Is anyone else disappointed with the amount of coverage this game has gotten on the site. I know the past months have been kind of crazy and expecting everyone to have played the game a couple weeks ago sounds insane, but I just feel like this games singleplayer and multiplayer are so well done and the game hasn't got the attention it deserves from the majority of guys on the site. What do you guys think?

Considering that this game was critically acclaimed. I think it got all the attention it needed, hell maybe abit to much attention.

Just an unfortunate case of really bad timing, with Ryan's death and all. Vinny and Patrick are the only ones who have completed it, as everyone else naturally hasn't been in the mood for something so emotionally driven and grim. I think Vinny must have completed it before Ryan passed on, whereas Jeff and Brad had at least started it, but Brad was busy playing feeding his addiction to Dota 2, and Jeff... well, this isn't the sort of game I would expect Jeff to plow through in a few sittings.

I'm sure they will eventually get around to it, and there's no way they won't talk about in detail come the GOTY podcasts.

What else is there to say?

It was a game, move on.

The game has had more attention than most, and I've seen many argue that there are legitimate issues with its gameplay.

Here, it was discussed on two or three podcasts in a row, got a pretty long Quick Look from what I remember, got a glowing review, and was played on a TNT. Might have been played on an Unprofessional Friday as well. That's more coverage than most games get these days.

Its really one of those things where it got so much praise that a small, but vocal group felt the need to go against that praise and nitpick it to death.

Edmund Mcmillen once made a joke video pretending to be a troll who was trying to prove Braid wasn't as good as everyone thinks it is. Wish I could find it, but can't. Too bad, because it perfectly illustrates what people tried to do to the last of us.

Oh really, it's not a perfect game? It has issues? That's VERY surprising. It must not be as good as others say it is then, because it has ISSUES. Now it's my duty to make sure EVERY SINGLE PERSON KNOWS THAT THIS GAME ISN'T AS GOOD AS EVERYONE SAYS IT IS, AND THAT IT HAS ISSUES!!!

That's me describing the video, by the way.

Also, what issues did people have? I thought the gameplay was fucking great, and that it completely fit with the narrative aspect of the game. I'd be interested to see some of the issues highlighted, as I cannot think of one problem (besides minor hiccups that are in EVERY game).

Well, from what I've seen, people have complained about how you spend time moving ladders and poles or some such stuff.

Mostly, though, the issue seems to be that this is yet another linear third person shooter, it just happens to have a decent story this time around. Some people, myself included, are tired of games being praised like they're the Second Coming or something but not actually doing much with gameplay mechanics. Bioshock Infinite is compared to The Last of Us for this very reason - the story's pretty good but the gameplay itself has mostly been done before and better, save for the skyrails.

Note that I haven't played TLoU yet, but I have played Bioshock Infinite and it's a legitimate criticism there. It's a cry for more games to be recognized for what they do as games, not what they do as a story or how expensive their production values are. I definitely agree with it - something like Fire Emblem Awakening, probably the single best game released this year, has had very little exposure and has been talked about very little by critics, reviewers, "game journalist", etc., but here's Bioshock Infinite with perfect scores from almost everyone and yet there are issues with the gameplay. This post is already too long and off-topic so I won't expand on it, but I did talk about it (and so did some others) here. TLoU and Infinite are very different games but both have become prime examples of this problem.

It will be ridiculous if they haven't, meaning Brad and Jeff, beaten the game before the goty deliberations. With that said I can understand if you might need to be in the right mood and why that might not be right now.

I just hope that Brad's dota coverage doesn't come in the way of playing other games. Dota means nothing for me, so as I see it he is kind of getting paid for just playing the same game because he like it. I wish I could have a job were I could just play the same game at work and getting paid for it.

@believer258: But the difference between TLoU and Infinite is that TLoU actually plays good, not great, but good. My problem with TLoU was that it became a little repetitive by the end, but the story never got boring. I really think you should play a game before you start to talk about its "issues" since you can't really have an opinion about how well a game plays before you have actually played it.

Also TLoU is awesome.

@believer258: Not to be a dick, but don't knock it until you play it man. It just isn't fair

That being said, Bioshock deserved it's criticism because it was a FPS without idiosyncrasies. The Last of Us is NOT a standard 3rd person cover shooter nor a standard stealth game. It may look like that on the surface, but when you get your hands on it for yourself, you'll know that it's different in a lot of important ways. If you ever do play it, make sure to play it on hard; it only amplifies its positives (if there was anyway to unlock survivor without completing the game once I'd recommend that difficulty. It's how that game was meant to be played)

It's hard to explain without making this post overlong, so I'll just say what it accomplishes (at least for me and a lot of other people). It gave me goosebumps, it stressed me out, it made me sweat, it made me do horrible things without hesitation, it taps into the "fight or flight" aspect of humanity that no other game has (for me at least).

All games have a disconnect between gameplay and story (except for a few examples where the gameplay is a very minimal part to the overall experience). Infinite was, sadly, a prime example of this. I am of the opinion that the last of us has shortened that gap, more so than I've ever seen.

