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The Last of Us

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I disagree with the general argument here that the story is undermined by the gameplay. I think both are done rather well and complement each other in impressive and interesting ways. The story would not nearly have had the impact that it had if you weren't playing as a violent psychopath. So much of the weight of the narrative is based on the depths to which Joel has sunk, the ends to which he has gone to survive. An effective way for the player to understand these extremes is to experience them, to act them out, to see the necessity of the actions taken. The question is never about whether or not to kill, it's about how to survive. Are there a few places where this falls flat and feels more contrived than sincere? Certainly, but by and large I felt that Naughty Dog succeeded at placing me in the characters' shoes and allowing me to see the world as they saw it and expressed it in the cutscenes. (I also think this is somewhat subverted by the end but even that is very cleverly done).

 

ND has always been lauded for their narrative accomplishments more than their gameplay, and while I do think the narrative is what makes the game extra special, I also think they've come a long way in limiting the dissonance of the mechanics in relation to the narrative. Many of the mechanics actually remind me of what Spec Ops was going for. The brutal kills are brutal for a reason. Not for torture porn or to appeal to AAA dudebros, but to never allow dispatching enemies to become mundane. It's never easy. You are ripping the life away from the people you kill and the game is saying something about that. Whether its successful in that pursuit is of course up for discussion but I don't think it's a simple as saying the cutscenes are taking place in a totally different universe than the game. For one thing, the story is not simply a depiction of a hardened murderer growing a heart. The emotional connection between the characters is viewed through the prism of murder and violence, it never escapes this framing not least at the end.

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I disagree with the general argument here that the story is undermined by the gameplay. I think both are done rather well and complement each other in impressive and interesting ways. The story would not nearly have had the impact that it had if you weren't playing as a violent psychopath. So much of the weight of the narrative is based on the depths to which Joel has sunk, the ends to which he has gone to survive. An effective way for the player to understand these extremes is to experience them, to act them out, to see the necessity of the actions taken. The question is never about whether or not to kill, it's about how to survive. Are there a few places where this falls flat and feels more contrived than sincere? Certainly, but by and large I felt that Naughty Dog succeeded at placing me in the characters' shoes and allowing me to see the world as they saw it and expressed it in the cutscenes. (I also think this is somewhat subverted by the end but even that is very cleverly done).

 

ND has always been lauded for their narrative accomplishments more than their gameplay, and while I do think the narrative is what makes the game extra special, I also think they've come a long way in limiting the dissonance of the mechanics in relation to the narrative. Many of the mechanics actually remind me of what Spec Ops was going for. The brutal kills are brutal for a reason. Not for torture porn or to appeal to AAA dudebros, but to never allow dispatching enemies to become mundane. It's never easy. You are ripping the life away from the people you kill and the game is saying something about that. Whether its successful in that pursuit is of course up for discussion but I don't think it's a simple as saying the cutscenes are taking place in a totally different universe than the game. For one thing, the story is not simply a depiction of a hardened murderer growing a heart. The emotional connection between the characters is viewed through the prism of murder and violence, it never escapes this framing not least at the end.

 

Speaking only for myself, I don't particularly disagree with any of that. It's not that the brutal kills are brutal that I have a problem with - it's that it only goes the one way. What undermines the story is that Joel personally kills, by hand, hundreds of people, and Joel comes out the other side of it no worse for wear. He's not a survivor, he's the Video Game ProtagonistTM who clears the boards of countless enemies every time at no personal cost. He's a superhuman, not a person who did what he had to to survive.

 

ENDING SPOILERS

So by the end, when he is facing down the conveniently alone leader of the fireflies in that hospital parkade, Joel didn't even seem like a character to me because he had just destroyed floors of heavily armed and armored soldiers, kills her with his one-liner and drives off. "Nuance" wasn't the word that was coming to mind.

 

Like Lara Croft or Max Payne, it doesn't matter that he got impaled by rebar or had to fight through 80 dudes to get there. He just always goddamn wins.

