But it is still pretty great. A sure 5/5. But on a 10 point scale I would give it a 8.5-9. Definitely not a sweeping 10/10 perfect game. Pretty much because of all the stuff listed in the gripes thread which are mainly gameplay issues. Also, the story isn't anything special but the ending is very unexpected and original. The characters are some of the best in recent memory because of the terrific voice acting and writing. The combat is satisfyingly brutal but is where most of the problems lie. I did come across some glitches like where I was on a horse and pressed triangle on a gate but then rode away and when I got off Joel started walking to the gate and got stuck on a dumpster then teleported to it. There were also some weird flickering visual bugs too. Also that bullshit "puzzle" with the pallet started to get really old. And the deus ex machina ladder too. But overall it is a great game. Thoughts?

You're slightly overrated, Flatcracker!

...er, I mean, yeah, it's certainly not perfect. No game is. Many of the most highly regarded games have issues. Though, I think a 9 and 10 is within a reasonable margin of difference in opinion. I'd say an overrated game is one commonly given a 10 while you feel it's more of a 6 or 7. I don't think any of the reviews have suggested that the game is perfect, and I doubt anyone here would either. But as far as someone's level of recommendation, a 10/10 or 5/5 can be their top recommendation, and that's what they might offer for this game. I don't think that means it's overrated. It means that reviewers and many people out there feel that its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses.

Does any game not have it's own quarks? This is definitely the best survival 'horror' game I've played yet.

Two days, that was quick.

Next you will be saying GTA 4 was.......................

I actually really agree with this. It was good, but definitely not a 10/10, I'd give it a 7 or an 8.

It's the best survival horror game of all time, the best game of the year and the best game of the generation. That said it might not be better than Super Metroid. I hope Naughty Dog makes something to bridge the gap between Uncharted and The Last of Us to make another Resident Evil 4 of joy and courage. The gameplay is excellent, let's say, Patrick's gripe about having too much stuff is ill founded as there's nothing wrong with having a sense of progression even in a game with a serious tone (also you absolutely can marathon the game, just take the occasional break when something disturbing or heartbreaking happens to reflect). In fact it sort of goes along with the narrative. There are a shitload of ways to approach most encounters and I could see replaying this 5 or 6 times and not getting bored, and that's not even touching the superb multiplayer.

That said there are a few extremely minor issues with the game; the vast majority of the combat arenas do not have blatantly obvious chest high walls but there are 2 or 3 that due and it's kind of immersion breaking, sadly one of those is within the first hour. The first few combat sections don't have as much variety as the rest of the game and thus aren't quite as interesting, but you still get the toss brick/toss molotov joy relatively early on.

The story isn't great? Compared to what? Every other story in a game ever? Did you mean to say plot? It's a better story than every movie that's come out this year except Mud, and games almost never have anything even scratching the surface of vaguely decent cinematic structure.

Gee, I hope GTA5 isn't also going to be "overrated".

Huh...Kinda funny how opinions work, no?

hahaha

I guess Gamespot and Polygon have valid opinions now. Funny how that happens after you've actually played a game.

Or not.

People are so weird and funny to me. I will never understand.

Hey guys, let's over analyze the fucking numbers in a review whilst completely ignoring all of the content. You didn't even say what review you had a problem with specifically.

I have no idea why this sort of thing still surprises me.

Like everything entertainment related, nothing is for everyone. What amazes me is how The Last of Us created this much universal acclaim.

Obviously Sony payed all of the reviewers to give it 10/10. And the ones that didn't give it 10/10 were payed by Microsoft. See those internet explorer ads on GameSpot and the documentary Polygon made?

But really there no question as to why it got such critical acclaim. I just feel that it is a little over hyped and reviewers weren't critical enough about some aspects.

It's a good game, but I don't think it's the groundbreaking accomplishment a lot of people seem to think it is.

Aren't most games that get this level of praise slightly overrated? Even once you get past the obligatory backlash (and the obligatory backlash to the backlash) we're left with something that doesn't seem as flawless or revolutionary as it initially came off as.

This thread took longer to come then I expected.

Dude, it's the Citizen Kane of videogames! It's making me feel and stuff, it's completely different from all those games we've seen this generation that has been claimed to do the same exact thing.

Seriously though, you would think we (or reviewers especially) had gotten far enough at this point to not completely slober over any game that has put some effort into story-telling while ignoring everything else about the product. It's really just a different kind of graphic-whoring.

LAST OF US.

I disagree.

