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The Last of Us


FredEffinChopin
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Ok, I think there is enough info to merit some discussion at this point.



A new Naughty Dog game with a mature theme is certainly welcome, as far as I'm concerned. The trailer already shows off some decent voice acting and great production value. The zombies though... I've really had enough of zombies. It's not a deal-breaker, but I have to wonder what made them to decide to take one of the most traveled roads in recent years.
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Yeah, I'm a bit concerned about that as well. While Uncharted is fun to play, I'd hate to find out that ND have it in their heads that with a good enough narrative they can just copy & paste Uncharted and expect it to keep working... Even if they can make it work for them, I'd be pretty let down.

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Heard on the wire ND announced a new game, looked it up, found it was another zombie game, immediately lost interest.

 

You know whats funny, is I never will get tired of Zombie games, as long as they are in zombie game true form: Mindlessly killing hoards of zombies, L4D style, Dead Rising Style, and even Dead Island style. What I don't want is a new twist on zombies. I thought this looked so unique so great, and then the zombies came along and I thought "I'm tired of zombies being in EVERYTHING, lets have our zombie games and our non zombie games, we don't need to add zombies to everything"

 

So I'm in the same boat as Dean, I lost interest as soon as I saw the zombies, even though they look llike fungus zombies. I also lost interest in the new Fortnight game for the same reason. I just want a game that can be different without shoehorning zombies in.

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I'm interested because it probably will be a new twist on zombies. The enemies looked like they were infected with some kind of spores or what have you. Not to say, "C'mon, new zombie types," but that the story could be a bit different than, "The Zombie Apocalypse happened."

 

You never know, judging by how much vegetation there is at the end, it might be a natural biological threat. It makes me think of those fungi that target specific insect species. Sure we've had our hopes smashed to pieces by Dead Island, but this could be a more "survivalist" type zombie game.

 

Yeah, I guess I am holding my breath there. :|

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I want the game to be really gritty and survival-based, but I doubt it will be. Still, will almost definitely be a good game.

 

Creatively, the game looks okay; but that little girl speaks exactly like Drake. If you took the script, and changed her name to Drake, and got Nolan North to voice the character, it would be exactly like a scene out of Uncharted.

 

Basically, if Amy Hennig is creatively producing this, which she probably is, she has to fix her dialogue or she'll fall into Joss Whedon syndrome: every character having the same banter.

 

The zombie thing gets me, because fanboys will defend it saying they aren't zombies but infected people or some shit. At the end of the day its still zombies.

But this depends on whether you mean the original meaning of 'zombie' i.e. mindless individual (violent or not) or if you mean the Romero-ified/ Resi Evil meaning of 'undead'. Neither are wrong, really. Both totally valid.

 

You know whats funny, is I never will get tired of Zombie games, as long as they are in zombie game true form: Mindlessly killing hoards of zombies, L4D style, Dead Rising Style, and even Dead Island style. What I don't want is a new twist on zombies.

I cannot relate to this; if I want to mindlessley kill zombies, I can play any of the games you just mentioned. What I want is a new, really challenging twist. Like evasion and survival and stealth, avoiding and dealing with zombies. Zombies basically become part of the environment in zombie genre fiction, but in games they're always active. I wish a game would come along that would just make them the hungry, slow beings they are, and let the emergence come from surviving in their context.

 

Also they can be terrifying when you have to deal with them in these situations, evasion and survival. If it was dark, you had a flashlight, and zombies can see the light, it'd be a terrifying game to get to your destination/ safehouse/ whatever. Basically just like Amnesia: Dark Descent. No zombie game has made them scary yet, as far as I can tell.

Edited by Deanb
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Isnt everybody a zombie in most fps and tps games? Enemy ai isnt a thing of beauty right now. Some run, some walk, some have guns, some dont. That's basically all enemies in every game ever. Theyre completely dumb and disposable. Aside from Ninja Gaiden, it all button mashy shit or FPS crap.

Games are running out skins for enemies. monster, zombies, aliens or humans. Thats about it.

Edited by Strangelove
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Hmm... looks like some of you had forgotten that Naughty Dog existed before Uncharted in the first handful of comments.

 

Anyways, looks decent enough. I liked the fact that the first dude killed didn't seem like a zombie. That's one thing missing from zombie games: the threat of other people, of dealing with the remnants of society.

Edited by Faiblesse Des Sens
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Isnt everybody a zombie in most fps and tps games? Enemy ai isnt a thing of beauty right now. Some run, some walk, some have guns, some dont. That's basically all enemies in every game ever. Theyre completely dumb and disposable. Aside from Ninja Gaiden, it all button mashy shit or FPS crap.

Games are running out skins for enemies. monster, zombies, aliens or humans. Thats about it.

That's a cool argument.

 

There are other things that categorize zombies, though. Lack of mobility, one dimensional intelligence. Eating folk. Zombies tend to do nothing until a player is seen, then do nothing but go straight for them.

 

AI nowadays is good enough to make enemies definitely not zombies (though in relative to an IRL human intelligence they probably are are). I always take Uncharted 2 as an example; in the survival mode, the map is open, and once enemies climb/ jump into the map, they are completely autonomous and have agency. They pull off some pretty incredible stuff without any scripting. Flanking, stealth, teamwork, fleeing; total agency. It's really admirable, I actually find them interesting to just observe. If these were replaced with 'zombie' AI they'd just stand around until they saw/heard a player, then beeline for them.

 

 

Anyways, looks decent enough. I liked the fuck that the first dude killed didn't seem like a zombie. That's one thing missing from zombie games: the threat of other people, of dealing with the remnants of society.

Liked the fact...?