 

The rebar thing especially, because they were treating it so seriously until Ellie got captured. You spend a short section with Joel holding his gut and he's fine again. It ended up as more of an (admittedly awesome) excuse to play as Ellie.

 

The version of this game that I might be arguing for doesn't at all preclude anything you wrote, just a less absurd treatment of the kinds of odds Joel faced so regularly. It ain't about killing or not killing, it's about killing so often and always winning while, in the cutscenes, the story doesn't acknowledge that Joel is the second coming of the White Death.

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Speaking only for myself, I don't particularly disagree with any of that. It's not that the brutal kills are brutal that I have a problem with - it's that it only goes the one way. What undermines the story is that Joel personally kills, by hand, hundreds of people, and Joel comes out the other side of it no worse for wear. He's not a survivor, he's the Video Game ProtagonistTM who clears the boards of countless enemies every time at no personal cost. He's a superhuman, not a person who did what he had to to survive.

I haven't finished the game yet, so I can't respond to your spoiler. But I don't understand why we expect that violence must change a character in a story for the worse. We don't have that expectation in other media: I can think of dozens of movies, books, and plays that involve a lot of violence and killing--as much if not more so than the Last of Us--and which don't feature the protagonist suffering great personal cost, and many of these books, movies, and plays are considered to be "good". Killing plays a major role in a lot of really classic stories, and I would argue that in may of those stories violence is not portrayed as something inherently traumatic. Not to beat a dead horse, but Odysseus slaughters at least a hundred people before reuniting with his wife in the Odyssey, which is one of the seminal narratives in Western culture.

Maybe it would help if I illustrated with a quote from the Odyssey to show exactly what I mean. Here's some excerpts from the battle with the suitors, which comes at the end of Odyssey when Odysseus comes home to find a hundred or so suitors attempting to woo his wife.

Throwing off his rags, resourceful Odysseus sprang to the wide threshold with the bow and the full quiver, poured the arrows out at his feet, and addressed the Suitors: ‘Here is a clear end to the contest. Now I’ll see if I can hit another target no man has as yet, and may Apollo grant my prayer!’

So saying, he aimed a deadly shaft at Antinous, who was handling a fine golden two-handled cup, about to raise it to his lips and sip the wine, his thoughts far from death. How should he guess among the feasting crowd, that one man however powerful he might be could dare to bring a vile death and a dark doom on him? But Odysseus took aim and shot him through the neck. The point passed clean through the tender throat, and Antinous sank to one side, the cup falling at that moment from his hand, while a thick jet of blood gushed from his nostrils. His foot kicked the table away, dashing the food to the floor, and the bread and meat were fouled.

...

At this, their hearts trembled and their knees shook, but Eurymachus spoke again, saying: ‘Friends, since this man will not restrain his hands, but with the gleaming bow and quiver in his hands intends to fire from the smooth sill till he kills us all, to battle! Draw your swords, and use the tables as shields against his death-dealing arrows. Then let’s rush him together, and try and push him from the threshold, run to the city and raise the alarm: then he’ll have shot his bolt.’

With this he drew his sharp bronze two-edged sword, and sprang at Odysseus with a great cry. But at that very moment noble Odysseus let fly an arrow that struck him in the chest below the nipple, and the swift shaft pierced his liver. Eurymachus let the sword drop from his hand. Sprawling across the table he doubled over and fell, spilling the food and the two-handled wine-cup to the floor. His forehead beat the ground in his last agony, his feet kicked out and rattled the chair, and the mist poured over his eyes.

...

