Quick Look: The Last of Us Remastered

@red_piano: I definitely agree that the game has it's flaws.
Personally I also hoped that the combat was more free flowing and less monster closet / scripted, and telegraphed.
Realism in that way has never been something I care much about though, games are by definition, not real, as profound as we try to make the simulation, it is simply that, a simulation. So we understand it is a game and within its mechanics a good game has been balanced to make it meaningful, challenging and rewarding. As such, things like arrows breaking too easily or occasional infinite bullet sections, although not real, keep the challenge and action more varied and interesting.

Even the execution of combat does this as well, since although most fights are absolutely predictable as to when and where they will happen, they allow for surprisingly creative gameplay solutions.

Personally, one of the things that bothered me the most about the game is the fact that they scattered collectibles everywhere, including areas where exposition and meaningful character interaction is supposed to happen, forcing you to make a choice between exploration and said character development, which jarringly takes you out of the experience.

I also particularly dislike sections where the game forces you into combat, even when you have specifically tried to be stealthy. There are some specific character building sections that even require you to clear all the enemies in an area before they can trigger, which is annoying.

And on a similar note, I find that the message of the game would be much more powerful if they had made some of the human enemies cower, try to escape or plead for their lives when outnumbered or defeated, rather than continue to come at you.

But even with all those critical observations, I still feel this is probably one of the strongest games of the last generation. It is generally beautiful, and surprisingly mature ( not in the I SHOW LOTS OF BLOOD AND BOOBS way), in it's subtlety, in the effectiveness of the writing, in its non-romanticized treatment of violence and it's universe, in its merging of mechanics and narrative, and particularly in the fearlessness of going down some really dark paths without falling into ridicule.

Flaws and all, I still consider it one of the most important experiences the medium has to offer.

About Brad saying it was "game of the year", it's not his appreciation, it simply was named Game of the Year 2014 in Giant bomb. He said he found it hard to really get into it till much later on the GOTY awards too. But that doesn't really mean anything. It took me a while to finish reading Brothers Karamazov, but I still think it's probably Dostoievki's best book, it may be one of those "good things are never easy" situations.

I did not play this game because I did not own a ps3. So I was happy to learn that it is coming to ps4 (which I do own). Excited to finally play this.

"I don't want to see clickers rip elly's neck out" Except they TOTALLY rip her neck out all the time in the Winter Chapter.

Too funny that is EXACTLY what happened to me too. I played it on hard my first time, got to that point, struggled with it for 2 hours...quit, and just never felt compelled to come back. The Uncharted games are my favorite games of last gen, and so it was really surprising to have given up on this game. I liked it right up to this point...but this point was just a wall for me. Way too hard, and I was also too stubborn to pull it back to normal. I beat all of the Uncharted games on Crushing, so...I figured...hey, I should be able to play this game on hard.

I am so glad I waited to get this. My PS4 is ready.

I hate that part where this quick look starts so much.

It's so nice hearing how genuinely enthusiastic Dan is about some of these games. He took (what would be) Jeff and Brad's usual line of "but who is it for" and immediately countered it with a very well-put explanation.

I'm sorry, what?

EDIT: I forgot North voices the character David.

I love how in the beginning Brad says "I don't have a shiv", yet has enough materials to craft 3 of them... Typical.

Yup. As well as his performance in Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time.

@sydlanel: A lack of realism in a game doesn't bother me either, as long as it's not claiming it's some gritty real dark thing like I feel the Last of Us did. Especially if you look at all the showings of the game at events, they always emphasized how every encounter will feel dangerous, but I never got that feeling, instead every encounter felt tedious and in the way of the narrative. In particular the amount of people you kill in the game is simply unreal and absurd and in contrast with the story and world they're trying to sell, it simply doesn't make any sense to be this unstoppable dude who can slaughter 500 guys in the course of the game.

I think you're right, less realism in service of enjoyable gameplay is good, but only when it's done well and I don't think TLOU did it well. I think what they should have done, is make arrows break if you miss, instead of a random chance as it is. I think enemies should have been smarter with their ammo, shoot only when they see you and have limited ammunition, so then you have a real incentive to actually rush them and kill them before they waste their ammo, giving you a reason to get risky with how you play instead of sitting behind cover and making the gameplay feel more grounded in the world and less gamey. There are just a lot of things like that, that I think they could have done so much better than they did.

