The Last of Us, but not the best of us
by Scott Nichols
Since I’m not obligated to write a traditional review here on Gamerly Musings, I’ve decided to parse out my thoughts on The Last of Us in list form since it just makes more sense to me that way. As always with things I write here, spoilers.
Things The Last of Us gets right:
The opening. The first hour of The Last of Us does a fantastic job of introducing Joel and the game’s world. Starting with control of his daughter, you explore the house in a pre-infected state, then find Joel rushing inside being chased by early infected. There’s a nice sense of knowing that the infection is happening elsewhere, but naivete about it actually hitting home, even as things escalate quickly around them. It also features what may be the first time in a Naughty Dog game that your character is being chased and you aren’t running toward the camera while seeing the pursuers behind you. You probably can turn the camera around to look, but I got the sense that doing so would slow me down and get me caught, so I just kept running with an unknown danger at my heels. It’s a heavily scripted scene, but very effective.
The setting. Never let it be said that Naughty Dog doesn’t know how to set a scene. From the ruined buildings and plants reclaiming the streets to the wilderness of the hydroelectric plant and Colorado winter. The art direction has an impeccable attention to detail, with subtle nuggets of information about how survivors lived, or failed to, wrapped into every corner of the world. The sewer nursery and Colorado University campus were particularly well realized examples of world-building.
The acting. The Last of Us probably won’t be on my shortlist for top games of 2013, but it’s definitely up there for one of the top movies of the year. The voice acting is fantastic throughout, and the motion capture for the cutscenes got some amazing footage with body language and inflections to drive the acting home. The only jarring part of the acting was when Steve Blum’s gruff voice kept popping up for the random thugs and soldiers you fight, since his voice is so distinct that it came across as fighting the same enemy over and over rather than a mob. More enemy voice diversity, please.
Winter. Everything about the Winter chapter is the best part of The Last of Us. You finally get to control Ellie, hunting in the woods for survival. She then threatens two strangers with a bow and arrow, and barters her food for medicine, which is the kind of thing I like to see in a survival game (though it would have more impact if characters had a hunger meter or something). David is wonderfully twisted and complex character to add for the chapter, as you go through the initial trials building trust with him through gameplay only to discover he’s the leader of the mob that attacked you in the last chapter.
He’s also a cannibal, and most likely a pedophile since one of his underlings refers to Ellie as his “pet,” though in David’s early scenes he shows just enough humanity that there might me a genuine paternal feeling behind his motivation to steal Ellie away from Joel. The whole stealth fight with David is done well, and I love how Joel arrives just in time to watch Ellie beat David’s face in. Winter is the chapter that shows just how far Ellie has come since the beginning when Joel was trying to shelter her into a survivor capable of handling herself. Of course, she’s also still a kid, which comes out in her attitude and depression in the following chapter after brutally killing most of David’s gang.
Scavenging/crafting. I really like scavenging for materials in survival games, and The Last of Us had plenty of materials to find. Those materials could be used to craft health kits, explosives, and upgrade melee weapons, with some materials needed for multiple items so you had to manage your resources. Well, kind of. The game actually threw too much scavenging material into the environment, and I often had to leave stuff behind because I had maxed out all of my items and the amount of materials I could carry. Abundance aside, the system worked well, and I liked how crafting items was in real-time so you could make items at any time but there was a risk attached if you were in combat.
Things The Last of Us gets wrong:
Partner A.I. Holy hell, the A.I. is dumb in The Last of Us. While I was trying to sneak past clickers with Joel, Ellie and whoever else happened to be along at the moment would run around in tap dancing shoes completely ignoring the fact that we were supposed to be stealthy. And for the most part, as long as I hadn’t been noticed, they could make as much noise as they wanted. It kind of ruins the effect of the stealth portions. But then as soon as I get noticed by an enemy, suddenly the A.I. companions are visible and I have to rescue them. It’s immersion-breaking and really inexcusable considering how much of the first half relies on stealth. When I press crouch, the A.I. should automatically follow suit, even if enemies aren’t actually nearby. It would reinforce both that enemies pose a genuine threat and that Joel is taking on a leader/father role to Ellie if she followed his actions like that.
Notice that Winter was the highlight of the game. David makes for an uncharacteristically competent A.I. partner, shooting enemies to stun them so you can finish them off. His competence, especially after so many miserable A.I. companions, is a big part of why that scene works for building trust in him, or at least wanting him to turn out to be a good guy, and why his betrayal stings even if you saw it coming (which let’s be honest, who didn’t?). David is also only your companion for a short time, after which Ellie and Joel get their own solo segments, which forgoes the entire A.I. problem altogether.
Anything involving guns. I am not convinced that Naughty Dog can make a competent shooter. I’m sorry, I’ve never been a fan of the gunplay in the Uncharted series, and it’s just as wrong-feeling here in The Last of Us. For some reason it always feels much more difficult to aim any gun at close range in a Naughty Dog game, which should be the opposite, and becomes a real issue when fighting the infected. I actually don’t have an issue with the aiming being shaky as other critics have said, but to compensate each bullet should be far more lethal.
