The Last of Us - it's the time of the season

Creeping right along with this game. Things (not at all unique to TLOU) I find hilarious: when you're crouching, afraid of getting spotted and killed, and Ellie is just whistling or standing around doing kid shit. Or how you might sneak up to a big garage door, and then the cut scene is loud as fuck as you lift and yell "the coast is clear!!!!" That kind of stuff. But I do appreciate that it has these built in breathers, unlike, as I might have noted, something like "Alien: Isolation," which is relentlessly stressful as fuck, even at its slowest. Anyway, good game so far, I like the characters. In a lot of ways "God of War" which I just finished before this, refines a lot of the best aspects and features of this one, but it's also a totally different sort of world, which makes the stakes feel a lot lower.

I just hit "FALL," which I imagine is halfway or so? I really like how the difficulty level of this game is calibrated, at least set at "normal." If I take too long in a place, the L3 prompt appears, offering a hint (even if I am usually just taking too long exploring or something). If I keep dying at a certain stage, eventually it will remind me that I can ramp down the difficulty at any time (which is always a nice option, even if I've never taken advantage of it). And if there's a stage with several levels of danger and I die at a certain point, it doesn't kick you all the way back to the beginning, or even back more than a few seconds, which helps a lot.

Hilariously, I just realized that if I am in a new area, crouching and paranoid and using my super hearing, but Ellie is strolling along, then I am probably safe for the time being.

The new game is much better with companions not “breaking the rules” of what you can do, what you’ve noticed, whether enemies are alarmed if they see them, etc.. Though a few times I have noticed enemies stumbling right on top of my companion but not killing them nor raising the alarm - it is rare though. In the first one, runners or clickers could walk right past them and nothing

Btw, a couple of more observations. One, this game is so well written that it can take a pretty familiar apocalyptic scenario and make it much more engaging/intense/affecting than the majority of movies doing the same sort of thing. Two, very predictably and realistically, the people are worse and in may ways more dangerous than the monsters. Three, how come in these apocalyptic worlds, everyone is always hoofing it, or hot-wiring cars, or riding motorcycles and riding horses, but no one ever takes bicycles, which seem like they'd be really practical?

I think I'm creeping toward the end of this. But I'll probably wait until tomorrow because I've enjoyed it (in an appropriately intense way) so much. Confession: one reason I'm steaming through is because I want to watch that 3.5 hour Tim Rogers video on TLOU.

All done. What a great game, made best by incredible voice acting and solid writing. The gameplay almost comes second. It was interesting playing this right after God of War. God of War of course owes so much to this, and the gameplay is even more seamless and complex. And yet, when God of War's main storyline ended it took me totally by surprise, which I think betrayed it superficiality.

I should probably play God of War! Feel like I need to get through GOW 2 and 3 first... just like the Souls games, so many to catch up on.

I didn't play any of the other ones. As I understand it it's a ... soft reboot? Hard reboot? That is, different enough that it doesn't matter, but with enough callbacks to past games to make fans happy.

Oh, I should clarify that God of War's ending took me by surprise because I was not expecting the game to end when it did. Not that the end itself was surprising or anything, just happened and I thought, oh, is that the end?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/e2-80-98the-last-of-us-e2-80-99-hbo-series-casts-pedro-pascal-as-joel-e2-80-98game-of-thrones-e2-80-99-breakout-bella-ramsey-as-ellie/ar-BB1dA89Y

I just saw that they are allegedly *remaking* the first one for PS5, which seems like a waste of time to me. I just played "Last of Us" for the first time ever on PS4, where it had *already* been remastered from PS3, and everything about it was great and *nothing* about it was something I wanted improved. And if people *do* crave improvements, there's the sequel, which I haven't played but which looks really incredible. So why go back to the first one *again* and remake it *again* when all the things that make it great are the very things that won't and can't be changed?

just stinks of laziness, corporate risk-aversion. only been about eight years!

I guess i should finish the second one at some point.

it’s terrible that they will make this incredible game available for the system that the majority of playstation owners will have for the next 4-6 years.. ?

There's already backwards compatibility with the remastered PS4 version on the PS5 though, which is why this comes off so greedy and lazy.

otm, plus the fact that just recently they have massively restructured their japan studio and are killing their online stores, the sort of moves a struggling company would pull, not the biggest brand name in home consoles with 3 out of 4 100M+ sold systems in past generations

i mean, technically playstation is as good as dead in japan but everywhere else they're clearly doing fine so why scrape the bottom of this particular barrel?

Also weird because there is a Last of Us TV show coming out, which is already, if you think about it, basically the game getting remade with the best graphics possible. I guess there are concerns the remake might change the story, too, which could be valid (because I am sure the show will feature some changes) but (don't spoil it for me) I assume the sequel already bakes in a lot of the story from the first game.

last of us 3 should just be a new Pikmin game. The last pikmin - unless you can do something about it!

