I feel like you guys are just talking out of your ass here. BioShock and Half Life 2 did it already and on the same console..
I feel like you guys are just talking out of your ass here. BioShock and Half Life 2 did it already and on the same console.
The AI was broken for me, there were parts where Ellie would disappear but she would be talking and the 7.1 surround made it obvious she should have been right beside me (and I know there are parts of the game where she hangs back).
In the end, 2 years straight where games with shitty gameplay get GOTY because of a greats story. (The Walking Dead last year had poor "gameplay" and a lot of bugs).
Why should you have been able to play it on normal for a challenge? Is there some written rule that says that you, Byron Bluth, should find normal a challenge? Given what you said, you are apparently far more skilled playing games than the average Joe (congratulations), so naturally you should be trying to play on the hardest difficulty you can. You didn't.
I didn't make that argument. Please explain to me why games like Skyrim, XCOM, and The Walking Dead, which all have significantly more issues than TLOU, are so much more deserving.
Child.
I watched that IGN video and it's all there. Seriously? Personal attack?
I'm 28 years old with a wife and 2 children.
I guess I should play this game? I wish Sony would put out a demo at least.
There was a demo. Unfortunately, you needed to buy God of War Ascension to play it.I guess I should play this game? I wish Sony would put out a demo at least.
This!Easily one of the best games I've ever played. The Winter chapter is god tier.
THIS!
Game of the Generation!
One of the best games I've ever played!
I feel like you guys are just talking out of your ass here. BioShock and Half Life 2 did it already and on the same console.
The AI was broken for me, there were parts where Ellie would disappear but she would be talking and the 7.1 surround made it obvious she should have been right beside me (and I know there are parts of the game where she hangs back).
In the end, 2 years straight where games with shitty gameplay get GOTY because of a greats story. (The Walking Dead last year had poor "gameplay" and a lot of bugs).
I thought it was patently obvious why I said it. You're acting like a child. Making some evasive arguments and then dismissing me by saying "next"? Do you want to have a discussion, or to force your opinions on others without them having any recourse?
More proof that TLoU is a populist pleasing dude bro action game with mostly mainstream appeal, like CoD:MW2 before it.
I know some here like to hold it up as art and proof of legitimizing gaming, but it's definitely more Michael Bay than Stanley Kubrick.
Gaming doesn't yet have its Citizen Kane but at least it has its Transformers.
You could be on to something with the bolded.
Personally, as a former coder, the AI in TLOU for Ellie in context is more challenging and interesting than that of Infinite or Half Life 2 (your examples).
Half Life 2 did a good job but deliberately made the problem simple. In HL2 there is no real stealth - it's all combat - and therefore Alyx AI only has to fight, be capable of simple navigation (often pre-set) and not block you. This meant Valve didn't have to consider how she'd behave if you're trying to sneak past foes or to a better position and it meant the encounter arenas could all be pre-set in nature.
In Infinite Elizabeth actually devloved from earlier reveals where she'd activly help you in many ways to a very simple AI - for example I'd argue Valve achieved more with Alyx and earlier too. She doesn't really fight and all she has to do is hide (often in poor places) and she is invisible to foes. She will offer minor and scripted help or can be directed to help but this doesn't even need companion AI - you might as well be conjuring the tears yourself as all you do is highlight a preset object and press a button, the context simply pretends Elizabeth is helping when she really isn't doing anything).
Ellie by comparison in TLOU is a much toughter challenge from a code perspective. She has to fight alongside you (using various mechanics across the narrative from bottles/bricks to finally having a weapon) but she also has to sneak and she has to perform in much more open encounter arenas that are far less pre-set than Half Life 2 or Infinite and react dynamically to what you chose to do not what he game designers have essentially forced on you.
As such Ellie will react far more interestingly in context that either Elizabeth or Alyx. She will attempt to hide (often badly just like Elizabeth which we'll return to in a moment), then switch dynamically to aid you if needed (which is pretty impressive as it's not just jumping up with a gun like Alyx but using situational objects to distract and harass your foes) - she'll solve puzzles with you (these are often pre-scripted but they also often involve a bit more than you see in Infinite or Half Life 2 as well) and she'll also engage with you verbally and with emotions.
TBH the AI code in TLOU is very impressive I'd argue and represents one of the more ambitious attempts I've seen in a game like this.
It's not perfect, but most of the time Ellie performs very well and has far more range in context than any AI in similar games and for sure more range in context than Alyx or Elizabeth.