Now Odysseus wounded Agelaus, Damastor’s son, with a thrust of his great spear at close range, while Telemachus hurt Leocritus, Evenor’s son, thrusting his bronze-tipped spear straight through his groin, so that he fell face forward, striking the ground with his forehead. Now from high in the roof Athene held out her fatal aegis, and the Suitors’ minds were filled with panic. They fled through the hall like a herd of cattle goaded and stung by the darting gadflies in spring, when the long days arrive. Odysseus and the others, set upon them, like vultures from the mountains, with crooked talons and curving beaks, swooping on smaller birds that skim the plain beneath the clouds. The birds have no defence or means of escape, and men exult at the chase. So they set about the Suitors, striking left and right through the hall. Hideous groans rose from them, as heads were cleft, and the floor was drenched with blood.

...

She found Odysseus standing among the corpses, spattered with blood and gore, like a lion come from feeding on a farm bullock, his face and chest drenched with blood, a gruesome spectacle. Odysseus was stained like that from head to foot. Yet she, on seeing the pile of bodies weltering in their blood, was ready to shout aloud in exultation at what had been done.

The violence here is graphic and intended to excite the audience, in pretty much exactly the same way it is used in action movies and violent video games. In the next scene, Odysseus--presumably still drenched in blood--is reunited with his wife, who after confirming his identity, falls rapturously into his arms. Despite having just slaughtered scores of enemies, Odysseus is no worse for wear.

I feel there is a danger in over-emphasizing the problem of "body count" in games. It is OK for a story to be serious sometimes, and wildly violent at other times. And a story can be violent without needing to explore the effect of violence on the characters. Stories and games use violence in different ways; violence for the sake of excitement or action or catharsis is one of those way. If you disagree with this premise, then I don't see how you could say that literary works like the Odyssey are any good, or how you could enjoy movies like Django Unchained. Violent action is a mode of storytelling with a very long pedigree and one that is not inconsistent with telling a serious story. I don't mean that any use of violence is good storytelling. But I do think that "this game has a high body count and therefore can't tell a serious story" is a dubious criticism when considered in the context of our culture.

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I see what you're arguing, Daesin, but not only is comparing The Last of Us to The Odyssey kind of a stretch, but comparing an alleged everyman like Joel to the epic hero Odysseus -- great-grandson of Hermes, beloved of Athena, and consort to Circe -- is even more so.

 

These two characters are native to two different mediums and part of two different stories with very different themes, so I don't see how the presence of certain elements in one makes the criticism of them in the other any more or less valid.

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I see what you're arguing, Daesin, but not only is comparing The Last of Us to The Odyssey kind of a stretch, but comparing an alleged everyman like Joel to the epic hero Odysseus -- great-grandson of Hermes, beloved of Athena, and consort to Circe -- is even more so.

 

These two characters are native to two different mediums and part of two different stories with very different themes, so I don't see how the presence of certain elements in one makes the criticism of them in the other any more or less valid.

I think it's pretty useful to situate video games in a broader context. Narrative in video games is necessarily going to be informed by other mediums and stories. I am not saying that the Last of Us is the same as The Odyssey, but I think contrasting the two can provide useful insight. The Odyssey also seemed apt because, like the Last of Us, it is about a character who has to overcome obstacles in the course of a long, meandering journey.

But if you don't like that example, what about Django Unchained? Clearly a very violent movie that uses violence often just to entertain or provide emotional catharsis, but also a movie that (successfully, in my view) tells a serious story with some serious emotional heft. My overall point remains the same: a story can have both cathartic violence and emotional heft; the fact that a hero kills a million dudes doesn't mean that the hero can't miss his wife or daughter. A story can employ violence without necessarily exploring the effect of violence on a real person's psyche.

Just as an aside, I always thought that Odysseus is a sort of proto-everyman. He's sometimes scared and sometimes cunning, he's proud and over-curious, he misses his family and yearns to be home. Odysseus has always seemed like a pretty "real" person to me, in a way that a lot of classical heroes do not. He's fallible and very, very human.

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I think it's pretty useful to situate video games in a broader context. Narrative in video games is necessarily going to be informed by other mediums and stories. I am not saying that the Last of Us is the same as The Odyssey, but I think contrasting the two can provide useful insight. The Odyssey also seemed apt because, like the Last of Us, it is about a character who has to overcome obstacles in the course of a long, meandering journey.

