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[derFeef]

Hm the inner stuff doesn't look as good and the motion blur is kinda on the heavy side...

 

[Callibretto]

regarding listen mode, gamespot said that Joel's sitting still to activate listen mode. I want to know if you can move around during listen mode or it force you to stay still.

 

[UrbanRats]

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.

When SIREN:New Translation came out, the graphics (which i loved) used a lot of that dark to hide all sorts of hideous textures and shit.
Infact, when the game was set in well lit environments, it showed far more of its graphical shortcomings.

--

So i don't know if you can say that's a constant for every game.

 

[Callibretto]

those worried about 'listen' mode, this preview is great

" It is an option that allows to study the environment, but without having an advantage over the top. The Clicker croaking their jarring litany are reported immediately, while the Runner may remain completely invisible, still waiting for a prey. Do not think so to exploit this mode against humans: the circles that signal noise may indicate subsequent steps of a person or a bottle thrown by an opponent as a diversion. "

if the creature's are silent, you don't see them in listen mode, and human enemy can distract you the same way you did to them by throwing brick as diversion etc.

 

[Auto_aim1]

Will there be an option to disable the wall hack? That ability really doesn't make any sense in this type of a game. The previews sound promising though.

 

[Loudninja]

regarding listen mode, gamespot said that Joel's sitting still to activate listen mode. I want to know if you can move around during listen mode or it force you to stay still.

Its limitations are pretty clear

Two Infected, unaware of my presence, wait on the floor below me. Tess and I stare through gaps in a ruined wall and survey the situation. I'm too nervous to plan any approach, so when Tess urges me to drop down and secure our way forward, I'm astonished to see my fingers (and Joel's legs) obeying. With no staircase to speak of, a long drop secures my fate – there's no turning back, and I crouch to begin closing the distance. Holding R2 allows Joel to focus his hearing and attention for signs of Infected; I make use of this feature, and faint outlines of two Infected appear through the wall that divides us. One has its back to me; the other will be too far, I hope, to notice us. I creep out from behind the half-wall and I'm terrified to see a third, yet-unnoticed Infected.

http://www.psu.com/a018183/Hands-on...he-past-present-and-future-of-survival-horror

 

[NBtoaster]

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.

It's usually the opposite IMO - bright environments expose aliasing, poor shadow resolution and filtering, low AF, poor thick AO much better than dark enviornments. The shots in the OP seem to have the problem of background elements being low quality (simple flat building, 2d trees) and their SSAO/secondary shadow system being turned off.

 

[UrbanRats]

why does Ethan have superhero see through walls powers?

Like Callibretto said, it's not a straight wall hack, Splinter Cell Conviction style.
You only "see them" if they make a noise, plus apparently you have to stay still to use it AND let's consider that you won't have any resources and these things will kill you with one hit.
Seems fairly balanced to me, in reality i can locate stuff with sound, but with a stereo sound system? Not so much, so i think it's fair to balance that shortcoming out this way.

 

[EatChildren]

When SIREN:New Translation came out, the graphics (which i loved) used a lot of that dark to hide all sorts of hideous textures and shit.
Infact, when the game was set in well lit environments, it showed far more of its graphical shortcomings.

So i don't know if you can say that's a constant for every game.

It's not, and you're right. I think it's more of the in between that causes problems.

In a very bright area with a decent lighting and shadows engine everything looks hot, as everything gives the impression of being uniformly lit with strong shadows cast from the sun. Plus you can toy with bloom and specular to give edges and materials a subtle glow in the light from different angles. Siren looks like shit in the light probably because its uniform lighting system is crap. Everything is grossly flat.

In pitch black you have the advantage of using only one or two light sources: torches. You can hide limitations as everything else is super dark, and focus on that cool effect of spotlighting the environment.

In the middle, when you're dealing with a duller though not pitch black lighting system, I figure there's some problems. Like this:

It's not pitch black. It's not day. It's a weird inbetween which should be very sensitive to numerous light sources, but probably can't be. Either that or it's very unfinished.

I mean, thinking back to the Uncharted series, almost all the weakest graphical parts of the game were the dully lit environments. Anything that was pitch black with a torch, or lit with a strong light from the sun, looked gorgeous.

 

[Dennis]

That screenshot is great for a console game.

Low quality jpeg aside.

 

[Erasus]

This looks amazing. So tense!
I love Dead Space, Amnesia and Siren PS3, but haven't actually completed any of them! Ill get on Dead Space again soon.

