EPTTrade in value: $18
What in the actual fuck.
[PS3] The Last of Us - Page 8
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Ayaz2810
United States2763 Posts
Trade in value: $18 What in the actual fuck. | ||
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Risen
United States7927 Posts
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On_Slaught
United States12190 Posts
On June 20 2013 17:55 Thereisnosaurus wrote: It says a lot about the industry that a story as trite and manipulative as this is regarded as 'the citizen kane moment' I won't lie, it's a lot better than the average game, but this game is to the greatest films and novels of all time as far as duke nukem forever is from it. Like, they said it was inspired by The Road. Even the road, which is great but unexceptional in the grand scheme of literature, beats the everliving shit out of it as a narrative. With a poleaxe. Just because a game is far and away better than what you are usually playing, this does not make it 'good' in an objective sense. It just makes it better than what you are usually playing. If what you are usually playing is the usual buggy, trite, derivative, uninspired, often misogynistic or racist tripe, congratulations, welcome to the realm of a game that is worthy of the amount of money spent on it. Something that enhanced your life in a meaningful way by its consumption, rather than just killing time. If a game is not this good, it is a BAD GAME. I agree with this 100% (haven't played the game but the idea of modern games sucking so any above average game seems legendary). People who have played this... is The last of Us really as good as, or better than these games: - Portal 2 - Baldurs Gate 2 - GTA Vice City - Bioshock 1 (or Infinite for that matter) - Zelda Ocarina of Time - TES Skyrim/Oblivion - Star Wars KOTOR - Final Fantasy 7/10 etc - Diablo1/2 - Deus Ex - Thief 1/2 etc. etc. All games equal to or surpassed by TloU on Metacritic? With the obvious conflicts of interests we are seeing over and over with game reviewers it is clear to me that review scores have been inflated over time. Very very few modern games come close to the depth or polish of older games like those on the list (though some are more recent). I hope TLoU isn't just some scripted movie essentially, since in my book that should never be rated above games that have story AND gameplay,, but in general I think my point about inflated scores still stands. There are some terrible games getting respectable scores (DA2 are you fucking kidding me?!). | ||
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PandaCore
Germany553 Posts
From the games above I played: BG2, Vice City, Bioshock 1, Skyrim/Oblivion, FF10, Diablo 1/2, Deus Ex, Thief 1 While I did enjoy all of those games, I also enjoyed The Last Of Us. I was compelled to keep playing and that's a good enough sign for me that I was enjoying it. Popped in the disc when I got it, played for 7 hours straight and wanted to quit when I find the right moment, which I did not find and then forced myself to quit since I had to work the next day. Most of the old games also have a lot of nostalgic value going on for them, but many also had their flaws that you begin to overlook with time. TLOU also has a lot of flaws (especially the AI), but it also has a lot of strong points for me. Meh, anyways... it all comes down to: Did I enjoy playing the game? And I can just answer this with a straight yes. I bought a lot of games lately, that I never finished because I lost interest. TLOU was the first game in a long time that I actually finished within a few days because I just wanted to keep playing and progressing in the story. Thinks I particularly liked: The story, while generic, was still interesting and while I had a strong walking dead vibe, they still made it their own The atmosphere and general design of the areas The interactions and relationships between the characters The voice acting Actually enjoyed the scavenging/scrapping and upgrading aspect It didn't rely on cheap scares Overall excecution of story telling, I don't know why but I really liked the scene after you get the car, was a strong scene for me There are so many little details to find Things I kinda didn't like that much: The predictable AI with an attention span of a goldfish Sometimes I felt there were too many enemies Clickers (god I hate them) | ||
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Ayaz2810
United States2763 Posts
On June 21 2013 05:42 Risen wrote: You trying to make a point? Not really. Just a pretty shitty thing to find out about a game that is a week old. | ||
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Thereisnosaurus
Australia1822 Posts
Developers know their audience. If you don't like it, while millions of other people do, it doesn't mean the game is bad, it means you are not part of the target demographic. Millions of people like mcdonalds. That doesn't make it good. Millions of people think every muslim is evil. That doesn't mean it's true. If your value judgement of a piece of media is based on how many people buy it then wii sports is the greatest game of all time, by a factor of 2: http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/ (though admittedly this chart goes console by console for sales instead of putting the two together IIRC, it's still wiisports just by slightly less of a lead) Aside from all this, I never claimed the game was bad. It's good. Compared to the average videogame the industry puts out it is exponentially ahead of the curve in sophistication, polish, pacing and attention to detail. When the average game the industry puts out has less of all of these values than call of duty, that is still not saying much. Very very few modern games come close to the depth or polish of older games like those on the list (though some are more recent). I think there's a bit of rose tinted nostalgia there, I mean I loved those games too but they were full of plenty more holes than TLOU. It's fair to give them a little more leeway because their budgets were far smaller and they had less of a body of established knowledge to work from- for all of its strength TLOU does literally nothing innovative but some clean recombining of existing mechanics and stylistic choices, even the fungus zombies have been done before, as far back as system shock 2. But in an objective comparison, ignoring all context, many of those games would be panned these days, even if given a simple coat of polish | ||