Random side note: people who enjoy games like dark souls just cannot find enjoyment in a game like the last of us. I have no idea why; probably a preferential thing. It's probably the same reason why I love games like the last of us, but cannot stand games like dark souls. Not sure if you like dark souls or not, but if you do here's the best piece of advice I can give you. Don't expect this to be a taxing experience in the same way a game like dark souls is. It's apples to oranges

I'm pretty sure most of the staff haven't even started and/or finished the game. It's pretty understandable given that it's such a dark game and they're already in a pretty dark situation. I'm sure they'll finish it by the GOTY awards.

@naru_joe93 said:

I thought the gameplay was fun, but it was just kind of standard. It's a game with very solid gameplay mechanics, and a great story. I thought the AI for your buddies was SUPER awkward during combat, though. They would always be running around, trying to find cover or something, making a whole bunch of noise, and none of the clickers would get alerted. I played a stealth character mostly, so I think if I was more of the guns blazing type, I may not have noticed it as much. Still, that just really took me out of the experience and the immersion, and it reminded me that I was just playing a video game.
Still, that's just a minor nitpick, and I think the game is well deserving of 5 stars for it's well-done gameplay, and envelope-pushing storytelling.

That's strange, because both Dark Souls and The Last of Us are two of my favorite games of this generation. I completely agree that comparing them is apples to oranges though. They're both different experiences with different purposeful gameplay.

@vigorousjammer: Your complaint about character companions is completely valid. The way the developers saw it was simply "immersion vs annoyance". If there was a practical way to make AI companions more reliable, then I would have much preferred a more realistic consequence for them being noticed.

But the tech isn't there yet; enemy AI is great, but companion AI is still kind of awful. It would be unfair to force those consequences onto the player (realistic consequence for something decidedly unrealistic).

And, honestly, I didn't experience that break in immersion at all. Either I was too involved to notice, or was damn lucky.

As for the gameplay, I really don't think it's standard at all. You aren't very accurate, you die in 3 hits, you don't have a lot of supplies (when playing on hard, at least). It looks standard, but it never felt standard. It didn't feel like uncharted or gears, it was much more dire than that.

@themanwithnoplan: That's great to hear! Like I said, random side note. It just seemed to be a trend that I noticed. Obviously it doesn't apply to everyone. Honestly, there is such a huge margin of people unaccounted for (people that don't take part in online communities/talk about their opinion) that it probably doesn't apply to most people

What more did people want from them? I mean, I know they talked about potentially doing a spoilercast, and then they didn't, but it's definitely been talked about plenty on the Bombcast, even if Jeff and Brad haven't finished it.

I guess one of the things that needs to be understood if games are going to get darker, in a non-juvenile way, and more severe in tone is that sometimes that's not what people are in the mood for at a specific point in time. I know that I am sometimes more willing and able to appreciate tragic/grim films than I am at other times when I'm more vulnerable. But because the window of interest for video games seems to, as a rule, be incredibly short, it can lead to situations such as people not playing The Last of Us during the peak of it's zeitgeist due to personal issues or just generally not wanting to play such a grim game at that moment. It doesn't help that they released the game in June; a mid-winter release time would have perhaps been more, I dunno, "logical", or at least fitting, although playing it during the summer certainly didn't stop me from enjoying it. And yeah, obviously Ryan's death killed any interest they had in playing TLoU right now. But I think that those that "need" to play it will have done so by, say, oh I dunno, December. It seems like we're already charging full steam ahead towards BioShock Infinite vs. TLoU for GOTY, unless GTA5 steals the show.

And yeah, TLoU is flawed, and it's not an excellent game in the sense of a pure mechanical experience. The way that the mechanics inform the narrative and the themes is stellar, and I feel like the people who appreciate that cohesion the most are the people who most loved TLoU. I am not one of them; I'd have preferred if the game didn't have as many mechanical issues as it did. Some of the level design was confusing, and some of the systems just didn't fit in the world they were trying to create. And while the story was definitely excellent by video game standards, it still had its issues. One of the best games of 2013? Absolutely. One of the best of the generation? For me, not so much.

The Last Of Us is not a bad game in any sense, most company's would kill to have a game like that. But having played Uncharted, and comparing it to that the whole time, it felt bad.

If the Last of Us came out before Uncharted, then I would probably love it. But Uncharted did everything tLoU did, but better. It had better integration of story and gameplay, it had better level design, and it looked better.

I don't think its naughty dogs fault, they probably pushed it as far as they could, launching a day or so before the Sony press conference at e3, where they announced the specifics of the PS4. They probably had to hit that date, and were rushed.

@naru_joe93: Whoa, the Dark Souls thing came out of nowhere. Yes, people who like Dark Souls can like TLoU and vice versa. The difference is that one has a major focus on mechanics and gameplay, and the other's focus is on presenting a story using a game as a medium for that story. I can appreciate both but I think that the former is vastly more important. That said, what I've played of Dark Souls was a boring slog. Sue me.

