The Last of Us

[Thrik]

So. Another zombie game.

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Are we even bothered at this point? Well, this one's by the guys who made this old chestnut:

I think if anyone's going to deliver on the kind of expectations the Dead Island trailer conjured up when it debuted and finally give us a zombie game with a shred of emotional power behind it, it's probably Naughty Dog. So, looking forward to this!

[ThunderPeel2001]

So. Another zombie game.

Zombies are hot right now.

[elmuerte]

So... uncharted with zombies?

[JonCole]

So... uncharted with zombies?

So... Uncharted 1?

[Nappi]

I'm getting face eating zombies, constant struggle for survival and not much else from this trailer. It is as if they extracted all the things I hate about Uncharted and made a game with just those things.

Edited December 11, 2011 by Nappi

[Gwardinen]

It's an interesting direction for Naughty Dog. I'm intrigued. Sadly, the trailer really tells us nothing worth knowing about what the game itself will be, so that's all I can be right now.

[JonCole]

Honestly, I'm just glad they're not doing another Uncharted. Too much talent to keep bottled in one franchise, as much as I love it. When it comes down to it, I doubt they will manage to disappoint me with this next one.

[Erkki]

I'm currently enjoying Dead Island and if this is anything like it, I am interested. Looks to be more about survival than Dead Island. But if it's as linear as Uncharted, which I suspect, then I will wait for the reviews.

[Roderick]

Even though fast zombies are no zombies at all, this looks nice.

[Thyroid]

Smart-ass youngster doubles up with survivin' old man as they fight a supernatural threat in a world with the art direction of the Uncharted games. So it's Uncharted. They could do better than that.

Edited December 11, 2011 by Kroms

[miffy495]

Will the sequel be called "The Second Last of Us"?

[SiN]

Looks great, a nice new direction for Naughty Dog, and I'm sure it'll be a great game, but...

... I can't help but feel that they could have done better. I just played through Uncharted 1 & 2, and I kept thinking that I'd enjoy them more if they had less shooting. And that's a very rare feeling in action games.

If anyone could make a mainstream game with little to no shooting, it'd be Naughty Dog. I'm just disappointed they decided to play it safe, I guess.

[Twig]

I just played through Uncharted 1 & 2, and I kept thinking that I'd enjoy them more if they had less shooting.

For the longest time, I really wanted to play Uncharted. I watched my friend play Uncharted 2 and was immediately turned off by the unending shootfest. That's not what I thought the game was. I excepted... well... Indiana Jones, the video game.

I like that this trailer implies not only human vs. zombie but also human vs. human conflict. It makes little sense to me that they would stay in the middle of a big city after a zombie apocalypse, but what're you gonna do.

I also don't really understand the "zombies are overdone" mentality. EVERYTHING is overdone.

[SiN]

Pro-tip: just play it on Easy. I played through one or two sequences on Normal and just lost my patience. Don't get me wrong, I love a hard game (I spent yesterday playing through the Gears 3 campaign on Hardcore w/ a friend), but Uncharted is just not that game. It's a reasonably good shooter, but an amazing "hey here are some jumpy bits, and explore-y bits, and story bits game". Playing on Easy means having fun with all of that without having to deal with the shooty bits.

Also, I'd probably skip Uncharted 1, because the shooty bits do get frustrating, even on Easy.

[Noyb]

For the longest time, I really wanted to play Uncharted. I watched my friend play Uncharted 2 and was immediately turned off by the unending shootfest. That's not what I thought the game was. I expected... well... Indiana Jones, the video game.

Common mistake. When talking to Elena at the start of the game, DON'T tell her that you prefer to solve problems with your guns. That permanently puts you on the ACTION path. Instead, tell her that you prefer to solve problems with your brains, which should shift you onto the WITS path.

If only...

[Twig]

If only, indeed.

Playing on easy wouldn't help me. I also hate shooties on consoles. I can't stand them. No, I don't care if this one is actually really good. I can't stand them! The day I stopped playing shooty console games is the day I stopped hating console games.