Unavoidable combat. Oh, you thought The Last of Us was a stealth horror game? Haha, nope. For each encounter that has a stealthy option there is a scripted sequence where you can’t progress until every enemy in sight has been killed. Usually the unavoidable combat sequences are against heavily armed human opponents, which as I’ve already said anytime the game uses guns the fun level drops drastically. The entire Philadelphia section of the game is excruciating for all of the wrong reasons. Sometimes it will also throw in unavoidable combat with infected, in which case the terrible close-range combat comes into play. Other times it’ll throw a swarm of infected at you and expect you to run, but because the game has established a pattern predominantly of “kill everything to progress” it wouldn’t occur to me to run until after dying several times. Hotel basement with the generator, I’m looking at you.
The focus ability. Joel and Ellie have a unique ability where they can crouch low and see enemies through walls if you hold the R2 trigger. This is super helpful in the stealth portions, and a good addition to the game. So why is the focus ability something The Last of Us gets wrong? Because it has selective usefulness when it comes to scripted scenes. I try to play as a good survivalist, so I’m sneaking practically everywhere, and using the focus ability liberally. But sometimes there will be an infected hiding for a jump scare, or human enemies that are scripted to pop out, and they won’t appear with the focus ability until their scripted trigger is activated. Players should be rewarded for being careful, and at times The Last of Us is just far more concerned with being a thrill ride than giving the player agency.
Magical cutscene injuries. I know, it’s a tired trope that shows up in most games, but that doesn’t make it any less terrible when it pops up in The Last of Us. Even if Joel falling on the metal beam is the catalyst for what leads to Ellie’s starring role in the excellent Winter chapter, it’s still a cheap plot device that A) seems minor compared to the multiple gunshot wounds Joel survived before it and B) wouldn’t have happened if the encounter played out like every other bit of combat in the game. As I already mentioned, I’m a very careful player, so seeing that kind of clumsiness from characters in a cutscene is very jarring. Also, how does Joel survive for a few months until winter in a perpetually deteriorating state, then after one penicillin injection he’s better within 12 hours? Again, yes, it’s game logic, but I feel like for the world they’ve created the consequences should be greater, or at least force players to take care of Joel as Ellie for a longer time before he recovers.
Puzzles. You’d think that at some point during their year-long trek Joel would teach Ellie how to swim. Nope, let’s do the same carry-Ellie-on-a-plank-of-wood puzzle half a dozen times. The ladders and planks were also a good idea that turned into a missed opportunity. Being able to freely position ladders and planks could have led to some tense escape sequences or non-linear exploration, but instead there’s usually only one place you can really use them. It feels like Naughty Dog had big plans for re-positioning ladders, but either ran out of time or got locked into a linear structure and forgot about them halfway into development.
Overall, if I had been reviewing The Last of Us, I’d have probably given it something in the 6-7/10 range, with text that strongly emphasized that it is the story that brought up the score, not gameplay. I’d easily recommend either I Am Alive or ZombiU over it, and the fact that both of those came out last year as superior survival experiences greatly influenced my opinion of The Last of Us. Then again, in ZombiU I had the opposite issue, where the story was awful and gameplay was fantastic, so if there was a game that could merge Naughty Dog’s storytelling with ZombiU that would be just about perfect.
Nice to see this kind of analysis on the game. I tend to suspect when a game gets 10’s and people start calling it “the Citizen Kane of…” I was thinking of getting it, but now I wont expect a masterpiece and get a disappointing experience because of that same expectation.
Spot on man! I read this as if the words were actually mine. Exactly how I felt about the game, would say a 7/10.
This reviewer obviously has a poor taste in games, including those people that agree with this.
Anyone who thinks this game is any less AT LEAST a 9.5/10 is not a gamer.
a few valid points, but you lost me at your anger at a few of the ‘removing me from the experience’ quips and then called the ‘listen mode’ a good thing in the game. playing the game without it is a far superior experience and your support of it calls into question the rest of your review. also, you dont have to kill everything in the room to progress….at all…the idea, also, that the game leaves the fight or flight response up to you is actually what a survival game such as this SHOULD do. i, too, wouldve really enjoyed a hunger meter of some sort, with blurry vision and so on as a consequence.
the aiming was very realistic and not difficult to master. youd be surprised, if you arent a shooter in real life, how difficult it is to hit a target zigzagging at you the way the runners do in this game when your adrenaline is pumping. i had no problem with the way that aiming was handled in this game. all in all, your review is decent, but you sound like you suffer from ‘casual gamer’ woes in places, that is to say entitled for an easier, hand holding experience. sorry.
I see what you mean about the focus mode, I actually thought that the similar feature in Dishonored ruined that game, but it I thought it was a good addition in The Last of Us. Especially with the abundance of poorly lit stealth sections, it was useful simply for navigating around the environment. And as I said, I thought it was a good idea that was poorly implemented, so it definitely had a lot of room for improvement (like a limited time of consecutive use, maybe even tying that into the hypothetical hunger meter so that you can’t focus if you’re hungry).
There definitely were some sections of the game where you do have to kill every enemy to progress though. The first encounter with a bloater in the school gymnasium, the fight at the hydroelectric dam, and defending against infected with David in the Winter chapter all stand out in my mind, but were hardly the only examples. I have no problem with leaving fight or flight situations up to the player’s discretion, all I’m saying is that the game also needs to be more consistent so that it is always an option. It’s a matter of teaching player behavior through level design and encounter structure. By having situations where running isn’t an option, as a player it makes me less likely to consider running in other situations where it might actually be an option. Each game establishes its own set of internal rules, and for The Last of Us it established rules for both “you can avoid enemies” and “there are some situations where you have to fight everyone.” Those rules are at odds with each other, and as a professional game critic I see that as bad design.
