The Last of Us - it's the time of the season

http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/the-last-of-us

"The Last of Us is a masterpiece, PlayStation 3's best exclusive and an absolute must-play."

zombies? do i have to?

it does sound pretty fucking cool tho

really wish i could play this :(

zombies? do i have to?

feeling this but will get it anyway. i'll wait for used copy at least

i have tried to get excited by this but yeah zombies post-apocalypse gritty survival blarrrgh

ha, but i thought you liked the Metro games?

i also keep confusing this with like 7 other games, like that ellen page one and whatever "remember me" is

the 2010s also seem to be the era of the "strong protagonist helps waify young dark haired girl with a smart haircut achieve her goals"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbNmmK9Bhzw

i liked metro 2033 because its the king of interesting background mostly - any game that makes me want to hang out and listen to as many npc conversations as possible is an all time achievement tbh.

the 2010s also seem to be the era of the "strong protagonist helps waify young dark haired girl with a smart haircut achieve her goals"
― O_o-O_O-o_O (jjjusten), Thursday, June 6, 2013 12:24 PM

haha true. at least here she doesn't have a huge head n eyes like a thrift store keane painting (bioschlock)

i am kind of resigned to the fact that despite my better judgment i will go for a walk one lunchtime and suddenly find myself somehow holding a copy of this game with 60 bucks missing from my wallet

someone should make a game where you play as the waify girl trying to escape from the dude who keeps trying to help you + killing people.

^ dlc

main character looks like drake w/ a beard

http://i.imgur.com/PN3c5JS.jpg

lol.

"GAMING'S CITIZEN KANE MOMENT"

oh good lord shut the fuck up

the gaming yankee foxtrot hotel has arrived

ok haha so despite not actually starring ellen page, the character from this looks uh exactly like ellen page?!

wait, they got 10/10 from God as a Geek????????? *runs to store*

and her characters name? you guessed it: frank stallone ellie

OFFICIAL PLAYSTATION MAGAZINE says "this PS exclusive is a MUST-BUY"

http://images.crispygamer.com/public/column-2288/kanethegame.jpg

never forget

actually, is there a gritty adventure narrative rhythm game out there? I would totally play that

just play bit trip runner on a half broken black and white tv, that should get you there

until i see video demonstrating otherwise i assume this game is just zombie uncharted with some handwringing over the murdering

gameplay looks the same, the molotov cocktail throw in the video above is exactly like uncharted grenades. i think main difference is that its more rpg, open world, carrying items, etc. i could be wrong tho

the laboured choking and the head-smashing are quite different from the tone of uncharted

actually this isn't rpg at all so nm

ok i am getting this tomorrow and if it is anything less than gaming's citizen kane moment i am going to have been misled by advertising yet again

this isnt the citizen kane of gaming... citizen kane is the The Last Of Us of cinema

http://deadhomersociety.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/tellmemore.png

that jpg has many ilx appropriate applications

my hopes for this game are right around the level of gaming's lethal weapon moment, or at my most giddily optmstic, gaming's ghostbusters moment, although the original ghostbusters game had a fair claim to that distinction.

it was pretty cool but man the loading times

gaming's citizen kane with andy warhol's loading times

day 1 server issues :B

https://twitter.com/Naughty_Dog/status/345591249148985344

http://thecitizenkaneofvideogames.tumblr.com/

i am not sure this is gaming's citizen kane moment, but it is very good

it doesn't start off promisingly - for the first few sections of the game it doesn't hold your hand so much as take the controller, sit you down with a hot drink, and say 'listen, let me do this bit ok?'. but it gets beyond that, although it never quite stops giving you helpful nudges. it feels initially like it is aiming for Uncharted: Heavy Rain of Zombies but once it gets going it surpasses that low bar without effort. the basic gameplay is very simple and i did wonder if i really wanted to throw however many hours at doing the same thing over and over, but the game manages to keep contriving situations that refuse to let you just fall back on what worked last time, and that is probably the most impressive achievement. it's never scary but it is frequently intense. however it is as linear as all get out, no more illusion of choice of direction than i dunno operation wolf, so if you have a philosophical problem with that look elsewhere i guess.