 

[EatChildren]

It's usually the opposite IMO - bright environments expose aliasing, poor shadow resolution and filtering, low AF, poor thick AO much better than dark enviornments. The shots in the OP seem to have the problem of background elements being low quality (simple flat building, 2d trees) and their SSAO/secondary shadow system being turned off.

You know, even I'm not sure now :lol. Because you're right, sometimes that is a problem. But other times it's the other way around. I guess I just can't think of many games that looked crazy pretty when in a dull lit environment, not on consoles anywho.

 

[derFeef]

Alan Wake looked the best in night scenes too, altough it was not complete pitch black. The daylight stuff always showed the low resolution very well.

 

[PaulloDEC]

why does Ethan have superhero see through walls powers?

I wouldn't really call it that. I mean, is it superhuman that I can stand in the middle of my house and correctly identify which room a noise came from?

Listen Mode seems a lot like that to me, only realised visually.

 

[Erasus]

Alan Wake looked the best in night scenes too, altough it was not complete pitch black. The daylight stuff always showed the low resolution very well.

Daytimes look great on PC too even when I run it on medium settings, so "begging" for a PC port here is not some unreasonable thing imo. Cutscenes in that game looks awful though.

But yes in Alan Wake, the night scenes are great as the light from the flashlight and other sources gets more defined.

 

[Fix The Scientist]

I absolutely love the idea of the clickers and was really hoping ND would deliver when it came to interesting gameplay mechanics, looks like they will. I bet it only gets better as the game goes on and they introduce new enemies.

One thing i find weird is that the footage we saw last year was SO polished and cinematic, whereas this recent stuff looks significantly more rough, i don't just mean the lighting, nearly everything seems dialed back a bit. Saying that i thought it was awesome how "open" that area looked, every time you reload a checkpoint the encounters will probably play out differently, much like uncharted 2 and thankfully NOT like uncharted 3.

 

[EatChildren]

Alan Wake looked the best in night scenes too, altough it was not complete pitch black. The daylight stuff always showed the low resolution very well.

Yeah, but Alan Wake was kinda all about lighting in the dark, both for rendering and a gameplay mechanics. I remember way back when the game was first announced I was super impressed with the lighting. I figure Remedy focused a lot of the engine on just that.

 

[Secretarial Dog]

Big News about item upgrades/equipment upgrades and skill progressions.

"Upgrades will also be a big part of the game, with items you find along the way factoring into a system that allows you to better the items you make and the items you’re already carrying, and expand on things like inventory size. Those options were not included in the demo, but Minkoff said that there would be a number of additional systems for thinks like item upgrades, equipment upgrades, and skill progression.

“So let’s say you find an improvised munitions training manual in a military depot. It might teach you how to improve the efficiency of your molotovs — so off of the same ingredients, you might get double the radius, or something like that,” Minkoff said. “And you can also upgrade your equipment. As you scavenge around the environment, you can find pieces that you can use to build extra holsters onto your backpack, or to expand your inventory, to upgrade your guns — like maybe when you get a rifle you want to add a scope to it so you find the pieces to a scope, and now you put that on. And additionally, you’ll be able to upgrade Joel’s skills — it’s a cross-country journey. He and Ellie are going across the whole continent, so over the course of that journey, he becomes more skilled himself, so you’ll be able to upgrade his skills as well.”"

http://www.gamefront.com/looting-crafting-and-stealth-kills-hands-on-with-the-last-of-us/2/

 

[UrbanRats]

It's not, and you're right. I think it's more of the in between that causes problems.

In a very bright area with a decent lighting and shadows engine everything looks hot, as everything gives the impression of being uniformly lit with strong shadows cast from the sun. Plus you can toy with bloom and specular to give edges and materials a subtle glow in the light from different angles. Siren looks like shit in the light probably because its uniform lighting system is crap. Everything is grossly flat.

In pitch black you have the advantage of using only one or two light sources: torches. You can hide limitations as everything else is super dark, and focus on that cool effect of spotlighting the environment.

In the middle, when you're dealing with a duller though not pitch black lighting system, I figure there's some problems. Like this:

It's not pitch black. It's not day. It's a weird inbetween which should be very sensitive to numerous light sources, but probably can't be. Either that or it's very unfinished.

I mean, thinking back to the Uncharted series, almost all the weakest graphical parts of the game were the dully lit environments. Anything that was pitch black with a torch, or lit with a strong light from the sun, looked gorgeous.