I also specifically said that I liked the fact that the aiming was shaky, which is realistic to someone inexperienced with guns (though I believe Joel would be more experienced if he’s been a smuggler for the past 20 years). My problem is with aiming at close range, which is more an issue of analog stick sensitivity. This is an issue I find in many third-person shooters, and it was especially noticeable in The Last of Us because most fights against infected were in close quarters.
I actually wish The Last of Us was much more challenging, which is why I recommended I Am Alive and ZombiU as better examples of survival games. I’m glad you liked The Last of Us more than I did though, enjoying things is good. I wish I had enjoyed it more too, but I explained why I didn’t.
You do realise that the focus mechanic that you refer to is meant as a visual representation of the characters hearing? Why would their ability to hear be reduced if they were hungry or deplete over time?
The listening skill that many seem to be critical of is not a heightened sense, all of the people in the game use it. It’s like when spider man uses his precognitive abilities in the comics the artist shows wavy lines so we can see he is using it. The listening mode only works when characters are making noise it’s not like batman’s xray vision as some have claimed or agent 47 and Lara crofts new instinct game mechanic, it’s just a representation of what Joel can hear.
I have played the game on a surround sound set up and confirm that you cannot depend on your own hearing to gauge where people are as people both infected and other wise will at times sound closer than they actually are. The listening mode is a default mechanic for a reason it enable you to see what Joel would hear if he was in a 3d space. Home theartre systems will alter the direction of sound when the camera pans with the joy pad analog stick so if you pan the camera to the left you at home will hear a louder volume from your right front speaker than your left even though the people talking on the screen haven’t moved. A good example of what i’m talking about would be the scene where Ellie is being chased in the burning restaraunt, it is for that reason that many adjust their difficulty from survivor to easier settings at that point so they can use the game’s listening mechanic to evade him.
While I wouldn’t be as harsh as you about rating gameplay, I find a lot of your complaints spot on about the gameplay (especially shooting, shooting is frustrating in this game. Glad to see some one else mention it cause I don’t play many shooters so didn’t know if maybe I just suck at it and have no idea what I’m doing).
I also agree about partner AI and especially the whole giving me a listening ability and half the time it’s useless because I get jumped by scripted events that listening won’t warn me about. I agree with you, give me a chance to avoid the jumping if you are going to give me a way of listening. But, I find that’s a problem with games in general that have a story to tell and are very focused on telling it because it’s hard to do that when you can’t totally predict how your player is going to act. So in a way I find it a little forgivable in the name of storytelling.
I don’t agree with you on the unavoidable conflict being so prevalent that you start assuming that’s what you are supposed to do. Yes, it does have some scenes that are like that (granted I’ve only played about halfway through the game but certainly by the hotel basement I knew running was an option as that was my first instinct). I think it’s so far been pretty obvious when it expects you to fight and when you can do what you want (or when it expects you to flee though you can try and stay and fight if you really wish. You may even survive, maybe. The basement scene was very obvious a “flee” now scene). I will admit though while you have the option (foolish as it may be) on scenes you are expected to flee to fight, the fight scenes are pretty much you have to fight. And I agree, fighting is a bit painful especially with guns (I tend to choose the melee option most the time cause of this).
Worst review on a game ever I don’t know how you could recommend ZombiU over this I’m an avid gamer and everyone knows TLOU is at least a 9.3 to a 10. Your expectations for this game where so high it showed that its a great game, because if you had this mindset going into any other game they would all be sub par. I give your review a 3/10
I agree with your final point, and as a matter of fact I do think most games are average or subpar. I would also say that having high expectations isn’t nearly as bad as lowering your expectations to make excuses for games that do a bad job.
I laugh at the people who says that your review of the game isn’t good, or that “everyone knows this game is fantastic”. It’s just the stupid Fan Boy syndrome, see critics giving it tens and think it’s amazing. I’ve had people telling me this game is the most amazing game of 2013 without them even playing it, or at least fully.
Now for the review I agree with pretty much everything. The story is amazing, the interaction between the characters is fantastic.
I’ve had the problem with close range but I think the shotgun covers it for me. In the part where Ellie uses the rifle to cover Joel for the first time, it’s another part where you need to kill everything, and frankly I despite that part. There are 4\5 guys in there, but the moment they discovered a body an endless wave of bad guys just ran into the area. I’m serious, I was hiding and used the listening thingy and I’ve seen at least 9 guys roaming around there, despite already killing 4 of them.
They made the stealth much worse by barely having the ability to look out of the left side of cover (which also brings the problem of always having to look from the right shoulder instead of the middle or having the ability to switch sides outside of aiming mode), you mentioned the unreliable listening mode and what annoyed me the most is the inability to drag bodies. Seriously? If a single human mob discovers a body the entire area turns hostile, why can’t I drag them? Would make too much noise? Grabbing a mob and “stealth killing” him is as subtle in this game as a bulldozer crashing through a building, and the building falling down on a pack of wild opera singers. Oh and who can forget the fact that you can point your flash light anywhere you want and no one will notice you. For the first half of the game I never used my torch when ever mobs where around, because I was sure they would discover me. But nope, of course they didn’t.
You mentioned the terrible AI.. Yeah not much to add there, it’s just laughable seeing Ellie literally bumping into mobs while I’m sneaking and no one is noticing.
