March Modern Community Playthrough - The Last of Us

[Crabmaster2000]

Finished the game last night. The Winter section was definitely unexpected. Storywise it was a nice change of pace. Spring was much more predictable though. I was bothered that the gameplay never changed AT ALL. No new enemy types introduced after the bloater (which was very early), no new enviromental elements (snow didn't alter the fights at all, but looked cool), same old arsenal, enemies still behave the same. The battles, which I wasn't particularly into at the start, became more and more of a grind as the game went on. The puzzles also stayed very repetitive. Water.....Pallet, Ledge.....Ladder, Locked Door......Ellie. Gameplay-wise you can stop playing after the first 2 hours because you've experienced the game in it's entirety.

The ending was good though, I did like how they left things.

My last gripe is that this game also has the worst trophies ever. They are all just grinding or using a completion guide. None of them encourage you to try anything fun or interesting.

And if Joel was some kind of Rambo one-man-army the game would lose its impact and tension.

This is your only point I have to disagree with. In my game Joel had killed hundreds of men and dozens of infected, taken many bullet wounds/knife wounds, punched people to death with just a couple blows, could modify weapons greatly with just a pair of plyers and some random scrap metal, healed at a super human rate, carried an entire arsenal on him, and did all of those things while bleeding severly from being punctured straight through from back to front in the stomach area and then again while recovering from said wound which was apparently infected (the regular kind of infected). I'd have to double check, but I think Joel may have actually killed more men than Rambo did in all his movies combined

[Fleach]

You are hard to please. We gotta hop on Skype and discuss this, not to put anyone down for their opinions, but to discuss the highs and lows/hits and misses of this game because you brought them up.

As for the enemy types. You have Runners (mindless attackers), Stalkers (some vision and will try to sneak up on you), Clickers (harmless until provoked), and Bloaters (fully infected, deformed killing machines). If something like this happened in real life (and it does in the insect world) would you have more than four forms of an infection?

And about my Rambo comment... I just meant that you can't go in guns blazing and expect to win. But, yes, Joel is a bullet sponge.

[Crabmaster2000]

I largely agree with that youtube link you posted. He gets a lot of my thoughts across, but much more elequently.

I wasn't even aware that Stalkers was an enemy type. I though it was just runners, clickers, bloaters as far as infected go. But I also include the human characters. I assume that trained soldiers would behave differently than a somewhat organized milita and that they would both behave differently than an unorganized group of blood thirsty bandits. I'd be wrong though apparently.

You may not be able to go in all guns blazing in most situations, but you can go in all two-by-fours blazing on many occasions. If you take advantage of the invulnerability during the kill animation you can take out 3-4 armed men with your melee attacks.

Also only one of the self upgrades was useful. I put all my personal upgrades into hearing further (weird) and then saved the rest to use later in case I felt one of the other stats was in need of a boost. I kind of forgot and didn't actual upgrade anything else, oops

[techwizard]

if you play on survival with echo location turned off then that changes the game significantly for the difficulty. i made a solid attempt at going without upgrading myself all the way until the sewers with Henry and Sam, but when i got stuck on a couple rooms for over an hour i was forced to upgrade and even then i barely made it through. i'm not sure what you mean when you say you were wrong about assuming different groups would behave differently, because in my experience they did most of the time. military used cover much more extensively than the hunters, and worked together to flank you better. the hunters, true to their name, typically would stalk around trying to find you and rarely sat around waiting defensively for you to screw up (like a lot of the military did except in certain scenes).

[h1ghw1nd]

I played on normal and most of the time I either found a good corner to sit in and just shot all of the infected, or was able to fight them all off with a 2x4/my hands. Bloaters I found it easy to throw molotovs at them and blast with the shotgun, run if necessary. I agree with pretty much everything Crabby said. I think it's a good game and was well worth my time playing but the story is super bland. I don't know if it was all the hype but I just feel like I'm left wanting more. Maybe it's the ending. Maybe it's because I find the enemies to be very…lame haha. The clickers remind me of Jar Jar Binks. I haven't played the DLC (though I want to) but from what I hear it is about it doesn't seem like that's going to change the overall feel for me.

Also I never had a single Stalker run up behind me unless they did when I was in a brawl LOL. I wasn't aware they were an enemy type either.

[Fleach]

Also I never had a single Stalker run up behind me unless they did when I was in a brawl LOL. I wasn't aware they were an enemy type either.

Stalkers were the Infected that wondered around moaning. There a bunch in the Sewer scene. They're very much like Runners but not as mindless.