The main flaw is the invisible to foes/stealth element IMHO - here the pathfinding combined with the context can fall over and Ellie will hide right next to foes, etc. However no game I've seen of this type (including Infinite which is very similar) has managed to do it any better and they fail as badly while also failing to have the AI do as much as Ellie in other situations.
To be fair to ND though I can't see any easy solution. Having AI get it right would be very complex and (at least on PS3/360) probably near impossible on their specs considering you still need computing resources for graphics, animation, enemy AI, etc. I guess ND could have simplified the situation (the solution in Bioshock) by simply having Ellie try and hide and do nothing dynamically at all during combat but then you'd lose the wonderful depth of having her weigh in to help you in non-scripted, dynamic ways.
Reading your post I really don't find merit in your arguments - you are stating stuff as facts but I really don't believe you're presenting any concrete evidence. Seems to me you've formed an opinion (which is fair enough) but you are throwing it out as being informed without providing the evidence it is so.
Unless it's kept simple and controlled companion AI will probably break down (in context) to a degree but in TLOU I don't see it do so any more than any other title and at the same time it mostly does more and better than other titles so overall in balance it represents an evolution and a step forward overall. Now I look forward to seeing further iterations work on the remaining flaws to minimize or even eliminate them.
You seem to have an axe to grind vs TLOU and I'd argue you are overstating your points and resorting to hyperbole (and borderline rudeness which I'd be careful of). TLOU isn't on a pedestal but on GAF you use arguments with context (i.e. made sure they back you up and aren't just bold statements) and you don't insult people even if only by inference. By all means point of flaws in TLOU (it has 'em) and express yourself but do so without appearing childish would be my advice.
People believing this is the first good story in games.
Elizabeth is not really a good example because she just dances around all over the place in every encounter.
Talk about pulling shit out of your ass. Can you quote those people?
But Ellie pretends to hide, and while she is hiding humans or clickers can visibly clip into her, there's no AI code to actually have her stealth, just animation and enemy AI is coded to ignore her.
Like I said before and most people ignored watch the IGN video posted.
They specifically say that and that it's mechanics are not the best this year but the story makes up for it. Obviously paraphrasing, I'm not like you guys and am not transcribing video for proof.
Here's a good article that shows the whole "first good story, mature theme, etc".
http://www.gamesradar.com/why-last-us-first-truly-mature-action-game-story/
They even make the argument it's not the best story but the best because it mature and it's themes?
Once again, Grim Fandango had themes just as mature, if not more so. 16 years ago.
There is no short supply of these articles, many written after they gave GOTY to TLoU.
The constant oh look short walls for cover! Oh look the easily noticeable sneaky path around the clickers. Made it feel like Gears of War fatigue syndrome where you always knew what was going to happen because the level design was easily visible.
No the AI code in TLOU attempts to hide - it's not just Ellie it's all companions. If you are undetected (which happens frequently) then the companion AI in TLOU will hide - it will use exact same mechanic as you and use the environment. It also does so dynamically - i.e. if you move the AI will attempt to move the compaion sensibly too. Often in TLOU it works well and the effect is actually very good - for example in some of the earlier encounters with Tess play out very well to create the effect of you and your companion sneaking up on your foes and getting into favourable positions before engaging them.
Infinite totally lacks this complexity as does HL2. Where it fails in TLOU is that - due to the huge variability of which cover you chose, when you chose to move and how far you chose to move - the code for the AI companion fails to balance responding to you with responding to the enemy AI and you effectively "force" your companion to hide next to a foe or run right past them (which is clearly a flaw). Again though I'd note HL2 and Infinite don't even attempt this at all - they make sure you are always in open combat for the most part and the companion AI does not need to attempt (as it does in TLOU) to handle complex stealth while also keeping out of your way, relinquishing cover to you, etc.
Even during combat TLOU is more complex. In Infinite for example Elizabeth merely pretends to hide and it often goes wrong (in a similar manner to TLOU) with the AI hiding right next to foes who ignore it or running right past them. Elizabeth however will not aid you with the complexity of companion AI in TLOU and she has very limited options during combat (early videos show much more complexity which was clearly totally dropped whereas ND at least tried to solve the challenge and they mostly did too).