Odd design choices are present as well. I’m entering a house, seeing the bodies of the house residents resting downstairs, trying to go up stairs and everything is blocked with furniture. And why does 90% of the doors are barricaded? Even inside houses? I mean sure, people don’t want infected to get in, but why barricading the doors from the OUTSIDE? Imagine someone finishing barricading his front door just to find out he’s now stuck outside his house.
Bugs, pretty common. Had Ellie getting stuck inside walls and cars, and while I’m proceeding with the level it looks like I’m talking to my self, made me lose some optional conversations as well. Trying to sneak up to a mob, POP, he disappears into oblivion. Bugged trophies as well, I finished the game on hard (personal thing, I hate when games blocks you from playing the hardest difficulty before finishing the game at least once, it’s just obvious that they are forcing you to put as many hours as possible into it) opening every single shiv door and listening to all of Ellie’s jokes. What did I get? Finish the game on hard, and finish the game on easy. Thank you game!
The two things I find that annoyed me the most are:
1. The story is insanely obvious. I wasn’t shocked by anything, the moment they present a new character I already know what is going to happen to them. No plot twists, no nothing.
2. Clickers. I don’t hate Clickers because they are hard or something, they annoy me because the creators failed to understand their own concept. The entire idea of making these clicking noises is that they listen to how the sound bounces off other objects, and by the way the sound is projected back to them they know what the object is, and where it is. With that in mind, you only need to merely exist around Clickers for them to notice you, not to make too much noise like the game says you do, which makes them pretty useless and easy to avoid.
All in all this comment was almost as long as the review. I loved the story and hated the game play. This game feels like Bioshock Infinite to me. All the critics gives it perfect scores, saying stuff like: “the most important game of this generation”, focusing only on the amazing story while completely ignoring the fact that the game play is pretty bad.
I honestly think you are being just too unrealistic with this game. Obviously this game cant be perfect, no game ever is, but in terms of: story, graphics, characters, and music, this games gets pretty close to perfect. I agree that the AI thing is kinda messed up, but I really didn’t have that many glitches.
I think that this game was the perfect way to end the PS3 era. It had some of the best characters and character development i’ve seen in a game and i would give it a 9.4/10
Best character and character development, a giant yes. Story? Nope, it’s nothing new, only difference is with the fungus instead of virus, but everything else was done before. Graphics? That’s a pretty big no, the graphics are fine and standard, nothing to talk about or even mention. Music? Yes, It was good for setting atmosphere, but I personally can’t remember a single track. (might be just my taste in music so I don’t count it as a problem) Considering how flawed the game play is I won’t talk about it again.
You can’t say a game is near perfect based on a single element in the game. When you score a game (if you even score a game, personally I hate this system because it means people rather have numbers other then setting their own opinion) you don’t only take into account the full product, you divide it into different segments and score each one on it’s own. After dividing the different elements of The Last of Us (music, gameplay, story, characters etc) you can see which can stand on it’s own and which cannot live without the other, and frankly none of these elements could have survived without the amazingly good characters and development, that just gets you through the game with the need to know what happens to them.
If you want to grade every single element separately and scoring the characters 9.4 it’s fine, but scoring the entire game because a single element was done right is unjustified, and being able to look past how much you loved the game (and trust me, I loved it) and managing to see it’s flaws and grade it fairly is what gets my respect, not so-called-critics and blind fanboys that spread 10’s everywhere with the inability to see an entire product. (Not saying you’re one of em, just hoping you understand how grading is supposed to work, and how even if you loved a game to the death in the end you’ll still have to give it a justified score.)
Or maybe people actually see something in the game that you do not. It’s like a good book. Even that term is subjective. I may read a book and love it because of how it made me feel or the way I perceived it and you may find the book boring or degrading or derogatory to a group of people, does my loving the book make me a fanboy? Fanboy is term thrown around alot in forums I don’t think it is fanboyism to love this game. People will love this game the same way people will love some movies that others feel are overrated.Yes the game has flaws but it’s strengths far out way them. The flaws in the game can be forgiven, I believe the term is suspension of disbelief. How many movies have ridiculous scenarios that we as viewers excuse because overall the movie was great?
This game has some issues with AI but I understand why it does. Naughty dog didn’t want us to be having to shepherd these characters like many games do where they become nuisances and liabilities getting us killed and ending the game. They didn’t want it to be one big escourt mission. They wanted the characters to be self sufficient and capable so we could focus on keeping our character Joel alive. the problem with AI running into people seems to happen more on the harder settings because I barely noticed any erratic behavior from my AI partners on the easy difficulty, they held their ground and stayed hidden. My point hear is that I think the system struggles more when the difficulty is raised meaning that on one hand you get a more challenging experience but on the other it is at the expense of realism and fluidity as the characters behave more erratic but this is where suspension of disbelief comes in. Yeah you have Ellie running into a clicker with no consequence but you still have an exhilarating experience with the higher level settings when you consider the bigger picture. I played the game on easy on my first run through and I had a perfect experience. There was no pop in problems, my AI partners never got me killed once and never ran into enemies, at least I never saw that happen in my 20 plus hours of playing. The characters movements were more fluid and natural. My experience of the game was perfect and I would go as far as to say that TLOU is the best game I have played and i’ve played a lot.I played easy and normal with a view to getting the platinum trophy.
Some will play games for the challange and some will play just for the story. Last years game of the year the walking dead was loved by most not for it’s challanging game play but for it’s story. On easy TLOU is an addictive game that is hard to put down because of the compelling story and beautiful graphics. On harder settings it is frustrating but rewarding when you do complete it. There is something for the casaual gamer and the hardcore.