But if you don't like that example, what about Django Unchained? Clearly a very violent movie that uses violence often just to entertain or provide emotional catharsis, but also a movie that (successfully, in my view) tells a serious story with some serious emotional heft. My overall point remains the same: a story can have both cathartic violence and emotional heft; the fact that a hero kills a million dudes doesn't mean that the hero can't miss his wife or daughter. A story can employ violence without necessarily exploring the effect of violence on a real person's psyche.

Just as an aside, I always thought that Odysseus is a sort of proto-everyman. He's sometimes scared and sometimes cunning, he's proud and over-curious, he misses his family and yearns to be home. Odysseus has always seemed like a pretty "real" person to me, in a way that a lot of classical heroes do not. He's fallible and very, very human.

 

I thought Django Unchained's final crazy shootout was a perfect example of Tarantino betraying the tone he set because he loves crazy shootouts. It's great that it didn't bother you, but it bothered the heck out of me, even though it worked for me in previous works of his.

 

And anyway, all characters overcome obstacles on a journey, whether internal or external. That's the definition of a story, leaving out postmodern stuff. What I'm saying is that, while I haven't played The Last of Us, any comparison of a video game pretending towards emotional realism with a Homeric epic is probably pretty tenuous. Odysseus navigates a magical landscape, filled with gods, monsters, and myths. The people he encounters don't behave like real people, they behave like the legends they are. Apart from the zombies, which a lot of fans have told me are the least consequential part of The Last of Us, there isn't really anything fantastical in the game to parallel that, right? I mean, there's not even any pretensions of grindhouse or spaghetti western aesthetic that explain the crazy shootout in Django Unchained. There are complex thematic underpinnings to certain stories that make a mass-murdering protagonist workable, but it sounds like The Last of Us is missing them, which is why the comparison rings false to me.

 

Plus, Odysseus is definitely not an everyman. All the obstacles he faces, he overcomes with preternatural cunning and charisma, while his everyman crewmates die by the boatload. We meet a true everyman in The Illiad and his names is Thersites. He's beaten to shit by Odysseus for his lowborn and presumptuous nature. Odysseus may seem more human, but that doesn't mean he's not another classic Homeric hero.

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Speaking only for myself, I don't particularly disagree with any of that. It's not that the brutal kills are brutal that I have a problem with - it's that it only goes the one way. What undermines the story is that Joel personally kills, by hand, hundreds of people, and Joel comes out the other side of it no worse for wear. He's not a survivor, he's the Video Game ProtagonistTM who clears the boards of countless enemies every time at no personal cost. He's a superhuman, not a person who did what he had to to survive.

 

ENDING SPOILERS

So by the end, when he is facing down the conveniently alone leader of the fireflies in that hospital parkade, Joel didn't even seem like a character to me because he had just destroyed floors of heavily armed and armored soldiers, kills her with his one-liner and drives off. "Nuance" wasn't the word that was coming to mind.

 

Like Lara Croft or Max Payne, it doesn't matter that he got impaled by rebar or had to fight through 80 dudes to get there. He just always goddamn wins.

 

The rebar thing especially, because they were treating it so seriously until Ellie got captured. You spend a short section with Joel holding his gut and he's fine again. It ended up as more of an (admittedly awesome) excuse to play as Ellie.

 

The version of this game that I might be arguing for doesn't at all preclude anything you wrote, just a less absurd treatment of the kinds of odds Joel faced so regularly. It ain't about killing or not killing, it's about killing so often and always winning while, in the cutscenes, the story doesn't acknowledge that Joel is the second coming of the White Death.