The element which makes the failure seem more obvious in TLOU is actually the POV. In Infinite and HL2 you are in a first person view and therefore you "see" much less of the combat arena at any one time and often your companions are not even visible. For example in Infinite the POV means during combat you often lose track of Elizabeth and don't spot she's breaking immersion just as much as Ellie or the other AI companions in TLOU because it's off screen. In TLOU due to the third person viewpoint you see a much broader view and therefore notice more where the companions are relative to you (Joel) and therefore you spot the AI failure more easily. This isn't a failure of the AI code though so much as the fact it's actually far harder in TLOU to hide the failure.
But Ellie pretends to hide, and while she is hiding humans or clickers can visibly clip into her, there's no AI code to actually have her stealth, just animation and enemy AI is coded to ignore her.
'I feel like you guys are just talking out of your ass here'I feel like you guys are just talking out of your ass here. BioShock and Half Life 2 did it already and on the same console.
The AI was broken for me, there were parts where Ellie would disappear but she would be talking and the 7.1 surround made it obvious she should have been right beside me (and I know there are parts of the game where she hangs back).
In the end, 2 years straight where games with shitty gameplay get GOTY because of a greats story. (The Walking Dead last year had poor "gameplay" and a lot of bugs).
More proof that TLoU is a populist pleasing dude bro action game with mostly mainstream appeal, like CoD:MW2 before it.
I know some here like to hold it up as art and proof of legitimizing gaming, but it's definitely more Michael Bay than Stanley Kubrick.
Gaming doesn't yet have its Citizen Kane but at least it has its Transformers.
'The gameplay in TLOU is nowhere near 'shitty' and cannot even be compared to a Telltale game.
AI clipping into enemies that they are "stealth" avoiding is awful. I'd rather have them not be around, it broke immersion all the time and it happened constantly. I get it is actually trying to use stealth, but what is the point when it breaks immersion? Having Elizabeth hang back was more realistic than her clipping through enemies and them not attacking her.
More proof that TLoU is a populist pleasing dude bro action game with mostly mainstream appeal, like CoD:MW2 before it.
I know some here like to hold it up as art and proof of legitimizing gaming, but it's definitely more Michael Bay than Stanley Kubrick.
Gaming doesn't yet have its Citizen Kane but at least it has its Transformers.
Are you such a pretentious, insufferable hipster that the mere mass love of an entertainment product means it is inherently somehow worse? Are you better than everyone who likes this game? Are they all idiots who think Battleship is the best film ever made but you, in your infinite wisdom sit around watching Once Upon a Time in the West and Metropolis?More proof that TLoU is a populist pleasing dude bro action game with mostly mainstream appeal, like CoD:MW2 before it.
I know some here like to hold it up as art and proof of legitimizing gaming, but it's definitely more Michael Bay than Stanley Kubrick.
Gaming doesn't yet have its Citizen Kane but at least it has its Transformers.
He addressed some of that in his post. I don't think anyone is saying its perfect, but it is better than the examples you provided. Elizabeth doesn't do much of anything in Bioshock and if you are going to knock TLoU for AI ignoring Ellie then you should probably note that enemies ignore Elizabeth as well. Alyx from Half Life is AI akin to any shooter, it's not quite the same because it's all shooting.
Personally I think the game is probably better for not having Ellie spotted by enemies as certain sequences might have been damn near unplayable. I could see maybe implement like a "squad order" system but then that may have changed the mechanics of the game too much.
Excellent, well-explained post
More proof that TLoU is a populist pleasing dude bro action game with mostly mainstream appeal, like CoD:MW2 before it.
I know some here like to hold it up as art and proof of legitimizing gaming, but it's definitely more Michael Bay than Stanley Kubrick.
Gaming doesn't yet have its Citizen Kane but at least it has its Transformers.
Are you such a pretentious, insufferable hipster that the mere mass love of an entertainment product means it is inherently somehow worse? Are you better than everyone who likes this game? Are they all idiots who think Battleship is the best film ever made but you, in your infinite wisdom sit around watching Once Upon a Time in the West and Metropolis?
Be upset if you want about how this doesn't legitimize gaming in your eyes but your post is utter rubbish, comparing the film to Transformers, Jesus Christ.
I don't agree with most of your points but I still appreciate good, level headed posts. On this point though,Then shortly after that,you have to go "get your guns back" with Tess. Okay, what are the guns for? They never say. Why is it worth it to take on a suicide mission escorting Ellie for "guns" when they have guns already? They never say. Literally the entire story is hanging on their desire to get these guns. Tess dies because she wants these guns. For a game focusing so much on story, I don't think it even really has a great one.
I can probably think of some more, but that's just off the top of my head.