Like I said the games strengths far out way it’s bad points. Some may say the story is not new I will say that the game kept me guessing and surprised me at every turn. Characters I thought were dead were revealed to be alive. Naughty Dog have done something in gaming that hasn’t been done before. No one can deny this. They have pushed the bar and set a new standard in gaming.The quality of mocap, the level of voice acting and the fact that every area of the game and every building looked unique. No to two buildings or areas of scenary looked the same. ND created a living breathing world out of polygons and characters with enough depth for most of us to care about. That’s a mighty achievement in my book.
I think you didn’t have any problems just because you played on easy. You haven’t met the desire to murder until you have, on Survivor +, walked as slow as possible for 20 minutes in a single area trying to take out every normal infected and avoiding all clickers, just to have Ellie running forward for no reason bumping into a clicker and have you detected and obviously killed. And this was most certainly a repeating event, even worse when it’s with normal humans. This kind of problem is not realism, and if like you say it happens more often on higher difficulties, it just provides fake challenge and frustration and not more realistic experience. When I played on hard the listening mode often showed me stationery mobs that did no noise, so having people telling me it’s realistic because it only shows when an enemy does noise is also false. The only time it didn’t show mobs that weren’t moving is on the boss fight with Ellie, which was obviously programmed that way. (in my opinion that level was the best out of all, but I don’t know if it’s because it was that different from the others or just because I was playing as a kid.) Listing all the problems I’ve had with this, and I’ve had more after my first comment, will take forever so I’ll just stop here, but if it wasn’t obvious enough I wasn’t impressed.
If there’s anything I ever learned from the Metro series is that playing on the hardest difficulty is always the best, because it’s the most immersive and challenging experience you can get out of the game, so having you played only on easy and normal just bugs me personally, but it’s just me.
Now don’t get me wrong, I did not hated the game, nor loved it. On the statement that no one can deny that ND created something that was never done before, well that’s extremely questionable and easily deniable. It’s true that they did deliver on the story and character’s very well, even incredibly, but an amazing delivery does not make a game unique. It’s obviously inspired by many stories and games, and even without knowing it’s from ND I could easily tell by just playing for a bit. I won’t argue if you tell me you were surprised by some elements in the story, but personally I predicted all of them because like I said it’s very inspired, and if you were very experienced with the zombie genre (if it’s books or games) it would have been as predictable to you as it was to me.
As a completionist I think the game made two sins:
1) Blocking my option of playing the highest difficulty at the beginning. Doing so is just an artificial way to extent the length of the game without actually doing anything different, which I can’t stand really. When I play a game I always start from the highest difficulty possible because unless the game is an hack and slash or fighting where you need a lot of time to get used to everything, there’s no reason not to start from there. For me playing on a lower difficulty, using the the listening mode all the time and such and then on a higher one is harder, because I’m not used to that extent of difficulty.. If I begin already on the hardest it doesn’t actually seem as hard because I never experienced it in an easier matter. It’s a placebo thing I suppose, but it makes long games much more tolerable for me.
2) Pretty much the worst sin: Buggy trophies. I had to finish the game multiple times, getting all the collectibles and secret rooms more then once before the trophy popped up. After finishing the Survivor + (still haven’t got the “finish the game on normal” by the way!) I failed to receive that trophy and was forced to do it all over again. By this point I was so angry that it was far easier to see all the gameplay and design flaws, as small as some were, which is why even though I liked the game my comments aren’t as positive as others. When I went to the multiplayer I was so annoyed that I just gave up and went to platinum Metal Gear Rising.
I can fully understand why you so enjoyed this game, and why others did. They did a good job on many elements. My experience was completely terrible and I met many who had similar experiences to me, so it’s not an uncommon thing.
(Sorry I replied to the wrong comment)
Or maybe people actually see something in the game that you do not. It’s like a good book. Even that term is subjective. I may read a book and love it because of how it made me feel or the way I perceived it and you may find the book boring or degrading or derogatory to a group of people, does my loving the book make me a fanboy? Fanboy is term thrown around alot in forums I don’t think it is fanboyism to love this game. People will love this game the same way people will love some movies that others feel are overrated.Yes the game has flaws but it’s strengths far out way them. The flaws in the game can be forgiven, I believe the term is suspension of disbelief. How many movies have ridiculous scenarios that we as viewers excuse because overall the movie was great?
This game has some issues with AI but I understand why it does. Naughty dog didn’t want us to be having to shepherd these characters like many games do where they become nuisances and liabilities getting us killed and ending the game. They didn’t want it to be one big escourt mission. They wanted the characters to be self sufficient and capable so we could focus on keeping our character Joel alive. the problem with AI running into people seems to happen more on the harder settings because I barely noticed any erratic behavior from my AI partners on the easy difficulty, they held their ground and stayed hidden. My point hear is that I think the system struggles more when the difficulty is raised meaning that on one hand you get a more challenging experience but on the other it is at the expense of realism and fluidity as the characters behave more erratic but this is where suspension of disbelief comes in. Yeah you have Ellie running into a clicker with no consequence but you still have an exhilarating experience with the higher level settings when you consider the bigger picture. I played the game on easy on my first run through and I had a perfect experience. There was no pop in problems, my AI partners never got me killed once and never ran into enemies, at least I never saw that happen in my 20 plus hours of playing. The characters movements were more fluid and natural. My experience of the game was perfect and I would go as far as to say that TLOU is the best game I have played and i’ve played a lot.I played easy and normal with a view to getting the platinum trophy.
