Maybe sometimes we slightly overly emphasize the negative aspects of heavily hyped big budget games, especially the ones where most of the game playing public elsewhere unquestioningly buys into whatever important art milestone etc bullshit story is being sold along with the game, but so what, those games have it coming.
This is exactly what SB does and it's just really super unsightly. It's just this weird thing where SB reacts to THE NORMIES GOD HOW CAN PEOPLE LIKE THIS TRASH and I don't get what's productive or interesting about that.
What's the point of a 17 page thread about how stupid Bioshock Infinite is? That's basically just as stupid as Bioshock Infinite itself.
Because it was funny? I enjoyed that thread more than any other in recent memory.
I don't think it matters whether such threads are intended as some sort of serious commentary or just an excuse to talk about video games in an amusing way. There's plenty of room for both, and I find both fun to read.
I've never really had any interest in playing Bioshock Infinite, but I found that thread about it entertaining. The Last of Us might or might not be something I'll try out one day, but I like this thread regardless. (Actually, I'm more interested in trying it because of this thread.)
Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 2:37 am
CubaLibre wrote:
Adilegian wrote:
I scanned the thread and saw mainly complaints along with pre-playing statements of resignation. It connected with the general-response-to-Naughty-Dog-slash-Uncharted synapses and there you have it: content worth putting on the internet.
Now wait a minute. People like Uncharted around these parts. I'd call myself "an Uncharted fan" for whatever that's worth.
It's pretty telling that when it comes to the alleged elitist hivemind no one can even figure out what the hivemind actually elitistly likes/doesn't like.
Last I heard the SB hivemind approved of the Uncharted games as bundles of AAA production values and above-average shootman games, but condemned their uncommonly bad case of (that old bugaboo) ludonarrative dissonance. Which is pretty much where I stand too.
Speaking for myself, I might be less cynical about The Last of Us if it weren't a game that was literally selling itself on its narrative, from a studio which has inspired zero faith from me in that department. Naughty Dog should just make dumb action games with amusing scripts. _________________ Just another savage day on Planet Earth.
If we're supposed to be engrossed in the story, well, it was hard for me to get into The Last of Us when Adilegian was playing it because after the prologue, the characters get pissed about someone stealing their guns and sending two people to kill one of them. By the end of the day they've murdered over two dozen uninfected people and the game keeps going like they're just people trying to survive when they're actually pretty horrible. I guess the only ending possible for these people is the one Dracko predicted, as if that's some way to redeem themselves.
I didn't see the game as trying to say Old Drake and Tess were supposed to be "good" guys or portrayed as better than the smugglers, I got the impression Tess was some kind of boss lady of her own and Old Drake was her enforcer. _________________
Last I heard the SB hivemind approved of the Uncharted games as bundles of AAA production values and above-average shootman games, but condemned their uncommonly bad case of (that old bugaboo) ludonarrative dissonance. Which is pretty much where I stand too.
Speaking for myself, I might be less cynical about The Last of Us if it weren't a game that was literally selling itself on its narrative, from a studio which has inspired zero faith from me in that department. Naughty Dog should just make dumb action games with amusing scripts.
your two statements are sorta contradictory (if it's a dumb action game, ludonarrative dissonance shouldn't bother you that much). I condemn uncharted 2 for having the world's stickiest, most linear platforming ever; otherwise it's great.
I didn't say Uncharted was the dumb action game I wanted them to make
And yeah the platforming sections in Uncharted are boring and dumb, that's why I praised the shootman aspects specifically _________________ Just another savage day on Planet Earth.
If we're supposed to be engrossed in the story, well, it was hard for me to get into The Last of Us when Adilegian was playing it because after the prologue, the characters get pissed about someone stealing their guns and sending two people to kill one of them. By the end of the day they've murdered over two dozen uninfected people and the game keeps going like they're just people trying to survive when they're actually pretty horrible. I guess the only ending possible for these people is the one Dracko predicted, as if that's some way to redeem themselves.
I didn't see the game as trying to say Old Drake and Tess were supposed to be "good" guys or portrayed as better than the smugglers, I got the impression Tess was some kind of boss lady of her own and Old Drake was her enforcer.