I can definitely admit it's a gorgeous game, and well made in some ways. But I wouldn't ever rate it as GOTY, and when people do, it makes me a little sad because the game doesn't do much to actually further gameplay in any way, and is far behind RE4, which came out in 2005, in terms of actual gameplay and was one of the first highly influential TPS/stealth/horror games on consoles. The gameplay isn't even better than Tomb Raider.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=96275569#post96275569I swear I've seen this exact post in another thread.
Neuromancer was joking. He's basically copied a post from another thread.Are you such a pretentious, insufferable hipster that the mere mass love of an entertainment product means it is inherently somehow worse? Are you better than everyone who likes this game? Are they all idiots who think Battleship is the best film ever made but you, in your infinite wisdom sit around watching Once Upon a Time in the West and Metropolis?
Be upset if you want about how this doesn't legitimize gaming in your eyes but your post is utter rubbish, comparing the film to Transformers, Jesus Christ.
I wouldn't compare it to a Telltale game either. But I do think the gameplay is actually quite poor.
I was writing up a post to the other thread that just got closed about why I personally think it has poor gameplay, but it got locked. Since it seems kinda on topic here, I'll post it. Maybe someone out there agrees with me.
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I think the gameplay in The Last of Us is pretty terrible, so I can give you my reasons at least.
1) You basically just crouch and creep around, and the game puts more focus on sound detection. Despite that, jumping over cover spots, dropping down from elevated areas don't seem to make any additional noise. The stealth takedowns are very basic, and mostly are just a rear choke-hold.
The game is about survival at its core. How many different take downs do you want? Have you played the game on survival? I can't even take steps near a clicker without it trying to kill me.
2) The enemies are very poorly designed.
Clickers are horribly designed for the gameplay systems in place. Clickers are blind, and they are difficult to fight in open combat. So your main strategy is to focus on stealth. However, with no sight capabilities, this means that all you have to do is just walk slow and you will never have any trouble from a clicker. The main way to take them down with stealth hits is to use a shiv. However, killing a clicker doesn't reward you with anything as far as I remember, xp or ammo wise. So the rational choice every single time is to simply walk past the clickers and not burn your shivs, because they are limited, and they're used to open locked doors or for your emergency melee counters.
Midway through your paragraph, one should ask, isn't that the point?
So, every time I saw clickers, instead of feeling anything like fear or heightened tension, I instead knew that it meant that I simply had to walk slowly for a long time. Every time I saw a large area with clickers, I would of course still have to explore everything for items and materials I could scavenge.
Again, survivor mode poses a better challenge.
Only now I had to explore it in slow motion. Every time I got to an area like that, it was so mind numbing that I wanted to turn off the game. I don't enjoy 30 minutes of just walking slowly and not doing anything else. And the entire game's storyline was hanging on the clickers, and how well they worked.
You're trolling right?
These are the key element of their version of the apocalypse; these are their new zombies. I wasn't sold on it at all.
Clickers also bother me because once they're alerted, they fucking sprint at you at an unbelievable speed and instantly one hit kill you. And in addition to that, this game makes sure that you bob and weave when aiming, so you're not likely to ever routinely defend yourself from a clicker attack. And you can't run because that screws up your aiming even more, even though the enemies are exceptionally mobile and fast.
lol wut? You claim that the gameplay is too boring and essentially repetitive because of the clickers yet you complain when they actually pose a challenge?
A better example of how to make enemies scary, unique, and make them work well with the gameplay systems you have is Resident Evil 4.
Where RE4 had tons and tons of enemies and bosses that worked flawlessly, TLoU had one enemy to get right, and they totally, completely blew it.
As to the entry's fourth title compared to a new IP by ND? Clickers are no where as bland or bad as you make it seem.
Perhaps the only enemy worse than that is the "newly turned," which just literally sit there and do nothing, waiting to be killed. That's possibly the most pointless enemy of this entire generation.
3) The first 4 hours of the game might as well have been a cutscene, because you basically just followed an NPC down a narrow road and watched cutscenes. I love FFXIII, and TLoU's intro was so scripted and linear that even I felt suffocated.
Troll
4) There is very little verticality allowed in the stealth, or the level design. In one of the first missions I was with Tess going to get the guns from the guy who double crossed them. They showed that we were sneaking into a large area and were greatly outnumbered. There were gigantic metal shipping crates stacked all over, with smaller wooden crates next to them making natural stairs. Being a stealth focused game (and a Naughty Dog game) I naturally assumed you could at least do limited platforming to climb a couple boxes and get a better perspective to see the enemy patterns, but you can't at all. Instead of having level design that helps make stealth gameplay organic, they instead had to add x-ray vision for Joel.