Some will play games for the challange and some will play just for the story. Last years game of the year the walking dead was loved by most not for it’s challanging game play but for it’s story. On easy TLOU is an addictive game that is hard to put down because of the compelling story and beautiful graphics. On harder settings it is frustrating but rewarding when you do complete it. There is something for the casaual gamer and the hardcore.
Like I said the games strengths far out way it’s bad points. Some may say the story is not new I will say that the game kept me guessing and surprised me at every turn. Characters I thought were dead were revealed to be alive. Naughty Dog have done something in gaming that hasn’t been done before. No one can deny this. They have pushed the bar and set a new standard in gaming.The quality of mocap, the level of voice acting and the fact that every area of the game and every building looked unique. No to two buildings or areas of scenary looked the same. ND created a living breathing world out of polygons and characters with enough depth for most of us to care about. That’s a mighty achievement in my book.
Just to correct something Johnny said, he is incorrect about how reviewers arrive at a score. Very few publications separate individual elements anymore for their reviews. Of the eight professional publications I’ve written reviews for, I’ve only once been asked by an editor or by a site’s review guidelines to divide and score each aspect of a game independently. I think to do so is completely counterproductive since you aren’t experiencing the elements independently while playing the game. Also not all games are composed of the same elements, nor in the same proportions, so it is a fairly arbitrary rubric. A much more productive way to analyze games is to look at the interplay of all of its elements and how that shapes the player’s experience.
Look at how I structured this “review” of The Last of Us. Even though I am dividing it into a list of the game’s elements, each of the elements I refer to include all of the smaller ones. In talking about the game’s characterization you have to also talk about its graphics (animations, especially facial animations) and sound design (voice acting) along with story (are the characters believable/fit in with the fictional world). When I’m talking about liking the Winter chapter, that’s a sum of all the game’s parts. When I’m talking about not liking the aiming controls for guns, that’s also incorporating things like whether enemy designs visually blend into the environment and how the shooting gallery portions fit into the game’s narrative.
In conclusion, review scores are based on an overall assessment of the game, not deconstructing a game to its elements and finding a number that fits within that range.
Just stumbled upon this site yesterday. I have to wholeheartedly disagree with a score of 6 or 7 out of 10. Like some others have already mentioned, I think it deserves anything from a 9 and upwards.
I had very little, if any issues with the gunplay and combat. It was solid enough, and the options/methods you had to use to get by are well within the context of the game. The shotgun and shorty are very effective for taking out the infected at close range (something you took issue with). The hunting rifle is very good at taking out enemies from a distance, even without the scope (although the scope does help a lot). And bow and arrow head shots were also extremely useful from a distance. At close and mid range, you have bottles and bricks that can be used to distract, stun, or can just as easily be used as a melee weapon. If you opt for a stun with the aforementioned, you can follow up with a brutal grab finisher or a fatal swing with your club/pipe/etc; all good ways to save ammo. Also, if you are dealing with a lot of enemies, you can lure them to an area with a brick or bottle, and use those in tandem with a molotov or nail bomb. Or you can use a smoke bomb to distract, kill, or escape and give yourself some space. With a little practice, the combat became very fun and satisfying for me. And there are enough options to keep things fun and interesting throughout the duration of the entire game.
As for your issues with aiming, it’s supposed to be like that. Joel starts out a little shaky, that’s why taking pills will upgrade his weapon sway ability by 2 levels (quite useful indeed).
Question for you, what 3rd person shooter(s) are you actually a fan of, since you aren’t very keen on Naughty Dog’s engines? I have never played RDR or GTA 4, but I’ve been told by a close friend (who has played all 3) that Uncharted 2 has much more polished combat than both. I loved the cover based shooting in Uncharted 2 (and to a lesser extent, in Uncharted 3 as well). I also have read that Vanquish has some of the best 3rd person shooting of this gen. Unfortunately, I haven’t played that game yet either.
Lastly, your criticisms about the AI is well deserved. And I see this as the game’s only flaw. I was recently playing the high school level on “Survivor,” and Ellie and Bill were all over the place; instead of just hanging back behind cover. And as already mentioned, the enemies would either completely ignore the NPCs, or the NPCs would actually blow my cover, while I was executing my perfect stealth game plan. This was infuriating! >_>
This is a fascinating comment, because it’s like you purposefully skipped over reading very specific parts of what I wrote in order to pull out a generic response to issues I didn’t mention.
I specifically said that I did like the weapon sway, “I actually don’t have an issue with the aiming being shaky as other critics have said” was the exact quote. I realize that I wasn’t quite specific enough though, so I’ll go into more detail.
My issue is with the analogue stick sensitivity for aiming. The dead zone for aiming is too big for my liking, so that when I try to make small adjustment the aiming crosshair doesn’t move, but then I leave the stick’s dead zone and suddenly it makes a much larger aiming adjustment than I had intended. Since I found it difficult to make small adjustments to aiming (regardless of upgrading Joel’s weapon sway) this made aiming any weapon at close range much more difficult than it should have been. So yes, I am aware that there is a shotgun for close range, and I am aware of the roles that each of the weapons played. The problem comes from aiming those weapons to use them as intended. My issue was that trying to make a small aiming adjustment as the enemy got closer to me often resulted in the crosshair going too far in the direction I pressed and I would miss the shot completely. This is a problem I also found in all three Uncharted games, so it’s a problem I have ascribed to Naughty Dog as a developer.
