That's my point. The OP might be misrepresenting the AI, but your video definitely does. It is as calculated to push a conclusion, assuming that was also the OP's intention.

That's why I questioned your choice of video. A playthrough, or any extract from a Let's Play, that disproved the OP's assertions would be far more valid.
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Then people would discuss multiplatform games too. That's not what happens. Only exclusives get hate threads.

Bioshock Infinite and Tomb Raider and DmC are all mulitplatform. Are you suggesting they've never had a hate thread?

It's potentially as misrepredentative as anything in the OP's video. That's my point. The OP might be misrepresenting the AI, but your video definitely does. It is as calculated to push a conclusion, assuming that was also the OP's intention.

That's why I questioned your choice of video. A playthrough, or any extract from a Let's Play, that disproved the OP's assertions would be far more valid.

Man, it's an uncut video. I'm sorry, but regardless of anything else, saying uncut video is as calculated as snippets and clips of B-roll with opinionated commentary is just incorrect.
 
It's potentially as misrepredentative as anything in the OP's video. That's my point. The OP might be misrepresenting the AI, but your video definitely does. It is as calculated to push a conclusion, assuming that was also the OP's intention.

That's why I questioned your choice of video. A playthrough, or any extract from a Let's Play, that disproved the OP's assertions would be far more valid.

Missing the point yet again. He claimed the AI flat out doesn't do stuff that video shows them doing. Doesn't matter for what reasons I played and recorded it.
 
Here's why OP claiming the video footage is on survivor difficulty is false.

95ip.jpg

l5ij.jpg


Only dropped melee weapons glow in survivor difficulty.
Bricks, bottles and dropped ammos don't glow.
 

Steez

Member
Eh, I thought the AI was absolutely fine in the end. It's not as good as in the E3 demo, sure and it's a bit disappointing, but it works. I even had some pretty damn memorable encounters in the game when things clicked (no pun intended).

Some of the glitches you encountered are completely new to me though, like enemies standing around and molotovs vanishing into thin air and I've completed the 4 times. Maybe I'm just incredibly lucky, or maybe you went out of your way to forcibly glitch the AI, but either way, I think those are very rare examples/bugs that don't have a big impact on the overall experience.

Oh and the offhand comment about Infinite and DmC being "bad" was completely unnecessary and makes you sound like a huge dingdong.
 
And what is the problem? GOTY awards mean shit. How can you give awards to a thing that depends on personal tastes for starters? Plus most of the time go to popular games, like TLOU or GTA or Halo etc.... just like movies or music.

AS for TLOU, it deserves praise, it is a great game, with its flaws like all fucking games. You didn't like it or it wasn't revolutionary? And what? A lot of awesome games, like Mario Galaxy, goty too, have flaws, play safe and offer more of the same. Let's open a thread each week to shit on each of them just because it is not your cup of tea.

The problem here is that you're seemingly putting these opinions on a pedestal, hence the hostile reaction. People give awards because it's a way of honouring these amazing experiences they've had; a chance to showcase the best games over the course of the year. When it comes to criticism, If we don't challenge in any way why it is we enjoy these games and what flaws they possess, then we're not challenging ourselves.

It's a mindset thing, if you come at it from a hostile perspective that somehow your enjoyment of the game is being challenged, then you'll throw up a wall. On the other hand, if you just accept it as another opinion in the mix, then maybe you'll get something out of it, outside of your own experience with the game.
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Here's why OP claiming the video footage is on survivor difficulty is false.

95ip.jpg

l5ij.jpg


Only dropped melee weapons glow in survivor difficulty.
Bricks, bottles and dropped ammos don't glow.

Wait. Is that true? If so, what a belly full of laughs this is turning out to be.
 

Llyrwenne

Unconfirmed Member
I don't understand some of the hostility in this thread. AI was clearly one of the biggest hurdles last gen with memory limitations (as it's always been), it's not as if this is a new thing. And while i didn't have anything close to the severe glitches and idiotic nature of the OP's video during my playthough (and part of a 2nd one), I don't doubt that you can break and cheese the systems pretty easily as you've always been able to do in stealth games or stealth hybrids. And even as someone who ranked TLoU #2 on my GOTY list, it's clearly nowhere near as smooth and dynamic as the E3 showing. There are some of those enemy states and reactions still in there, but they don't always combine to make something as intelligent and fast as what Naughty Dog showed off. I still managed to have some pretty impressive encounters despite that, but I have no doubt it's been significantly toned down, or that E3 video was never 100% realistic.
I don't think the hostility comes from fully disagreeing with what OP is trying to say, more with the manner in which he is trying to get his point across; by creating a video with cherry-picked moments from several playthroughs in which he was apparently actively trying to make the A.I. look as stupid as possible as to support his point, and claiming that it is representative of regular gameplay on the highest difficulty.