 

That's an interesting perspective. I can't say I share the impression of Joel as an impermeable character. I agree that he's far more powerful than your average guy (by video game necessity), but it never felt like I was eluding death in over the top, cartoonish ways. The franticness of the combat and the slim margins by which I escaped many of them allowed for my sustained suspension of disbelief that I was inhabiting a human character rather than piloting a cardboard avatar.

 

At the same time, I did die and reload quite a few times. It's a tough game. I almost like to think of my deaths as Bioshock Infinite esque timelines. "And then Joel was hit on the back of the head with a brick and died. The end." It does ultimately make more sense than being able to survive so many encounters over and over again. In reality, you wouldn't. Still, good storytelling is able to account for its - sometimes necessary - implausibility and for the most part I think TLOU does this adequately.

 

As for the last act spoilers:

While it is hilarious a rebar injury shows up in both games I think it's interesting that Lara Croft shakes off her wound in a few minutes while Joel Video gameman comes very close to dying from his wound. Even when he gets back up to find Ellie he's been recovering for what appears to be weeks and moves stiffly and slowly. It was enough for me to see these details that suggested a long and arduous recovery. (rather than a scene change with no discernable time passing as in Tomb Raider)

 

I actually thought the final moments of the game were brilliant. The Spec Ops comparison is worth bringing up again. You've been playing the game as a violent thug all along, why wouldn't your character continue to be one even during the supposedly happy ending? What I felt and what I have heard from different reviewers was disappointment that Joel chose to sacrifice the world for his own personal gain. It was thus a subversion of my own agency as a player. Despite what I said earlier about association with Joel's end goals, his actions in the last act take it farther than I was ready to go. Sociopathy - even when necessitated by a brutal world - manifests in a disregard for the lives of others. I couldn't commit to this because ultimately I'm only briefly stepping into the character of a man who has lived 20 years in a broken uncivilized world. But narratively, destroying the only remaining hope of mankind and then lying about it, makes perfect heartbreaking sense for Joel's character. Shooting Marlene, who is considered a protagonist, would make Joel a bad guy, by traditional moral dichotomies. But that means you were playing as the bad guy (and are referred to as such by David). Except not really (because David was also bad and the fireflies motives are dubious). It's a very ambiguous ending which stayed with me for a while after finishing the game. So I would not say it's without nuance.

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Much of what I take issue with is tied up in how The Last of Us ends.

 

Dasein (high-five for Heidegger, by the way), I am not arguing that "this game has a high body count and therefore can't tell a serious story," or that the game must explore the "effect of violence on a real person's psyche." I am arguing that the way the game sets up it's last act highlights how contrived Joel's superhuman ability to kill and the plot armor he is protected by.

 

The spell broke for me. The thing is, I'm not exactly wanting to convince you to feel a certain way. I had a reaction to the end that sucked. I don't think it is the "right" reaction that everyone should have or some such, but there are concrete things I can point to as problematic in the last act.The problem is, it requires discussing the ending.

 

Much of The Last of Us was a joy for me, and the conversation I want to have about it is for taking the game in as a whole. I would be resistant to what I am saying about Joel if I were partway through myself.

 

As for the last act spoilers:

While it is hilarious a rebar injury shows up in both games I think it's interesting that Lara Croft shakes off her wound in a few minutes while Joel Video gameman comes very close to dying from his wound. Even when he gets back up to find Ellie he's been recovering for what appears to be weeks and moves stiffly and slowly. It was enough for me to see these details that suggested a long and arduous recovery. (rather than a scene change with no discernable time passing as in Tomb Raider)

 