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CrimsonLotus
Colombia1123 Posts
Just as a passive viewer I found myself somewhat caring for Ellie and that means a lot when it comes to a video game. All in all, there are hundreds of video games with amazing gameplay but very few that can actually generate any level of emotional response so I say this is a good game. While of course this is no Planescape: Torment, the story was at least interesting, the characters felt human and the world felt realistic. | ||
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Thereisnosaurus
Australia1822 Posts
Just as a passive viewer I found myself somewhat caring for Ellie and that means a lot when it comes to a video game. All in all, there are hundreds of video games with amazing gameplay but very few that can actually generate any level of emotional response so I say this is a good game. While of course this is no Planescape: Torment, the story was at least interesting, the characters felt human and the world felt realistic. mmmm, this is one of the things I'm really not sure whether to be ok with or hate the game for. People say that they somewhat care for characters like Ellie or Alyx or Elizabeth etc. let me run down some narrative design stuff here 1) All of these characters are young, spunky and female for a reason. It's an age old combination that triggers emotional investment in pretty much every human, regardless of gender or orientation, the 'underdog complex', I guess it could be called. Because of that, there's a kind of compounded effect. You're inclined to feel attached to such characters naturally, but because literature is so saturated with them the tendency becomes amplified by conditioning. The result is that this sort of character is the easiest in the world to write if you want to manipulate a person's instincts towards protectiveness and fairness 2) creating emotional investment *is not hard*. It's a basic character design skill, which anyone who writes books, screenplays or stageplays learns at the freshman level. The culture and objectives of interaction based entertainment in videogames sometimes rub against this in a way that disrupts the normal process, but it's still not a massive challenge. 3) because of this tendency towards caring for particular character archetypes combined with the simplicity of the overall task, competent writers can literally overload your brain with teh feelinz with a few simple, manipulative tricks. It's a similar process to how mcdonalds makes its food taste good- overload everything with sugar and salt and people will normally overlook the underlying simplicity and blandness of what they're consuming. Both Sarah and Ellie are perfect examples of this. Neither is actually an interesting character- they have no flaws, no desires other than to not die horribly and do what you tell them to do. They are nothing but helpful to you as a player. There is literally no potential for conflict here, though It's covered a little more subtly than, say, Elizabeth who both literally and narratively exists purely to fulfill your every desire. It's testament to how shallow these designs are that Ellie can never get you into trouble outside of pre-scripted situations, something that has been made fun of quite a bit. Apart from detracting from the immersion, the true thing to take away from this fact is just how scared games writers are to make real, human characters. Even inconveniencing the player by attracting attention was considered too much of a character flaw, let alone curling up in a ball when seeing someone eviscerated, or the corpse of another child, wetting themselves when inches from death, giving up hope, failing to shiv someone in the knee while you're being punched up or simply just running the fuck away from your intolerant abusive ass in a fit of pique. Now, I don't think this is a terrible, terrible thing. I just want to point out how it's not all that special. In the same way I'm happy to eat mcdonalds once in a while, I'm happy to be manipulated into emotionally investing in a paper doll once in a while. What I'm not ok with is people saying this is groundbreaking work. I think games CAN be groundbreaking, create emotional investment that beats all other forms of literature, but I think that effort is done a disservice by saying this sort of thing is a big step along that road. As you say, getting someone to care about a snarky flaming skull without sad violins and cinematic framing of a single tear is a bit more of a challenge. | ||
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AntiGrav1ty
Germany2310 Posts
But on a serious note. You can talk about how easy it is however you want. The fact is that it hasnt been done before like this in games. Bioshock infinite and Last of us are the first games that brought these kind of engaging characters and immersive worlds into modern gaming. That is why they are being praised and rightfully so. They are the best what gaming has to offer in that deparment. To criticize them as some people do for not making a groundbraking change across all fields of entertainment/fiction is absurd. I realize we had great characters in games before and i experienced them when they first came out. They were great for their time as ellie/joel and elizabeth are now. | ||
