The Last of Us (PS3 Game)

So, this is one of the reasons I bought a PS3 last month. I’m glad I did.

I just finished tonight. Non-spoilery stuff first:

I enjoyed the gameplay. It wasn’t terribly complex, but it was solid and fun and it tied the excellent story together. The stealth was engaging, the “listen” mechanic was interesting and helpful, and the melee was visceral. They did a good job of keeping the friendly NPCs from getting in the way (even if it did occasionally result in some odd behavior (non-spoiler). The crafting was simple, but added a some flavor. The time from death to reload was quick, which helped ease the frustration of being constantly killed by the same monster in some of the tougher sequences. The set pieces were great, and the acting and story were utterly superb.

I couldn’t get more than an hour into Uncharted or its sequel before giving up, as I found the characters uninteresting and unsympathetic and the combat a banal slog. Uncharted’s “collectables” were worthless, whereas the ones in The Last of Us actually helped flesh out the game world, providing additional story and flavor to the universe.

Also, the character animation was excellent, especially gestures and facial expressions. Some of the better I’ve seen in a game. They seemed more authentic than most, without treading very far into the uncanny valley.

I was a little suspicious at all the rave reviews, but after finishing, I think they’re well deserved.
Major spoilers:

[SPOILER]I loved how the game didn’t really require the player to make any moral choices. Joel isn’t a tabula rasa for us to impose ourselves on, he’s a character with his own arc. He did things I wouldn’t have, and that I tried to avoid (especially near the end).

Ellie’s growth as a character, and her and Joel’s relationship was great. I liked watching her gradually take up more responsibility and build her skills and become more and more helpful. She was an interesting character with her own depth when she could have simply fallen into the “annoying kid sidekick” trap.

The ending left me feeling empty, which I think was the point. I imagine it’s how Joel felt, as well. He fought so hard to save Ellie, and in the end he lost the very thing that made him feel complete again: his relationship with her. As for Ellie, I got the distinct impression that if the Fireflies had simply asked her for permission, she would have consented. It all seemed so senseless and tragic; quite fitting for a game like this.[/SPOILER]

I just wanted to point out how the beginning and ending serve as perfect bookends for the story.

The game opens with the senseless death of a girl, Joel’s daughter Sarah. She’s shot by a soldier as she lies in Joel’s arms as they both attempt to flee to safety.

As the game ends, Joel redeems himself by saving the life of his surrogate daughter Ellie. He carries her out of the hospital in his arms, successfully evading the shots of soldiers, and they both escape to a life of freedom.

But if the story opened with a senseless death, the story ended with a senseless life. If Ellie had undergone the surgical procedure, she could have saved the human race. From her final conversation with Joel, it sounded like she had always been ready to die, and if anyone had asked her consent for the procedure, she would have agreed.

Instead, it was more important for Joel to save his relationship with Ellie-- except that he killed that, too. Joel lied to Ellie twice over about what the Fireflies had really said. Their relationship, all the trust they had built up with each other, it was all destroyed with this one huge lie. Ellie’s final reply of “OK” leaves it uncertain whether she really believed him or not. Either way, we know the truth.

I’m a bit surprised that there hasn’t been more discussion about this game on the Dope. Where is everyone? I was looking forward to some stimulating discourse.

The game felt like a decent book end on the generation. Still very representative of what most action game experiences have been like - on rails, very scripted, lots of cut scenes, but it also excelled at gameplay and level design.

Story telling through level design was something else in this game, took me back to the original Bioshock. The actual character writing was also excellent. Every character was interesting and well developed. I cared about what happened to just about everyone.

I didn’t think the game would be essentially uncharted in zombie land though. Admittedly, I don’t tend to follow console exclusives very closely, but I was under the impression this was going to be a much more open world experience, and not the on rails ride it actually was.

I felt the ending was satisfying, fully in character for everyone involved and thought provoking. Not many video games can say the same.

Shrug, I just didn’t like the gameplay enough to keep playing. Shame, the story seemed cool.

I seem to be incapable of doing anything in this fucking game. Any encounter with multiple enemies results in me being detected and attacked. I’m in the museum and the military are looking for me so there are like 20 dudes wandering around and I can’t move more than 10 ft without getting shot at. I can’t hit a damn thing with my pistol either, no matter how close they are. If I can’t line up a stealthy shot to the head I end up firing off like 8 rounds with a 50% chance of hitting them at all.

I don’t get it. I want to play through this game but it is maddening to the point that it’s not fun for me. I’m a life long gamer and am quite comfortable with the controller and stealth games but I just cannot get my shit together in this one for some reason. I know it’s just me because none of the reviews make mention of the difficulty.

WTF?!

Stealth is really important, especially in the beginning when ammo is super scarce. I was constantly “listening” for enemies, moving around crouched behind cover, never running. Most of my early kills were strangulations or shivs. Walking, running, and melee kills make enough noise to attract other enemies. Also, throw bottles and bricks frequently, it’s a great way to draw enemies away from you and make them an easy target for a stealth kill, and they’re all over the place, so you’re rarely without one.

If I got caught, I ran very far away from the action and then ducked behind something and hid. The nice thing about the AI is that if you get caught, they don’t automatically know exactly where you are forever. If you break line of sight and start moving quietly again, they can lose your trail and you can sneak back around and start flanking them again.

Alright, I’m making progress now. It turns out I was trying to be TOO stealthy, choke killing everything. Now I throw bricks, bottles and shit and smash heads with pipes etc… then run and hide. Getting through much easier now.