I actually thought the final moments of the game were brilliant. The Spec Ops comparison is worth bringing up again. You've been playing the game as a violent thug all along, why wouldn't your character continue to be one even during the supposedly happy ending? What I felt and what I have heard from different reviewers was disappointment that Joel chose to sacrifice the world for his own personal gain. It was thus a subversion of my own agency as a player. Despite what I said earlier about association with Joel's end goals, his actions in the last act take it farther than I was ready to go. Sociopathy - even when necessitated by a brutal world - necessitates a disregard for the lives of others. I couldn't commit to this because ultimately I'm only briefly stepping into the character of a man who has lived 20 years in a broken uncivilized world. But narratively, destroying the only remaining hope of mankind and then lying about it, makes perfect heartbreaking sense for Joel's character. Shooting Marlene, who is considered a protagonist, would make Joel a bad guy, by traditional moral dichotomies. But that means you were playing as the bad guy (and are referred to as such by David). Except not really (because David was also bad and the fireflies motives are dubious). It's a very ambiguous ending which stayed with me for a while after finishing the game. So I would not say it's without nuance.

It just all felt so distant and contrived to me in a way it hadn't for the entire game. I honestly wonder if all it would've taken (for me) is for there to perhaps have been just one set piece of soldiers with M4's and Kevlar in the generic darkened hospital hallways instead of multiples of them. Or to not have audio-logs that require you to stay stationary to listen to while presumably Ellie is going to be dissected. Or for the setup to be less forced than "we're killing Ellie, now get escorted out of the building by a single soldier a few floors below the surgery room but next to all your weapons and gear." Or that when you are a surgeon on an operation you believe might save humanity - and you hear a series of firefights happening closer and closer to the operating room - you might decide to stop scrubbing up and get the girl somehere else. Or that Marlene wouldn't do the narratively convenient thing of appearing alone as the last obstacle between Joel and freedom.

 

 

I don't know. All the interesting things about Joel's decision fell flat on me because it all felt so prescribed. I remember clearly thinking at the time, "I guess this is what they are doing."

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Just finished the game... god damn that was an ending.  Played through the first half over like 3 months but ripped the last third over the last two days and wasn't disappointed.

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Sorry, I haven't played the game yet, or read everything in the thread, but I saw the word dénouement and just realized that aren't basically the vast vast vast majority of games almost completely missing this from the dramatic structure? Usually the final conflict escalates right up to the end, then a short video is played, and 30 minutes of credits (considering recent AAA examples). At least some recent games have (smartly, I think) not made the "end boss" super-hard so you can relax a bit at the very end.

 

Some cases, I'm not sure about, e.g. in The Witcher 2 after

you fight the dragon

there is some resolution and falling tension in case you decide

not to fight Letho, but if I remember correctly you could also decide to fight him, and then the very ending adds additional tension before a short video plays

 

I love games that let you actually play a little bit more after the final challenge has resolved. I think LBA did this, but can't remember many more... There are of course open world games that let you keep playing, but that's not the same.

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I wrote about the ending over on the site I write for. Forgive me if it strikes you as a little bit like an armchair game writer. The point is that I spend so much time criticising stuff and nto really proposing solutions that I thought I might try it for once (well twice, seeing as I included a piece I wrote back in 2012)

 

http://www.arcadianrhythms.com/2013/09/what-i-was-looking-for-in-the-ending-of-the-last-of-us/

 

I wrote it a while back but it didn't get published until now but damn the Idle Thumbs podcast for talking about the ending almost in sync with my article's release!

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Sorry, I haven't played the game yet, or read everything in the thread, but I saw the word dénouement and just realized that aren't basically the vast vast vast majority of games almost completely missing this from the dramatic structure? Usually the final conflict escalates right up to the end, then a short video is played, and 30 minutes of credits (considering recent AAA examples). At least some recent games have (smartly, I think) not made the "end boss" super-hard so you can relax a bit at the very end.

 

Some cases, I'm not sure about, e.g. in The Witcher 2 after

you fight the dragon

there is some resolution and falling tension in case you decide

not to fight Letho, but if I remember correctly you could also decide to fight him, and then the very ending adds additional tension before a short video plays

 

I love games that let you actually play a little bit more after the final challenge has resolved. I think LBA did this, but can't remember many more... There are of course open world games that let you keep playing, but that's not the same.

 

 

Red Dead Redemption is the absolute best for this, if you haven't played it. It is necessary that you experience it if this interests you.