[techwizard]

finally got around to watching/reading all the analysis that Fleach linked to in the original post for this playthrough, it was all really good!

to those who didn't like the game very much, i highly recommend watching this one:



it's one that Fleach linked to so you might already have, but if you haven't and are willing to sit through 34 minutes then it's well worth it. he actually mentions the Errant Signal video and counters some of it's points

[Fleach]

The Last of Us represents a very polarizing trend in video games. As games try to be more cinematic that often comes at the expense of the gameplay. That seems to be why we have such opposing views of the game and why its impact is often lost on people.

When people call the story of the game unoriginal I'm reminded of a quote from a movie called "The Trip." The line is, "Everything's already been done. You just have to do it differently or better." That sums up the writing of TLOU in one line.

I'm not defending the game and I respect everyone's opinion, I just want to stir conversation and thought since this discussion is still popular.

[techwizard]

i agree for sure, saying "it's been done before" isn't much of an argument against it. what matters is whether or not it was done better than past influences or not.

[Disposed Hero]

One of the biggest complaints that I see about The Last of Us is that it's not a very good shooter.  I would agree with this, because it isn't meant to be played as a shooter.  If you're just running into areas and shooting/punching all of the enemies to death, quite frankly, you're playing it wrong.  To me, saying "The Last of Us is a bad shooter" is the same as saying "The Shining is a bad comedy movie."

The Last of Us is a stealth-action game.  In my opinion, playing it as a run & gun shooter wouldn't be much different than trying to play something like Splinter Cell as a shooter.  The guns are really there as a last resort, or for taking calculated risks in order to take out an enemy from a distance or to 'thin the herd.'  Playing on the harder difficulties, shooting/punching your way through all the enemies wouldn't even be an option due to a lack of ammo and the enhanced difficulty.

For me, the game was at its best when I was trying to sneak past and silently take out groups of enemies.  Barring a few quirks, the stealth mechanics of the game work pretty well, even if they are a bit minimalistic compared to the likes of Splinter Cell and Metal Gear Solid.  Actually, I really didn't care for the 'forced shooting' parts of the game (i.e. Ellie and David fending off infected in the cabin).  Sneaking around and taking out enemies one by one was intense and satisfying, and yes, sometimes shit would hit the fan and I'd be forced to start shooting and fall back.  And this creates different scenarios depending on which enemy type you're up against.  Infected mindlessly charge you, while human enemies will try to use more strategy to flush you out and flank you.  From a stealth perspective, this can considerably change your approach, but from a shooter perspective, well, all enemies react the same to a bullet to the head.

I haven't played The Last of Us on anything lower than hard difficulty, but I can see how it wouldn't be as good of an experience if the challenge wasn't there.  I would highly recommend anybody who played on normal difficulty to go back and play on hard or survival difficulty.  Rushing all of the enemies simply isn't an option on the harder difficulties.  Ammo and crafting resources become quite scarce, and it forces you to carefully consider your actions (Do I use up my last few shotgun rounds to take out some clickers, or do I try to sneak around?  Do I use my last bit of alcohol to create a health kit or a molotov?  Tough decisions I actually had to make).

As far as the criticisms about the story, I personally enjoyed it, but if all of the tropes are as familiar and overused as people say they are (I don't watch a lot of movies, so I can't really comment), I can see how it would be predictable and less interesting.  The whole idea of a mutated cordyceps fungus infecting humans creates a neat 'what if' scenario, but I'll admit, it does come off as just an elaborate excuse to make a 'zombie game.'

I wasn't aware that the game is as polarizing as it is until very recently.  I've been reading various opinions from various sources, and it seems some people truly hated the game.  I can understand not liking the game, it not being everyone's cup of tea, or it falling short of expectations, that's all well and good, but I think a lot of the extreme hate stems from the game being as hyped as it was.  If somebody approaches The Last of Us as a stealth game instead of a shooter and still doesn't like it, fair enough.  It just sounds like some people were expecting 'Zombie Uncharted' and that just isn't what this game is. 

Whew!  I didn't mean to write an entire essay.  But anyway, this is just one man's opinion.  I just wanted to get my thoughts out there, and hopefully stir up some more conversation since I'm stuck at work and have nothing better to do at the moment 

[h1ghw1nd]

I actually thought the shooting mechanics were great. They feel kinda close up like you're using them yourself. I got scared a few times looking down the sight while something came up from behind.