I want to reiterate that I think it’s stupid as hell that a thing like a lead pipe has limited uses. I understand the need to keep things interesting but that pushes the suspension of disbelief a bit too much.

My husband is about half in the game, and I have been occasionally watching along.

I thought you guys in the US would be fascinated by the post-apocalyptic detail in familiar city-scapes. Remember that movie where Will Smith lives in New York, fifteen years after the people left? This game lets you walk through some of the major US cities (Starts out in Auston Texas, then Boston, Philadelphia, Wyoming, Eastern Colorado, and the final scenes are in Salt Lake City.) as they would be 25 years after the apocalypse.

If such a game existed for cityscapes that I know well, I’d love to see that!

I loved the artwork on the last stages of the infected.

I felt this was an awesome interactive movie, but only a good game (still good though)
The characterization of ellie and joel especially was better than in any hollywood film - I usually dont care what happens to characters in films/games, but I was awed by the depth of character in this.

The Story was great and the ending I loved - its not the way it would happen in a movie, its the way it would happen in real life (if such a term can be applied to this) Graphics, naturally, were phenominal

As a game though, it was a little disappointing. Bland mechanics and unrealistic combat (e.g. enemies can see you creeping round, but can stumble onto/over your companion(s) without noticing, or lack of combat damage to anything not-a-enemy) broke immersion. Not the controls though - the difficulty in aiming i put down to joel - he’s not a military trained sniper, just a guy with a gun) why is it assumed he should be able to headshot things 50 meters away with a pistol?

TLDR; Great graphics, great story, great characters, average gameplay. 8/10

Agree with you. Except for the graphics part.

The level design was pretty damn excellent. It told a story. And they crammed a lot of detail in, but the graphics weren’t very good.

The game could easily be renamed: All the jaggies in the world, and then some.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the ending…

MAJOR spoilers:

Joel acted exactly the way I think I would have. There would be no point in sacrificing Ellie at that point to save humanity. Sure, you could kill one person to try to vaccinate others against the Cordyceps infection, but even if the infection doesn’t kill them, something else in such a dangerous world will. In my opinion, it would not be worth sacrificing one of the few people left in the world that I truly cared about. Selfish? Yes, but in such a cruel world, you have to take care of your own.

[SPOILER] But without a cure, what future is there to look forward to?

More importantly, Ellie was willing to give up her life for the cure. Joel knew that. It’s why he lied to her. [/SPOILER]

Finished it. I’m a huge fan of the Uncharted series, I like the whole zombie apocalypse genre, and I love storytelling in video games. I had little to no problem with the game play (once I learned that stealth was the best way to go) outside of the same targeting issue, and I liked the story.

But the ending infuriated me. The reason I enjoy games like this rather than movies is that I get to control the character. I get to decide how I act, I get to decide using lethal/non lethal force, and I get to decide the outcome of my actions (generally). I hated having that wrested from me to create an ending that I found unsatisfactory. It’s not like I need a happy ending, but for fuck’s sake don’t take the decision making away from me after having me think I could effect the outcome.

The Walking Dead Season One was miles better than this game. Not that this game was bad, in fact it was very good, but damn it was a bad way to end a game. That, and The Walking Dead was awesome.

I don’t know what in the game led you to believe that you had the ability to decide on your actions. The game had as much choice and decision-making as Call of Duty or Super Mario World. And that isn’t a bad thing.

Maybe it was the proximity to playing The Walking Dead that I expected to have some input into the actions of the character I’m playing. To me, if a game emphasizes the storytelling feature of the game, and grants the player to opportunity to make decisions on how to approach a level, then I expect/want to be able to decide if my character is a selfish asshole or not.

I completely understand not having that ability in games. The Uncharted series was similar, they had a story in which your actions, outside of living or dying, didn’t effect the storytelling at all. And that works. For a game like Uncharted in which the emotional stakes aren’t all that important and the character development/storytelling aren’t the integral to the game, it’s fine. But with a game that deals in the grey area of decision making and spends much of its time ramping up the emotional stake you put in these characters, it was infuriating that nothing I did mattered.

Maybe it was a problem with expectations. When I bought the game, it was praised for its storytelling and character development. What I expected, and dearly wanted at the end, was the ability to have some kind of say in that development. Without it, it is just another stealth/shoot em up game.

I did beat it last week finally. Good game. Good story telling. Great graphics. Ending was fine but as expected. Combat controls blew though they did get better once I upgraded weapon sway both levels

I’m just at the part where they’ve met the black dude and his little brother, and they’re attempting to escape the city at night. Am I about halfway through? I really want to finish this game so I can sell it back and buy Diablo III. :smiley: I have made it a rule for myself that I must finish one game before buying another, otherwise I never finish anything.

I would say you’re around half way through, yes. Maybe a little more than halfway. It took me around 18 hours to finish.

Just finished. It was an interesting ending. I was a bit disappointed with the game at the beginning because it seemed like Uncharted with zombies, but it grew on me eventually. The graphics definitely could have been better in some places, but overall I’d give it a solid B+.

I felt really conflicted over Joel’s choice to save Ellie and then lie to her about what had happened. I suppose there was never any real guarantee that they would have found a cure even if they had cut open her brain, but there would have been at least a chance of a new start for humankind. Then again I also understand why Joel would feel like giving the finger to the rest of humanity. Anyway, I was surprised by the ending because I was almost certain either Joel or Ellie was going to die. Interesting way to keep them both alive but still leave you perturbed.