melmer

The Last of Us

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Will this be something special or just another relatively nice looking video game?

 

Couple of spoiler free development videos

 

 

 

I'm curious at the level of writing/acting, slightly worried after watching those videos... When surrounded by blind fungus zombies who navigate only by sound, why mutter your disapproval of the situation out loud?

 

i still haven't forgiven naught dog for having Nathan Drake lost in a desert for days, almost dying from thirst, not actually finding or drinking any water but still managing to go on another one of his usual mass murdering sprees.

 

Released June 14 (during E3)

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As usual, I'll refrain from judgement until the game is credibly reviewed.

 

Outside of the game, I hugely appreciate the way Naughty Dog are handling the marketing end. From refusing to remove Ellie from the cover: (http://www.vg247.com/2012/12/12/the-last-of-us-acting-out-the-end-of-the-world/) to going out of their way to make sure female focus testers were being hired (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/123139-Devs-Had-to-Demand-Female-Focus-Testers-for-The-Last-of-Us) Naughty Dog are totally sticking to their guns and making sure the classic demographic of white male gamers are not the only ones who are being spoken to in the lead-up to the game's release. (Looking you, Ken Levine) Which does give me hope for the quality of the content of the game itself.

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The way Naughty Dog has been handling the marketing for this game is truly great but not backing down regarding female representation doesn't necessarily mean the game is going to be any good. I'm hopeful though.

 

(Also, it's crazy to me that they had to specifically ask for female focus-testers. The fact that gender parity -- or something close to it -- in your marketing strategy isn't the automatic default seems incredibly short-sighted. No wonder publishers haven't been able to let go of the idea that games will only sell to a specific demographic group.)

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It seems rather self-fulfilling. Male gamers are the largest demo and thus are the ones primarily marketed to... making them the largest demo. So it must be extremely difficult to turn that boat around, and it's totally rad of them to make the attempt.

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I didn't actually know much about this game until I saw those videos. It looks neat.

 

Also, I don't know if it's a problem with me or with the industry that every time I hear a developer for a big new original game like this go "we think we've found a really original and interesting story to tell," my immediate response is to be more skeptical than I would have been otherwise.

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I was really excited until I saw the behind the shoulder gameplay videos from PAX and saw all of the video gamey 3rd person shootery gameplay that seems completely different from that amazing E3 presentation.

Now I'm only cautiously optimistic.

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I haven't watched these videos but I do recall in a prior demo that 1) there's no regenerating health and 2) you don't automatically reload when your clip runs out of bullets (because people aren't psychic). These two facts make me excited about the minute-to-minute gunplay, and will hopefully be enough to keep it from being an otherwise unremarkable 3rd person shooter.

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I was really excited until I learned it was about blind fungus zombies and not about what that original video from E3... last year(?) that got me really hyped made me think the game was about. It was the video with the dude and the girl where he very brutally fought another dude for like a minute instead of a dozen dudes for less than a minute. And now there's blind fungus zombies.

 

|: |: |:

 

I'm exaggerating, but for real: goddamnit.

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Yeah, more zombies and third person shooting, I'll wait for reviews.

 

On a side note, all I can see now in console games is aliasing. Aliasing everywhere, jaggies and warped textures and sparkles and, and the PS4 and "Durango" better hurry up, I'm tired of downrezed, aliased, blurry games. 1080p with ALL the anti aliasing and filtering FTW I say!

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I too was let down by the idea of having some kind of "monster" in this. I'm pretty much with Twig here. 

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Count me in on that. The way it was sold initially was something happened that fucked up earth. But I was under the impression it was just post apocalyptic human issues and it is a lot less interesting now that their are actual mutant zombie things.

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I am totally cool with the strange fungal disease angle. That way you can have those crazy fungal environments with people basically welded into the environment by fungus. I just wish they didn't make such an overt zombie creature. I would have enjoyed it more as an environmental hazard I think? IDK I'm being pretty judgmental for something not out...

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In typical idle-forum style: I was bummed to find out that this game had fungus zombies in it. I think this will be exactly an action game, and it'll be a good one, and there'll be a trilogy of it.