supplies are scarce enough that you actually have to think about what your doing, which is essential for a game like this to work and if i'd have had to pick a place they'd have gone wrong that probably would've been it. it does look great, and the recognizable bits of boston at the start are very cool. the story and the characters and the voice acting etc are all at least reasonably intelligent but as usual the assumption is that gamers are impervious to subtlety, so none of it is what it could or should be to deserve the critical jizz.

so yeah, it is very good. it's paced so you can't put the controller down because you always feel like you're in the middle of something, but there is also a genuine feeling of not wanting to stop, of wanting to know what's next, and that's as much of a recommendation as anything imo.

how much space does it need to install on ps3? (ive only got the 12gb hd)

it's 26gb so it will want 52 gb (!) to download and install.

i mean from disc version - i've written off ever downloading anything on this flimsy thing

operation wolf!! i have not thought about that game in literally years

Anyone else getting a Children of Men vibe from this?

getting a citizen kane vibe
for christmas
lil orson welles head that takes three AA batteries

hey remember how you were like man i love uncharted's shitty gameplay but all these engaging characters and this breezy story are really dragging me down? have i got the game for u

like right at the beginning of the game this little girl dies and it's like who cares but the protagonist is fuckin freaking out and it's just like that heavy rain glitch video where dude is like SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWN

lmao

This is good so far!

@Tracer, I googled and around 5min mark you'll see this hotel from Pittsburgh in the original game which I may have been remembering wrong:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MTWUlDDQzw

I've played "Fade Into You" and "Just Like Heaven" on the guitar minigame,
if I could remember any other chord progressions I'd have given those a shot too.

slight spoiler..

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so i finally got to that scene with nora. when ellie comes back she says she got the info, but... how? nora refused! leading to the “moment of moral indecision” we see (which isn’t really, because anything else would be MORE cruel, given the slow gruesome transformation that awaits)

My interpretation below.
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Even though the scene cuts to black, I assumed she kept hitting Nora afterwards, who eventually broke, which explains why Ellie is so shaken when she's goes back to the theater. Up to this point, she's killed as a matter of survival, but never in such a cruel and calculated way where she's had to inflict pain and suffering. (The closest experience she's had was with David, and that was another horrible trauma that left its mark on her.) It's a heartbreaking scene for me, that she had to transform into Joel, and her realizing the cost on her when she was alone with Dina.

Right okay. Feel like those three blows would have finished Nora off toot sweet but you must be right.

Something this game is really good at is that the combat never feels like a shooting gallery. The enemies aren't amazingly bright but they're mobile and relatively unpredictable. The first game settled into a bit of a pattern of cover, wait for them to stick their heads out, pop them, move on - which we've all seen in a million games like RDR, Uncharted etc - but the gunplay here pretty much always feels panicky and cumbersome and not guaranteed. Enemies will just go ahead and walk around things and get behind your cover, or close in from multiple angles.

Oh boy I think I’ve reached the misery simulator part of the game.

Finished it.
I loved it, ultimately. It's not flawless - a thing this big with this level of sprawl, sort of, can't be by definition - but it worked for me. Calling it a misery simulator far too glib, like jmm said. The game is beautfiul and epic, and traumatic and miserable, but filled with moments of joy and humanity as well.
Does anyone else want a spoiler thread?

I haven't been playing it, just watching a full play-through on youtube in parts. It's amazing how thorough the set design is... They did a great job keeping models and layouts from looking recycled. There's some reused furniture models here and there but on the most part every apartment, house or unique space feels totally believable. It's so immersive and fun to try to imagine all the environments pre-apocalypse in a constant game of before/after. I love the way it snakes the player through it all as well; almost nothing is a one way in one way out. All sorts of zig zagging through a tunnel made up of random rooms or arbitrary sections of buildings and alleys/yards etc. all effectively contributes to the feeling that the city and yesterday's society is 100% ancient history. Every object or area is repurposed by the survivors as resourcefully as possible. Anyway they put a lot of meticulous care into designing the game universe. Thumbs up.

This is probably a really dim question, but some of the shops & locations in Seattle were also in the first game, right? I mean apart from the hospital. Like, there's a music shop with an upstairs where I feel certain I wrecked a few clickers one time in the first game.