[Thrik]

To be fair, Uncharted 2 is much more Indiana Jones-esque than Uncharted 1. Unfortunately balls-out gunplay is unavoidable in UC1, whereas I managed to play through the vast majority of UC2 using the stealth options (sneaking, avoiding being spotted, killing with hand-to-hand combat). Uncharted is probably one of the few mainstream shooter series that does let you play most of the games without shooting everything up.

If you run around like a crazy cunt then the game responds by literally tripling the enemies in any given area, whereas if you play it stealthily as Indiana Jones would then you're rewarded with far less baddies to kill — especially the heavier shotgun-wielding ones and shit. You have to enjoy tactical planning to play it like this (Metal Gear Solid and Commandos fans apply now) but it's extremely satisfying slowly working your way through an area rather than just Ramboing it up.

There are areas where you are forced into gunplay and I do wish there were a way to return to sneaking mode for that particular area without killing yourself, just like in Metal Gear Solid. But even then, the gunplay is amongst the best I've encountered in any game and really exciting so long as you're at least competent at shooters. Plus to go back to the Indiana Jones comparison again, it's not like Indie never had a bit of aggro.

I absolutely love the seamlessness between melee combat, gunplay, and environmental destruction that's part and parcel of Uncharted gunfights. It was only UC2 that really hit this mark, and UC3 takes it further with more environmental shit to blow up; more melee moves; the ability to throw grenades back at enemies; and various other refinements. It's fuckin' great.

Basically the games are about as good as it gets unless you're simply averse to shooters regardless of quality, and if this game manages to make use of everything Naughty Dog learnt from them I can't see this being anything but excellent. Apart from the Half-Life games I can't really think of a game that's made me actually think about the poor fucks who've been zombified, be truly upset when certain characters fall, etc. It's time zombie games grew up.

[Murdoc]

so sick of zombies/infected. I'm done and have had enough, 90% of the time(I dont know the real number) its either army dudes or zombies.

[Nappi]

To be fair, Uncharted 2 is much more Indiana Jones-esque than Uncharted 1. Unfortunately balls-out gunplay is unavoidable in UC1, whereas I managed to play through the vast majority of UC2 using the stealth options (sneaking, avoiding being spotted, killing with hand-to-hand combat). Uncharted is probably one of the few mainstream shooter series that does let you play most of the games without shooting everything up.

If you run around like a crazy cunt then the game responds by literally tripling the enemies in any given area, whereas if you play it stealthily as Indiana Jones would then you're rewarded with far less baddies to kill — especially the heavier shotgun-wielding ones and shit. You have to enjoy tactical planning to play it like this (Metal Gear Solid and Commandos fans apply now) but it's extremely satisfying slowly working your way through an area rather than just Ramboing it up.

I'm perhaps a halfway through Uncharted 3, and I haven't seen too many points where I can avoid gunplay. I'm not sure if that's such a big issue though since, in my opinion, the controls don't lend themselves to pure stealth very well, and most of my attempts at sneak attack have failed when Nathan simply refuses to grab the enemy that is behind a cover or something and reveals himself instead. At this point, dozens of enemies start pouring from every orifice of the arena, which is of course not a punishment nor a reward but simply ridiculous and stupid and in many cases very unconvincing and out-of-place.

Still, good games. Just not that good stealth games, in my opinion.

[Thrik]

Yeah I'd agree that UC3 does force you into action a bit more, primarily because the set-pieces kind of rely on it and the game has more of these as a whole than UC2. With that said I do think the game still has ample fun areas for stealthy play, and the enhanced moves and fact that you can now get silenced pistols (stealth kills net you ammo for these) are great. Clearly you can't truly consider these games stealth games, but they do have a considerable element of it and it's been worked into the other stuff really well.

There seems to be an addition in UC3 which is that enemies can completely lose sight of you and can no longer figure out where you are, and revert to a Metal Gear Solid-esque state of caution where they look around more proactively but don't actually know where you are. To be fair this might have been the case in UC2 too, but it's stood out to me in UC3 due to me being forced into pissing enemies off more often.

