Daisuke72 said:
Lol, it's funny the only argument TLOU haters use is, "it's a movie not a game', and you just so happen to be a Nintendo fan, like I said, you're so edgy. |
I just called Journey a better game. A Sony exclusive. This has nothing to do with your juvenile allegience to corperations. The Last of Us is very much a game. I never called it otherwise. In fact, I very deliberately said that it wouldn't make a good film either and detailed why.
I presented plenty of arguements, none of which ever insinuated that the game was a movie and therefore not a game, for why The Last of Us is a bad game in great length. Allow me to highlight my main critiques though, since you very clearly couldn't understand them before:
- Gameplay is repetitive and superficial. Numerous encounters with the same 3 enemy types, varied slightly by 2 occasions extras.
- Grade school "stealth" and arcade cover shooting juxtapose the story and tone the game is trying to tell and set.
- Limited enemy types and repetitive gameplay quickly becomes routine and tedious, rather than scary, destroying the game's attempt at survival horror.
- Very poor and obvious level design.
- Few gameplay moments like the beginning when you play as Joel's daugher, the boss fight when you play as Ellie, the part where you play as Joel after he get's impaled, the part when you're hunting as Ellie, and the deer scene actually make sence within the confines of the game.
-These glimses of coherent gameplay to story game design are completely squashed by the vastly more prevelent and completely nonsensical "beat the level by beating the enemies"
- Cutscenes take priority over the gameplay, rather than being an organic integration presented to enhance the gameplay.
- Poor "puzzle" padding
- Multiplayer gameplay outshines the single player gameplay in a primerily single player game.
I'd like to add something though.
- Terrible AI and unbelievable companion mechanic.
I also drew comparisons to other games that try to do the same thing The Last of Us tries to do, but does them correctly or better because their focus was on creating an excelent game instead of an exellent cinematic experience with a game sloppily tacked on after words.
My largest problem with the game was the pervasive ammounts of zombies ("infected") and rival humans you had to slaughter to progress through the game. The story isn't about slaughtering people and zombies, it's about protecting and progressing the relationship between Joel and Ellie through the interactions between themselves and others. When The Last of Us does that, it shows ambition of being as great of a game as it so desperately is trying to be. Then it has you throw a glass bottle 70 times because that is a realistically "stealthy" way to avoid danger.
The level where you control Ellie as you sneak inside the cannibals' layer works because there is plot driving meaning for that to be happening, and the gameplay reflects that. The level where Joel is hoisted upside down and has to fend off the infected while restricted makes sence because there is plot context to it.
If the entire game was JUST gameplay like this where every second of gameplay is made to drive the plot and set the tone, than it would be a fantastic game, but it isn't because it doesn't do this. Instead, 90% of the game is combat fluff made just because that's "what you do" in a shooter. You shooter. Only The Last of Us isn't trying to be a 3rd person shooter. It's trying to be a cinematic platformer with cover shooter elements, which is a perfectly fine goal to strive for if you actually attempt to strive for it, but instead it betrays it's by instead being a third person shooter action adventure platforming game with a cinematic platformer plot.
Now the action overshadows the platformer. Now the primary gameplay focus is defeating the same two infected types or the same one human type, and with no story or gameplay context to deferentiate each encounter, which a game that focuses on story so much should be doing, every encounter eventually becomes routine and systematic. It becomes a chore. You start to recognise AI patterns with rules and predictablility instead of thinking of enemies as human beings or infected.
The reason why the level where Joel implaled works so well is because the gameplay and the plot is in perfect synch with one another. Joel is slower, and more diffult to aim with because he is mortally wounded. He is falling all over himself, thus making it difficult to progress and sloppy to take cover. This drastically changes how you interact with the infected and the environment. This particular fight sequence can absolutely never feel routine because it completely changes the rules in fighting the infected. Because this happens only once in this way, it will be fresh each time you play and the lack in enemy variety is offset by the abundance of gameplay variety. The infected is always scary at this part because no matter how good you've become at killing or avoiding the infected, the game forces a handicap and further limits your options for handling the situation. This doesn't bother the player because it makes sense within the confines of the plot. The game plays like this because the story plays out the same way.
The begining when you play as Joel's daughter works because the player can establish a connection with her before she shortly passes. That's why it make sence to carry her, now as Joel, through a horde of zombies, while being protected by someone else. Now you've established a connection with Joel's daughter, just as Joel has, and you've protected her from harm, just as Joel has. That is why the cutscene where she is murdered is so effective. Now you care for Joel's daughter, tried to protect Joel's daughter, failed to protect Joel's daughter, and not feel a loss for Joels daughter, in parellel with Joel himself. This is all done through GAMEPLAY and at the end is ENHANCED by the cutscene. This scene is so effective because it's not a scene at all. It's an experienced the same loss that Joel did. That could only be accomplished that effectively through gameplay but is used solely and effectively to push the plot, not to be level 1.
The boss fight against the cannibal works so well because his character was set up so well through gameplay. At first, Ellie and the player is forced to place trust in him by working together to fight off a horde of infected. He is made out to be likable because the attempts to reason with Ellie while his ally is more cold. Even if Ellie doesn't seem to outwardly like him, the player knows that inwardly, she is more open to trust him, because the player has already been forced to through. This makes her imprisonment feel betraying because he betrayed the trust the two seemed to have had built. Finally, the revelation that he may in fact be a cannibal and worse, the implications that he may have intentions of rape, very effectively forces the player to feel the same panic and fear the Ellie must. It is almost offensive to call this a boss fight because no one played this part thinking "this is a boss fight." They played it thinking panic and fear. And disturbia. You didn't fear her dying as much as her being assaulted sexually, and I'm sure quite a few people where thinking "Joels almost here. Please come in time and save me" just like Ellie might be. This works because the gameplay with Joel has already put it your head that he is coming. The cutscene where Ellie slaughters the cannibal is the last true connection that you make with Ellie at that part and it's infinitely satisfying. You see Ellie do to him what you probably wanted to, and then you see Joel comfort Ellie the way you probably wanted to. This is all effective because you didn't watch these things happen. You experienced the.
Why then are you killing zombies and murdering people all the time? Most of this is pushing any plot at all. It is just padding between plot points. It's just something "video game-y" to do because the designers don't trust the player enough or their level design enough to allow the player to do nothing while exploring. It's just moving from level 1 to level 2. It's insulting to the ambition of the narrative and the fleeting success of the Last of Us' possitive moments. It causes a rift between the gameplay and the cutscenes because they now become so starkly contrast to one another. If The Last of Us WERE a movie, the first things you're see cut would be almost all of the zombies and humans. There are enough parts featuring both in integeral plot sections would be anything else would be regarded as detremental to the over all plot of the movie. This is a drama, not an action flick.
The Last of Us feels like an action block buster trying desparately to be a drama.
