Phatose on 16/6/2013 at 23:38
Well, for example, the limit for the revolver is 18. 12 in reserve, 6 in the gun. That's not a lot.
But mostly, it's nonsensical on both a game level, and a theme level. If I manage to stealth kill effectively through a section, I think I should be rewarded by being allowed to stockpile resources for a later time. Having it so low that I can actually hit it means that I've got far less reason to try to excel - there's no payoff.
From a thematic level, it's completely insane to believe that this guy wouldn't make room in that backpack of his for extra ammunition. Just bizarre.
SubJeff on 17/6/2013 at 06:05
Ah, I see. Same with crafting items too - very low limits.
Neither of this have affected me really, yet anyway.
Ostriig on 17/6/2013 at 10:57
I'm also miffed at the arbitrary inventory limits, they don't make sense in the diegesis and they're a pretty cheap way to pad out the "survival" part of the game. Stuff like scissors and alcohol, fair enough, maybe they're big, but I wasn't impressed when I ran into the revolver ammo limit last night. Good thing he's carrying a brick around, though.
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
No man, it's hard to shoot. Don't worry - its not you. The game is really hard. The aiming is shaky which is why you can upgrade it and a lot of the enemies move really fast and erratically. The runners come screaming around a corner and don't necessarily move in a straight line so they are really hard to hit.
Well, that is reassuring. I do find it curious that this swivel-cam and aim-to-shoot combo seems to be so popular with console titles, I played Tomb Raider on the PC and even with a mouse and keyboard I still found the shooting to be subpar. The thing is that unless you bolt the character's facing direction to the camera cursor you can't really do firing from the hip, but I can't figure out what the mechanical advantage is to having a free rotating camera.
Malf on 17/6/2013 at 11:29
Didn't really affect me either, as I played it very punchy / pipey.
Whenever a game tells me to conserve ammo, I immediately explore just how effective beating the snot out of things can be, and in The Last of Us, that turns out to be "Very effective, thank you very much."
So, as promised, thoughts have been gathered.
I'll spoiler tag stuff where appropriate.
Let me start with a disclaimer: no matter how negative my opinions appear to be, don't get me wrong. This is a very good game and you really should look at playing it at some point if you have a PS3.
Now for the real stuff.
First off, I'm glad they hid trophies away until completion. It would have really spoiled the mood to have had constant pop-ups notifying you how many things you've found or monsters you've killed. Keeping trophy notifications turned off was a great decision.
I can't understand why people would replay the game, especially how much they'd like you to. Completing the game opens up a whole bevy of replay difficulties. The problem here is that the story has been told and it won't be any diffferent a second time through.
Minor subtle ending spoiler in this paragraph: Sarkeesian's recent "tropes" videos, as mentioned in a previous post of mine, have really coloured my vision regarding videogame stories, and The Last of Us struggles to escape the "Damsel" trope and ultimately fails. What a shame. It's quite a moving example of the Damsel trope, but still that trope, just the same.
Spoilers regarding Ellie and David (read if you've finished this section): David's section and playing as a 14-year-old psychopath with a knife was bad ass. It kind of tainted things a bit further on where Ellie was still proclaiming surprise at the violence of Joel's actions. After all, she had just mercilessly stabbed a veritable army of goons herself. Repeatedly. But they didn't shy away from a kid doing these things to survive, and they pulled no punches when you failed and Ellie got killed. Her deaths are just as gruesome as Joel's.
In this section, Ellie is just awesome. Stabby stabby stabby. Stabby.
Also, Nolan North was David? Wow, really didn't recognise him! Fantastic work there Nolan!
Mild spoiler regarding Ellie (safe to read if you've gotten outsideof the first QZ): her being the key to a cure for the infection is a lazy zombie story trope and this is where Walking Dead had it over on The Last of Us in spades; Walking Dead just tells a human story about a man and his adopted daughter. The Last of Us makes it about saving the world. If I wanted that, I'd play any one of the multitude of power-fantasy games already out there of this kind.
Major end spoiler here: HOWEVER, Joel lying to Ellie at the end does give the story some punch. It makes his choice all the more obviously selfish.
While a replay for me isn't in the foreseeable future, I wonder how much of a difference a low violence playthrough would make, if any. Especially concerning David's story and his assertion you've killed lots of his men.
One thing I hate about the linearity of Naughty Dog's games, and this is something the Uncharted games could be just as guilty of: It can actively punish exploration by locking areas behind you if you nudge too far forward. This means if you're undecided between 2 paths, the game can lock you out of some rewards if you unknowingly go too far down the story path.