And that's not me being cynical cos I did say it'll be a good one!

 

Have they showed what the last ofus is yet? I heard you n this girl are tryina track down the last ofus, in my mind it's like a magic dog or something, there's only one left.

2429973-ofus.png

Are the mushroom people the ofuses?

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I think Ofus sounds more like an iconic all American snack cake like the Twinkie (no wait, I've just described the plot of zombieland)

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Did they ever "turn" from strictly human encounters to this new Mario with guns approach? I thought the concept had been all along that there was this zombie-like thing going on, and you would face both the victims of that and other, desperate non-infected on your way to the tall skyscraper where these games inevitably end up because of the Citadel in HL2.

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I think they where always heading this way they where just keeping the zombies largely under wraps cause they hadn't finalized art and etc on them. 

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The first trailer definitely did not have any weird fungal zombie bullshit.

 

 

Not as slow-paced as I remember, killing-wise (not a surprise, memory sucks, etc.), but still slower-paced than most third-person shooters by a long shot. All regular dudes. I admit I didn't go reading anything about it after watching that gameplay trailer, but, well, I didn't feel the need to. I was sold. Now: less so. Still could be rad, but ugh I bet you even end up saving the world or some shit. Maybe the girl has magic powers!!!!!

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I'm not sure how you guys missed the presence of zombies being in this game before. The first trailer which got everyone excited in the first place featured them prominently, so much so in fact that Naughty Dog had to keep affirming that it wasn't just 'a zombie game'. In that respect it's no different from Uncharted — all three in that series have featured zombies/monsters of some description.

 

 

Not that I'm saying the idea of another zombie game massively appeals to me, but Naughty Dog seem to be treating it as just one part of a big, dangerous world rather than the sole source of antagonism. That sounds like quite an interesting approach to me as with most zombie games it's a case of 'human good, zombies bad'. Much greyer in this by the looks of it.

 

I dunno, my hunch? This game will be good.

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They got pulp adventure down perfectly with the Uncharteds – either they're just good at pulp adventure, in which case this game will be way too fast-paced, hilarious and full of collapsing explosions, or they're simply good at nailing a genre or setting, in which case this will probably be one of the great dark, post-apocalyptic action-survive-em-up franchises. I hope for the latter, of course.

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I definitely remember that trailer now that I see it, but I have no idea why anyone got excited about it. It's nothing unique, thematically, and is completely cinematic, so supplies no reason to get PUMPED gameplay-wise. I apparently completely blocked it out of my mind, and didn't even remember Last of Us existed when I later watched the 2012 gameplay trailer. Assumed THAT was the big reveal. Herp.

 

I still didn't even know what the fungal zombie nerds looked like until I watched that again. Haven't bothered to look any of it up since reading about it here. MERHRHRHRRR.

 

EDIT: I mean, the game will be great. Of that I have no doubt. Naughty Dog is quality. I don't really CARE, because I absolutely can not play console shooters, no matter how non-shooty they are. It's an exercise in frustration for me, every time. Closest I can get is Ratcher & Clank. REGARDLESS: It'll be a quality game. It's just that it's probably no longer one I'll regret not playing or bother trying to force myself to acclimate. I'M THAT DISAPPOINTED.

 

Also all this shit makes me sound way more emotionally invested in this than I really am. I'm great.

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I'm still optimistic about this game. Naughty Dog has (pretty) good writers. Maybe the narrative dissonance of Uncharted will be less because instead of blowing away a million dudes as Nathan Drake, you probably will only blow away a thousand dudes as Joel. Maybe Ellie develops in a similar fashion to Clementine but slightly older and more competent (Clementine + Elizabeth combination as a companion character?). We will see.

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Ellie will blatantly be immune to the fungus and you'll need to get her/her blood somewhere to create a vaccine

 

i'd be happily amazed if that isn't the story

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The only video of gameplay or a trailer was that playthrough where you fight a few bad dudes (humans). It was I think about a 7 minute playthrough and it was only dealing with a few guys.

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Ellie will blatantly be immune to the fungus and you'll need to get her/her blood somewhere to create a vaccine

 

i'd be happily amazed if that isn't the story

 

Solid.

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