Yeah, this is the dynamic I've referred to as enjoying as fiction but not as gameplay. It's kind of cool that they're partners, but she's obviously the one who makes the decisions while he just goes with it. She's proactive and he's the strong laconic dude that backs her action up, okay, whatever. You play the sidekick. (There's a few moments that imply their relationship has a romantic element, but it's never leaned on.) But I thought it affected the gating in certain ways (sometimes you just have to wait for her to take the lead) that compounded with my already-present impatience.
Also, I really wanted him to die, and her to be the one that keeps going, but OH WELL
I think their casual attitude toward murder is supposed to show their amoral pragmatism in a world WHERE THAT'S THE ONLY WAY TO GET BY (MAYBE (I GUESS)).
Jarring but, like I said, it fits better than Drake's escapades. There were a few points where the game seemed to start leaning toward community/cooperation/trust not being so bad, but then more murders would be the answer again. That's when it started seeming weird to me. _________________
Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 3:46 am
I'm just responding to things in whatever order.
another god wrote:
Are you still really sour about the gaminess of it? I don't understand what your alternative is and why you're so upset that it's a videogame? Like, it has HUDs and Menus and you can save and load and it's... I dunno I am just not seeing why it's such a big deal. Did you want this game to have an uber realistic mode?
I clarify this a bit later on, but I don't actually see TLoU as evincing a kind of realism so much as a kind of "magical realism" in terms of its violence. This has a convenient element of accommodating a little fudging on the overlap between verisimilitude of cutscene-world and gameplay, though it's more a convenience born of accident than an intentional justification of when they desync.
shrugtheironteacup wrote:
The gaminess is fine when the gaminess isn't actively getting in the way of the game.
I mainly only found this a problem when dealing with two partners during an action sequence in an enclosed space. This owed largely to the obvious fact that the game doesn't want to blow your cover with the AI, so they don't alert enemies; also they sometimes occupy your wallspace.
There are somewhat different "rules" as to what constitutes tension/desperation in the gameplay and what constitutes tension/desperation in cutscene-world. These two set of "rule" though are married pretty well when they connect on the overflow of violence.
As long as violence and desperation are reinforced, I think that the two perspectives on the world (gameplay and cutscene) are complementary rather than contradictory.
shrugtheironteacup wrote:
Some of the gamier decisions are just bad and affect the mechanics negatively while simultaneously being super-dumb in the context of the fiction they're trying to construct (see: shivs).
I think that this is personal technical knowledge interfering with the necessary task of eliding over material nuance for the sake of effect. Instead of being someone with a networking background watching Sneakers, you're an actual smith playing a survivalist game. And--
shrugtheironteacup wrote:
They fucked up the whole knife aspect of the game DID YOU EVEN READ THE THREAD
I AM A PROFESSIONAL KNIFE FETISHIST AND THIS GAME IS KNIFE TRASH
Oh you get what I mean.
Fully acknowledging that I know nothing about blades, I got the impression that the shivs broke because the binding that held blades onto the handles gave out. The booklets that Joel finds along the way are basically instructions on how to bind better.
So, you know, you grab a clicker and stab it deep in the abdomen. If the binding breaks, you're probably not going to fish through the infected body to get the materials back. Getting two uses out of the shiv struck me as more an indication that the binding let you pull out the blade than an indication that the blade actually broke.
shrugtheironteacup wrote:
You also flee the house in a cut scene, without taking the better rifle you've been using.
I think it was mounted, and everyone you were protecting was fleeing a county fair's worth of clickers. This seemed like a reasonable choice given the circumstances.
Reed wrote:
- game tells you "get the angle on him"
- you get the angle on him
- there is no him
yeah, that's shit.
This confused me as well. When I was playing, I was pretty sure I could see the dude's head though. It just seemed shielded by the environment.
shrugtheironteacup wrote:
It is a lot like someone took a Resident Evil and tried to make a V. Sirius Vidyagame out of it and I've wondered what you would make of it.
I imagine something less mean.
