The Last Of Us - SPOILER THREAD

This game is GOTY for me and I'm now left with that awful depression you get after finishing a great book/movie/series. I also feel depressed because I think it's going to take a while before I see another game with this level of writing. Most of the positive stuff has already been pointed out, so I wanted to mention something I feel was a bit negative.

The game should have been shorter. I think the current standard of length/playtime for AAA-games is almost always detrimental to the narrative integrity. This is especially apparent in a game like this where the quality of the writing is so high. How many times in this game do you use specifically a ladder, pallet or a wooden board to solve environmental puzzles? Or the ridiculous amount of enemies you have to kill or stealth through during this game. I'm not saying that if they added more varied methods of puzzle solutions (other than pallets etc.) it would be resolved, but that almost all of these game mechanics/conventions appear in such systemic repetition over such a long time that the game and the narrative begins to divert.

The mechanics do have narrative resonance (or whatever you call it) by instilling that survival mindset/instinct (e.g. desperation ) in theme with the story. But I feel that it didn't evolve past that. After that, the design begins to become so transparent through systemic repetition - the mechanics and the narrative starts to divide into two seperated parts. I just don't think the narrative can endure 15 hours of this. In the end I felt like the gameplay and the narrative were two different components created by two segregated groups with only some occasional high-level collaboration. I did not feel this at all 5-6 hours into the game. It took about 6-7 hours before the gameplay started to "sabotage" the narrative experience. The mechanics/verbs didn't really have, or create, enough elasticity (?) to prevent this.

(caveat: most of the encounters were really well designed, i'm not arguing against that. I just, personally, have a very low tolerance for repetition.)

It's not uncommon to criticize games for being artificially lengthened, but as better/more immersive the writing gets, the more difficult it is to ignore. This is why it bothered me a lot more with Last of Us than any other game.

After the epic intro I thought the game would suck because of the introduction of Tess. She is so out of place

Good game!

Epic fucking game!

Here's a few things I would like to see in the sequel

Not in any kind of order

• I want more melee weapons and more customization of such weapons.
• I want more take down animations. (in Rockstar's Manhunt, the takedown animation depended on the weapon you had, adds a lot more variety)
• More loot variety and more items to create.
• Would be awesome to customize your weapons, use some duct tape and and old bottle to create a suppressor for a handgun, use half a binocular to create a sniper scope, and so on and so forth.
• More zombie types, after finishing the game twice, I'm actually amazed how they managed to ship the game with only 2 main types of zombies. On the sequel, I would love to see more, and adjust the way you tackle an area depending on the kinds of zombies that are lurking around.
• Stamina bar! Your character gets tired and melee impacts take less damage if you use it too much in short amounts of time. Also, when sprinting for too long.
• I loved the areas where you played with Joel and then with Ellie, I hope that on the sequel they make more of that with a twist.
• More SHOTGUN!
• I love the overgrown theme, I'm a sucker for it. But... I would also love to see more gameplay DURING the apocalypse itself. Some sort of storytelling event where Joel remembers his fights with his brother, the creation of the fireflies, Joel enduring the change from a good life, to the dawn of the apocalypse.
• More of the same environments! Overgrown apocalypse is beautiful, MOAR of it!
• Jungle missions, I want to stealth kill a clicker after sneaking from one bush to the other.
• Moire kinds of puzzles, the pallets and ladders got old real quick.
• Localized injuries. Remember MGS3 injury system, where you had to heal your injuries manually? I would love something like that.
• Remove the blinking screen effect from bricks and bottles, it's really distracting and takes you off the experience since they're EVERYWHERE.
• Crafting amunition! Finding empty shells and fill them up with powder or something.

That's it from the top of my head

If there's a sequel it'll be a prequel. They have 20 years of story to talk about.

There's actually 4 types of infected (runners, stalkers, clickers, bloaters). To be honest I couldn't tell you the difference between runners and stalkers, and apparently the latter are pretty rare as it is.

I thought the motivations in Winter and beyond were great as you swapped characters. You really had a clear goal and a strong reason to fight. Some of the environmental storytelling is among the best I've seen.

One thing I might like to see improved is the silhouette difference in the infected in their posture and animation. Sneaking up on one type versus the other can mean life or death, and at times they just read as being too similar (even more so when they became alerted)

Part 2

Finished it yesterday, loved the ending and would have done the same!

Quote from Minos

Finished it yesterday, loved the ending and would have done the same!

Would YOU have done the same, or you would have done the same in Joel's shoes?

Cos shit man, as much as I love Ellie, she might very well be the salvation for mankind.

What's the point in saving what's left of humanity when you have no Ellie anymore...

Would you let them kill your wife if that would save humanity? I wouldn't lol

I think humanity didn't do a good job of proving it deserve to be saved, but Ellie certainly did.

Not to mention even if you did find a cure, wouldn't you be shot on sight as you approached most remaining survivors?

iooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo9poooooo;

(my cat wrote the last part)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8XN7eoZr0Y

Pretty good shit