I actually played through the game first on the hardest difficulty because I let my sister play the game before me, so she beat it on normal and I got to play on survival or whatever it's called. All these issues are even more glaringly problematic if you play on that mode and just infinitely more infuriating because on that mode you are finding less supplies in general and then you go fight enemies and it's just ridiculous getting shot at 50 times and then you kill the enemies and they have no ammo or their weapon just vanishes when they die, they also increase the chance that arrows break, so it's like after an encounter I might recover 50% of the arrows I fired or less.

So to some extent I think my disappointment is that I was sort of hoping the game would be somewhat like the Metro series, which I played both of those on Ranger mode which handles this stuff a little better than TLOU, it's dangerous because you have less health but they don't artificially ramp up the difficulty by making things vanish when you use them or having enemy weapons disappear when they die.

But yeah other than the gameplay it was a phenomenal game, I just hate seeing people praise it to no end with barely any criticism and it really disappointed me that I wasn't able to enjoy this game more when it came out.

I don't know if I can watch this. Brad trying to sneak around the clickers, not crafting any molotovs and/or shivs...

tlou is the purest form of hipster bait!

Last of Us is so generic....

I feel like if Brad was playing it on his own time, maybe for a review, he would figure that kind of stuff out. Doing it on camera and keeping up a conversation must be distracting.

I don't even... no. Not even close.

RDR? What?? NO!

@jawshua: Because you can always see where he's coming from. I think Majora's Mask is the best 3D Zelda game and one of the best games of all time, but I can totally see why somebody would hate Majora's mechanics the way Jeff does. He's just so direct with what he loves and what he hates and that's what makes him my favorite Bomber, even if I don't always agree with him.

I played through that opening section in the quick look, completely stealth on Survivor difficulty (Which I think is the real way to play it.) I'm picking up Remastered today and will try the new 'Grounded' difficulty.

Loved this damn game. I'll replay it again in a few years for sure. And yes RDR. Easily top 5.

@alex_carrillo: Please tell me when PC is going to get the majority of JRPG's and other Japanese games because last time I checked that usually doesn't happen.

Never got into this game, though I have it. I keep trying to play Resistance 3, also.

I do like Brads first encounter, there!!

A little hardcore and good presentation.

then tell me!

give me the formula, i must leave it by an active volcano!

and it did work for jonny =o

Brad and Dan discuss the importance of only upgrading the weapons you use in order to save resources as Brad upgrades the gun he is not using.

Resident Evil 5:

I Gotta Give You My Brown Egg

Having never played TLoU on PS3, this Quicklook only further convinces me, I have no desire to play this game. I'm sure the graphics are great, and full of details. I'm sure the voice acting and animation is top notch. NO INTEREST at all in playing this game. I hate zombies, it's just fucking stupid! Why doesn't somebody make an apocalypse game where all the humans are transformed into unicorns and leprechauns? That would make as much sense as all these dumbass zombie movies, zombie music video dancers, and zombie survival games. (With the exception of 1 and a half Resident Evil games) Maybe Naughty Dog's lack of Japanese-ness is the final nail in the coffin. But fuck this game and fuck PS4. I'll keep playing all the great PC games while my PS3 continues to collect dust.

A simple story told well.

You don't sound like a well adjusted human being.

So is the European version of this censored alongside the same lines as the PS3 one? Because getting to see the uncut version would be a nice bonus for the remake.

@thebunnyhunter: You CAN just start on survivor. It is unlocked from the start.

As far as zombie explanations go though, the mythology of this game is actually kind of cool, and rather grounded. it's a fungal infection that sort of exists.

You sound a bit angry.. tell us how you really feel.

What if there were a feature that completely dismantles the tension and intent of this game? Oh yeah, listen mode!

This was my reaction to this after beating the game on Grounded last week. Being able to take even two or three melee hits just seems to contradict the tone now. Though it did make it near impossible to try more risky, spontaneous tactics. I'd say Survivor is the sweet spot for difficulty. Another great thing Grounded mode finally incorporated is more brutal checkpoints. No more respawning halfway through the encounter, you have to truly pull it off in one go. It really delivered on the pitch for this game now that you can't take a bullet and heal yourself in a corner, and every move counts. It feels like the game is more complete with the option to go for a brutal difficulty on top of the regular choices.