Does anyone else want a spoiler thread?

We could use this thread, though we'd probably want to add a spoiler warning in the title:
No more pallet puzzles: THE LAST OF US PART II

Anyway, it's heartening to hear that Part 2 isn't just unremitting bleakness, though I'm in a section that's pretty light on levity -- the first game is unflinchingly grim too but has loads of beautiful and hilarious moments.

LOL, I was the last post in that thread and forgot it existed

I think the misery simulator is replaying the sex scene over and over as a Ludovico technique.

damn, Abby is JACKED.

Wait, are you talking about the gratuitous sex scene?

It's official: I've seen the start screen of this, which means I'll probably start "The Last of Us" this week. (I assume the title is a reference to the handful who have not played it yet.)

I played most of the first one but I found it so long that I eventually just looked up the ending on YouTube lol

I’ll also be starting it as soon as I can dispatch of the last twenty chapters of death stranding

Game on! It's interesting coming to this after "God of War," which refines a lot of the same gameplay (so far). But it's good. Funny that people want to make it into a movie, since it essentially is a movie. Again, so far. There's a lot more going on in this, plot and setting wise, than "God of War," I'll say that much, awesome as "God of War" is.

Also, I know that this is remastered, but it's still an old game. Interesting to see how the same uncanny valley issues comes into play compared to newer games. That is, there are fleeting moments of photorealism that are almost instantly undercut milliseconds later. It's kind of fascinating. I'm curious what the sequel looks like, though I won't get to it until it goes on deep sale. So, like, January maybe.

Still enjoying this, though as of yet intense though it may be I don't really feel much of a threat from it, which is fine, because I like the characters and don't need to feel totally stressed all the time. It's kind of like playing a Choose Your Own Adventure story.

Except you don’t choose your own adventure here!

And you will definitely encounter some high stress stages.

The game becomes exponentially more terrifying if you increase the difficulty.

Oh, I'm sure. I'm just not good enough at aiming and controls to get the most out of that. For example, I have "Doom" on Switch, and gyro aiming helped me immensely (even though I never finished it). Still, I repurchased it on PS4 for pennies, because the slowdowns o the Switch were getting to me, and the regular aiming was trouble enough that I had to start on a different difficulty level.

As I understand it part of the appeal of this particular game is the way the gameplay and strategy changes on different difficulty levels. Right now I'm on "normal," which is fine. As far as "Choose Your Own," I just meant that you can approach certain rooms and encounters different ways with different attempts for different results. At least so far. It's a testament to the design and writing that I like the "adventure" it has chosen for me so far. I'm way slower than most at these games, too, so I'm getting the most out of each challenge.

OK, hit a slightly more challenging part. This game is really about being patient, isn't it? And using your environment?

yes, and being an ice-cold murderer who rips fools’ skulls open. that too

I'm just starting this too. I like that health packs and molotovs are crafted from the same resources. Interesting idea.

The bad graphics makes the horror elements easier for me to take. I couldn't do Resident Evil 2, for example.

Dunkey called this the first "third-person strangling / ladder moving" game

Also running and brick throwing.

I just met Bill.

damn when you get cornered in that house at night and it’s just you versus the menagerie of infected and those two kids haven’t opened the door for you yet fuuuuuck. anybody beating that the first time deserves a diamond trophy or some shit.

What "bad graphics"? Honestly!

It looks pretty good to me.

I've not played any stealth games before, this is really making me shift gears after something as aggro as "God of War." At times it kind reminds me of "Alien: Isolation." Admittedly I moved on from that pretty early, not because it was bad but sort of because it was too good. Lots of stealth, no real cheats, that alien is going to eat you. And yet it lacked much of a compelling story, Alien film mythology aside. This game, though, advancing the story seems like more of a reward for doing some heavy lifting.

re: "bad graphics" ehh you know what i mean. You can make stuff look a lot grosser in 2020 than in 2013.

Oh, I agree with that, actually. Compared to the stuff in, say, the most recent Resident Evil, this might as well be Saturday morning cartoons.