Here I can agree with you to a certain element but at that stage, how easy would it be to see someway cat walking across boxes? We notice birds in the sky quite easily, a 6 foot guy would be pretty easy to spot. Plus that area worked as a tutorial in some ways.
5) The partner AI ruins the game's main strength, presentation and immersion. Everyone is aware of this one. You're sneaking around a clicker and Ellie just goes barreling right past them, jumping and talking to you full volume and no one notices. You remember how frustrating I said it was to be forced to walk slowly for 30 minutes? It's even worse when Ellie is able to just run all over and you have to watch.
I agree.
6) It's a game about two people and the 2nd person is basically non-existent as far as gameplay systems design is concerned. RE4 has you protecting Ashley from damage, sneaking around as Ashley, strategically hiding her in dumpsters instead of making her invisible and invincible. TLoU basically just doesn't even try to make this work.
I agree but to a certain extent.
7) The game's "puzzles" and platforming were very bad. Moving around crates and dumpsters felt like a Dreamcast-era box puzzle, something I thought was officially gone from gaming in 2013, let alone a big budget game like this. Moving planks around was equally cumbersome and simplistic. Moving Ellie on a raft is basically another box puzzle, but with water physics added (barely). People trash the tombs in Tomb Raider, but TLoU makes them look like master class puzzles.
Platforming could be better but puzzles? What game is this again? It's obvious they don't want Nathan Drake and Ellie.
8) The crafting system being real time doesn't really add much to the gameplay in my opinion, and it doesn't make as much of a difference as the earlier trailers made it seem like it would. If some of you guys liked it, cool. I really didn't think it added anything.
Impromptu molotov helps
9) The game has very, very weak level up abilities that don't add a lot to gameplay, and can probably be skipped if you want. The counter is probably the best one.
Agreed.
10) I didn't like the handling and the feel of the bow. It might be because Tomb Raider came out in the very same year, and they're kind of similar games. But the handling and feel of the bow in TR was just so much better.
Worked just fine.
11) For a game focusing on story and presentation over gameplay, I thought it was a really weird decision to have such trial and error gameplay that demanded frequent restarts. It took me out of the experience that they tried so hard to prioritize. Just broadly speaking, the gameplay systems don't really further the telling of the story, or the immersion for me. It's a very, very limited trial and error stealth TPS chopped up and grafted onto a story.
What if they did the opposite? There would be absolutely no challenge. Might as well be the Walking Dead.
And I didn't think the story was strong enough to carry the poor gameplay. The intro was supposed to be the watershed moment, whenhis child dies. But I didn't see why this was better than the intro in Splinter Cell Conviction, or the intro in Mass Effect 3, which people criticized heavily. It's the same weak story hook. A little kid dies, and we only care for the sole reason that its a little kid and that is supposed to be shocking. In Mass Effect 3 I remember laughing at how obvious and transparent the attempt to force emotional content was, and it was a very similar intro for TLoU. We know nothing about this girl, and yet her death is the driving force for the entire story?
You have your own flesh and blood die in your arms because the person who could've helped feared you? You didn't have aliens or somebody kill this unknown child. You had a soldier, a once protector of your country, kill your daughter.
Then shortly after that,you have to go "get your guns back" with Tess. Okay, what are the guns for? They never say. Why is it worth it to take on a suicide mission escorting Ellie for "guns" when they have guns already? They never say. Literally the entire story is hanging on their desire to get these guns. Tess dies because she wants these guns. For a game focusing so much on story, I don't think it even really has a great one.
Wrong.
I can definitely admit it's a gorgeous game, and well made in some ways. But I wouldn't ever rate it as GOTY, and when people do, it makes me a little sad because the game doesn't do much to actually further gameplay in any way, and is far behind RE4, which came out in 2005, in terms of actual gameplay and was one of the first highly influential TPS/stealth/horror games on consoles. The gameplay isn't even better than Tomb Raider.
Yea but RE4 will little be forgotten because the franchise didn't even build upon the games after it. Tomb Raider wasn't survival, you were guns blazing the entire time. I don't mean to bash your opinion, just taking some of the stuff you said and analyzed it.
much to the dismay of the many playstation haters on this forum.