The Last of Us

[AndyKurosaki]

Not gotten far into this yet, but it's already very impressive. It's taking me a while to get used to being stealthy, after a few Clicker related deaths I realised going in all guns blazing was a bad idea.

[Todinho]

I dont know why people are all upset about clickers I can handle them fine it's the runners that are driving me crazy they see you and sunddenly your master stealth plan is ruined,it's a good thing the game sometimes just let's you run away from combat that's pretty great and i wished uncharted had this.

[Buckled Kipper]

15 hours in and still not finished, yet this game just gets better and better as you progress. And it started pretty damn amazing.

[JaySevenZero]

Finished my first play through of this yesterday (well, technically 3am this morning!) and I have to say that it's gone to the very top of my favourite list for narratively drive video games. A truly tight script delivered with exemplary performances, I played through the whole thing in literally two sessions as I got so invested in the story and its characters. I can't think of any other game that had me hooked this bad and without wanting to descend into hyperbole, I truly see this as genuine benchmark in how we may view video games. Here's a game, whilst undoubtedly influenced by cinema, creates its own identity and crafts a story that frankly, is better than most films I've watched recently. We've started to see some really great writing within games lately but of those games I've played this is without any doubt the best I've experienced, with some of the most maturely written, layered characters I've seen within the medium to date.

[Sean]

Finished my first play through of this yesterday (well, technically 3am this morning!) and I have to say that it's gone to the very top of my favourite list for narratively drive video games. A truly tight script delivered with exemplary performances, I played through the whole thing in literally two sessions as I got so invested in the story and its characters. I can't think of any other game that had me hooked this bad and without wanting to descend into hyperbole, I truly see this as genuine benchmark in how we may view video games. Here's a game, whilst undoubtedly influenced by cinema, creates its own identity and crafts a story that frankly, is better than most films I've watched recently. We've started to see some really great writing within games lately but of those games I've played this is without any doubt the best I've experienced, with some of the most maturely written, layered characters I've seen within the medium to date.

Agree 100%. It's a goddamn powerhouse of a game.

[Buckled Kipper]

Yep, same here. Finished this last night and haven't been able to stop thinking about it all day. A remarkable game.

[JaySevenZero]

I also have to add that I didn't realise Nolan North voiced one of the characters too, honestly didn't recognise his voice at all.

[Todinho]

So I have question regarding the ending for those of you who have finnished:

Spoiler: show

In the end did you see Joel as a villian?I can see why people see him like that but honestly in his position would have done anything different?

[PressEscToExit]

I also have to add that I didn't realise Nolan North voiced one of the characters too, honestly didn't recognise his voice at all.

That's interesting, I remember thinking David's was the least convincing performance because he was the only one who sounded like somebody "doing a voice," and I guess that explains why! He almost sounds like a South Park character at times, it really stuck out to me.

I'm right on board with all the love this game's getting though, it feels like the big payoff for a lot of what western developers have been working towards in recent years. It's probably the defining game of this console generation.

[JaySevenZero]

I also have to add that I didn't realise Nolan North voiced one of the characters too, honestly didn't recognise his voice at all.

That's interesting, I remember thinking David's was the least convincing performance because he was the only one who sounded like somebody "doing a voice," and I guess that explains why! He almost sounds like a South Park character at times, it really stuck out to me.

Fair play, I'll keep the rest behind spoiler tags as it's a giveaway.

Spoiler: show

I personally thought his performance started well enough in the abandoned mill, I liked the scene where he tells Ellie he knows about her and Joel. I did however, feel that his showdown was one of of only three moments in the entire game that stood out to me as "videogamey" with it feeling like a prescribed Boss fight. The other two moments were the first time you encounter the Bloater and also the sniper sequence.

[PressEscToExit]

Spoiler: show

I personally thought his performance started well enough in the abandoned mill, I liked the scene where he tells Ellie he knows about her and Joel. I did however, feel that his showdown was one of of only three moments in the entire game that stood out to me as "videogamey" with it feeling like a prescribed Boss fight. The other two moments were the first time you encounter the Bloater and also the sniper sequence.

Spoiler: show

Haha, agreed, my heart sank a bit at all three of those moments, alongside the confrontation with Robert's henchmen, where you're led into a very obvious battle arena for the first time. Although to be fair to TLOU, that's more about how I've been conditioned by other games to respond to waist-high cover than any failing of its systems or design. I enjoyed the encounter itself and pretty much every other encounter that followed.

[JaySevenZero]

For sure, but I kinda saw the entire Robert sequence as an extended tutorial anyway so was willing to cut it some slack because of that.