Well sure! I think it's fantastic. It encourages exploration both for foraging as well as (importantly) triggering conversations between characters about the environment and the world. These conversations indirectly reveal aspects of the backgrounds, inhibitions, evasions, and vulnerabilities of the characters present.
The scripting and structure of this game are very good. I have a sense of each character as a distinct identity apart from the others, and this owes to the combined talent of writing, acting, and directing. Setpieces and events during the game are structurally similar to previous setpieces without replicating them identically. The game frames the whole trauma of the experience by putting different versions of the future in your control -- one, as Sarah, a kid who likes pop bands and soccer -- and the other, as Ellie, a kid who's innocence consists almost solely in a hope that we cannot be sure exists. The progress from Sarah to Ellie is very much the development of this world from civilization to post-apocalypse human near-annihilation.
It's a genre story -- so, starting with that, I don't have particular expectations of content. I was pretty sure I'd wind up murdering the Fireflies because humanity is universally terrible, but this fore-expectation did not detract from the experience because the presentation was idiosyncratic and nuanced. I was pretty conflicted when I realized that I could only kill the surgeons... and that's part of the point there. I'm conflicted; Joel isn't.
The characters matter more than the plot, and the characters develop through their self-presentation rather than through their function as vectors for plot movement.
Joel has a really good conflicted Dad thing going, which I appreciate. The only character I found least believable was Ellie, but she's also a child of another world. I more or less suspend disbelief when it gets to this point of near magical realism where the volume of bodies hits my brain as equivalent to the volume of bodies that Anton Chigurh leaves behind in hotels and in streets and in suburbs.
So I guess that's where I don't have the expectations of "gritty hard realism" that maybe the game has been sold on. It's much more magical realism with an intensity of violence that, while heightened, is strangely not exploitative. Joel is basically Llewelyn Moss + Anton Chigurh. He's acceptable in this context -- and also much more justified as a mass-killing player-character than Drake, who's just "yo I'm treasure hunt."
TLoU does maybe the only good job I've ever seen of creating a sense of bonding between the "escortee" and myself. They did a good job of conveying protection (Ellie always nests herself under Joel against a wall) while also showing that Ellie absolutely was not the helpless waif (stabbing dudes to get them off you).
shrugtheironteacup wrote:
EDIT EDIT EDIT: that would have been over right there if the game hadn't subtly changed the mechanic of sneakstab prompt for this setpiece alone
Yeah, this annoyed me. Suddenly sneakstab is an environmental action rather than a character-to-character action!?
Nolan North did a good job with David.
Relevant wrote:
Adilegian wrote:
Hey shrug, do you want to multiplayer this?
If you want to try out the multiplayer tonight I wouldn't mind joining you.
Send me a message on PSN if you're interested.
Sorry I missed this. As TXTSWORD will TXTify, I'm kind of bad at multiplayer correspondence sometimes. I'm free for this over the weekend though.
shrugtheironteacup wrote:
Well that ended exactly how I thought it would
Again, I think that the plot's turnout is less important than what, exactly, Ellie was agreeing to when she said, "Okay."
She clearly feels some kind of anticlimax there -- the whole journey's apex was a mental blank space for her. So when she assents to Joel's lie at the end, it simultaneously tests their relationship while affirming aspects of Joel's character that have been part of his Dadness for the whole game. When he's carrying Sarah through the streets of near-Austin, he keeps telling her "Look at me, Sarah. Look at me." There's a kind of innocence that he doesn't want her to lose. I think that his lie to Ellie at the end is in the same mode of Dadness.
Joel is able to shift focus from one short-term goal to another. He gets at this when he briefly tells Ellie about survival, about finding something to live for after what's left has gone. We see him do this when he changes focus from Tess to Ellie. It's implied that he did this when he shifted his survival focus from Sarah, whom he lost, to Tommy, whose memory is scarred from everything Joel did to keep them alive.
Most people aren't capable of this to the extent that Joel is, and probably the best example of this is Henry's response to Sam's death. On the other extreme, Bill goes from attaching hope to one relationship to abandoning hope and surviving on a relationship with himself. I think that the association between Bill and pornography supports this.