Upon more reflection, it’s possible that this might just be a PS3 problem, since I’ve always found the analogue sticks to be too loose on the controller anyway, so maybe there is just something about programming for that controller that results in awkward stick sensitivity. I had a similar problem with Vanquish actually, and that game I also played on PS3.
As for other third-person shooters I liked, I absolutely loved all three Mass Effect games, along with Resident Evil 4, Dead Space, Earth Defense Force 2017, I Am Alive, Monday Night Combat, Spec Ops: The Line, and there are obviously more but that’s a bunch off the top of my head. Oh, Hybrid is another one that I liked for getting aiming right, though the online community is kind of shit so I can’t whole-heartedly recommend it. Thanks for bringing up a bunch of games you haven’t played and so therefore can’t attest to though, that’s not useless to the conversation at all. For the record, I haven’t played GTA4 or Red Dead Redemption either.
Weird, I don’t have a “reply” option below your post. So I have to reply to your reply, by replying to my original post!
Sorry about the weapon sway follow up. What’s even more fascinating, is I actually do remember reading your stance on it, and completely forgot about it during my rant. You more or less said, unlike some other reviewers, you didn’t have a problem with it.
I can honestly say, I had no such issues with the aiming system in the Last of Us though. But in Uncharted, I did to an extent. When moving the right analog stick to get in position to fire in Uncharted, it often felt too slow; not a good thing when you are getting flanked and blindsided. Not a problem for me in TLoU though, perhaps due to there not being as much pressure during fire fights as in the Uncharted games. But even the aiming issues with Uncharted were small for me, and by no means game breaking. Did you try adjusting the sensitivity of the aiming in the options? This might help, but I was always too stubborn to adjust anything from the default settings. And do you prefer shooters with the 360 controller? A lot of gamers obviously do.
My “generic” comments in regards to the overall gameplay were not written to specifically address your review of the game. But I’ve been reading some cliched comments about this game being a character and story driven game, without solid gameplay to back it up. For someone to present that as fact…is simply not true. There are enough options and setups to keep the game satisfying/rewarding, and (most importantly) fun from beginning to end. And I’ve already explained it all (in generic detail :)) above.
I’ve always felt all the bells and whistles in the world are irrelevant, without good gameplay to back them up. And that Naughty Dog is pretty good at fusing them all together.
Of the TPS you mentioned, I’m most compelled by Spec Ops: The Line. I’ve heard great things about it, and that the story is very gripping to say the least. I think I read that it is also cover based shooting (?).
One more question for you, and I’ll leave you be. What were your 3 favorite games this gen? Mine were Metal Gear Solid 4, Demons Souls/Dark Souls (an honest toss up), and The Witcher 2. And I really wish I could’ve played latter on a high end PC, with a 360 controller.
A few other things I forgot to touch up on (sorry, I’m a night owl). I found the stealth gameplay very fun in this game. And as for the forced combat sections…bring em on! Often times, game developers have hidden rules you need to discover for yourself, and adapt to in order to progress. I wouldn’t classify that as poor development. Some gamers are not patient enough with things like this, and may often write them off as inconsistencies. It’s more or less a matter of preference though, and to each their own. I am OCD as a gamer, that I like to dissect the behavior of the AI, and took full advantage of that “restart encounter” option :).
As for your “I’m looking at you hotel basement generator” comment; that part actually offers player choice. You can run to the key card door after you start up the generator, or you can stay and fight. I chose to fight during my very 1st play through (on hard), because I didn’t even realize that running was an option! And after a bit of trial and error, and about 4 or 5 attempts; I cleared the entire basement. Proper use of running down the hallways/rooms and quick turn (down+x), shotgunning the stalkers at close range, and Molotov and shotgunning the bloater=a very rewarding triumph. Or you can run…much easier! Of course there are parts where the game does expect you to simply run, but it’s pretty obvious (based on cues from an NPC). Most of these segments are during portions of Bill’s town.
Good review. Your comments about the guns and AI are correct. If someone is 5 feet away, it should be much easier to kill them, even if they are zigzagging a bit. It also shouldn’t take so many shots to kill a human enemy or seriously incapacitate them. This isn’t Halo. BioShock Infinite had much more intuitive controls. It really kills the atmosphere when Ellie is walking ahead of you in plain sight of the bad guys.
Listener mode was an excellent way to locate moving enemies. It was also realistic in that if an enemy stopped moving for a while or was waiting to surprise you, you lost track of them. After all, you’re human, not Superman or a bat.
As someone who doesn’t have advertisers, you can make 8 or 9 among the highest scores a game can receive. On a very critical 1-10 scale, I’d rate this an 8, docking 1 for the controls and 1 for the immersion killing AI. My scale is based on the known potential of a console generation. In this case, 8 would be among the highest scores given out in the past 5 years and The Last of Us be on my Top-10 list for games of the year.
This may be the worst review I have ever read. A game with near universal acclaim, including lavish praise from almost every respected gaming site, an extremely rare 95+ score on Metacritic, rates a mere 6 to this random gamer? LOA had my female gamer friends in tears. Tears. Over a fricking video game. Your complaints sound like the rantings of a power gamer obsessed with getting the hi-score on every game. Seriously, it took you 5 tries to figure out that you were supposed to run on the basement level? It sounds like you have wierdly unhealthy obssession with perfect gameplay. That must be why you have rated crushly mediocre games above this one.
