maz89 wrote:I really enjoyed reading this super-detailed review! I can understand where you're coming from, though I'm definitely more lenient in my assessment of the gameplay. I don't think I played this game on Hard. Considering that even the Normal difficulty was a challenge for me back in the day (lol), I'm not surprised you found some of those sections frustrating. Especially if you weren't being patient or studying zombie movement patterns, heh. I have a feeling that you'd have liked the gameplay more if you'd tried it on Normal first.
Yeah, I should've played it the first time on Normal, but on most games these days "Normal" is like the old equivalent of "Easy," and considering they had two levels above Hard (Survivor and Grounded) I figured it made most sense to do Hard. One thing I DID like about Hard was that they never let up with being stingy on ammo and supplies, and because (I'm assuming) you could take less damage this did force you to try to think through the best way to play through sections. I just found executing those plans stealthily really difficult. I will say that my second playthrough was much easier, though a few parts were still a bitch. I need to look up online how someone stealths through the spotlight and bookstore.
maz89 wrote:I think TLOU deals with other themes that are part and parcel of its post-apocalyptic setting. Survivor's guilt is one among many other typical themes, i.e. grief-driven apathy after the loss of a loved one, resilience of the human spirit, how disaster brings out the worst and the best in people, finding purpose in a senseless and tragic world, alteration of one's moral compass in the face of dire or extreme circumstances, etc. Apart from the main storyline with Joel and Ellie (and the people they meet), there are bits and pieces of stories scattered all around the world that keep harkening back to these themes. I loved the ending because it wasn't technically a "happy" one - Joel becomes the villain, after all! But it works so well because it shows the price of survival in this broken world, and questions the morals of the audience it has been expertly "setting up" by giving them control of the duo. Are we really cheering on a man who has selfishly doomed mankind? What about the millions of other children who will die because Ellie didn't? Part of me wishes that Naughty Dog had allowed the player to decide whether or not they'd make Joel save Ellie in the ending - but then sequels and stuff. I guess you could say these themes are "surface level", but then that's how I'd also view the themes in, say, Silent Hill, which also doesn't explicitly dote on its themes (but is content with letting them simmer under the surface/atmosphere). IOW, the emotional storytelling in TLOU just brings its themes to life for me.
Rax and I talked about this a bit a while back in the movie thread, but I think there's a difference in art where themes are clearly either a conscious or unconscious focus of the creators, and art where all the focus is on the story/characters and in which those stories/characters will naturally be about something just by the nature of being mimetic art that people can reflect on. If I think of film, Godard is clearly a filmmaker who made idea-driven films and in which stories and techniques were utilized (in large part) to convey those themes; Hitchcock was clearly a filmmaker who, even if he wasn't consciously aware of all the thematic substance of his films, understood it on an intuitive level and exploited those underlying themes through his stories and techniques; and then there's someone like Tarantino, who just makes movies to be as entertaining as possible. I once cited the distinction as being artists who were filmmakers, filmmakers who were artists, and just filmmakers.
If I transfer that kind of thinking to TLAO, the creators just seem to be gamemakers. Yes, you can say all those themes you mentioned are there because they're an inevitable part of telling this kind of story, but I don't think they're anything that drove the story, or that the game ever focuses on, or really exploits on an unconscious level. One reason I really think this is that there are parts in the game where it does stop to (even if briefly) address some of these themes--I think of the ending where
Joel talks to Ellie about feeling guilty about surviving, but that you find something to keep going, or how
"everything happens for a reason," is a kind of thematic motif that's brought up by multiple characters at multiple times in the game; but I can't see anywhere where the game is really exploiting these these themes otherwise. They don't really seem to be much of a concern nearly as much as the emotional content that's generated by and between the characters.
And, FWIW, I don't even think this is a huge flaw, per se. It feels almost like trying to criticize a game (or any art) for not being something that it wasn't trying to be. My only reservation is that I know there are many films that have had similar emotional impacts on me, but that have waned in my memory over time precisely because there wasn't much to linger in my mind after the emotional impact wore off. As a perfect example, there was an Best Foreign Film Oscar nominee years ago that moved me to tears, was definitely one of the most powerful films I saw from that year, and, damn, if I can't even remember the name of it now! Now, I certainly don't think TLAO will be forgettable, in part because it's the only GAME I've ever seen be that emotional, and in part because there was a lot that was excellent about it besides that emotional content; but I do wonder if it will stick with me as much as, say, MGS has.
maz89 wrote:Also, what's wrong with the Infected parts happening in the "dark" places? Foreshadowing is meant to be obvious.
Nothing's wrong with it, but it does seem strange that Infecteds only seem to hang around in dark places!
maz89 wrote:I actually haven't played Left Behind, but plan to play it (along with the main game) at some point, so to avoid spoilers of any kind, I'm going to not read your write-up of it yet. Did you check out the trailers for Last of Us 2 (including the one showing the upgraded gameplay)? Looks pretty awesome (and terrifying)!
You can easily finish Left Behind in an afternoon. It's really, really short, and the only kinda-difficult part is the ending. I don't think my review really spoiled anything, FWIW. If anything, the end of TLAO kinda spoils it!
maz89 wrote:On whether the game's difficulty is due to bad design (which I doubt!), I'll have to hold back from commenting. I played on Normal and don't recall encountering too many problems in using stealth for most of it. But I'll play it on Hard next and get back to you.
I will be interested to see if you struggle on Hard as much as I did, though since you're more familiar with the game it might be easier on Hard than my first time was. I kinda feel like if I had played on Normal the first time, hard wouldn't have seemed nearly as hard as it did on my first playthrough. I don't know, maybe I was a bit impatient, but I don't recall having those kind of problems with stealth games in the past. Splinter Cell was probably the first "pure" stealth game I played and I loved it.
EDIT: I should mention I spent most of yesterday on YouTube watching stuff on TLOU, including two "Making Of" things and an entire 20-part series where teens played through the game. I must admit it's really fun watching other people react to its "big moments." I also laughed like crazy during one part of their Left Behind playthrough that I won't spoil, but when you do finish Left Behind you have to at least see that part!
"As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being." -- Carl Jung