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[PS4] The Last of Us: Part II
Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2018 3:58 pm
by christian
http://www.thelastofus.playstation.com
- TheLastofUsPartII_E32018_05.jpg (1.56 MiB) Viewed 15397 times
E3 2018 play footage trailer -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btmN-bWwv0A
Re: [PS4] The Last of Us: Part II
Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2018 4:03 pm
by christian
While watching this E3 trailer, all I can think is that I can't believe what I'm seeing. It seems utterly impossible. Had there been no Uncharted 4, who would believe such footage?
Re: [PS4] The Last of Us: Part II
Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2020 6:18 pm
by christian
The Last of Us 2 details make heights scarier than its monsters -
https://www.polygon.com/2020/7/20/21331 ... g-sony-ps4
lol
So the avatar has panic attacks over heights. If only the game had actually made heights scary, so we could feel the fear ourselves instead of having it reflected off of our avatar. Talk about "ludonarrative dissonance".
Re: [PS4] The Last of Us: Part II
Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2020 6:39 pm
by christian
This is a a game after all, and not a movie. But movies do occasionally have lessons to teach regarding this. Consider 2015's The Walk for an excellent example of how to induce that same anxiety in your audience, without resorting to giving your hero an inexplicable complex. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol also managed the same thing to a lesser extent.
Cinema can accomplish this, among many other great things. And videogames can take it even further. But Naughty Dog, aiming to become great cinema themselves ("I wonder if people are still making movies", one character muses), seriously dropped the ball here and made every scene wherein the player is forced to closely consider Abby's fear ridiculous.
Re: [PS4] The Last of Us: Part II
Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2020 9:41 pm
by christian
The Last of Us Part 2 getting permadeath, Grounded difficulty in new update -
https://www.polygon.com/2020/8/10/21362 ... ode-trophy
On Monday, Naughty Dog updated the PlayStation Trophies for The Last of Us Part 2, revealing some new modes coming to the game: permadeath options and the return of the original game’s Grounded mode.
The game desperately needs a permadeath mode, akin to a Supermassive Games adventure, for it to retain the tone its cutscenes set out to create. This is that "beautiful harmony" I referred to in
Until Dawn, but it won't result simply from wiping a save. If only the two studios could join forces!
As for the Grounded mode, I wonder if I should have waited to try it. There can't be that much of a difference between it and Survival, right?
Re: [PS4] The Last of Us: Part II
Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2020 5:10 pm
by christian
Grounded Update trailer -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyDOeshZFfg
Details here:
https://blog.playstation.com/2020/08/11 ... -and-more/
For veteran The Last of Us fans, Grounded difficulty represents the ultimate test of skill. This difficulty raises the stakes by not only making enemies deadlier and ammo, upgrade, and crafting materials incredibly scarce, but also removing invaluable tools for survival, such as disabling Listen mode, deactivating elements of the HUD, and more**. Beginning with the update, Grounded will become one of the base difficulty options available when starting the story, so you won’t need to have beaten the game once already to access it.
As an additional layer of challenge, we’re also introducing a brand new Permadeath mode***. With this custom mode enabled, there are no second chances — you must complete the entire game without dying or start over from the beginning. However, if taking on the whole game is too daunting, you can choose to enable Permadeath mode with checkpoints on a per-chapter or per-act basis. In other words, if you die at the end of Day One, you’ll have to play the entire day over again.
arrives August 13
Per-chapter or per-act permadeath might combine well with Grounded difficulty. I'll have to give it a shot.
Re: [PS4] The Last of Us: Part II
Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 3:31 pm
by christian
Permadeath footage -
https://twitter.com/TajaeMoment/status/ ... 4842873858
Do we really need to allow for the possibility of Ellie dying in this scene? Permadeath runs reveal that the game ought to have considered some kind of bone fracture system as well, as in
Deus Ex or
Metal Gear Solid 3, to address these kinds of coarse crudities. The arrow-removal damage system, though welcome, only demonstrates what should have been developed further. Maybe Part III will rectify this shortcoming if enough people are willing to play and stream permadeath runs.