Oh i agree with that reasoning, middle of the road lighting is kind of hard to pull off.
I think though that specific screenshot has something weird going on with the colors, especially the greens.

They should probably tone it down a tad.
Maybe it's just me, but i find it almost distracting.

 

[zoukka]

You know, even I'm not sure now :lol. Because you're right, sometimes that is a problem. But other times it's the other way around. I guess I just can't think of many games that looked crazy pretty when in a dull lit environment, not on consoles anywho.

Console games have utilized dark/dull moody lighting for ages. Like in Resident Evil 4, the dark enviroments were the best. You can highlight nice assets by leaving them in light and cover large unimportant areas in darkness. RE4 faked all kinds of cool lighting like the lightning weather illuminating things and blasting from windows. Remember the incredible first footage of the troll boss being light by a. Lightning bolt in the rain? Also silent hill.

Recent example would be zombi u.

 

[Drencrom]

Don't use it?

Still, I wish they don't have that mechanic on Hard and Crushing at least and let us turn it off in the options for every difficulty.

Like how they removed the button prompt to evade/dodge when you fight baddies in U3 on Crushing.

 

[Secretarial Dog]

"Melee weapons all carry a bar on your heads-up display that notifies you of how long they’ll last before breaking, and the upgraded weapon is not only good for more strikes, but it leads to one-hit kills instead of repeated bludgeoning."

http://www.gamefront.com/looting-crafting-and-stealth-kills-hands-on-with-the-last-of-us/3/

 

[Pooya]

I just noticed there are 3 identical cars in the background :S that memory limits.

 

[Loudninja]

Big News about item upgrades/equipment upgrades and skill progressions.

"Upgrades will also be a big part of the game, with items you find along the way factoring into a system that allows you to better the items you make and the items you’re already carrying, and expand on things like inventory size. Those options were not included in the demo, but Minkoff said that there would be a number of additional systems for thinks like item upgrades, equipment upgrades, and skill progression.

“So let’s say you find an improvised munitions training manual in a military depot. It might teach you how to improve the efficiency of your molotovs — so off of the same ingredients, you might get double the radius, or something like that,” Minkoff said. “And you can also upgrade your equipment. As you scavenge around the environment, you can find pieces that you can use to build extra holsters onto your backpack, or to expand your inventory, to upgrade your guns — like maybe when you get a rifle you want to add a scope to it so you find the pieces to a scope, and now you put that on. And additionally, you’ll be able to upgrade Joel’s skills — it’s a cross-country journey. He and Ellie are going across the whole continent, so over the course of that journey, he becomes more skilled himself, so you’ll be able to upgrade his skills as well.”"

http://www.gamefront.com/looting-crafting-and-stealth-kills-hands-on-with-the-last-of-us/2/

Yeah this sounds more and more like Re4.

 

[Sn4ke_911]

I just noticed there are 3 identical cars in the background :S that memory limits.

at least different colors would have been nice, ah yeah right the game is still in alpha .....

 

[zoukka]

It needs the inventory tetris of RE4.

In fact all games need it.

 

[derFeef]

I just noticed there are 3 identical cars in the background :S that memory limits.

The one in the center is the new one with the facelift.

 

[Messofanego]

This game also has detective/instinct vision? That's what the Focused Mode (holding down R2) sounds like.

http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/zjsym4/the-last-of-us-enter-the-apocalypse (2:04)

 

[Callibretto]

This game also has detective/instinct vision? That's what the Focused Mode (holding down R2) sounds like.

http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/zjsym4/the-last-of-us-enter-the-apocalypse (2:04)

there are limitation so that it's not overpowered

" It is an option that allows to study the environment, but without having an advantage over the top. The Clicker croaking their jarring litany are reported immediately, while the Runner may remain completely invisible, still waiting for a prey. Do not think so to exploit this mode against humans: the circles that signal noise may indicate subsequent steps of a person or a bottle thrown by an opponent as a diversion. "

it just make you think why the other games that have that mode didn't balance it a bit more like this one.

 

[zoukka]

it just make you think why the other games that have that mode didn't balance it a bit more like this one.

It's a tool to guide the player. Most action/adventure games have them in some form.

 

[Rewrite]

All these previews are awesome as hell. It's making the wait that much harder! I only saw that two minute YouTube video and my god, was it creepy as fuck. Hahaha. Can't wait!!

