I was really excited as Critics seemed to hold this game in high regard. Very disappointing so far. In Pittsburgh so I've given it an honest attempt. But stealth is useless, combat is useless, ai is completely random, movment is first gen console at best, and story is completely cliche. Why was this game so highly rated again? Thanks

I don't know what you mean when you say "stealth is useless, combat is useless"?

I liked it well enough. I think that it was as overrated as I think all Naughty Dog games tend to be, but I recognize that that is my personal preference. I liked the characters though, and I enjoyed some of the combat sequences.

You can use the "super hearing" to take out one bad guy but when you do, all the others will hear you. This forces you in to combat which is unwinnable. I have a pistol. They have an armored hummer. This is not an exaggeration.

The gameplay is not great and the AI sucks but personally I really loved the story and the music.

If you're going to stealth your way through you need to get used to shivs and bricks. Also the "stealth" aspect isn't necessarily about invisibility so much as evasion and figuring out which enemies can be picked off and which can be evaded.

@tonyrohrbough: This is actually completely false. If you are alerting everyone else with your stealth then you are getting spotted or making too much noise. I took out entire areas full of enemies without ever getting spotted many times over the course of that game, even on the hardest difficulty where "super hearing" is disabled. And none of the combat is "unwinnable", even after getting spotted. Although fighting a hoard of clickers after getting spotted is kind of a pain in the ass, but it's doable if you bring the right supplies. Humans however are actually quite easy to deal with in a head on fight.

The scene with the armored hummer you are meant to escape and stay behind cover. You are never meant to fight it head on with a pistol and there is no situation where you are forced to do so.

Seems like an amazing game with really good characterization from what I saw of my girlfriend playing through it with combat not being the main draw. I'm not sure what you're asking? You think the game sucks? Okay? Other people don't? Okay.

movment is first gen console at best

So...the Magnavox Odyssey?

There's music? I hadn't noticed. And I assume your joking when one refers to "bringing the right supplies". One is at the mercy of the game when it comes to what supplies you find or don't find. Overall I guess the whole thing seems like a slog without much of a payoff. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind difficult games. I love the Dark Souls series. This seems utterly lame by comparison. It's like trying to play the novel "The Road" with an atari 2600 controller.

I'm sorry you aren't enjoying it, but the vast majority of people who have played it, myself included, really enjoyed the game.

@e30bmw: I happy for you. Now tell me why.

@tonyrohrbough: You make the supplies yourself with materials you find. While you are limited by the resources you can scavenge, what you do with those resources will affect your ability to handle various scenarios. And if you're not playing on the harder difficulties the game is actually quite rich with supplies. You should have no problem making all the supplies you could ever need. I remember my first playthrough on normal I regularly hit the supply cap and had to force myself to use stuff to make room.

Unless you foolishly chose the hardest difficulty to start on (which by your super hearing comment you did not) the game is not really that hard. You're just obviously playing it wrong. I know that sounds like a cliche defense of the game, but it's true, because everything you're saying is not actually accurate to the game we're talking about.

@zeik: Well said!

I don't think you're using stealth or your resources correctly, but you seem pretty set in your opinion of the game overall and it seems to not be your type, which is fine.

@zeik: I've been crafting like crazy. But this forced combat (and yes the combat is forced throughout this game) is murder. You can't skip it or avoid it. One is under-leveled for every encounter and as such tactics don't matter. This is exacerbated by the fact that the gameplay itself is brutally clunky. I just hate that I wasted $20 and was hoping maybe I was missing something. Don't guess I am. But thanks for the advice.

You bring up Dark Souls. The way you're talking about Last of Us is a lot like the way people talk about the Sous series experience before it clicks with them. I have a friend who to this day thinks the series is poorly designed because the timing and give and take of the combat doesn't make sense to him. That's fine and I don't hold it against him because it's just a game but at the same time from my perspective he's letting his frustration get in the way of figuring out Dark Souls on its own terms. There's obviously something there to get because more than a few people can figure it out so him saying the systems are random or useless seems off base.

Same for Last of Us.

@tonyrohrbough: Are you sure you're playing The Last of Us? There are no actual "levels" in this game. You can upgrade stats and weapons with resources you find, but that's largely irrelevant to your ability to succeed in the combat scenarios, especially where you are in the game. (And it's more than possible to go through the whole thing and never upgrade any of that.) Tactics are exactly what matter, and the fact that you think they do not matter is probably why you're failing.

You've clearly already decided you hate the game, so nothing I can say is going to matter at this point, but if on the off-chance you are not completely closed-minded to accept that you're approaching the game wrong or missing fundamental features of the game then I suggest giving it another shot and reexamining how the mechanics function. Maybe look up a playthrough on youtube of an area you recently cleared and see how people are playing it differently than you.

I dunno the AI did seem a bit random. In one stealth segment early on especially they triggered alert 2/3 times when I stealthed a specific guy and there wasn't any obvious reason why taking him out would trigger the room. Had to restart the encounter a bunch of times to get them all.