I don't think anyone here is legitimately arguing that the A.I. hasn't been downgraded from the E3 demo, nor that this downgrade was disappointing or that the A.I. doesn't have its problems. It's just that the OP has chosen to massively exaggerate the problem and pass it off as regular gameplay, in a thread with a pretty inflammatory thread title (The Last of Us was a disappointing game as opposed to the much more accurately describing the contents of this thread The Last of Us A.I. was disappointing).

EDIT; And apparently OP wasn't even playing on survivor as he was claiming constantly, lol.
 
I heard the digital version was way worse in the bugs and AI department.

But that's not all that relevant.

The main point he was making with the video is that enemy AI shown in the E3 gameplay did not represent the final product at all.

And I agree with him there. The human enemies in the game were not close to the standard one would expect watching that gameplay.

That doesn't make the game bad, the game is very good but it's not as good as one would expect based on what we saw.

Also this rabid defense of the game is kind of embarassing, it is possible to hold a game in high regard while conceding it has flaws guys.
 
It's pure folly to base your expectations of an entire 15-20 hour game based on a demo, which has been optimally tuned, play tested and finessed. The demo is meant to represent the best aspects of the creators vision to an extent, but it's also a work in progress. If you let that colour your enjoyment of the finished product then you're not engaging with the medium in the right way. It's perfectly fine to critique the game versus demo, but to say the game is disappointing based off that exceptionally tuned demo seems a little disingenuous. Like you say, there's also the potential that such an incredibly refined a.i, would frustrate the player more than anything else. It's also unrealistic to expect every encounter to play out as perfectly as the one in the demo.

That's not to say you shouldn't criticise the a.i., but do so in isolation, because the demo doesn't serve the argument that well. A game shouldn't be beholden to a snapshot taken and released to the public in demo form, that is, unless the disparity is deliberately misleading, such was the case with the Colonial Marines footage shown ahead of the game.

I agree that you can't expect vertical-slice and carefully set-up preview material as a literal 1-to-1 representation of a game, but there's been "demo" trailer of games that have been less misleading of a game's core gameplay. TLoU definitely isn't among the worst at all, but it's noticeable at times.

I don't think it's fair to say whether someone should/shouldn't be disappointed by something though. Even just judding the game on its own, occasionally there'll be an unarmed enemy who will advance on you while you have a shotty out (without aiming it) or who has bad pathfinding which can take you out of the game, stuff that could've been better. saying it's disappointing is definitely a subjective statement and the opinion-holder's reasoning is what matter most
 

taizuke

Member
You mean me? I actually played the game day one. I had it pre-ordered. I've been kicking this video around ever since I completed the game, and decided to finally put it out there so I could move on with a clear mind into the games of 2014.

Doesn't fit your case then. Anyway, did you by any chance played the digital version? Cause i hear that version is more prone to bugs and glitches.
 

Yuripaw

Banned
I guess I can understand why this game was "disappointing" exactly, but this is why I try to keep myself on blackouts for games so many times. I had no expectations for Bioshock Infinite, or the Last of Us really, because other than catching glimpses of their big reveals, or some demos...I never really watched that stuff that closely, thus led to enjoying the final games than most people did I think.

Ignorance is bliss I guess.
 

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
It's true.
People with the game can check for themselves.

Man, I'm going to go dig out my copy. I don't know who to believe! First E3, then OP, now this. Who to believe!!!

Ah ah no, you mustn't have been there when mgs4 was chosen as gaf game of the year.

I was, but I've also been around for the GTAIV backlash, the TR backlash, the overwhelming love for exclusives like FE: Awakenings, etc. Don't let your preconceived notions create boogeymen for you. Everybody on GAF hates everything equally.
 
This is gotta be one of the most nitpicky video I have ever seen. holy shit.

