My expectations going in were so high that I was sure I'd be disappointed, The Last Of Us blew me away.

For starters the game has the best resource management system I have ever seen in a video game.

The characters interactions goes beyond just the cut-scenes, their relationship builds during actual gameplay, the casual conversations between Joel and Ellie, the depth of these two characters combined with the overall theme of the game makes it feel real.

The Last Of Us is the greatest video game I've ever played, as it induced feelings that no other art form has ever done to me. The script was brilliant, the visuals were brilliant, the characters, the gameplay, the realtime crafting, and oh my fucking god the winter level....The Winter level has to be the greatest stage ever.

No, but in all seriousness. I simply did not want this game to end, I did not want to die purely because I didn't want to see the terrible death animations, that's how emotionally invested I was into the game. The Last Of Us isn't just a video game, it's an experience. The Melee combat was just awesome btw, it's light years ahead of Uncharted in that department and the shooting feels real. Yes it's tougher to shoot people in this game, but that's because the game strives for realistic mechanics, where, y'know, you don't hit the mark 99% of the time like most shooters.

The Last Of Us will go down in gaming history, that's how good it is. Seriously.

It's similar to the Uncharted series but the pacing and the way you play the game is entirely different.  The game is around 18 hours or so long and it's no joke.  Sometimes, over the course of 18 hours the game can feel repetitive at times in terms of what you're doing (Stealthing, gathering, surviving)  but the game keeps you fresh with new areas, new locations, new gameplay aspects.  (What game over 8 hours have you played  that doesn't feel repetitive at times).  The story and the way the story is told is fantastic. The first thirty minutes of the game is truly an exhilerating time and really sets the tone for a great story.

It's slightly over-rated by some people who are saying it's the 'Best game ever'.  I wouldn't say that, but I would say it's certainly in the running for game of the generation. It's story was really good and easy to follow (Unlike MGS4) and actually had some serious depth and emotion to it (Unlike Uncharted). It effectively navigated and married the survival horror/action adventure/stealth/role-playing/drama genres into one game and did it seamlessly.  It's not an easy game, multitudes harder than Uncharted (Even on Normal mode).  I haven't started newgame+ yet but I'm sure the top difficulty will be brutally hard.

You won't understand the game by watching 'Youtube' videos -- Slimebeast.  You won't be involved in the game.  I've never watched a game on youtube that was 'fun', and I'm not sure why anyone would expect that.  You won't enjoy the game by switching on and off with your friend. (Who even does that?) -- especially if you didn't play during the final stretches of the game.   You wouldn't alternate turns of playing a Final Fantasy game and then skip most of the second half of the game and actually enjoy the game.  

You play the game and need to engross yourself into the game. It's just like any game with a viable story, the people who don't 'get it' are usually the ADHD type of gamers that half way play it or skip cut scenes or simply don't pay attention,  which removes almost 75% of the things that make the game special.

Watching a lets play or looking at some gameplay won't do it justice, lock yourself away and become immersed in the experience to enjoy it to it's full potential.

I don't care about The Walking Dead. I played the game because it was critically very well-received.

That's pretty much how I roll. I tend not to hone in on specific genres. I prefer to try a variety of things to see what I like. I'm very selective about what games I play and what movies and tv shows I watch.

I also don't care about Resident Evil. I played a bit of Resident Evil 4 at a friend's house, but not enough to form my own opinion of it.

I don't really enjoy "dudebro shooters," although your definition of this phrase may differ from mine. I played through the entirety of a Halo game -- pretty sure it was Halo 2. It practically bored me to tears. I amused myself by trying to fit vehicles into areas they didn't belong, with varying degrees of success. I've also played enough of Halo 4's multiplayer to know I don't care for that, either.

An example of a first-person shooter I do like is Half-Life 2. I picked up The Orange Box a few years ago, mostly for Portal, and wound up greatly enjoying everything in the package -- including Team Fortress 2, an online multiplayer shooter I can get into. But I love all three of those games, so I don't have some kind of agenda against shooters.

I don't have a bias against zombie stories, either, though I may have one against zombie stories that play all of the tropes straight. But is that a bias, or am I just bored with being told the same story a million different ways? I imagine I feel the same way about it that others feel about the "story" in a Mario game, but that doesn't bother me because the story isn't the main selling point in those games, or even a marginal focus. I'm not expected to be completely blown away when Bowser kidnaps Peach -- again -- or when Mario saves the princess -- again -- because it's been done to death and you know it's going to happen. So when I'm playing a zombie game and people are the real threat and the darker side of human nature blah blah blah, I'm yawning while everyone is raving about how amazing the storytelling is. It just doesn't interest me -- and I don't even watch a lot of zombie movies, or horror movies in general! It's just not captivating to me. As soon as I know zombies are involved, I can call half the "twists" from 28 miles away. To my surprise, I actually liked Zombieland, probably because it didn't take zombie tropes very seriously, and wound up subverting most of them in the process.

So the story in The Last of Us doesn't seem very original. I grimmace every time I see that quote comparing it to Citizen Kane. Supposedly this is an entirely new level of storytelling from games in the past, but I don't see it. I think we should look to games like Dark Souls for that. Games that build a world with a history, and invite you explore that history as deeply as you want, without forcing you to experience it from a specific perspective and feel a specific way about it.

I'd rather take recommendations from my friends than from a bunch of games journalists -- those same people who universally declared that The Walking Dead was the greatest game because it gave them feels, who said Bioshock Infinite was easily a GOTY contender because it told an alright sci-fi story with pretty graphics and generic FPS gameplay. So when my friends tell me that The Last of Us gameplay is "a 5 out of 10," and I watch a few gameplay videos showing the main character stealthing real hard, jumping over walls and running around two feet behind people actively searching for him without so much as a "what was that sound?" I can draw some conclusions.

I'm not saying the game is bad. But I am saying that nothing I've seen or heard about it has made me want to play it. It looks boring.

Yeah, you don't get immersed at all when you watch games on YouTube, so you can't judge them properly.

Someone in this thread said that he liked the skill and item upgrade system in the game. I love those kind of things, to collect everything and upgrade stuff.

@the_dengle

Do you even have a PS3? I looked at your 106 games that you have and not a single one was on a Sony platform. What is your PSN?

I don't have a PS3. The only non-Nintendo console I own is a Sega Genesis. When I want to play a PS3 or 360 game, like inFamous, Bioshock, Journey, Dark Souls, Halo, Journey, Metal Gear Rising, etc, I do so at a friend's house, as practically all of them own PS3s. I don't fill them in on the database because I don't own them.

Most of those 106 games are pretty old. I was bored one time and filled in my entire history of gaming. But I still own most or all of those, and return to them when I have the urge.

I like some Sony games, but not enough to drop a few hundred bucks on another console. Most of the third-party stuff I miss on Nintendo platforms I can pick up on Steam during a sale.

Cause its sony owned :D

Naaah! its one of those games that once you start playing you can't put down. And its been a long long time since I've played a game that has had that effect on me.

Ok then..

" So when I'm playing a zombie game and people are the real threat and the darker side of human nature blah blah blah, I'm yawning while everyone is raving about how amazing the storytelling is."

I don't see how this puts you off from being interested in the game? That is only the setting of the game. You still have the gameplay, the story, etc. How can just the setting make you avoid such a great game?

story =/= setting