This game is very well structured in terms of balancing out gameplay sequences that complement and recall each other, and it story does a great job of revisiting relationships and patterns done elsewhere. Joel's relationship with Ellie is explored by contrast in Sam's and Henry's. Joel's relationship with Tess is explored by contrast in Bill's and Frank's. Knowing what I do about narrative structure, I see these as very smart, deliberate choices that create a long-term sense of cohesion between experiences separated by indeterminate spaces of time (however long a break someone took between play sessions).
Ni Go Zero Ichi wrote:
at no point in its long PR cycle
I think that making pre-judgments on these grounds reinforces a broader problem. Kind of touching on Parker's point....
Parker wrote:
Maybe sometimes we slightly overly emphasize the negative aspects of heavily hyped big budget games, especially the ones where most of the game playing public elsewhere unquestioningly buys into whatever important art milestone etc bullshit story is being sold along with the game, but so what, those games have it coming.
I think you do yourself a disservice by approaching a AAA game with self-satisfied bias against AAA games b/c hype.
I see a lot of cynicism directed toward things like plot and ludonarrative dissonance that can be predicted by looking at, well, the entire history of the format. For me, this doesn't seem to put energy into the right places.
shrugtheironteacup wrote:
This is when it struck me that there is not a single female enemy in this game that isn't a turned moldzombie.
I think that you can kill several when you're fighting through the military. I actually noted the contrast between that and, say, the hunters. Seemed to me like the contrast implied some kind of preserved progressiveness on behalf of organized/government society whereas the hunters and David's group reverted back to a patriarchal organization (one bros, the other with David as actual patriarch).
shrugtheironteacup wrote:
I mean, they ultimately don't do much with this other than frame his violence as noble and good so long as its aimed at preserving this one girl's life because Fathers & Daughters or some shit, but they manage to set up a world/scenario where the violence makes better sense than Uncharted.
I didn't get this impression. The violence seemed elemental rather than ennobled. The violence wasn't justified because of ennobling father-daughter relationship (though that's definitely part of the mix). The violence was justified because that's the world they're in and Joel doesn't care.
Brooks wrote:
Are there any Youtubes yet showing someone trying to actually get themselves killed during the prologue
This happens pretty easily if you stray away from Tommy!
You can also get killed by walking too close to the QZ soldiers.
nuttyevans wrote:
As for TLOU, I'm not very far in (Got out of the city and haven't played in a day or two) and Shrug is pretty spot on in saying that the narrative and mechanics don't exactly gel seamlessly, but it's a TRIPLE A and for a TRIPLE A to have me sneaking around with 3 bullets and one blade to my name is pretty cool when it could just give me a box with "refill ammo" written on it.
I found myself reliably stocked for ammo after about 2/3rds of game. I played it on Normal, though, and I'm about to start a game on Survival difficulty. I was annoyed at how generous the game on Normal was with Joel getting shot. I do hope that this is corrected in Survival.
shrug wrote:
SELECT BUTTON BRAIN FUNGUS
I'm the only one immune, quick, better get me to Utah.
Broco wrote:
Against humans, you simply don't have the bullets to do haphazard cover shooting and the enemies are quite good at flanking or out-timing you, and against mixed zombie groups the runners are too fast and the clickers are too deadly to handle more than one or two at a time.
Joel is the next-gen gritty Harry Mason: he loves his little girl and he misses about 2/3rds of his shots. The gunplay felt genuinely difficult at points, but I never felt that I was unfairly denied or handed a victory.
Also coralling a bunch of humans together to molotov them is surprisingly harder than I expected, and, for that, it's very satisfying when I pull it off. _________________
It occurred to me multiple times that I would like the narrative elements of the game more if I didn't recognize 3/4 of them (along with many of the big setpieces) as being lifted directly from movies that (in my opinion) did them better.
Which is to say that I don't have any illusions that I'm approaching this game objectively. As with the shiv thing, my prior experience led to a lot of incredulity. I think they do a lot of great, subtle character work in the gameplay that was undermined when a too-close echo of another piece of fiction took me out of the game. I know this is video games, and video games have been parasites on film since their inception, but these moments clashed with the subtler stuff I knew they could do. That I had just seen them do.