I haven't gone back to play the original since 2013 but it was pretty gnarly at the time

One thing kind of mildly annoying about this game - and it's by no means unique to this game, since it's endemic to survival games - is resource management. There is no way to know if you need to horde certain items because they are rare, or if you're supposed to use them as you find or craft them, which can be a little frustrating. For example, using up your bullets might spawn an ammunition pickup in the near future, or maybe not, which could leave you with no bullets when you need them, which could in turn mean having to start that stage over again. So far on "normal" mode at least I seem to be finding plenty of resources, but maybe I'd be finding even more, say, crafting material if I used up more of my bombs, bandages and whatnot.

I just got through the graveyard, which was fun.

On Normal i wouldn't worry too much about the resources

btw, when i said gnarly i meant it was beautiful (horrific). realizing that statement could've meant the opposite of what i meant

I'm fairly confident that the resources in TLOU are fixed and depend only on the difficulty level. That is, a resource will show up at a certain place whether or not you're running low on it in your inventory.

So I don't need to horde, per se, but I should still use stuff only when I absolutely must?

Hoard arrows, shotgun shells, hunting pistol ammo (and also health kit components) and worry less about the rest. Later on you'll be able to craft ammo which helps quite a bit.

Albert seems to be talking about Part 2.

For Part 1, a rule of thumb is to not craft anything until you know you need it, though you generally can't go wrong with health kits. (I don't use molotovs in most cases, mostly because I save them for harder enemy types.)

Over the course of playing, if your inventory happens to be maxed out when you find more of that item, go ahead and craft something out of it so you can pick that item up. The inventory maximums are there to reinforce a sense of privation (like, really? I can't carry more than a dozen bullets?), so you will almost never be swimming in resources.

heh, I find it hilarious that this world is practically 50% crumbling bricks, but bricks (or attack sticks) you can use aren't always readily available.

wait is this thread not for Last of Us 2 spoilers (as indicated in the other thread...?)

I (and a couple of others) am playing the original game for the first time, partly to to get to the second game but also to get it over with so that people discussing the second game don't spilt the first. So ... no spoilers on the thread, please!

The other thread with Part 2 in the title is the one that has Part 2 spoilers.

I see that now, I don't know how I confused the two in retrospect?

Creeping right along with this game. Things (not at all unique to TLOU) I find hilarious: when you're crouching, afraid of getting spotted and killed, and Ellie is just whistling or standing around doing kid shit. Or how you might sneak up to a big garage door, and then the cut scene is loud as fuck as you lift and yell "the coast is clear!!!!" That kind of stuff. But I do appreciate that it has these built in breathers, unlike, as I might have noted, something like "Alien: Isolation," which is relentlessly stressful as fuck, even at its slowest. Anyway, good game so far, I like the characters. In a lot of ways "God of War" which I just finished before this, refines a lot of the best aspects and features of this one, but it's also a totally different sort of world, which makes the stakes feel a lot lower.

I just hit "FALL," which I imagine is halfway or so? I really like how the difficulty level of this game is calibrated, at least set at "normal." If I take too long in a place, the L3 prompt appears, offering a hint (even if I am usually just taking too long exploring or something). If I keep dying at a certain stage, eventually it will remind me that I can ramp down the difficulty at any time (which is always a nice option, even if I've never taken advantage of it). And if there's a stage with several levels of danger and I die at a certain point, it doesn't kick you all the way back to the beginning, or even back more than a few seconds, which helps a lot.

Hilariously, I just realized that if I am in a new area, crouching and paranoid and using my super hearing, but Ellie is strolling along, then I am probably safe for the time being.

The new game is much better with companions not “breaking the rules” of what you can do, what you’ve noticed, whether enemies are alarmed if they see them, etc.. Though a few times I have noticed enemies stumbling right on top of my companion but not killing them nor raising the alarm - it is rare though. In the first one, runners or clickers could walk right past them and nothing

Btw, a couple of more observations. One, this game is so well written that it can take a pretty familiar apocalyptic scenario and make it much more engaging/intense/affecting than the majority of movies doing the same sort of thing. Two, very predictably and realistically, the people are worse and in may ways more dangerous than the monsters. Three, how come in these apocalyptic worlds, everyone is always hoofing it, or hot-wiring cars, or riding motorcycles and riding horses, but no one ever takes bicycles, which seem like they'd be really practical?