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CrimsonLotus
Colombia1123 Posts
On June 21 2013 09:09 Thereisnosaurus wrote: 2) creating emotional investment *is not hard*. It's a basic character design skill, which anyone who writes books, screenplays or stageplays learns at the freshman level. The culture and objectives of interaction based entertainment in videogames sometimes rub against this in a way that disrupts the normal process, but it's still not a massive challenge. And yet the vast majority of movies, books, TV shows and specially video games generate no emotional response from me. All we see are plastic characters following an archetype and playing a role in the story. The Last of Us clearily wanted you to feel pathernal (or mathernal) about Ellie. Make her brave and strong for her age yet vulnerable and worthy of protection. It's pretty obvious, the question is whether it achieves that or not. + Show Spoiler + When Joes started killing the Fireflies, even the unarmed doctors, he's called a monster. And he most certainly he was but for me that felt good and right. He was doing a horrible thing but for a very human reason, for selfish love. And I honestly felt that I would have done the same. That's what sold the story for me, that even with the clunkyness of the gameplay and the limited scope for storytelling the story felt human, I could identify to some degree with the chracters and in the end their actions had some relevance for me. Does that makes this game some incredible masterpiece of storytelling like the world has never seen before?, of course not, it's a video game. The worst and lowest medium for telling a story. But it made me care at least a little bit about a bunch of pixels and very few stories actually do that for me. | ||
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Thereisnosaurus
Australia1822 Posts
Apparently it's so easy and yet every single Hollywood movie in the past 20 years manages to fail simple character creation. Yep, it's really sad isn't it? Though I think 20 years of hollywood have managed a few here and there and cinema in general has come up with plenty. Games have too, really. I think Chakwas from ME is a really good character, albeit not a central one (apparently Jack is also ok during the third game). The lieutenant from Space Marine is a good example of a female support character who's not a complete washout. Jaheera in BG, but that both goes without saying and was a long time ago. So they succeed plenty of times in isolation, but a lot of these games stumble at the higher narrative. It's weaving the two together- characterisation and then using that to make a broader point- that's very rare and special. I think in some ways TLOU does succeed at that, I'm just kind of sad that the point is 'beautiful, perfect children are worth not brutally slaughtering, even if it's for the greater good'. A real challenge- and real achievement- would be conveying the same point using a normal, imperfect child. it's a video game. The worst and lowest medium for telling a story I think you'll find, in terms of potential, the opposite is true. No other genre allows you to inhabit and invest so much in a narrative as a videogame. It may be the hardest in which to successfully tell a story, but this does not make it inherently the worst. | ||
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Millitron
United States2611 Posts
On June 21 2013 10:40 CrimsonLotus wrote: And yet the vast majority of movies, books, TV shows and specially video games generate no emotional response from me. All we see are plastic characters following an archetype and playing a role in the story. The Last of Us clearily wanted you to feel pathernal (or mathernal) about Ellie. Make her brave and strong for her age yet vulnerable and worthy of protection. It's pretty obvious, the question is whether it achieves that or not. + Show Spoiler + When Joes started killing the Fireflies, even the unarmed doctors, he's called a monster. And he most certainly he was but for me that felt good and right. He was doing a horrible thing but for a very human reason, for selfish love. And I honestly felt that I would have done the same. That's what sold the story for me, that even with the clunkyness of the gameplay and the limited scope for storytelling the story felt human, I could identify to some degree with the chracters and in the end the actions had some relevance for me. Does that makes this game some incredible masterpiece of storytelling like the world has never seen before?, of course not, it's a video game. The worst and lowest medium for telling a story. But it made me care at least a little bit about a bunch of pixels and very few stories actually do that for me. I do not understand this idea that videogames suck at telling stories. What about them makes them intrinsically bad for storytelling? Did you guys play Morrowind? How about KotoR? Mass Effect 1? Lots of videogames having shitty stories doesn't mean videogames are bad for telling stories. Most movies aren't Citizen Kane, most books aren't 1984. Oh and: + Show Spoiler + You don't have to kill the doctors. That's totally up to you. | ||
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RagequitBM
Canada2270 Posts