I'm also a fan of sneaking around (Hitman, Manhunt, Metal Gear) & "movie" type games (Uncharted, Tomb Raider, FFX LOL) so idk why I'm hard on this game. The story was boring last time. I'm gonna replay it on hard and try to use as few bullets as possible….and check out the DLC too.

I'm just starting to watch that video techwizard posted but do you guys agree this is the defining game (or one of them) for this generation? What's the best thing this game offers?

[Fleach]

Excellent posts Highwind and Disposed Hero! I really enjoyed reading your thoughts on the game. Glad people are watching the videos and thinking critically about the game and sharing their well developed thoughts.

Disposed, your opinion is very similar to mine in that I can't really find any faults with this game. I think people criticize The Last of Us because it can't be pigeon holed into one specific genre and so they preach their dislike to the masses. A lot of player will say, "this game has guns so it's a shooter" or "there is a sound/noise mechanic so this is a stealth game." If you really wanted to you could call The Last of Us an RPG because you can upgrade your character and weapons. But now with so many genres blending together we need to reassess how we categorize games.

Highwind, I would really like to think of The Last of Us as a defining game of this generation as it represents so many milestones in gaming. The voice acting, motion capture/animation, writing, level design, programming are all top notch and I want to see how the next big game outshines this one. But I find it difficult to chose just one game to hold the honour. BioShock Infinite was great (even though it has its faults and I feel I take the same stance Crabby did for TLOU for BS Infinite) and it did the same thing TLOU did, but in a first person perspective. Two very similar games, done differently. Then there are the Indie hits The Stanley Parable and Gone Home which both subvert the way narrative is handled in games. I think you posed an excellent question that I can't answer simply because we're at such a high point in games right now. I only hope the industry doesn't fly too close to the sun.

My favourite thing about the game: the script. Hands down it was pinnacle of character and story development in games to date.

[Disposed Hero]

@Highwind:  I personally liked the shooting mechanics myself also, but at the same time, I wasn't really using guns most of the time.  I'm assuming that most of the people who labeled this game as a 'shooter' tried to treat it like Max Payne or something similar, and if that's the case, I can see how they could come away disappointed.

I'm also a fan of all of those types of games you mentioned.  I've also heard people compare The Last of Us to the likes of Heavy Rain because of all the cinematic elements.  I loved Heavy Rain also, but not sure if I really agree with that comparison.

As far as The Last of Us being the defining game of this generation....  As much as I loved the game, I don't think I would call it that.  I feel like that's something I would have to give a lot of thought before handing out a title like that.  Off the top of my head though, I would probably call Uncharted 2 the defining game of this generation ahead of The Last of Us.  I feel like a lot of the things that The Last of Us does was done first in the Uncharted series, and The Last of Us was more or less built on that formula.  I'm not even sure which game I like more since it's been so long since I've played Uncharted 2.  I should really go back and play it soon....

@Fleach:  Yeah, I guess me simply calling The Last of Us a stealth-action game is a gross generalization because it has many elements from many different genres.  This overlap of genres is becoming more and more common with games nowadays.  I agree, it's probably about time the gaming community starts thinking of new methods of categorization.

[Fleach]

A new downloadable difficult in slated for release soon called "Grounded Mode."

“Grounded Mode will be the hardest challenge you’ll ever face as you try to complete the single-player campaign of The Last of Us,” says Naughty Dog Community Strategist Eric Monacelli on the PlayStation Blog. “The AI is relentless, smart, and brutal, and survival will be near impossible. ‘Completed Grounded Mode’ might be one of the most difficult Trophies you’ll ever earn.” This will cost $4.99 for those without season passes.

Who's interested in trying this DLC and discussing over PMs or Skype?

Source: http://www.technobuffalo....-us-dlc-finally-detailed/

[Disposed Hero]

A new downloadable difficult in slated for release soon called "Grounded Mode."

“Grounded Mode will be the hardest challenge you’ll ever face as you try to complete the single-player campaign of The Last of Us,” says Naughty Dog Community Strategist Eric Monacelli on the PlayStation Blog. “The AI is relentless, smart, and brutal, and survival will be near impossible. ‘Completed Grounded Mode’ might be one of the most difficult Trophies you’ll ever earn.” This will cost $4.99 for those without season passes.

Who's interested in trying this DLC and discussing over PMs or Skype?

Source: http://www.technobuffalo....-us-dlc-finally-detailed/

I'm intrigued.  I'll probably pick this up.  Feel free to PM me when it releases.