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New 'The Last Of Us' previews, screens and video

Loudninja

Member
The crafting system sounds great
Joel can pick up guns, lead pipes, shivs, and throwable objects for weapons, but they all have severe limitations. We're often short on ammo, weapons eventually break, and well aimed throws take time to execute, so ensuring that you have enough supplies on hand is an important part of winning a battle. Stealth is your friend, especially since the Infected are most easily overcome by taking them down one by one. If you have a shiv handy, you can sneak up from behind and perform a stealth kill. Though, our favorite method was to stagger an Infected with a flying brick then run up and club them over the head with our homemade, scissor spiked, two by four.

Crafting and upgrading weapons is also a big part of The Last of Us. As we mentioned before, when we weren't being attacked by zombified mushroom people, most of our time was spent scavenging for supplies. You'll find materials such as blades, batteries, bindings, rags, and alcohol laying about which can be used to create beneficial items, like medpacks and molotovs, or they can be used to modify your equipment. Joel can also pick up recipes to discover new items to create. One recipe we found allowed us to combine a bottle of alcohol and a rag to create a fire spreading molotov, which came in handy for taking out Clickers.
http://www.gamesradar.com/last-us-preview-joel-vs-fungus-zombies/
 

StuBurns

Banned
I'm not even thinking about metal gear when I type that, it's just that seeing through wall seems like trend in recent 'stealth' games and I remember it is really being hated in here.
Well with Batman the issue is really that it gives you no reason not to do it if I remember correctly. People don't like to run around an ugly blue tinted world just because they don't want to give up the huge advantages of the visor.

In MGS4, you don't see through walls as such, but when you stand still, you get basically a sonar around Snake, which tells you where enemies are, as long as they're making a sound. But like this, I don't think it'll be such an issue, because you can't choose to stand still through the game. Who knows though. Audio interaction in game design is an interesting problem, not everyone has 5.1 certainly, and you can't do truly dimensional sound with stereo, as much as people try.
 
Eurogamer Preview.

I was playing the game last night, and I had this moment not with Ellie but with Tess, but I didn't realize it was the last bullet in my shotgun. My back's up against the wall, and I realize I'm dead - and then all of a sudden this gunshot comes out of nowhere, and I look up and it's Tess. And I felt that was awesome - I felt like I had a partner in there.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-02-04-the-last-of-us-preview
 

Loudninja

Member
I can't remember the last time was genuinely terrified while playing a video game. Slender? Amnesia? Silent Hill 2? Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of any work of art that can elicit true fear inside of me, be it a film, story, or video game. But most games that bill themselves as "horror" are more concerned with cheap scares and crutching on gore than with building a mood which toys with our deepest fears. So it was to my complete surprise that Naughty Dog seems to understand this definition perfectly, as The Last of Us could very well be one of this generation's truly horrifying experiences.
The other facet of sound that completely floored me stemmed from the noises which emanated from the infected. As a lifelong asthmatic, the sound of heavy labored breathing has become synonymous with a tense, gripping kind of fear. I've woken up far too often in the midst of futile attempts of drawing a breath, but I've never seen this type of fear translated into a video game. It's these same noises that fill the empty halls and abandoned buildings of The Last of Us, and it left me in a state of complete unease. These aren't fictional moans or guttural noises, but rather something very real and very terrifying. The closer you are to one of the fungal creatures, the more you'll be surrounded by these awful wheezes. I welcome how uncomfortable the audio made me feel, and really applaud the sound designers at Naughty Dog for tapping into something that few games ever have.
The best part of this all is that the game never pauses when you enter the menu for crafting. Much like Dark Souls, the world and its dangers don't stop just because you do. This adds so much to the tension of combat scenarios, as I often found myself scouring for a safe spot in order to make a first aid kit, only to be spotted and killed while in mid-construction. The key to this system is going to be careful planning and a keen sense of the world around you.
http://www.1up.com/previews/haute-tension-showcases-sound-fury
 

UrbanRats

Member
A PC SKU would be prettier, but who knows, there's another platform that it logically could be released on that would also help a great deal in that matter.

This could've been a killer app launch game for Ps4.

Anyway what they're showing is as always amazing, they have balls going for the 1hit 1kill approach, for something as big as this.
I remain in the skeptical camp just in case, this will either end up being one of the top 5 games of the generation, or it'll become the next game to get shit on in every thread, if it doesn't deliver, i feel.
It sounds to good to be true, to put it bluntly.
 

ekim

Member
Wow. I expected a good game but the previews suggest that's this is going to be something unique and amazing. The game, for me, turns from "Let's wait and see" to "Day 1".
 
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http://www.playstationfront.de/screenshots-2135-6749-The_Last_of_Us_PlayStation_3.html
 

FACE

Banned
Wow. I expected a good game but the previews suggest that's this is going to be something unique and amazing. The game, for me, turns from "Let's wait and see" to "Day 1".

Previews always make highly anticipated games sound amazing, it's one of the reasons why people rail on the enthusiast press around these parts.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Those three screens in OP look pretty rough compared to what they've been showing

anyway I can't watch the videos, i know this is going to start spoilering too much, but the previews sound interesting enough. Still waiting to see how much survival really is required for tension; i.e., how difficult the game actually is.

Edit: It definitely SOUNDS like it's going to be tough though on the hardest difficulty; which is very positive news for me.

Our first hands-on session with The Last of Us had me going up against (or running from) all three types of infected. And dying. And looking around to see if anyone saw me dying. And sweating.
 