Anyway, poo poo on the listen mode. It undermines the game even more than the abundant resources on Easy and Normal.

By the way @brad, you can instakill Clickers by throwing a brick or bottle and hitting them with any melee weapon while they're stunned. Saves a lot on shivs and molotovs.

Cause there's definitely no zombie games at all on PC

@bbqbram: Look, listen mode is useful because no matter how good positional sound is in a game it is never going to be able to replicate the spatial and positionally relative information you can get from sound in real life. Not with current home surround tech anyway. But really, if you just can't make the leap in your imagination to understand that the game is just giving you visually what it is unable to do purely through audio... Turn it off. You can turn off listen mode (I believe) in any of the difficulties, and it isn't available at all (of this I am sure) on Survivor difficulty.

@noelveiga: The only thing censored in the EU version was the multiplayer. And yes, it's still censored.

The TLOU had flaws that nobody at ND could predict- a bunch of 'hardcore' gamers playing on the hardest difficulty, unable to admit to themselves that they aren't yet good enough to get through the game, go on to complain on message boards across the internet that the game is imbalanced and has bad stealth mechanics.

The mechanics work. Play on normal. Get comfortable, then come back to Survival.

@alexthebehemoth: don't worry. Only brainwashed peasants actually thought that the PS3 version looked good. Relatively fun game and great story, but man did the original version look like ass.

huh? what does this even mean?

This is hilarious.

@adequatelyprepared said:

It's apparently true, not a huge difference, but you can even see it on the shadow detail / resolution in the environment when brad briefly switched between them.

So I have to play through the entire game again just to unlock the director commentary for a game I already beat three times over a year ago? What the fuck did I buy this for?

I thought the stealth mechanics were great. I have played through it twice on PS3 and I'll be jumping into the PS4 version. I prefer the stealth mechanics in TLOU over Deus Ex: HR, save for the invisibility stuff.

Top 5 game of last gen easily. Also weird how quickly Brad and Dan both answered Red Dead Redemption. Which is also my top game of last gen.

Red Dead

TLOU

Dark Souls

Batman Arkham Asylum

Dead Space

Come at me bro.

A very well delivered story, but ultimately I found wading through its gameplay to be a total drag.

Im glad this game has been released on the PS4. This is my favorite PS3 game. Ive played through it three times. The single player DLC is also really good. It took a little while to get used to the multiplayer. Its harsh at first but found it to be fun after getting better guns and unlocks. Pretty much everything about this game is awesome. Though I would prefer the price to be $40. I would buy this again for the extra map packs in multiplayer and 60fps if i owned a PS4.

Some of the comments in here really make me question people's taste. Calling this hipster bait? The worst gameplay of the year?

Did we play the same fucking game?

Last of Us is an achievement. There just isn't a more narrative focused game with as much real emotion and talent as this one.

It's the only game I've ever cried to. The only one. I think it's near flawless.

The amount of meh-itude in these comments is just crazy to me. I really don't get what people expect developers to do if this game doesn't impress them.

Wow, check out the warping Ellie at 13:30. She runs into the shop while he's strangling then guy, then is *instantly* behind him when the camera whips-around.

I think I'll just watch the movie. I really, really hated the way this game controlled. My complaint with Uncharted was always Naughty Dog's inability to set up a sound, fun combat scenario, and the early parts (at least the first five or so hours, which I played) exasperated this problem. Having to fight the infected for the first chunk is the worst thing that they could have possibly done, because they are just not fun to play against. They're either heat-seeking missiles or awful one-hit kills, and the Tank versions are just designed to sponge up your resources. In a world where zombies are over-done in every form of media, this game's take on them is neither unique or refreshing, and it really hurts the final product.

I moved back in November and one day I went to give a friend my copy of Last of Us so he could play through the campaign as he was wanting to play it but could not find it. I have scoured my entire house for this damn game and it is the only missing game in my collection. I am really disappointed I never got to finish it because someone swiped it I think! I would like to play this but really do not like console games/controls.

I loved this game... It doesn't matter what side of the fence you are on, overrated or masterpiece, I know what I think of it and to me it was the 2013 Game of the Year.