The production for the PS4 remaster was reportedly very difficult and painful, but I imagine a lot of the reason was because of the differing architectures, which might not apply going from 4 to 5.

That said, waste of time or no I'd probably play the new version. But them, I'm like a decade late to the game (literally and figuratively).

remake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_cPTeiGMxA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRKIWQUucj0

I think that Last of Us is a masterpiece. I loved every second, and can't wait to play the sequel. But the idea of a remake of a remaster of an older title ... I mean, I get it, they want to tie it to the show. But $70 for a game millions have bought and played before, many at least twice? For better graphics but the same story, etc? The game should really be no more than, I dunno, $50, or $20 for those that already own the game.

I suspect it'll be $25 by Black Friday (nearly four months from release). If not, it'll eventuall get down to a price point where I'll buy it a third time

Hmm:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Ebc_OFeug

It does make me kind of want to replay this remake before playing Part II (for the first time). For sure at the least I will add it to my "snag when it's $20 or less" PS5 list.

Also this:

https://kotaku.com/the-last-of-us-hbo-max-tv-series-show-trailer-first-1849439621

I'm going to skip the show and wait for them to remake it in 5 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBRRDpQ0yc0

In five years they are just going to remake the show, with better graphics.

In five weeks you'll make that joke again.

it's good casting at least

I'm going to make the same joke at least once per cycle.

i just want somebody to make a limited series of Super Mega Baseball 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3DTWBVJBpo

i'd like to know if this is a snarky Dunkey or a serious Dunkey before i watch

serious

ok, solid

Show is supposed to be great. If I'm going to get caught up in that world again, I think I'm officially starting "Last of Us Part 2" for the first time. Wish me luck! Hope I fare better than John Carpenter.

I'd be surprised if season 1 covers more than Part 1! But I'm also not going to tell someone not to play Part 2.

I just meant that I will be in the LoU mindset, though I did hear that S1 might at least nod to elements of Part 2, or set stuff up. Not that I would notice if I didn't play it first.

So, the show has only THREE episodes left, and I'm going to guess it'll break down like this:

7: Left Behind DLC -- alternating the mall stuff and the flashbacks with Riley, and ending with Ellie sewing up Joel.
8: David
9: SLC/Giraffes

I guess with so few left, there's not a whole lot of wiggle room for weird detours.

Exactly what I figured. And imo it's not enough. All those detours haven't given Joel and Ellie much time together, especially since two of the three likely episodes left mostly focus on them apart. The show is going from Joel literally on the cusp of leaving her to the way it all ends, which seems pretty ... rushed.

Depends if Ep9 is going to have the whole Giraffe backstory detour like Ep3.

captured in Africa,
Sent to the Zoo,
outbreak,
post outbreak shenanigans/bartering with monkeys etc,
meet Joel & Ellie.

Isn't that the plot of "Madagascar"

Maybe they'll reveal that the outbreak started with the giraffes, and all the Last of Us 2 haters will explode with renewed rage.

Although I don't think that the pacing has been compressed for the rest of the season, I do think that Joel going from "you're better off with Tommy" to "Giddy-up, kiddo" felt abrupt without the intervening montage of the three of them traveling back to Jackson that let us see him reconsider.

I get that that whole detour was to show that Joel is starting to feel older and less secure about himself but yeah, it didn't really work quite right for me. Also being an absolute dick to his beloved brother when he said he was married and expecting

I *definitely* think this season should have been episode longer, knowing what's left for it to show. But I suppose one advantage of the show over the game is that Bella and Pedro are actors, not animated, which can let them do some pretty heavy lifting with just a wince or a smile in the way the game (however exemplary the animation) can't quite compare.

While I am impressed at how well they have compressed the game, this episode felt particularly rushed.

Quick perusal of YT shows compilations of all the game's cutscenes take about 3-5 hours (HLTB lists 15 hours to beat the main story) -- so while the runtime doesn't suggest that dramatic content is being cut, maybe the transition from gameplay to just viewing is where things feel wonky for you?

But of course there's more to the game's story than the cut scenes. For example, the stuff with Bill, hanging upside is gameplay, but that whole scene is still part of the narrative. I was skimming a cutscene compilation the other day, and there's a lot of not strictly cut scene that's not included, like the shooting of Marlene. I guess that's not a cutscene, but it's pretty important! Also, of course, just the general gameplay itself develops (the) character(s).

But, like, I find it shocking that the Bill and Frank episode (which is not important, however good) gets over 80 minutes, but this most recent one (which is also ultimately maybe not important, but is dramatically impactful to the connection between Ellie and Joel) gets less an hour. And the next episode is reportedly the shortest one of the season!

And here I was thinking that my Steam Deck was going to replace PS consoles: https://kotaku.com/last-of-us-pc-port-glitch-iron-galaxy-building-shaders-1850278718