On June 21 2013 10:41 Thereisnosaurus wrote: Yep, it's really sad isn't it? Though I think 20 years of hollywood have managed a few here and there and cinema in general has come up with plenty. Games have too, really. I think Chakwas from ME is a really good character, albeit not a central one (apparently Jack is also ok during the third game). The lieutenant from Space Marine is a good example of a female support character who's not a complete washout. Jaheera in BG, but that both goes without saying and was a long time ago. So they succeed plenty of times in isolation, but a lot of these games stumble at the higher narrative. It's weaving the two together- characterisation and then using that to make a broader point- that's very rare and special. I think in some ways TLOU does succeed at that, I'm just kind of sad that the point is 'beautiful, perfect children are worth not brutally slaughtering, even if it's for the greater good'. A real challenge- and real achievement- would be conveying the same point using a normal, imperfect child. I think you'll find, in terms of potential, the opposite is true. No other genre allows you to inhabit and invest so much in a narrative as a videogame. It may be the hardest in which to successfully tell a story, but this does not make it inherently the worst. All of your posts just come off as you being some literature hipster, and that anything that isn't William Falkner is bad. If someone plays it, and enjoys it, that means it was good for them. For you it was a "bad game, and only good compared to others of its time." That's fair. You don't have to spend so many posts telling people whether or not objectively it is a bad game. Because if a game makes you want to keep playing it has succeeded in its job. If you're looking for Video games to change your life, you're looking in the wrong area. | ||
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CrimsonLotus
Colombia1123 Posts
On June 21 2013 10:49 Millitron wrote: I do not understand this idea that videogames suck at telling stories. What about them makes them intrinsically bad for storytelling? Did you guys play Morrowind? How about KotoR? Mass Effect 1? Lots of videogames having shitty stories doesn't mean videogames are bad for telling stories. Most movies aren't Citizen Kane, most books aren't 1984. Oh and: + Show Spoiler + You don't have to kill the doctors. That's totally up to you. Quite simply, gameplay considerations and the expectations of modern gamers. You can't have a modern game with hundreds of thousands of lines because the average gamer doesn't want to read that much and expects all dialogue to be voiced acted. Also, in most modern games the word "linearity" has become almost taboo. Something horrible to be avoided at most times. Player's choice and open world have become the most wanted qualities, but you can't have an open world and meaningful player choice while still keeping and deep and complex narrative of a great novel. Not to say that there aren't games that have truly deep, original and interesting stories, the best example being Planescape: Torment, but that game was more of a good novel with some gameplay strapped on and it sold horribly even when it wasn't submmited to modern expectations. Many video games can have interesting and coherent plots like the original Deus Ex and the Mass Effect trilogy, a few others can have true emotional impact such as Silent Hill 2 or TLoU. But a game in the end is that, a game, the story, the characters and the plot are only an element of the game, and sometimes one of the least important, for gamers. You don't buy a book for the gameplay nor you watch a movie in order to make choices that influence the plot. These elements means that video games in their current form can have meaningful stories but they are by far the least ideal medium to present them. | ||
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Millitron
United States2611 Posts
On June 21 2013 11:10 CrimsonLotus wrote: Quite simply, gameplay considerations and the expectations of modern gamers. You can't have a modern game with hundreds of thousands of lines because the average gamer doesn't want to read that much and expects all dialogue to be voiced acted. Also, in most modern games the word "linearity" has become almost taboo. Something horrible to be avoided at most times. Player's choice and open world have become the most wanted qualities, but you can't have an open world and meaningful player choice while still keeping and deep and complex narrative of a great novel. Not to say that there aren't games that have truly deep, original and interesting stories, the best example being Planescape: Torment, but that game was more of a good novel with some gameplay strapped on and it sold horribly even when it wasn't submmited to modern expectations. Many video games can have interesting and coherent plots like the original Deus Ex and the Mass Effect trilogy, a few others can have true emotional impact such as Silent Hill 2 or TLoU. But a game in the end is that, a game, the story, the characters and the plot are only an element of the game, and sometimes one of the least important, for gamers. You don't buy a book for the gameplay nor you watch a movie in order to make choices that influence the plot. These elements means that video games in their current form can have meaningful stories but they are by far the least ideal medium to present them. Player-influenced plots aren't necessarily bad for storytelling, and neither is gameplay. I feel that both actually can improve the story of a game by making the player more invested in said game. They care more about it when they are the ones making choices and progressing the story, rather than it just happening in front of them. Further, books and movies are not inherently better. Just as for every Planescape: Torment, there are thousands of Gears of War; for every Of Mice and Men, there are thousands of Fifty Shades of Grey. For every Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, there are thousands of Transformers. No one has ever really been able to explain to me why video-games are inherently worse at telling stories. They just assert that they are. Dialogue requiring voice acting is not a flaw. If movies can do it, so can video games. | ||
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Lemstar
United States387 Posts