Quote:
shrugtheironteacup wrote:
Some of the gamier decisions are just bad and affect the mechanics negatively while simultaneously being super-dumb in the context of the fiction they're trying to construct (see: shivs).
I think that this is personal technical knowledge interfering with the necessary task of eliding over material nuance for the sake of effect. Instead of being someone with a networking background watching Sneakers, you're an actual smith playing a survivalist game. And--
shrugtheironteacup wrote:
They fucked up the whole knife aspect of the game DID YOU EVEN READ THE THREAD
I AM A PROFESSIONAL KNIFE FETISHIST AND THIS GAME IS KNIFE TRASH
Oh you get what I mean.
Fully acknowledging that I know nothing about blades, I got the impression that the shivs broke because the binding that held blades onto the handles gave out. The booklets that Joel finds along the way are basically instructions on how to bind better.
So, you know, you grab a clicker and stab it deep in the abdomen. If the binding breaks, you're probably not going to fish through the infected body to get the materials back. Getting two uses out of the shiv struck me as more an indication that the binding let you pull out the blade than an indication that the blade actually broke.
The thing that gets you an extra murder-per-shiv is a "combat manual" for better stab technique. You learn better knots to secure scissor-reinforcement to melee weapons.
I admit that as a PROFESSIONAL KNIFE FETISHIST I've put way too much thought into this, but it doesn't *just* bother me because of a lack of "realism" in contrast to everything else. It bothered me because I didn't think it added much to my experience (aside from the frustration at not being able to unlock that one door because my shiv wasn't at full murder). I get behind plank and pipe breaking because they provide such an easy way to take out foes in certain situations without much skill. You could seize a moment to rush from cover/out of hiding and just wail on someone. They encourage run and beat. Similarly the scissor-reinforcements are INSTANT DEATH being swung on the end of a lever so of course they run into trouble when they impact a skull (a situation that would be traumatic to both your average pair of scissors and athletic tape roll). Likewise machetes/axes provide different degrees of "kill with general proximity + square" so it could be game-breaking if they lasted forever. You'd pick up your first machete or axe and skip through the game (at least on normal) Voorheesing everyone who gets too close. (Handily it's also pretty plausible that a cheap machete swung w/ as much english as Joel puts into it would break; likewise an axehead that's poorly seated coming loose).
Shiving is just the punctuation at the end of your sneak. I find the shiv thing both diegetically dumb and ineffectual at adding to tension, because I know exactly how much shiv murder I have stocked, and if I don’t have enough I just plan my approach around the lack. I would embrace randomized shiv breaking, shiv breaking based on the struggle of my enemy, shiv breaking when using the ESCAPE THE CLICKER skill and shiv breaking when I pry open doors. The way it is just meant I spent about 3 real-time hours watching the choking animation instead of getting on with my sneaking life at my convenience.
It probably wouldn't have bothered me if the game otherwise worked for me as well as it did for you, but it didn't, so it became one of many hooks to hang my irritation on.
Quote:
Again, I think that the plot's turnout is less important than what, exactly, Ellie was agreeing to when she said, "Okay."
If the story is a tool that gets me to a place, like a shiv is a tool to get this thing dead already, I similarly don't think I would have cared about it being predictable if the way they executed it had resonated with me. It didn't. Oh well. _________________
Joined: 16 Dec 2011 Location: the funky western civilization
Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 7:49 am
oh hey, actually, shrug - what movies are the setpieces in TLOU lifted from? i'm curious to see what you think they are
i also ask this, because, i am pretty ignorant of a lot of film
and it's always interesting to hear the connection between the industries _________________ ##SKELETON PARTY (new article as of 04/26/14)Grim
I keep going back and forth between really liking the game then getting really pissed and hating the whole damn thing and wanting nothing to do with it every time combat starts. _________________
This game is great. It's like they took the things that don't work so well in Uncharted (hidden items to search for, the ludo narrative dissonance that comes from being a good guy that kills dudes) and crafted the whole game around using setting and character development to solve those issues.