 

[mysteriousmage09]

The game will get big updates on graphics most likely, hell, just look at the crazy stuff for uncharted 3

Obviously the left is stuck in with motion blur but the textures, lighting, shadows, attention to detail, fire, etc. got an upgrade through the roof. Same will happen with The Last of Us i'm sure as has been the usual with Naughty Dog's games this gen.

 

[LuuKyK]

Wow everything looks amazing. I am already wondering though how hard will it be for me to play this since just that 2 min almost gave me a heart attack. I mean those damn clicker noises... t_t

 

[Drencrom]

This game also has detective/instinct vision? That's what the Focused Mode (holding down R2) sounds like.

http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/zjsym4/the-last-of-us-enter-the-apocalypse (2:04)

It doesn't sound overpowered and integral to use at least, which means it's likely that I can pretend it doesn't exist and never use it.

 

[StoppedInTracks]

What happened to the graphics? It looks... worse somehow

Save us Naughty Gods!

 

[Qvoth]

all the guys complaining about the listening mode...
what'sthematterwithyou.jpg
most probably there's a limit on the range of this ability, and i thought it makes a lot of sense, i mean generally you can get an idea of how close something is from listening to the sounds they make

 

[Messofanego]

it just make you think why the other games that have that mode didn't balance it a bit more like this one.

Mark of the Ninja, and Splinter Cell Conviction did the same thing where you can only use them when you're still. Arkham City balanced it by not being able to see much other than just NPCs and the HUD disappeared which is kind of crucial for an open world game.

This one though, sounds a bit like Daredevil. Shouldn't you be able to hear where they are with just surround sound anyway like in most games rather than a wallhack?

 

[The Xtortionist]

This one though, sounds a bit like Daredevil. Shouldn't you be able to hear where they are with just surround sound anyway like in most games rather than a wallhack?

Probably but this should be useful for players without surround sound/headphones or those who are hearing impaired. Especially since these fuckers can OHK you after one wrong move.

 

[shinobi602]

Nothing like waking up in morning to The Last of Us news and pictures. IN MY VEINS HNNNGG.

 

[AJ_Wings]

It doesn't sound overpowered and integral to use at least, which means it's likely that I can pretend it doesn't exist and never use it.

Yeah, I expected something like Conviction. lol.

It looks like the player still has to rely on cover and the leaning mechanic to get a good grasp on the environment.

 

[dragonbane]

Graphics look a bit rough, but that's probably because of the alpha. It definitely looks like PS3 though. Great, but not impossible.

The thing that kinda disappointed me a bit was the AI. Didn't seem much more advanced then the UC AI in this particular scene. But I guess you can't have everything.

 

[UrbanRats]

This one though, sounds a bit like Daredevil. Shouldn't you be able to hear where they are with just surround sound anyway like in most games rather than a wallhack?

You buy me a surround sound system and i'll support you cause, bro.

 

[Kun Aguero]

I'm pleased with the bit's and pieces of gameplay I've seen. Movement seems nice and fluid. I'm also pleased they seem to be pushing the horror element, really looking forward to this game.

 

[Melfice7]

The thing that kinda disappointed me a bit was the AI. Didn't seem much more advanced then the UC AI in this particular scene. But I guess you can't have everything.

Those infected are blind

 

[injurai]

I just noticed there are 3 identical cars in the background :S that memory limits.

Dragon Age 2 quality confirmed, go home guys.

 

[Qvoth]

Graphics look a bit rough, but that's probably because of the alpha. It definitely looks like PS3 though. Great, but not impossible.

The thing that kinda disappointed me a bit was the AI. Didn't seem much more advanced then the UC AI in this particular scene. But I guess you can't have everything.

i doubt that's alpha... i mean it's coming out in less than 4 months

 

[EmperorLawlight]

Yeah this sounds more and more like Re4.

I don't recall RE4 requiring scavenging to get upgrades.

 

[Sn4ke_911]

i doubt that's alpha... i mean it's coming out in less than 4 months

Devs like to call media before the game is released "PRE-ALPHA FOOTAGE". *wink* Battlefield 3.

 

[zoukka]

I don't recall RE4 requiring scavenging to get upgrades.

I think he meant upgrading in general and the limited inventory space.

 

[Loudninja]

I think he meant upgrading in general and the limited inventory space.

Yeah that is what I meant.

I think this is much more horror than gaf expected.