The biggest offender here for me was during the sewer sanctuary area when the paths seem to split. You and Ellie seem to go one way while Henry and Sam appear to go another. Ellie opened a gate for me saying "Voila", at which point I thought I was missing something else so before entering the gate, poked my head along the other route to see what I was missing. When I saw the water room, I went to go back to the gate that Ellie had opened only to find my way blocked. I had missed out on something purely because I was being curious and trying to cover all exploration bases. I hated Naughty Dog at that moment, and this highlights the problems with developers scripting games too tightly; it removes player agency.
Shortly after the sewer sanctuary is an open street section where you're pinned down with a sniper.
While I liked sneaking from building to building, I hated that I couldn't get an angle on the sniper as Joel had suggested. There was no sniper to aim at, just an unmoving gun in a window that shot back at you. This was incredibly lazy; they should have at least let you take out the sniper only for him to be replaced with another. It really jarred with the otherwise high production vales, taking me back to the days of FPSes experimenting with new ideas and quite often getting them wrong because of engine restrictions.
I'm also not sure that the genre fit the story very well. It could have done with being more open-world, less third-person-shooter. In the end, it's basically search area, kill guys, cutscene, rinse, repeat. It's incredibly polished which makes that easier to swallow, but it really is quite restricted as a game.
Renault on 17/6/2013 at 19:13
Hey, if anyone in the U.S. has finished up the game and would consider a loan, send me a PM. Maybe we can work out a trade/swap or something too.
newguypaul on 20/6/2013 at 21:45
I have started watching some Let's Plays of this lately and while overall this game looks quite good, I have some issues with a few things and I figured I'd just note them here.
* The AI. While combat is handled rather well, stealth is not. I have seen a few instances where the player would strangle a guy and then the AI would just open fire on another thus blowing the cover. Also, the AI's just start talking about random things while sneaking up to a group of hostiles which really kills the immersion.
* The ammo limitations are ridiculous. In a world where ammo is so scarce, coming across ammo that you can't pick up because you're 'full' makes no sense. He's got a backpack that looks at most 1/3 of the way full, and yet with only 18 or so bullets for a gun you can't grab more ammo. Not cool.
* Exploration is superficial and slows down the pace of the game. There really isn't much to explore, it's just an extra room here and there with everything pretty much laid out in front of you. It seems more tedious than rewarding to go out of your way to pick up supplies, but you have to do it. I don't know how others feel about this, but it really bugs me for some reason.
All that aside, the storytelling is still fantastic and the atmosphere is great as well. The people I'm watching play aren't that far into the game yet, so we'll see how the rest pans out...
SubJeff on 21/6/2013 at 00:00
Nope, the AI it's good.
The sorting starts because you are seen and don't know it and your AI buddies engage the enemy AI before you.
And exploring is fine.
Angel Dust on 21/6/2013 at 01:30
The fact that the AI cannot see your companions, or at least Ellie, while you are sneaking around had led to a couple of funny moments. The best was when I noticed a couple of thieves, who were chatting about us, coming towards the stairwell I was hiding in. So I retreated quietly back down the stairs, lying in wait at the bottom. Ellie decided to just walk down WITH the guards, as in side-by-side, which was silly enough by itself but then she decides to start a conversation with me about what those very guards where just saying.
I also kind of broke the AI in another area where Ellie covers you with sniper fire. I stealthed around and took out everyone unnoticed but no cut-scene was triggering to move to the next area. It was then that I noticed that there was a guy that I had missed so I made me way over to him. He was quietly standing in a room, seemingly unfazed that one of his buddies was 'sleeping' at his feet. So I choked him out.Still no cut-scene but then I noticed another guy I had missed on the other side of the street, just standing around. What the hell was going on? Then it clicked - these where the reinforcements spawns for the combat that was supposed to have taken place. I managed to take all of them out but 2 without raising the alert and even then Ellie only got one, non-fatal, shot off at some guy's ass. Needless to say the following cut-scene with its "Good job, Ellie" sentiments kind of fell flat. I mean, she pretty much just sat there and watched my crouch around for about 15 minutes.
Despite all this I am very much enjoying my time with The Last Of Us.
newguypaul on 21/6/2013 at 01:59
That's hilarious! I wish game developers would figure these scenarios out while beta testing with civilians and then have contingencies built into the game. I understand that this is only worthwhile up to a certain point, law of diminishing returns and all, but when the game touts that you can choose to be stealthy OR trigger-happy, you'd think they would prepare for you to go all stealth like that. Oh well, they are minor issues that don't really detract from the overall goodness of the game.
CCCToad on 21/6/2013 at 02:50
Funny thing about the girl being the cure.
I haven't even played the game, and in fact know little about it except for the basic premise and I already guessed that was the case.