So I have no intentions of playing the game and watched the ending and kind of left me just shrugging my shoulders and being all who the fuck cares! Granted, I didn't have the context of the entire game but the last few scenes I watched give enough context to know what happens. So I guess my opinion on the matter sort of doesn't matter since I haven't played the game proper but yeah I'd vote overrated.

I hate numbers so damn much.

@fredchuckdave: I agree with everything you've just said.

I am going to say two things. Nothing is perfect in this world and The Last of Us will be remembered, talked about, argued and lauded over for many years.

From what I've played, yes, it has problems, but it's also the only game I've played that has had a fun combat system while still maintaining the feel of survival. It also has better writing, acting, and animation than any other game I can think of.

Unless you've played the whole game, I'd say it kinda doesn't. Much like how I had a friend who watched the ending of Bioshock Infinite without having played the game, and thought it was dumb. It's all about context.

Slightly? It's massively overrated.

Graphically it just looks really rough. I've already encountered a few glitches, most notably choking a dude out and him fading from existence. Tess/Ellie get in your way quite often and they just move sort of weird. Speaking of movement the controls just feel kind of loose and clunky (then again I feel this way with all Naughty Dog games). Clickers being a one hit kill can be frustrating and it just feels cheap honestly, especially when you clear a whole area of enemies and then are done in and get to repeat all of that AGAIN.

Also the motivations for the plot are incredibly weak. Hey let's do this super dangerous mission for some guns. Guns for what? They're two people. The hell do you need a bunch of guns for?

Melee combat feels janky. Recharging your flashlight by shaking the controller is just fucking dumb. Just let it be infinite or assign it to a button. Considering it recharges instantly there's really no reason for it to even go out to begin with.

So many problems, but hey Naughty Dog...let's give it a 10/10. Really tired of that.

Only played the first hour or something but man that opening was among the best videogame openings ever. So good.

Numbers are the most useless part of a review, but yet the only part people seem to focus on.

aaaaaand I stopped reading your post.

Atleast give it a month to sit on, "best survival horror game of all time" and "game of the generation" are things that take time, sure you might like Last of Us now but give it a few months and see if it sticks with you.

I would still say Red Dead Redemption is the game of the generation.

What metastandard do you employ to determine whether or not a game is overrated?

i came here to console myself cause its not for the PC T_T .

still feel terrible

It is pretty fun but even though id thought i would like the more survival combat fun i just don't find it quite as engaging and am constantly scanning for 'loot' and always wanting to get through an area wanting it to end.

The opening was really great but everything i have played up till now has been fine but nothing special or really fun.

This is an overreaction, but I hate that word.

Fuck you. Overrated. So it's been rated too highly by other people? They liked it too much? No, you're right. Their opinion is wrong. They shouldn't have liked it as much as they did, and conformed to a view more similar to yours. It should get lower scores, and people should hold back their enjoyment.

No, that's not how opinions work. You don't get to decide that other people's opinions on the game are invalid, wrong, or 'overrated' based on the fact that they enjoyed it more than you, or gave it a higher score than you would. This goes for every use of the word overrated. Fuck that word, let it die. It is such a ghastly display of arrogance to use that word.

You should check out his other posts about The last of us it hurts my brain looking at them.

@commandergermanshepard: Eh I'm reasonably objective about these things; this isn't a short experience with smoke and mirrors to make it seem more impressive like Call of Duty 4 or something; it's 20 hours of suffocating and tense moments. It is in many ways more "Horrifying" than those games that actually are described as horror, since there are some much heavier themes going around in this one, the comparison to the Road is apt. Though the game doesn't ever even come close to telling you "We're the good guys." It's very difficult to make as bad as a guy as Joel is into the character you're rooting for when the shit hits the fan and this game somehow does that.

Note I'm not counting RE4 as explicitly Survival Horror, and while I think the Last of Us is maybe a better game overall it's a real hard decision and they're hard to compare directly except for the nature of the action and the tension caused by lack of supplies. This is RE4 I'm talking about here, that's like the best action game of all time isn't it? Or at least close, even saying this is somewhat surprising to me. Oh and if you want to compare it to stealth games it's 5 times longer than MGS 4, and while MGS has extremely longwinded and circuitous cutscenes this game has short, extremely powerful scenes that will stick with you for quite some time.

Nope, I think The Last of Us totally lived up to the hype.

Game of the Generation is a pretty easy thing to get since this generation hasn't been particularly amazing on the "all time great" games front, so there's 3 main contenders here.

1. Uncharted 2 - Much better gameplay and cinematic tension in the Last of Us, not as fun and jolly though, also you could convince me Uncharted's music is better even if the scores are totally incomparable.