I definitely plan to play The Last of Us at some point. I was just echoing opinions that I'd heard. The only solid opinion that I delivered was on Bioshock Infinite.

Once again, I have not played TLoU, but does it really "push the envelope" in terms of story? Too much of its premise and setup remind me of The Road, or any number of post-apocalyptic tales. Explain what you mean by "pushing the envelope" - just because it's a story well-told doesn't mean it's advancing anything.

When I do play this game, I definitely plan on doing it with a nitpicky critical eye because Naughty Dog can and should be able to do more brilliant things than Uncharted.

I am 100% ok if they don't really talk much about it until GOTY.

What? I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. It's apples and oranges, like you said. Why would the enjoyment for one be related to the other?

As for The Last Of Us, it succeeds at capturing the tone of the game in the gameplay(much better than Infinite), but at the end of the day it's an incredibly linear and bare-bones stealth game where you move from scenario to scenario. Bullets pack more of a punch, sure, but overall it fails to take advantage of its combat mechanics. The enemy A.I is laughable, the fungus enemies have uninteresting roles in the stealth scenarios, and you don't have to worry about a supply shortage on any difficulty other than survivor. None of its mechanics are particularly well-rounded.

It's not a bad game by any means, but it deserves just as much criticism as Bioshock Infinite does for the reasons that @believer258 mentioned. It has moments of brilliance, where it combines stealth and survival horror, but those moments are extremely rare.

Also, the game does have a few too many instances of "Find the ladder/pallet/dumpster so you can proceed!" Those sections were obviously there to provide you with some banter between the characters, but they're just so damned contrived, just... eww.

It really doesn't.

It has a somewhat unique ending, but that's about it.

Also it was kind of a dumb ending.

I'm glad, you can go everywhere on the internet and here how it's a "masterpiece" and all that.

It is kind of hard to play such a heavy game after what happened. Don't worry it will get the attention and the GOTY Awards here for sure at the end of the year XD

I'll be disappointed if it's overlooked at the end of the year, but I'm not disappointed with the lack of coverage given the crazy couple of months they've had and that it'd be a rough game to play having just lost someone so close.

@meatball: @darji:

Yeah I can totally understand that. As long as it gets its due at the GOTY deliberations I would be happy!

It is a grim game that some people don't like to play in long sessions (Jeff, Brad and Drew have said this I believe), that with the death a friend and co-worker Ryan has killed most of their desires to play the game for the time being. They will play it at some point because of the praise and talk around it in time for GotY stuff but I totally understand their desires to just play games to get their minds of some things, not to keep reminding them.

Well, the game got covered in just about every format this site has to offer. That's significantly more than most games, even very good ones, get. Being disappointed in that massive amount of coverage is sort of bordering on crazy. If that's still not due diligence to you there's also the option to check out the unending flood of content about the game everywhere online.

I think it's safe to say TLoU is one of those games that created a perfect media storm and got hyped to high heavens by the vast majority of commenters and players. That's fine since it seems to have touched a great number of people but it's certainly not some sort of underappreciated or tragically ignored sleeper hit.

@naru_joe93 said:

I guess I can see where you're coming from. I did really enjoy the stealth elements of the game, and felt like they were done a lot more effectively than many other stealthy games. The upgrading stuff added a nice little touch of character progression, and the basic feel of the character movement felt nice... I guess I just didn't like how the shooting felt. I mean, it was perfectly fine, but it just felt like a shooter. I guess I'm not really sure how they would change that bit, though, so maybe it's just my own fault for being so burnt out on shooters.

As for the companion AI, I definitely think it would be worse if they were able to get spotted by the enemies, since it's something completely out of the player's control, and it wouldn't feel fair at all. I just think that they could have been programmed to move a little more realistically. Not so much the animations themselves, but using the correct animations at the proper time. I feel like if I, as the player am moving slowly, my AI companions should follow suit, while if I'm out there, being all guns blazing... that's when they should be running around, rushing to cover, etc.

Still, these are some small nit-picky complaints in an otherwise excellent game. For the record, though, I only had the strange companion AI animation stuff during combat & stealth sections, in the sections where you're just exploring the world it felt basically perfect. Those sections are so effective because the characters are just scavenging around so realistically, and it helps sell them as being actual people in this world around you. Between that, the writing, and the incredible performances from the actors, they become people you care about, people you hate... people you have actual grounded emotions towards. They crafted the characters in such a brilliant way that when the game gets to those emotional scenes, they manage to have that much more impact.

Honestly, I do think the story is groundbreaking, and very well done (much better than Bioshock Infinite, which everybody likes to compare this game to). While I guess envelope-pushing is perhaps giving it too much credit, I will say this: If this was actually a film, with the characters and story being all the same, and the cinematography being similar to what's seen in the game's cutscenes, that film would be nominated for an Oscar without a doubt.