Visited some friends of the family recently and got to see a bit of it played. Looked better then I expected it to honestly, especially how sneaky it was and it's real limited resources. During a cutscene my mom passed by and it's probably the first time I've ever seen actually impressed by a vidcon of any sort.
Joined: 04 Mar 2008 Location: San Francisco, CA, USA!
Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 6:35 pm
the crazies: the videogame would be cool
i can't play this game because poor but just wanted to share that previous thought + express pleasure at having read shrug's and rei's and dracko's et al's words on the game up till the page 3 hivemind accusations and also wanted to ask: what's up with these melancholy last man alive titles? i have more questions but i guess those questions need a thread of their own. _________________
mauve wrote:
thieves are more boons to other classes than anything else.
Joined: 04 Mar 2008 Location: San Francisco, CA, USA!
Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 6:44 pm
Felix wrote:
Ni Go Zero Ichi wrote:
Last I heard the SB hivemind approved of the Uncharted games as bundles of AAA production values and above-average shootman games, but condemned their uncommonly bad case of (that old bugaboo) ludonarrative dissonance. Which is pretty much where I stand too.
Speaking for myself, I might be less cynical about The Last of Us if it weren't a game that was literally selling itself on its narrative, from a studio which has inspired zero faith from me in that department. Naughty Dog should just make dumb action games with amusing scripts.
your two statements are sorta contradictory (if it's a dumb action game, ludonarrative dissonance shouldn't bother you that much). I condemn uncharted 2 for having the world's stickiest, most linear platforming ever; otherwise it's great.
i want to say right here once again, earth defense force 2017 is fucking flawless in its narrative execution. some levels were too huge and sometimes it was a pain in the ass finding the last thing you needed to kill, but in so many ways that no aaa title seems to understand ever, this game understands telling a story without taking you out of it. _________________
mauve wrote:
thieves are more boons to other classes than anything else.
Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 7:05 pm
spinach wrote:
the crazies: the videogame would be cool
i can't play this game because poor but just wanted to share that previous thought + express pleasure at having read shrug's and rei's and dracko's et al's words on the game up till the page 3 hivemind accusations and also wanted to ask: what's up with these melancholy last man alive titles? i have more questions but i guess those questions need a thread of their own.
Upon review, the fact that only Broco seemed to be describing the game that I was also playing kind of affirms my anticipation that the opening shots about the game would be negative. Piggyback onto that the handful of posts echoing the sentiment "whew glad I bought X game instead of this" and "this is the thread that I will direct people to when they want to know about this game" and "I've played other games released by this studio so have a pre-formed opinion," and you have a pretty good outline of a shared mindset that's already biased against the game -- as well as an avowed lack of interest in cross-checking the negative criticisms with their own experience.
"Hivemind" isn't how I'd describe the phenomenon, but I did correctly anticipate that some were already ready to see the game kicked to the curb because of its origin and PR.
I should be clear that I share most of shrug's observations about inconsistencies between gametime and cutscene time. He's writing about stuff's that's there. I don't think that that's a complete portrayal of the game, obviously, but he's got a lot of very good points that indicate disconnects and anticipated narrative developments.
I'm very glad to see that other people are willing to give it a shot.
I think that the "last man alive" idea is part of a pop Cormac McCarthy fad that emphasizes a survivalist quest/manhunt motif coming out of No Country for Old Men and The Road. It also participates in the development of cataclysm narrative that's been going on strong for coming up on a century now.
Tokyo Jungle is pretty clearly happening in Japan during the timeline of this game.
When I bought this, Gamestop tried to sell me a discount on the DLC along with a code that would give me a headstart on skill upgrades. I sometimes forget that there is a market for buying your way into winning videogames.
I'm checking MobyGames to see how much creative/directorial staff this game shares with other recent Naughty Dog games, and I see the following:
1.
Game: The Last of Us (Ellie Edition)
PlayStation 3 (2013)
3.
Game: The Last of Us (Joel Edition)
PlayStation 3 (2013)
4.
Game: The Last of Us (Survival Edition)
PlayStation 3 (2013)
5.
