[remote]

i'm near the end and hope to finish it tonight -- so far my favorite part of the game was probably the entire winter sequence, starting with ellie stalking a buck, all the way through to ellie stalking men and leaping on their backs like a feral, cornered animal when she couldn't simply pick them off with arrows. something about maneuvering her small frame made her seem even more fierce than big ol' joel, and with the higher stakes the intensity was at its keenest.

actually looking forward to trying a little bit of the multiplayer stuff after i'm done, too.
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[108]

hey remote, i will multiplay with you! i am number108 on PSN if we are not friends already -- i have a fancy headset that can even do voice chat.

(i have actually never played online multiplayer on PSN.)

and judging by your post from the previous page of this thread -- the one where you got Too Tired To Continue and went to bed, it looks like you are literally minutes from the end.

it's funny because i was at That Exact Same Part at The Exact Same Time as you, so we're basically brothers

(also, yeah, your favorite part is also my favorite total sequence)
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[Broco]

I agree the deer-hunting sequence was one of the game's highlights. (Even though that damn deer ran off about 15 times before I finally got quiet enough.) It best captured the sense of solitude and idyllic return to nature.

[remote]

Finished it. Phew.

Honestly, I think the ending has left me with a kind of emptiness. Do I want a sequel? Maybe not. But yeah. It's interesting in contrast to The Walking Dead, where Lee was did everything he could to keep Clementine alive, even as he was slumped against a wall, dying. Here, it's different. In TWD I could feel the desperation Lee felt as he died, but Joel's choices near the end of The Last of Us were entirely selfish and there was a weird, final disconnect. I want to say I can understand where he was coming from, but considering all he left in his wake just to keep her alive, with him as a surrogate daughter under the pretense of a terrible lie... That's some real heavy shit. The Walking Dead left me with a heavy heart, but this one's going to stick with me for a while in a slightly different way. Siiigh.

... I might go through it again immediately, this time on survival mode.

tim: multiplayer some time would be fun! I unfortunately do not have a fancy headset for my PS3. Perhaps something else could be arranged or we can just see how it goes with me as a mute. I tried a little bit just now and it's pretty neat!

My name on PSN is "paracletus" (and I wish I could change it).
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[remote]

another thing i loved: when you find the crumpled letter you handed to bill just moments before. that level of storytelling is all over the place here. man!
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[Ronnoc]

I'm pretty sure you can use any USB headset on a PS3, although maybe I am wrong because I would have thought there'd be more people talking in that case.

[Broco]

I was thinking about how when Ellie was offered to join the Colorado bandit gang, she should've accepted that offer. Were she thinking more coolly about it, it makes perfect sense in that after developing a bit of trust, she would gain more freedom to escape. And imagine the dramatic possibilities -- it could lead to a scene where Ellie finds herself forced to participate in a raid on a peaceful settlement. But it's worth it because she needs to preserve her life above all for the sake of humanity right?

[Holdypaws]

I dunno if a video game trying to be this serious will ever not be dumb. But I had a pretty good time. It definitely felt more like a 'step' rather than a 'destination.' We're going to see more of this kind of game, and I think we can see where it's going... so I was hoping this would be a little more unconventional in terms of gameplay. The story/gameplay disconnect isn't as jarring as Uncharted because of the theme, but it ends up feeling like the story and presentation have become more sophisticated than the game design.

Would Have Appreciated (WHA): A shorter game with more sparse, thoughtfully-placed encounters. Far fewer enemies. I'd like to see what would happen if they threw expected tropes out the window and made the gameplay and story 100% compatible, instead of the (still commendable) 65% they've got going on. I think you could keep the sense of distance and scale and still cut it down a bit.

It started to get just numbing walking into a space conveniently filled with objects I'm clearly going to have to use for cover. I think the game would actually benefit if they had only the number of encounters (and enemies) that was right for the story. Or maybe make the main campaign much sparser and story-driven, with less shoe-horned mass murders, and then have a 'side stories' kind of bunch of extra maps and missions you can play on the side?

It may be a special olympics type deal, but Naughty Dog certainly have better taste, in many ways, than most developers. They also really know who to steal from! I was reminded, in pretty deep-set ways, of Resident Evil 4 and Half-Life 2 on multiple occasions. And to be honest I couldn't think of a real reason why it isn't better than both of them.

[remote]

HL2, in my mind, remains great solely because of its themes (dystopia, body horror, 1984 meets Childhood's End) and aesthetics (Viktor Antonov's designs and all the distinct, excellent iconography), and the whole overarching trek to the Citadel (the most BLAME! setting in a game, perhaps), which you eventually enter. It'll always be an iconic and landmark game to me. That said, I do think The Last of Us actually builds on natural and believable characterization, dialogue, animations, etc. in a way that places it fairly well beyond HL2 (not to mention RE4 (and apparently Uncharted)).
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[Felix]

I still feel like Alyx and the dog robot were so far ahead of their time and the whole first-person quasi-interactivity thing is sufficiently unique from whatever Hollywood-chasing that Naughty Dog is attempting

but I also haven't played half-life 2 in eight years and am generally fairly grumpy about these things

[Holdypaws]

I always felt like Half-Life 2 was full of cool stuff made by smart people, and it all came together somehow (great art direction helps), but not really that great of a story. It was compelling for the game, but there's no way I'd read a book about that.

For The Last of Us I was thinking especially about the pacing similarities, and I guess by extension the atmosphere.