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Red Dead Redemption is the absolute best for this, if you haven't played it. It is necessary that you experience it if this interests you.

yeah, I've played it and loved the ending. Although with open world games the dramatic structure is more in the player's control anyway

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So I've been really cynical and jaded about a lot of AAA games released over the last couple of years, but I finally started playing The Last of Us.  Holy crap is this a good game. It restores some of my faith in the big studios.

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I feel so awkward saying this, but I don't really see the fuss about The Last of Us so far...

 

Ellie is the most interesting part, but she doesn't work as well as Walking's Dead Clementine in the sense of getting emotionally attached to her. Most enemies ignore her so I never feel like I'm protecting her and I also don't sense an arc of "in the end, she'll be the one protecting you" or you'll see her grow.

 

So far, it's Uncharted with Zombies Clickers, and after getting through a house full of bandits, which was awful, I REALLY don't see why this game is regarded so highly. I feel like either I didn't really understand the stealth mechanics and I really don't enjoy the combat.... everything is still a bullet sponge... I'm playing on Easy and humans are surviving a shotgun at point black range sometimes. The arrows don't work half as well as in other "arrow games", specially since they bloody arc. I'm sorry, but seeing this guy's strength it's BS that the arrows so little range, even my spaghetti arms could do better. :| 

 

I mean, I don't think it's a bad game, I just don't see why everybody is saying it's GOTY.cx material.

 

The game gets extra annoying when you have a partner since quite a few times they've shot people I was stealth killing, ruining everything I had planned.

 

It's pretty though....  :deranged:

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How far are you exactly?  I used the bow and arrow almost exclusively unless I managed to get into some serious shit.  I feel like playing on easy is not the way to go.  Hell I played on normal and felt like I should have switched it to hard.  But since I was playing at my sister's(I don't have a ps3) I just stuck with what was good with time. As far as story goes, well, all I can really say is keep playing.  It's probably my goty because of how the story is handled both within and out of cutscene.  

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Right now :

Ellie got captured by cannibals...

Urg, the game now feels like Uncharted trying to rip-off TT's Walking Dead and doing it poorly.

 

OBVIOUSLY Ellie can't save the day, she's a woman and underage! BIG BURLY MAN to the rescue!

 

The arrows break way too often, they SUCK! This game feels too "AAA-ish", too much filler, too much of a wild goose chase, just how many times will they tell us the voyage will end when we reach "X" only to say "OOPS! Everybody is dead here! Move along!".

 

I'm really peeved, it's seems I spend HOURS killing boring thugs and only get to deal with clikcers for five minutes before I have to kill humans again.

 

I hate fighting humans, putting the game on anything higher than easy would just make it more tedious. Then again, I wouldn't mind fighting harder humans if the game didn't feel so long...

 

Sigh, I'm really getting sick of AAA games.

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If you're that far and not connecting it just must not be your thing.  I was hooked well before that, and found winter to be the best bit.  On difficulty: it feels like it should be played harder to heighten the sense of survival, I got it in little bits on normal, but felt it was a bit easy mostly, where shit hitting the fan were the most fun parts.  As weird as it sounds, I think easy isn't the way to go,  The most satisfaction I got was barely making it out of conflicts.  In fact I was pretty surprised that you aren't a bullet sponge, at least not to the extent of most games.

 

I used the bow most of the time and rarely ran out of arrows.

 

Of course it feels AAA, it's a AAA game. However I think it's more than that designation.  There's heart to it in a way most big games don't have.

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Right now :

Ellie got captured by cannibals...

Urg, the game now feels like Uncharted trying to rip-off TT's Walking Dead and doing it poorly.

 

OBVIOUSLY Ellie can't save the day, she's a woman and underage! BIG BURLY MAN to the rescue!

 

I'd advise you to keep playing just because of this comment, but it really doesn't sound like you're enjoying it so maybe I won't.

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