Game: The Last of Us (Post-Pandemic Edition)
PlayStation 3 (2013)
I wonder which version of the game I have. _________________
Adi, thanks for pushing back against our default contempt in such a standup way. I have no opinion on this thing other than that wishing Uncharted wasn't taken more seriously (though it sounds like the game at least accomplishes a little more than that), not really being crazy about survival horror in general, and wishing that they hadn't tweaked the plot of Children of Men just so because I like Children of Men a whole hell of a lot as a movie the way it is, and for something to hew so closely always presents more opportunity to be critical.
That said, it's still not worth $60 to me, and I keep saying "I'm really sick of forgiving shootman games in advance because of their narrative/production values" (most recently, Red Dead, which is indeed great, three years late) but not actually doing anything about it. So we'll see. I look forward to forming an opinion on it.
so, bill is supposed to be bill hicks in the zombie apocalypse, right?
this isn't a game i feel like evaluating too harshly, i guess. it's HL2 + RE4 + the walking dead + children of men the AAA swansong of the PS3 amen hallelujah
i mean, it kinda just works for me as a thing to enjoy. moving around in its very gorgeous, detailed environments is something i don't know if i've ever enjoyed so fully in a videogame. i'm looking for supplies, of course, but i want to explore each and every place anyway. i feel like if i move on without soaking it all in, i'm missing out on something.
sometimes the combat pisses me off and the weird collision detection and one-hit death-by-clickers are really aggravating, but. well. sometimes it works really smoothly, depending on what i have on me. sneaking around and burning down two or three clickers with one molotov while i drink in the scenery isn't so bad.
i was a skeptic! it's no dark souls 8) but so far — 3 or 4 hours in — it's a pretty rad videogame. _________________ letterboxd | last.fm | steam
i mean, it kinda just works for me as a thing to enjoy. moving around in its very gorgeous, detailed environments is something i don't know if i've ever enjoyed so fully in a videogame. i'm looking for supplies, of course, but i want to explore each and every place anyway. i feel like if i move on without soaking it all in, i'm missing out on something.
Dunno, I'm starting to dislike the scavenging part of the game. For me I tend to focus on spotting little white circles or highlights and it actually distracts me from paying attention to the environment. And the available character/weapon upgrades are one the weakest, most pointless upgrade tech trees I've ever seen (faster crafting speed? seriously?) so it clearly exists purely to justify the scavenging.
Scavenging in an area where you sneak around clickers is also very time-consuming and you lose what you picked up if you die and go back to checkpoint -- potentially about 5 minutes of gameplay. I've started to give up on picking up everything in those areas.
Ultimately it boils down to a big timesink that slows the game's pacing down considerably -- by intent I'm sure. But it's one of the things that gives rise to Shrug's comments about "this is a LONG game".
i guess i see it differently! i'm enjoying the sights, and i pick stuff up along the way. i don't have to look too hard to notice shiny things. _________________ letterboxd | last.fm | steam
Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Location: Q*Bert Killscreen Nightmare
Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 10:42 pm
remote wrote:
i guess i see it differently! i'm enjoying the sights, and i pick stuff up along the way. i don't have to look too hard to notice shiny things.
They also don't shine on Survival mode, so you actually need to walk until you're within that circle where the icons pop up.
Survival mode also doesn't give you little prompts to indicate when you're close to enemies for grabbing and stuff. It's a neat touch, but there's also no penalty, I think, for just tapping triangle until you get within range to grab them -- so it's less of a "here's a superhard disadvantage for when you're making your way through Survival" thing and more of a "we just won't tell you when you might accidentally be able to grab a dude" thing.
There's this one area in the third urban area where you have to get through two floors of a large building. The center of the lower floor is open to the second floor's sight, and your destination on the second floor is a bottleneck with about two guards standing watch.
I snuck past all of them with Ellie. I made it into the bottleneck when one of the guards in front of the bottleneck came back from his distraction to catch me slipping out.
The level design is supposed to funnel you to that bottleneck, forcing you into several dead ends if you're fleeing a firefight.
In this instance, the level design actually funnelled the entire group of hunters toward ME, letting me pick them off as they came through the bottleneck.
The PS3 cannot testify to how many bodies there were. _________________
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