Yeah, I didn't really experience any of that and it does seem like it's clutching at straws a bit to me. I thought the AI was excellent overall, although to be fair it wasn't quite as convincing as in that initial gameplay demo.
 
I really like his previous videos, but if that's true about lying on survivor, I don't know what to think. I mean, you express your concerns, but you only really showed the AI in it's WORST. The game's AI can be pretty good and much better than other games. Also, I never experienced that weird lockup that occurs with enemies. If you showed us a full chapter from survivor, uncut or something, then maybe I'd respect this video and you more. I know you meant to highlight the errors of the game, but they almost never occur. And you're video just specifically showed us bugs. I don't even believe you were on survivor. I may unsubscribe, too.

Also, some of the mechanics that you seem to believe that were removed from the game are definitely present. Just slightly changed.
Not every game is perfect. But, this was my game of the generation, even with it's flaws.
 

Larson

Banned
I agree.

I was hoping that the AI would be smart enough (i.e. act like in the E3 demo) so that I wouldn't fight waves of them. I really wanted to face perhaps 50 human enemies all told throughout the single-player. Unique, challenging AI. Heck, at that point you could individually name and voice act them. Make them feel unique, and more than just any enemy that spawned in.

Somewhat ironically the multiplayer delivers on the SP AI promise. Smart enemies that act intelligently. They self preserve, ambush, run out of ammo and adapt tactics. They flee, team up, sneak up on you etc.

There's room for improvement in a sequel. Have the enemies you meet in SP actually roam for items, scavenging what is randomly generated into the environment. Make them run out of ammo when their scavenged rounds deplete. Make them run. Make them frantically search for resources, or adjust tactics to get behind you. Make them wait around corners, or mess with the environment to mislead you. Have them attatch some scissors to a 2x4 they found. And if it means I only kill 40 people when the game is over, and each engagement relies more on wits than headshots, and plays more like a boss battle than a shootout, that's fantastic. Let the infected be the bullet sponges.

Hopefully Naughty Dog make the AI even better in TLOU 2.

I think people are nitpicking. The Last of Us does so many things right that the bar is put even higher then other games. You must realize that the game is running on 512 MB of Ram, making unique and very advanced AI is almost impossible.
 
Here's why OP claiming the video footage is on survivor difficulty is false.[/IMG]

Only dropped melee weapons glow in survivor difficulty.
Bricks, bottles and dropped ammos don't glow.

Okay, a few clips of footage on hard, yeah? I said almost all of the footage was on survivor, just for clips like that.

1. A few of those caps are from the segment where I show that enemies do an awkward dodge to the side when you aim at them, right? Still happens in survivor.

2. The pic of the back of the Molotov guy is hard, yeah. You can watch the whole clip here on my side channel. I thought it was very funny, so I had to include it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZpEP1WqF2Q

3. Those last ones of the different areas were just filler of my killing dudes for the end of the video. I was trying to show that the game was still cool, so I included a bunch of action that I recorded on the side.

You're trying to make me out to be a liar just because you can't accept that I personally had a poor experience with the AI.
 
Is this thread like when people that didn't like bioshock infinte found a video of someone criticising the game and made a new thread because they thought the same and wanted to be vindicated?
Because it sure looks like it.

And im not even that fond of last of us.
 

-MD-

Member
Glad my experience was nothing like OP's. I played on hard w/ listen mode off and had a blast with none of those hangups and very little AI issues.

People pointing out the glowing throwing items is also hilarious.
 

def sim

Member
I just finished this game Iast night. I came into it expecting the dynamic AI shown in the E3 demos and was disappointed to see none of it is really there. I still had my fun, but it's not what I expected.

It's a good framework and if they make a sequel or a similar game in the future, I hope they implement their promises for this game into that one.
 
The game does have problems, but the A.I is definitely not one of them for me.

In fact I think it's one of its strongest points - even stronger than the narrative...
 
I'm playing on hard right now, and I had a guy run up to me and when I pulled out my gun and shot him, the rest of his buddies scattered and one even said "holy shit he's got a gun!"

You can tell us that you were playing that on the hardest difficulty all you want. I'll simply choose not to believe it unless you provide some concrete evidence of that.

That looks like the easiest setting, and it's nothing I've experienced on normal or hard. I've played the game 3 times already.
 
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