 

Dead Rising has always had that. And a lot of zombie games have touched on it. But none in a very human way. I agree with you.

Edited by Deanb
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I'm absolutely delighted to see Naughty Dog doing something new. Uncharted is awesome, but Drake's Deception definitely felt less special and I didn't really want them to squeeze another one out the door in another two years.

 

As for the game itself, I'm intrigued. There really isn't much more to say about it at this point.

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Doing a little more "investigation" and, yep, it's definitely going to be fungi related. How so?

 

Go to the game's official website and they'll have a 32 second video clip of the BBC Planet Earth video about Cordyceps.

 

 

EDIT: You know, listen to the last 10 seconds and it does sound a bit creepy when given the "The Last of Us" scenario. Given if we do get to some inflated population size, our own "Cordyceps fungi" would arise to reduce our numbers.

 

However, the important characteristic with the ants is that they recognized the fungi and took the infected far away. With mankind, how could we possible do that when we are spread out so thick?

Edited by Atomsk88
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"Abandoned cities are being reclaimed by nature and the remaining survivors are killing each other for food, weapons and whatever they can get their hands on. Joel, a ruthless survivor, and Ellie, a brave young teenage girl who is wise beyond her years, must work together to survive their journey across what remains of the United States."

 

They don't even mention zombies in the presser? Yeah, I'm definitely intrigued.

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While this might sound technically terrible, this game keeps sounding like a mixture of "The Road" and "The Happening."

 

Yeah you heard me! The one movie that was super depressing, but good, and the one movie that was horrendously terrible because it couldn't make "nature attacks" any bit interesting.

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It could only be like the Road if it was extremely causational, gritty, and realistic. I doubt this'll be many of those; though the 'apocalyptic scenario with two primary characters on a journey of survival' is indeed a very similar template.

 

I like the theme of nature retaking the world. That's definitely cool and pretty original in a game's plot.

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First thought while watching that trailer: "Oh look, it's the girl from Juno".

 

It does look nice, though, and it's a very well done trailer that might actually end up like the game (cough cough Dead Island). And really, I'm not burnt out enough on zombies to have this not pique my curiosity.

 

But I don't have a PS3, so, I'll just cross my fingers that this'll be a PC release too. Which I really, really doubt.

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I suppose it is a somewhat different take given that we are post outbreak and into the last survivors bit of the zom-pocalypse. Maybe that will give it a fresher feel? Dead Rising 2 is in a similar post Zombie state, but they have the Zombies under control to an extent.

 

I'm still waiting for someone to do a Zombie game with an I am Legend twist. Where you start off defending humanity against the infected hordes and end up

being revealed as a primitive monster who is dead set on slaughtering all the innocent "infected" who have replaced a doomed/extinct "humanity".

 

 

(Spoilered in case someone has not read the I am Legend and wants to without it being spoiled. Even if it is totally in Rosebud / Aeris territory by now.)

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I think a game of I Am Legend would be incredible.

 

You could basically make a Harvest Moon mod that'd do the same thing. At night the vampires/whatevers come and attack your house/ fort, and you have to repair it. There's no way you can win if they break in. A day/night cycle where during the daytime you go around a small town killing vampires, and searching for resources and repairing your house. That'd be great.

 

See, there's so much that could be done with the genre. So far all we've had are frantic shooters, old survival horrors, and an oddball action/RPG series.

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First thought while watching that trailer: "Oh look, it's the girl from Juno".

That's exactly what I thought too.

 

This game has me interested, but I've been burned by zombie games before. (I'm looking at you, Dead Island.) If they focus on the surviving and the zombies are really just part of the environment rather than a primary driving force then I'm all for it, but if they focus on "AH! Zombies!" then I will be sad. :(

 

@madbassman: Some of the enemies in Fortnite looked like zombies, but there were other gremlin things that were like phasing through the ground and a couple other types too. I think writing that off as a zombie game at this point might be selling it short.

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@madbassman: Some of the enemies in Fortnite looked like zombies, but there were other gremlin things that were like phasing through the ground and a couple other types too. I think writing that off as a zombie game at this point might be selling it short.

 

Yea I saw those guys too, and you are probably right. It looks like Team Fortress meets Minecraft. In all honesty though, both games to me look like something I really want, but the "zombies" just turn me off. I never thought I'd say this because even 3 months ago I was saying "I NEED MOAR ZOMBIES".

 

I'm going to wait until I know more about both games though, because like you said, if they change it up to be setting and not the game, then it could very well be a good game.

 

If Last of Us was about survival, but you stay out of the "jungle" areas, you don't get attacked by zombies, but if you want more supplies you have to go through the zombie infested areas and try to get the supplies without running into too many of the spore like zombies, and then that would be a cool idea. More of human interaction instead fighting zombies, but the zombies give certain areas a sense of urgency, then that would be cool. But then at that point, they could be anything, I would like to see something more like living fungus, something silly like that or (hopefully this works) pictured, I might be so much more interested. EDIT: But if the monsters are like that, then I guess it would be less mature/realistic.

myconid-front2.jpg?w=171&h=238

MM35_PG207b.jpg

Edited by madbassman39
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Was thinking more along the lines of you start off playing as a typical, heroic, monster-slayer, but by the end of the game you are the monster and everyone is out to slay you. Pretty much the "bad" ending of Infamous 2 but instead of playing as Cole and choosing whether or not you noble sacrifice, you play as someone trying to stop the extinction of humanity and the rise of the conduits...

 

 

Sort of Infamous 2 spoiler.... Not sure if I need to spoiler it or not... but I hate getting bleated at for this stuff, so there ya go.

 

EDIT: Also, mushroom zombies made me think "Firewalker".

Edited by Thursday Next
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