Phi I have never misinterpreted what you've said, rather I'm just informing how you come off to certain people. May I suggest that you try to get a little less aggravated when people call you out on things?
That's the same...
*sigh* Whatever, we can continue this in Skype.
The reason I never answered question about The Last of Us was because you asked me to keep spoiler-free when I had specifically said the thing I found boring was the story so naturally I couldn't really say much without going into detail.
Fair enough.
First of all I've never understood why people make such a big deal about the visuals, sure they look alright from a graphics stand point but who wants to look at bunch of ruined cities and a whole lot dark caves and such? I sure don't, there's nothing remotely interesting about that.
For one thing, on a technical level, The Last of Us pushes the PS3 system. In fact, my PS3, along with many others, have froze on a few occasions because it had difficulties rendering certain assets.
I can understand how you think the visuals are just "alright", especially when taking into account that PC can push out better looking games with ease, and the resolution only reaches 720p. However, for PS3 capabilities, it is quite a feat. You may not be interested in technical specs and whatnot, but that's how it is.
As for the ruined cities and all that, I actually find it very interesting and eerily beautiful. Nature has taken its course, and the greenery has "devoured" the earth, in a sense. Not to mention there's a few photo-realistic sequences here and there, which I didn't expect from PS3.
If you don't feel the same, that's fine, of course. Like I stated, everyone's entitled to their opinions.
For this game, I like to think of "There's beauty in simple things".
The gameplay is alright but its nothing special and more than that its just disappointing compared to the footage they showed off before release, in fact the AI is just so laughably bad in comparison to what they had previously shown off its quite sad to see. The game is basically Uncharted if you took way all the good parts and left yourself with the mediocre, just a generic stealth/cover shooter that might have been considered impressive half a decade ago.
I fully agree on the gameplay. It is nothing special.
But... was the AI really that different from what they showed before release? It showed enemies looking for the source of sounds, demonstrating what you can do with bottles/bricks, and groups splitting up to look for you. All of that remained intact in the final product.
As a whole, I will agree that the AI is pretty retarded. But, honestly, I didn't really mind so much. I mean, I can't really think of ANY game that had very intelligent AI. AI has always been a constant issue in games for as long as I can remember. Personally, I don't mind those faults, as the game is still somewhat challenging, thanks to the limited ammo and supplies seen in games like the classic Resident Evil. You do really feel like you have to make every shot count; you can't just go guns blazing.
As for the stealth, I mean... what more could you want? I'd actually say the stealth is much better than it ever was in the Uncharted franchise. The way I see it, you can't really improve the stealth mechanics further than what modern shooters have already been doing. If it ain't broke, why fix it?
This isn't like the Batman Arkham games where you can sneak around and take out enemies in various unique ways. You have very limited resources and there is far less hiding places, as everything is falling apart. The stealth/cover shooting works pretty well with the setting of this game.
Ultimately the real problem I have is that at the end of the day the gameplay is used as a gating system for story progression rather than the gameplay being the defining experience, thought I might have been okay with that if the plot wasn't just a clichéd, rather dull and rather repetitive zombie movie with stellar production values. Which leaves us with generic gameplay in between segments of boring story.
I can't comment on the overall story quite yet, though I believe I'm nearing the ending. But so far, I have to say I really like the plot. It's not amazing by any means, but it's certainly not mediocre. I'm not sure what was repetitive about it. I mean, it's a story about surviving an infected outbreak so it's obvious there's going to be reoccurring dangers to circumvent. That's the underlying foundation for the story progression.
I will say this: I feel the main problem with this is that Naughty Dog marketed the gameplay as innovative and "defining", like you stated. I agree with you, the gameplay mechanics are nothing amazing. But if I forget that the gameplay was intended to be a main selling point, The Last of Us is quite enjoyable; I think it's a very solid game.
Do I agree with all the 10/10 review scores it gets? Definitely not. However, I do think it deserves a lot of the praise it gets. Not ALL of it, but I can tell ND really put in a lot of effort into this, despite its glaring shortcomings.
Also, I find the writing and expressions
impeccable, much like the Uncharted series. Just the little things like Ellie's humming and mannerisms, to her naive and headstrong personality puts a smile on my face. I also quite enjoy Joel and Ellie's relationship, even if it's VERY much like DeWitt and Elizabeth's relationship (from BioShock Infinite). I suppose the relationship is a cliche within itself, but both were done very well.
It is by no means a bad game but its not nearly good enough to be worthy of the sheer amount of praise it gets.
See, was that so hard? You gave me your opinions, and I responded with some of my own. No one is getting "defensive".