Innovation is not Naughty Dog's thing, but their sense is uncanny. They've got good, talented heads on those shoulders.
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[CubaLibre]

Whoa Holdypaws, you are saying all the things I would say if I could put sentences together any more.

shrug now that I finally done beat it I got to call you out on the alleged story dissonance, the non-twist twist, and the way you claim the game justifies everything Joel does because Dad. I think it's way more ambiguous than that, in fact it's so obviously ambiguous that I'm wondering where you even get that criticism from.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[remote]

Yeah my reading of it was way more ambiguous and unsettling.
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[The Troops]

[Toptube]

[Ronnoc]

Selectbutton
like a post-Apocalyptic OutRun girlfriend

[shrugtheironteacup]

[remote]

[Holdypaws]

One thing my mind keeps going back to is one of David Byrne's journals where he basically said he thought the problem with video game storytelling was that you make choices. If the player is in control of the outcome, there's effectively no story being told with a point.

Now this could be interesting someday in the future, but it is a very tough thing.

TLOU pushes you through one story, so it sidesteps that problem while trampling all over the sides of it. The Winter section was pretty great because it really felt like you were forced to do what you were doing by the circumstances. Even if you hated what you were doing, it felt like there was no choice. Roger Ebert wrote before that he felt the most important thing about movies was that they created empathy, and Winter is kind of a crude example of how video games can potentially do that too in a provocative way.

But the part at the end where you are suddenly flopped down in front of a surgeon and the game doesn't progress until you stab him to death felt a lot more clumsy.
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[shrugtheironteacup]

[Broco]

[remote]

[Broco]

[remote]

[Broco]

[shrugtheironteacup]

[Holdypaws]

Also Troops post is an amazing dissection of why the game fails at being a movie, but critically asking the question why isn't it a movie sounds a lot like kicking a can down a bottomless well, with the 107th clink down being why do I even play video games and the 210th being what story at all would be better as a game.

The Last of Us was better as the movie The Road, which was better as a book, which wasn't as good as that author's other books, and the final point is you should read The Brothers Karamazov, but that is getting far away from game criticism.

My point is that when film was becoming more literary, why isn't it just a book wasn't the most interesting question to be asking.

That Pauline Kael quote applies times ten for games: "Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them."
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[CubaLibre]

shrug I agree that your version of the winter episode is the kind of ambiguity they should've been going for. But the thing as it exists is, I think, not meant to be ambiguous. It's obvious that David's initial mooings (that generated your high hopes and the imaginary Your Version) are pure manipulation aimed at getting another sisterwife/huntersniper in his clan. I mean, mixed with a legitimate and very creepy attraction/affection/respect.

As a story beat, the Fine Young Cannibals exist to cement Joel's relationship with Ellie. After that, she's his daughter straight up.

So yeah, all that murder IS justified. It's a justifiable murder rampage that exists to set up and be a contrast to the unjustifiable one at the end.

[Broco]

[shrugtheironteacup]

[remote]

[Broco]

[108]

[Holdypaws]

Yeah, that part was sloppy. I also, without really thinking about it too hard, tried to NOT kill the guy and the scene deflated before my eyes.

I wonder if it was overthought to stupidity, an oversight or just an honest-to-goodness bad idea..
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[remote]

Yeah, same here. It gave me too much room to sit there going, "Can I... just... get by? I don't want to kill you, man."

So we stood there in awkward silence until I resigned to pulling the trigger.

It could have been handled better.
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[Faithless]

One of the major complaints about this game (Xray-Hear-O-Vision) is not available in Survivor mode. The only way to win this game in Survivor is to strap on really good headphones and try and figure out where the hell everyone is. That's awesome, and I wish the game had been made without seeing through walls. Part of me wonders if the game was originally designed without it.

You can also turn off hints and prompts, which makes the game a cleaner experience.
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[Faithless]

And as far as the ending is concerned, it made me feel absolutely sick to my stomach. I applaud any game for making me feel anything, so good on this one.
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[CubaLibre]

[Toptube]

Hahah! After a week checking Redbox.com everyday, I managed to snag "The Last of Us" from a Walgreen's Redbox.

[108]

[remote]

what are you saying this says about me tim

i mean, i think they could have less clumsily forced me to kill the guy, you know? i can understand that they were trying to do something subtler than "press x to murder" or just a straight-up cutscene, but in this particular instance it wasn't the most graceful decision. there's a similar thing done in the walking dead, where the difference is that the only thing you could do was aim and pull the trigger. here, you can kind of move around and edge closer to the doctor and go, "ok, um... well, fine." i feel like the wiggle room they allow you ends up feeling more like they're mocking you from behind the curtain just because you lean a bit more toward player agency in that particular mary sue litmus test. which, yeah, is the interesting thing i guess. not sure i like it anyway. it's definitely among the few things in this game that elicited a real :/ from me.

so yeah, i'm playing survival mode now and it certainly is a lot more tense without the remote viewing. i'm moving through places much more cautiously than before. the real challenge, though, comes from the scarcity of resources. i will probably indulge myself with a survival new game plus and then be done with it, though maybe not right away.

more multiplayer would be fun, too. also dlc! i don't think i've ever anticipated dlc like this outside the half-life 2 episodes (heh) and the dark souls expansion. really wonder what they'll do with it. supposedly there was some concept art showing san francisco, so i guess a shorter campaign involving other characters could be in the works, though that'd be a whole lot of new assets to create...
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