Overall I've found myself dancing between stealth and gunplay in UC3 and have found the game seems to play its best when you do that rather than going for all-out shooting throughout. To me UC2 seemed a bit more tipped towards being best played with a stealthy approach.

I'll tell you one thing though, I absolutely love the action in UC3. Because of the various approaches to combat all coming together from the previous games with some more on top, I really do feel like a Jack Bauer mother fucker at times. The enemies seem to be more aggressive about forcing you out of cover now which makes me make use of the environment and melee moves a lot more than I did during gunfights in UC2 and some of the improvised shit you pull off is insane and must be great to watch.

[Nappi]

I'll tell you one thing though, I absolutely love the action in UC3. Because of the various approaches to combat all coming together from the previous games with some more on top, I really do feel like a Jack Bauer mother fucker at times. The enemies seem to be more aggressive about forcing you out of cover now which makes me make use of the environment and melee moves a lot more than I did during gunfights in UC2 and some of the improvised shit you pull off is insane and must be great to watch.

This I can agree with completely. I never used melee in Uncharted 2 unless I absolutely had to. In Uncharted 3, on the other hand, I've been fistfighting constantly. It's simply be the best way to take out enemies that are close to you, and you are not punished for it too much, i.e. the other enemies don't immediately shoot you to death. However, I'm still shit with the controller – especially since every fucking game has different button layout – so I'm not using the environment to my advantage as much I'd like to.

[syntheticgerbil]

I really like the new melee stuff more than anything else in Uncharted 3 as well.

Sucks this looks like their new game is going more towards the boring shootfest Uncharted 1 was.

Also, everything about this game already annoys me. Artwise, it's just more of the same looking stuff from Uncharted but more bland because it's just ruined rooms and dilapidated buildings, so boring. The characters bug the hell out of me. I hate that the girl was probably based on Ellen Page, who is already annoying as all hell. Zombies are boring, I'm absolutely tired of this shit. The story seems nonexistent and the characters don't have the same kind of likability of the main characters in Uncharted. This is all speaking maturely from the video preview, but I'm just not at all excited.

I was kind of hoping their next would be a whole different game with a whole different look. This just looks like bland Uncharted with zombies.

[juv3nal]

Sucks this looks like their new game is going more towards the boring shootfest Uncharted 1 was.

I'm at work right now so can't really rewatch the trailer, but I'm wondering where people are getting this impression. From what I recall, the girl is scavenging bullets which gives me more an ammo-is-scarce type vibe which to my mind means that while, sure, there's going to be shooting, makes it kind of the opposite of a shootfest. I mean I don't recall ever really worrying about ammo in the uncharted games...you might be low on ammo for the particular gun you prefer, but there's always something lying around.

[Nappi]

Since it isn't mentioned here yet: Enslaved lead designer is apparently working on this game. I don't what the implications are.

[Gwardinen]

I really like the new melee stuff more than anything else in Uncharted 3 as well.

Sucks this looks like their new game is going more towards the boring shootfest Uncharted 1 was.

Also, everything about this game already annoys me. Artwise, it's just more of the same looking stuff from Uncharted but more bland because it's just ruined rooms and dilapidated buildings, so boring. The characters bug the hell out of me. I hate that the girl was probably based on Ellen Page, who is already annoying as all hell. Zombies are boring, I'm absolutely tired of this shit. The story seems nonexistent and the characters don't have the same kind of likability of the main characters in Uncharted. This is all speaking maturely from the video preview, but I'm just not at all excited.

I was kind of hoping their next would be a whole different game with a whole different look. This just looks like bland Uncharted with zombies.

Where the hell are you getting all this from? By video preview do you mean there's an actual preview up somewhere or are you referencing the trailer? If you're referencing the trailer, do you really believe it's fair to attack the likeability of the characters and the story? I mean, it's two minutes long and it's a reveal trailer, come on. Also, that "this character is probably based on an actress that I happen to not like" criticism is sort of out of left field as well.

If there's an actual preview, please link it and give me the chance to see if I agree with any of the character/story stuff you mentioned.