From the first 3 sentences everyone can conclude that you’re:
a) A random troll who has nothing better to do.
b) A complete idiot.
I can’t respect a person that completely dismiss one person’s opinion because some random famous “reviewer” said otherwise. This game is not perfect. You can think it’s amazing if you want, but frankly I don’t care for your opinion because you most certainly don’t care about other’s.
I think maybe you played it on Normal? You should replay it in Survival and then present your findings. For one, you get NO listen mode. You never have to leave materials behind because you are full of everything… and I have gone entire levels without firing a bullet because of how precious ammunition is. I’ve found myself restarting an encounter because my arrow broke. Survival is very hard and even someone experienced with this game won’t be relying on guns to get through. Strangling and shiving your enemies makes this into such a stealthier game it’s mind boggling. The fights where you can’t run, are near impossible and it’s an honest achievement beating the game in Survival mode. I find myself drained after the David and Ellie bloater fight, or the Hotel Basement fight ( that place scares the crap out of me! ).
Give it a shot. I’m interested in how much different you’ll find it.
I did play it on normal, but I don’t think that adding an extra layer of frustration from constantly retrying encounters will improve my enjoyment. I didn’t enjoy it, and have no desire to slog through all of that again, much less slog through it all again and again and again and again.
It’s a matter of preference I guess. I played through it 4 times (hard, hard+, survivor, and survivor+). The gameplay remained fun and varied enough that I never grew tired of it. There were times when it was frustrating, but the nearly non-existent load time on the restart encounter option, made it worth it for me.
And although I never tried it on normal, there was definitely a difference in how much more liberal you could be with firefights on hard mode vs survivor. That certainly took some adjusting. I thought the combat was pretty fun, satisfying, and rewarding when you get the hang of it (at least on the harder difficulty modes).
in my opinion game was amazing! 8/10 however I did encouter MANY bugs and glitches which shoudnt have place. I’ll will mention only few and skip those which are already listed.
1. black/white walls (random white blanks common while holding a molotov) disappearing and appearing buildings (ex. suburbs: just before the big drop with 3 steps where the sniper action kicks in, crouch on the last step and look around -_- . those are minor bugs but still quite annoying
2. in the part where Elie gets a rifle to assist you( outside hotel) I clearied the entire area without them noticing, i was sure i took out everyone but no one guy was standing beside a wall not doing anything. i sneaked back him and choked him. I knew sth wasnt right because i coudnt have missed him but whatever … Suddenly 2 guys spawned aswell next to the wall on the other side( I was like F€&@ u game 2 armored thugs) but i distracted those foolish retards with a brick, when i choked the 2nd one a 3 spawned just behind me and other 5 from nowhere run towards me to shoot the hell out of me. it was twice as much thugs than it was at the beggining. ( i died ofcorse) I know Elie was supposed to kill atleast one guy but this was a game troll. i was stealthy and the game trolled me for that.
3. I am bit tired of writing more so I”ll just mention: static flying birds, enemies lieing in the walls, grass going through my head, very visible anoying ceiling glitch in university just before entering a big hole full of creeps and many more…
But most of them are minor so They wont change my rating becasue that was a survival type game i always wanted to play. (bonus: young joel- in the museum with tess after you are separated there is a shiv door. when you stand in the back left corner (just push away those dummies) when you turn around joel will have not grey but black hair, and his cloths will slightly change it depends on the angle you stay at and look at. I guess its just a light glitch but still ‘cool’ .
what a crappy review…
“how does Joel survive for a few months until winter in a perpetually deteriorating state, then after one penicillin injection he’s better within 12 hours?”
1. david said he sent a group of men “a few weeks back” in the city, not months.
2. ellie stiched him up.
the focus ability works fiune, ennemies that don’t make any noise are not shown of course…blame your lack of skills!
gun : again, no skills. the gun feelings in TLOU is awesome, as in uncharted. guns don’t feel like toys like other TPS of FPS.
overall, all yopu negative points feel like nitpicking…you clearly don’t know what is a good gameplay…
Thank you for your valuable feedback of telling me I wrote a crappy review on a post in which I clearly state that it is not a review.
To your points…
1. “a few weeks” is still an unreasonably long time to survive with that kind of wound out in the open without proper care.
2. Ellie isn’t exactly an experienced combat medic, so I’d wager that her attempt to stitch up a massive wound (which impaled through his whole body, likely puncturing internal organs) would cause more harm and infection than healing.
The thing with the focus ability is that it is inconsistent. There are enemies that are not moving or making noise and who show up using the focus ability, but then there are also the scripted enemies that pop out of a closet and don’t appear using focus until you’re right in front of them. There are only a few of these scripted instances, but that doesn’t change the fact that they still happen, and break the trust between player and game that it will behave in a consistent a fair way.
As I said, I hate the feel of guns in Uncharted too, and I’d actually say that they feel more like toys in Naughty Dog games. The aiming is too sensitive, which makes the guns feel much lighter than they should be, which makes them feel more like plastic toys than heavy pieces of weaponry.
And yes, of course all of my negative points are nitpicking. So what? That doesn’t change the fact that they had a significant and cumulative negative impact on how I felt about playing The Last of Us. Nitpicks add up, and if there are enough of them and they occur frequently enough, they can overpower any potential fun in a game. That was the case for me in The Last of Us.
That’d been a mediocre score sadly.