2. Witcher 2 - This is probably the closest game, very good plot and solid gameplay but things like animation fidelity and well designed cutscenes outdistance it.

3. Dark Souls - Dark Souls wins on a gameplay front but having basically no storyline aside from atmospheric dialogue is relatively crippling. It has too many flaws to justify the Super Metroid defense (i.e. Gameplay is so ascendant and ahead of its time as to not require anything else to justify its greatness). Vagrant Story has the Super Metroid defense going for it as no other RPG has even come close to scratching the surface of those advanced mechanics and it also has a great storyline so I'd probably still give the overall point to VS over the Last of Us. At present I simply can't think of a linear game that's better than this, I could be forgetting something.

I'd say its about as "rated" as any one person thinks it is.

Just saying rest on it a bit, I thought Bioshock Infinite was up there after playing it, but going through it again I got really bored.

4. Red Dead redemption

5. Skyrim

6. Fallout 3

7. Burnout Paradise

8. GTA IV

9. Call of Duty 4

10. Batman Arkham Asylum

That's a bold statement, especially considering the candidates you bring forth. There has been some pretty damn revolutionzing games this generation that people will remember fondly for decades.

@commandergermanshepard: Haven't played Burnout so couldn't say though it's completely different and hard to compare. Red Dead is a pretty apt comparison, the characters are better in the Last of Us, the gameplay is better in the Last of Us, and what few great scenes there are in Red Dead ("How's your boy John?") are well outdistanced by several scenes that I won't spoil. I will say I like the Red Dead music better but this isn't a western and the absence of music does add to the tone like it does in No Country for Old Men. Bioshock Infinite does have smoke and mirrors that make it seem better than it is so that's reasonably simple. But overall this game is sort of too far ahead of most of the games on that list, Arkham Asylum if it was near perfect might be better but both of those games have a fair number of problems and never come close on a story front.

Skyrim - It's basically a retread of Morrowind, if you want to make a Morrowind vs The Last of Us case you could probably do it but they're very hard to compare.

Fallout 3 - Not as good as Morrowind

GTA IV - This is probably the second best game in terms of characters but it has really poor gameplay and is just flat boring as hell.

Call of Duty 4 - Well if The Last of Us didn't have multiplayer I could see you having a stalemate here with multiplayer vs single player blah; but it does and I think the progression system is more engaging and interesting than the one in Call of Duty; also while the learning curve is high you never feel like you lost because someone out-twitched you.

I don't think I'm capable for properly articulating exactly why, but I just finished it and I can say with absolute certainty, this is my favorite game of all time. I don't know how anything can top this, I really don't.

The gameplay is pretty average. It's basically a second rate stealth game without the full nuance of a real stealth game.

I think it has lived up to the hype.

Average? Are you serious? Both the gunplay and the melee combat have an incredible kick to them, which when combined with the lack of ammunition, makes every bullet feel special; every headshot is a victory worth celebrating. The stealth is simplistic, but works within the confines of how the enemies function. Plus the game is primarily a mix of both stealth and combat; you're to often try and stealth-kill as many enemies as you can before you sometimes invariably get caught and start shooting. Plus just because you're caught, that doesn't mean you can't get away again and go back to sleuthing around the environment.

We have had our differences concerning... well, just about every recent game I can remember that we've discussed. But The Last of Us is one game where I can't relate to your perspective. The combat was one of my favourite aspects of the whole game.

EDIT: Plus there's just so many tools you'll inevitably unlock, all of which serve a purpose and can be used to your advantage. Considering the lack of resources, that means you're often going to have to use everything at your disposal as well. Such as simply lobbing a brick at an enemy to stun him enough so you can run in and take him hostage.

The melee combat = mash square, not really very engaging. And the gunplay falls under the good old "realism and games doesn't mix well". As for the ammo situation, it might be because I play on normal but it seems to have dynamic ammo drops so the lack of ammo comes off as much more dire than it really is. Every time I've gone full commando I suddenly get a bunch of ammo from enemies (to the point that sometimes I come out with more than I spent).

The stealth is fine, but I think there was a moment in the QL that crystalized the main issue with it. Ryan asked how you knew if an enemy could see you or not, an expectation of clarity we have from modern stealth-based games, which doesn't exist at all in Last of Us. It is very much in the old tradition of going by feel and suddenly being discovered by something you didn't expect would notice you.

The gameplay is by no means horrible, but like certain other games I find that every gameplay session ends with me at the beginning of a new gameplay segment without the willingness to slog my way through to the next storybeat.