Generally I think the story, music and visuals were fantastic. But really disliked the gameplay and thought the controls were bad.

I think you are playing the game poorly.

It took me a few playthroughs to come around on it, and I really only enjoyed it on the hardest difficulty because I was thinking about how the scripting works, and learning how to break things. The story still isn't anything special to me, especially because it's so drawn out. Joel and Ellie are enjoyable characters though.

Oh and you're definitely doing something wrong if everyone's noticing you after a stealth kill. The AI is designed so that the enemies will eventually investigate the part of the level you're in, so you can't just stay in one spot forever, but I never had anything like you're experiencing and I had to rely almost entirely on stealth for the harder difficulty.

Honestly it sounds like you're just not clicking with the gameplay, which is a fair enough reason to not enjoy it, but that's not really a reason to decide the game is busted and "unwinnable", especially when the stuff you're arguing is factually incorrect.

@tonyrohrbough: gitgud,man.

I disagree, I love it. Some dislike the gameplay and just like the story through cutscenes, but I really love all of it. I find it to be a fantastic experience all around. It's one of the few games where I can't really understand how someone can dislike the gameplay unless you expected something totally different (like being able to move bodies once you kill them?), or played it wrong for some reason, probably again, due to expectation/assumption of the scenario you're in, but it is what it is. Furthermore, the armored hummer part, you're not supposed to fight them, you're supposed to sneak and run.

Cool, congrats.

Like how every other action game has "forced combat"? Of course you can't skip or avoid it entirely. There are certain instances where you can avoid them but generally the enemies are placed in areas where you have to eliminate them all before you can progress. To each their own but I think the game has pretty good stealth, the AI is just dumb enough to make stealth killing guys feel great and being so outnumbered and with so few weaponry it forces you to think tactically. It's fine if you don't like it, or even hate it. Not everyone has to love/hate something universally.

OP posts in a bizarre fashion.

Maybe it's a good game and you just have bad opinions and are not a skilled video game player.

It's hard to defend a game on the internet without looking a bit fanboyish, but these complaints are a little odd. I'm awful at stealth games and average at third-person shooters, and I never found there to be "unwinnable" scenarios for either (played on normal and hard). It's all very doable. A lot of dying on my part, but no more than expected.

I'll meet you halfway on the controls, though. Definitely clunky and requires you to get a feel for them. Wouldn't exactly call it "first generation console" bad, however. There's hyperbole and then there's lunacy, and that claim leans toward the latter.

While I like the story quite a lot, I actually agree. It's another "Man is the REAL monster!" zombie story. Where it makes up for that is in excellent characterization and setpieces, but I'm certainly not going to say it's not cliche.

But yeah, if you don't like it, more power to ya. I dislike FF7 and the Zelda franchise. I know the feeling.

Trolly post talking about first gen consoles and complete randomness, but alas... I thought the stealth was tense as hell, and the limited ammo made each combat encounter feel incredibly important.

Not for everyone, and certainly not always for me depending on my mood, but it was certainly a unique, well-made game that should've been five hours shorter. With surprisingly good multiplayer.

I wasnt a huge fan of the gameplay, I actually ended up just blasting my way through by shooting everyone with shotguns on easy. But the story was well worth it and I quite enjoyed the atmosphere. Second best game that year if I remember my list right.

The last of us is a game that's very story driven, if you love the story and setting it drives you through the games combat. It's slow, and deliberately.

Chalk me up as another person who isn't great at this type of games but made it through the Last of Us without too much trouble. I can think of a couple spots where there was forced combat, and one particular that I had to retry a bunch, but the game just isn't that hard.

One thing that comes to mind is, if you want to go the combat rather than stealth route (because you're having trouble with the stealth) are you using explosives and molotovs to their maximum potential? Using a bottle or brick to make a noise and then following it up with an explosive or molotov is one way to clear out a bunch of enemies at once and give yourself room to operate. Also, don't be afraid to engage combat, kill a few guys, and then disengage and heal up. The game is designed in such a way that you can often run into another room and hide and while the enemies will be on full alert they won't be able to track you perfectly. Then you can set up an ambush or at least pull a couple away from the pack so you're not fighting everyone at once.

The Last of Us combat is often about managing encounters and setting them up to your advantage. If you go in guns blazing and try to just shoot everyone like it's Gears of War or Uncharted then yes, it is an extremely hard game, but if you use stealth and strategic explosives to reduce enemy numbers, and hit and run in combat, it becomes manageable, and, in my opinion, even fun.

Nothing quite like getting four guys to clump up investigating a thrown bottle only to set them on fire with a molotov and only have to mop up a few of their buddies to turn a very tough encounter into a very manageable one.