[arry_g]

So completed the game and witnessed the ending and my initial thought is (spoilers)...:

Spoiler: show

...does anyone else feel morally conflicted by the ending? I mean, Joel's final decision to save Ellie and then lie to her (whilst she knows he's lying and he knows that she knows he is lying) about their situation is obviously morally ambiguous but would I do the same? Would most people in Joel's situation do the same? No-one wants to be alone after all and losing another child would have broken Joel completely. I wasn't expecting to come out of this game questioning my morale standpoint on saving people who don't want to be saved. Nor on the implications of making life changing/saving decisions on behalf of other people for potentially selfish reasons. Would you guys agree that Joel is one of the most human characters in the history of videogames? Or does his brutality stop this being the case?

This is a fantastic game but not perfect, story-wise it is in my opinion very, very strong but the title highlights a massive flaw in the review scoring system though - this is no 10 out of 10 but it is more worthy of 9 out of 10 than many games to wear that score proudly.

[Todinho]

Spoiler: show

...does anyone else feel morally conflicted by the ending? I mean, Joel's final decision to save Ellie and then lie to her (whilst she knows he's lying and he knows that she knows he is lying) about their situation is obviously morally ambiguous but would I do the same? Would most people in Joel's situation do the same? No-one wants to be alone after all and losing another child would have broken Joel completely. I wasn't expecting to come out of this game questioning my morale standpoint on saving people who don't want to be saved. Nor on the implications of making life changing/saving decisions on behalf of other people for potentially selfish reasons. Would you guys agree that Joel is one of the most human characters in the history of videogames? Or does his brutality stop this being the case?

Well...

Spoiler: show

I saw a lot of people saying that Joel was a villian by the end of the game,I mean yeah he destroyed the cure for man kind for his selfifsh reasons but honestly in his place I would've done the same thing it's very difficult to care about every single human being on the planet it's very easy to care about one,and it's no surprise if we take the beginning of the game into account,I think Joel is indeed one of the most human characters we've seen in games especially because of the brutality as well Joel was never a nice guy and what he did he did to survive that is a part of him

[Buckled Kipper]

So completed the game and witnessed the ending and my initial thought is (spoilers)...:

Spoiler: show

...does anyone else feel morally conflicted by the ending? I mean, Joel's final decision to save Ellie and then lie to her (whilst she knows he's lying and he knows that she knows he is lying) about their situation is obviously morally ambiguous but would I do the same? Would most people in Joel's situation do the same? No-one wants to be alone after all and losing another child would have broken Joel completely. I wasn't expecting to come out of this game questioning my morale standpoint on saving people who don't want to be saved. Nor on the implications of making life changing/saving decisions on behalf of other people for potentially selfish reasons. Would you guys agree that Joel is one of the most human characters in the history of videogames? Or does his brutality stop this being the case?

This is a fantastic game but not perfect, story-wise it is in my opinion very, very strong but the title highlights a massive flaw in the review scoring system though - this is no 10 out of 10 but it is more worthy of 9 out of 10 than many games to wear that score proudly.

I get what you're saying , but for me it is a 10. I don't feel that a 10 has to be perfect (nothing is) it just has to hit all the right buttons with me and leave me in awe of the experience. Which for me this easily did.

[ratsoalbion]

Yeah, a 10/10 should usually mean 'standard-setting' or 'genre pinnacle' because, as you say, nothing's perfect!

[JaySevenZero]

I was also impressed by how Naughty Dog included one of the most understated gay characters within the narrative that I've seen in any video game to date.

[ratsoalbion]

So much so that I didn't even know until you pointed it out to me.

[delb2k]

I finished it this morning, so here we go...

To start I have some reservations about the gameplay, especially in regards to the encounter design. As has been noted before there are 3 very annoying, very videogame standard sequences that just ripped me out of the world entirely. Alongside that Naughty Dog created some sections where you have to kill everyone in order to trigger the next section which just annoyed me. There were a few occasions where I had managed to combine stealth and killing to get to the obvious destination but no prompt appeared until everyone had been dealt with. That removal of freedom to tackle the situation in whichever way I wanted, whether that be with or without bloodshed, was something that just felt at odds with the world around me. It was never too often, but enough to make me wonder why it was a condition of progress.

The world is spectacular though, and the narrative very strong. The way both leads act throughout the story is just fantastic and I really enjoyed the way they interacted and grew over the course of the game. Those exchanges at the start of the final city indicated just how much they had come to understand and like each other were fantastically delivered. And the sense of place, I was incredibly impressed with how much they made a linear path alive with stories and tales of incredible hope and sorrow. Everything that is not actually playing is as a high a standard as we have ever seen, and that makes up a very important part of this game.

I did enjoy it, I have great feelings toward it. One of the best of the year, but not top of my list at this point.

[Todinho]

I was also impressed by how Naughty Dog included one of the most understated gay characters within the narrative that I've seen in any video game to date

Mind = Blown ,would've never put 2 and 2 together myself that's pretty amazing.