On June 21 2013 05:37 ayaz2810 wrote: Trade in value: $18 What in the actual fuck. $26 base at GameStop right now, so $33.80 with a 30% promo, $36.40 if you're PUR Pro, or $41.60 if you have a 50% TIV coupon to use. Alternatively, I sold my copy for $56 shipped on eBay within a couple of hours of listing it. That's only $47 after fees + shipping, but w/e. @On_Slaught: I think TLoU is pretty directly comparable to Bioshock Infinite, and I'd have to say that it's superior. The plot is obviously something you'd be familiar with if you've read any postapocalyptic fiction (especially The Road), but characterization is far better done, and you don't run into the issue of Infinite's corridor gunplay segments actively detracting from the storytelling. | ||
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GTPGlitch
5061 Posts
It's testament to how shallow these designs are that Ellie can never get you into trouble outside of pre-scripted situations, something that has been made fun of quite a bit. Apart from detracting from the immersion, the true thing to take away from this fact is just how scared games writers are to make real, human characters. Um, no. From tim~ you cannot be held responsible for the actions of a character you cannot control. If the jig was up everytime the pathing glitched out and Ellie ran right in front of an enemy when moving between cover, even though you were being super sneaky, it would be incredibly frustrating. | ||
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Thereisnosaurus
Australia1822 Posts
Um, no. From tim~ you cannot be held responsible for the actions of a character you cannot control. If the jig was up everytime the pathing glitched out and Ellie ran right in front of an enemy when moving between cover, even though you were being super sneaky, it would be incredibly frustrating. This is basically saying "we're incapable of coding an NPC whose AI can cope with the situation we wanted to convey. So we're going to do it anyway and hope you're so used to this shit you'll be able to ignore it" Thus, shallow design. Deep design would be to find a way around this that seems less artificial. That's for the second part of the statement. As to the first, not being held responsible for the actions of a character you cannot control, that is LIFE. Art imitates life. Not being held responsible for anything not directly of your making is a utopian fantasy. For certain game scenarios that is of course alright, For a gritty, deliberately messy and morally ambiguous post apoc narrative, I don't think it's justifiable in any sense but to excuse failings of the writing and execution team. Again, I'm not saying that success in that regard would have been easy or perhaps even possible at this time with the maturity of the industry where it is. but there's a world of difference between saying 'you cannot be held responsible for X' and 'we're not capable of creating a scenario in which the player is held responsible for X that adds to our game'. The moment anyone says 'cannot' in relation to the medium of games, you know which end the words are coming out of. There are a few, very few, exceptions. This is not one of them. | ||
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GTPGlitch
5061 Posts
On June 21 2013 15:17 Thereisnosaurus wrote: This is basically saying "we're incapable of coding an NPC whose AI can cope with the situation we wanted to convey. So we're going to do it anyway and hope you're so used to this shit you'll be able to ignore it" Thus, shallow design. Deep design would be to find a way around this that seems less artificial. Like what, removing the character all together? The options are either make life hell for the player, in which case the game would be awful, or code around it and hope that people are okay with very, very, very minor breaks with reality that serve to increase the experience with your personal character | ||
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SjPhotoGrapher
181 Posts
It lasted just long enough before it started to get boring and it actually had gameplay mechanics that reminded me of Bioshock. My only gripe with the game is that there was no decision making regarding morality in this game......+ Show Spoiler + there were multiple points in the game where I thought I would be given an option to kill a storyline character such as the black man after he ditched you and the guy that helps you find a car but I was unable to and it was a let down as the game was toted as having morality options throughout the game. Maybe some sort of incentive such as if you kill a main character after they screwed you over while Ellie is saying "please don't!" will allow you to have the NPC's special items that they have (maybe body armor and a special gun for example) while also changing the way that Ellie interacts with you via a love/hate system and how much she helps you in say, combat is effected by that love/hate system. So you can choose to kill the character in the game because he ditched you and because you want his specialized rifle and body armor for combat but now Ellie hates you a little bit more and keeps her distance from you more in combat. That would have added a nice twist to the game and multiple endings would have spruced it up quite a bit as well. The linearity in the game also prevents me from wanting it to play it again so I'll probably just sell it and get most of my money back but it's definitely the best single player game I've played within the past 5 years......I just wish that there were more options for you to make decisions in the game that would effect the outcome and effect the gameplay as you play along. The stealth was also good but having to kill each group of bandits or zombies to be able to go to the next area was a con. The gun play for a third person shooter was definitely amazing especially for a console game. | ||
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