The whole "survival" angle fell flat for me. It felt like a giant fake out intended to hide how shallow and repetitive the core gameplay was. Too few enemy types and a lack of variety moment to moment (sneak until caught then shoot your way out, hear some story, repeat) gave me nothing to work with outside of some smartly written dialogue. A game needs more than nice dialogue when all that's left is a supremely safe and repetitive combat/stealth system.

The narrative kept telling me how dangerous everything was and how vulnerable I was supposed to be but the stealth combat kept telling "just do it like last time and you'll be fine, you're Mr. Macho Man, remember?". It was like someone asking you to take the character's and their plight seriously while you mowed shit down with a plastic gun at the arcade.

Also the story was absolutely uninteresting. The dialogue is what carried that game, not the plot.

I also did not like the game, but your reasons seem pretty ridiculous. I do agree with the movement though, if you ever played manhunt thats what this game reminded me of. Story was the highlight of what i played, and while frustrating stealth wasnt useless.

@tonyrohrbough: What does "useless" even mean? I can't even tell if you're serious or not based on the tone of your post....

lol. so u want us to make u feel better about your "wasted" 20 bucks...waaaa.

other than that, this thread is useless. hey guess what? some people like some games, and some dont. you are in the minority. i have spoken to many people who loved it rather than those who didnt. and ive stealth'd the game every time ive played it in every scenario i could, and loved it.

sorry you didnt.**

** (mods lock the thread oh god i hate these threads**

@tonyrohrbough: I totally understand how much of a bummer it can be to hear the critical reception of the game, and then find it to be nothing like that when you actually get around to playing it.

But, I honestly don't really understand any of your complaints about this game... IMO the shooting, the movement and the stealth are all totally fine, if not "good". There aren't that many points during the game that you're actually forced into open combat and I every chance I got I went full stealth without too much issue. There are legitimate criticisms to be made about the game, but I don't think the moment-to-moment gameplay is one of them. The story begins to falter towards the end, and a lot of the twists seem excessively obvious or extreme, with the antagonists all eventually turning comically evil.

I hate to say it, but maybe you're playing it wrong? It's definitely not a standard action game, and if you try to treat it like one you'll have a bad time.

Great atmosphere, great art style, great characters book ended with tired gameplay mechanics which are a slog to play through. After 5hours I started finding the game increasingly difficult to play and eventually the fantastic wrapper around to game wasn't enough and I gave up.

In all seriousness though, try not looking at it through the lens of what you thought it would be or should be. Try to enjoy it for what it is.

If you're underleveled you just need to farm some souls on the dragon bridge.

Oh, The Last of Us you say? yeah i never found myself underleveled in that game.

[Infuriated loss for words] Okay! This one doesn't get to talk about The Last Of Us anymore. That is no way to speak of the works of Gustavo Santaolalla. Someone ought to smack you upside the head with a charango.

It's a shame you're not enjoying it. I love the gameplay in The Last of Us as much as I love the story.

One of the best playing, sounding, looking, most visceral heart pounding games I've ever played.

I played it on hard (because I think Brad mentioned the scarcity of items makes it feel more intense) and basically thought of the combat encounters like puzzle sequences and had a good time with it that way.

I detest Uncharted and think its a waste of time. This game uses the same limitations in its combat etc and uses them to make a tense interesting game. Loved it.

@posaune79100: I never did try playing the game on hard, maybe the mechanics start to come into their own a bit. Something more than "throw distraction, loop around the enemy, stop and pop, etc".

I'm not even a big fan of the game but, what this guy said.

I never played it, but it never seemed to interest me as a game I wanted to play or hear about, and I have been quite the fan of the developer's games in general.

Well you're a stupid head.

The gameplay in this thing's a bit odd. Took me a few hours to break away bad habits and expectations from other games and play along with this game. Once I did the combat got a lot more enjoyable.

Don't think of it as either perfect stealth and if that fails total shooter. If you get a lot of attention, fuckin run. Hide and get back to stealthily maneuvering around the enemies. Most areas are open enough for you to hoof it and break line of sight so you can get back to sneaking.

Even when you're in open combat again human enemies, make sure to reposition a lot, and make sure to use items you've crafted, as well as around you. Bricks especially are great for close-quarters attacks, or for throwing and staggering an enemy, which makes em vulnerable to a quick run-up melee takedown.

Soon enough you're running in, tossing a molotov, popping off a few shots, running and hiding, sneaking around, stealth killing a guy, sneak around some more, get spotted and throw a brick follow by a run-up melee takedown, then run and hide to get the rest. It's fuckin great. I guess that's just one playstyle though. I suppose you could go for a pure stealth playstyle, or full combat to varying effect. Up to you to find what works and is most enjoyable, if any even can be at all. Could just through-and-through not be your cup of tea.

Story stuff we can get into if you like.

Bricks are the best weapon in the game, at least on normal difficulty and trying to play stealth. Avoid every enemy you can. For the ones your can't, if you have a brick equipped you can run up and punch most enemies with it and take them out.