Pooya

Member
watched that 2min video, I'm not sure about the whole crouching flashlight thing, looked kind of disorienting with all the fast-walking around. and those clickers can one shot kill?

I think I prefer outdoors and day light environment so far, creepy stealth games not my thing :S

I think overall textures looks worse than UC3, doesn't look as good and detailed.
 

Endo Punk

Member
ND is definitely taking a major gamble with this game. It's definitely not mass market material but hopefully it will find its audience. I'm ready to purchase two copies because this game like BioShock Infinite deserve to do well considering they're pushing the gaming medium forward and feel like profit is not the driving force in their creation like 90% of games.
 
Everything sounds great except this:

Countering that, Joel's got the ability to focus on his surroundings - pressing down on the R2 button will wash the screen in monochrome, the outlines of the infected visible through walls.

This is a terrible mechanic for the type of game it is and does not make any sense whatsoever.

And this:

There's one other element in The Last of Us's play space, although right now it's the least convincing. Partner AI's an integral part of the game's make-up, where the relationship that's core to Joel and Ellie's story informs the moment to moment play - but currently, it's nearly non-existent, the non-playable characters happy to dumbly run around and reluctant to offer any help.

This close to release it looks like that is not going to change and it's disappointing to hear. It's stuff like this that makes me think developers should get some outsiders to playtest their games much earlier on.
 
so listen mode can only be activated by sitting still and automatically deactivated when you start moving again.

I don't think so.
Following sounds more plausible.

Holding down R2 enters into a slow-motion "listen mode" where Joel holds his breath and listens hard, allowing you to see enemies' locations and position through walls. It doesn't make a ton of sense, but it's a welcome ability, since sneaking up on these fuckers is hard enough as it is.
http://www.complex.com/video-games/2013/02/hands-on-preview-the-last-of-us-is-bringing-scary-back
 

Drencrom

Member
They should give us the option to remove that 'listen mode', sounds like something that should only be available on easy.
 

Forsete

Gold Member
This might be more than I can handle. :/

The
nazis
in U2 freaked me out. This looks even "worse".
Time to man up!
 

AJ_Wings

Member
Everything sounds great except this:



This is a terrible mechanic for the type of game it is and does not make any sense whatsoever.

And this:



This close to release it looks like that is not going to change and it's disappointing to hear. It's stuff like this that makes me think developers should get some outsiders to playtest their games much earlier on.

Ugh... a wall hack mechanic. This is the last thing this type of game needs, I honestly thought ND were extremely confident at the type of game they were making. I mean they already have great ambiance and sound design down so why not go all the way?
 

slider

Member
Everything sounds great except this:

This is a terrible mechanic for the type of game it is and does not make any sense whatsoever.

If it was instead a sense of sound from a direction rather than being as obvious as it seems to be it would make much more sense IMO.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
did they toned down the graphics?

The environments probably aren't finished, but scenes like what we're seeing in these screens, where the global lighting level is very dim if not pitch black, are best at exposing the weaknesses of engines and games built on current generation systems. When you've got a day setting you can brightly light everything and hide a lot of the lighting/shadow rendering limitations, as you expect everything to be fairly uniformly lit with strong shadows cast from the sun.

Dusk and the dark? Not so much. Like the way light works in the real life, when it's dark the slightest little sparks of illumination from any source can dramatically change the colouring and vibrancy of the environment. You can't get away with uniform lighting because everything will be subtly effected by every single light source, relative to where that source is position. When you're dealing with limited rendering technology, those weaknesses are more obvious, are the environment does not illuminate 'naturally', unable to really take advantage of what would otherwise be many, many unique light sources illuminating every little piece of the scenery in a different way.

The lighter the overall environment, the less obvious lighting sensitivity is. In the dark, everything is sensitive to a light source, and that generally requires more complex (or tricky) effects.
 

FACE

Banned
"Holding down R2 enters into a slow-motion "listen mode" where Joel holds his breath and listens hard, allowing you to see enemies' locations and position through walls. It doesn't make a ton of sense, but it's a welcome ability, since sneaking up on these fuckers is hard enough as it is."

Baby's first stealth game?
 
Ugh... a wall hack mechanic. This is the last thing this type of game needs, I honestly thought ND were extremely confident at the type of game they were making. I mean they already have great ambiance and sound design down so why not go all the way?

Yeah, kind of made me cringe when I read that. I wonder what the logic was behind that because it just sounds all kinds of wrong. They should take it out or leave it in for easy mode only. I know you don't have to use it but it just irks me that it's there.
 

PaulloDEC

Member
I can't wait to play this, but at the same time I'm dreading it. I don't handle scary games super well, and it's looking freakin' terrifying so far.

Ah well. I'll play on Easy and keep all the lights on. I'm generally willing to risk a minor heart attack for a Naughty Dog game.
 

zoukka

Member
Ugh... a wall hack mechanic. This is the last thing this type of game needs, I honestly thought ND were extremely confident at the type of game they were making. I mean they already have great ambiance and sound design down so why not go all the way?

Because no matter what they are aiming to do with the game the fact remains that it's a AAA production that needs to sell shitoads. Tey can't go all Dark Souls considering their track record.
 

Endo Punk

Member
"Holding down R2 enters into a slow-motion "listen mode" where Joel holds his breath and listens hard, allowing you to see enemies' locations and position through walls. It doesn't make a ton of sense, but it's a welcome ability, since sneaking up on these fuckers is hard enough as it is."

Baby's first stealth game?

I really hope this is only for easy difficulty.
 
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