My taste for zombie games has become flat.

For god sake TitanFall is the only thing I'm buying for the next 5 years because of ♥♥♥♥ zombies.

10/10, best movie of the year

Yeah I watched it too. I wouldn't go as far as you did, but I think it represents a fantastic step in merging classic, reliable, "mainstream" game mechanics and dev techniques with a very much "real" story. A step in the right direction, for sure. And the game IS gorgeous.

This was a decision to bolster gameplay over immersion. Your companions are unable to be spotted by enemies when you also have not been spotted. I personally never witnessed it; generally, if you sneak around and take cover somewhere, your companion will be pretty close to you. I imagine that if perhaps, say, you take cover behind a very narrow pillar so you can jump an enemy walking towards you, and then Ellie goes around the other side and stands right in front of the guy, that would indeed break the immersion, but I think the system is better than having your uncontrollable allies get spotted and blow your cover- again, they automatically follow you and if they were able to get spotted it would ruin a lot of hiding places. Could they have gone with a system like RE4's where you can tell your companion to shove themselves in a dumpster? Eh, yeah, but in a ruined world where more than once you're being actively hunted by smart human enemies who check hiding places, this might not have been as effective. More importantly, your companions are not invulnerable in combat ala BioInf, but they aren't annoyingly squishy either. If they get low on "health," instead of dying, they basically get locked in a melee struggle with an enemy and you get a flashing indicator that they need help, and you've got ~10 seconds to respond. It felt pretty natural and worked well in my opinion.

Speaking of AI, the producers more often referred to enemy AI, and it's true that the enemy AI is fairly smart. They will spot and freak out about dead bodies; if two enemies are in conversation or radioing each other or yelling across a hall at each other and you stealth kill one, the other will become suspicious and come investigate; if you try to fire an empty gun near an enemy, they'll say "HE'S OUT OF AMMO" and proceed to up their aggressiveness; if you grab someone to use as a human shield, they'll hesitate, but if you begin to fire at them, they'll gladly shoot their former buddy to save their own skin; if you're in an open area with multiple routes (which in most human v human encounters you are) then very typically the enemies will flank you and try to keep you focused on a few guys down a hall basically playing whack-a-mole with you while some roid junkie with a lead pipe runs behind you; if an enemy sees you brutally kill someone or if they see that you have the upper hand in firepower (ie if they have a 2x4 and you have a shotgun) they'll often scream "OH ♥♥♥♥" and go get their buddies because they know it won't end well if they fight you by themselves; if you get spotted and prompt enemies to look for you, they'll typically go towards your last known location and then fan out towards the possible escape routes, generally moving faster than normal and checking corners etc as opposed to the typical 2 alert systems in stealth/action games where enemies go and look at your last position, decide that it was just the wind, and go back to their patrol routes, or where when one guy spots you and you run a half mile away to hide in a closet, everyone and their mother still somehow knows where you are.

tl;dr > Companion AI could definitely be potentially immersion-breaking but for me personally it didn't happen. Enemy AI is good.

It is. There's only about 90 minutes of cutscenes, but there are a lot of gameplay moments that feel cinematic just because of the dialogue, the scenery, music, etc. I don't want to mention too many specific moments but generally any time you come up to some sort of landmark, like a bridge, or you see something unexpected, like a giraffe, it feels very much like a movie for those 15-20 seconds of conversations. You go out of "oh ♥♥♥♥ I see something shiny better check for loot" mode and just appreciate what's going on. There's a lot of 'dramatic' moments, both adrenaline-pumping and somber/emotional. Again, would rather not list specifics for those who want to avoid spoilers, but if nothing else you see enough trauma and suffering for the game to establish itself as "super dramatic."

The Walking Dead game is a lot different from The Last of Us and I don't feel as though they can be directly compared. They're inherently different in nature since The Walking Dead is entirely focused on surviving; The Last of Us is about surviving a journey while interacting with survivors, sure, but you have a higher goal and different motivations. Also, "far superior?" No, not really. I wouldn't argue with someone saying it's perhaps better, but it wouldn't be by much. If I had to give Walking Dead's writing a 10/10 I'd give Last of Us's a 9/10.

Oh, also, to say that it is a "one-up" as in to imply that they got the idea from / copied The Walking Dead and said, "yeah this did good, let's do the same thing but with a billion more bucks:" development of The Last of Us began in 2009. The first episode of The Walking Dead game came out in April 2012.

I think the most important point made here is that the simulation of ai on a superficial level within a structure of established rules is exactly as effective as a complex ai in the same environment, and thus boils down to "did you like it". TLoU is a perfect marriage of "Chest-high-wall shootygame" with a deeply moving and fundamentally strong story, and it works as a story-swap, but it's also not much else. Great story, but not much else?

I personally liked the core gameplay. I know where you're come from insofar as at it's core, it is fundamentally a cover shooter, but there are enough extra mechanics and restrictions that it has a generally different feel. You were rewarded for stealth and combat was discouraged because ammo was scarce, you took a lot of damage from hits, you staggered from bullet hits / melee combat, no regenerating health, limited supplies, etc. It generally makes for a very tense atmosphere. Other games it's like, "Oh neat, I found 6 high explosive rockets laying on the ground." In The Last of Us, it's like, "OH HOLY ♥♥♥♥ I FOUND A SHIV AND 2 REVOLVER ROUNDS, THIS WAS WORTH THE FOUR PEOPLE I HAD TO KILL." If you get into direct combat I agree that it becomes cover shooty but then again I can't really get mad at it for that- I mean, if you were in the same situation, what would you do? Probably the same thing. Also, since enemies don't have 24/7 instant-tracking on you like I said earlier, it's possible to use stealth in the middle of combat by flanking and hiding. Some of the bigger fights can feel very much like a struggle for a survival- on more than one occasion, because I was being swarmed by infected or humans, I would go through all of my holstered weapons and not have time to reload (even if I had extra ammo), so then it comes down to making the choice of "do I want to fight 2 gunmen with a brick, or do I use stealth, or do I hope that the rifle that guy dropped actually has ammo in it," etc.

So between the health system, limited ammo/crafting supplies, and competent but not unfair enemy AI, I think there's a lot more depth to the gameplay than in your standard TPS. I agree that if I was judging it on the gameplay alone, it wouldn't be nearly as good- the story is what sold me- but I think the core is still very fun and definitely above Naughty Dog's previous series, Uncharted, which I also loved.

Also, unless you're including setting/atmosphere in 'story,' I'd argue those were both very well done. It's been a while since I've played a game that was able to set a mood so well. Amnesia and Silent Hill 2 come to mind, but not much else.

The thing that struck me about The Last of Us is actually how little I want to play it, in comparison to how much I enjoy the story. It had a very film-like quality about it and having watched the intro I felt the desire to watch the game, but not to go out and buy it myself. If the opportunity to experience the story without the game had not been there then I may well have bought it.

I'm not that interested in The Last of Us, since it's not my kind of game, I usually only play grand strategy games nowadays. Speaking of grand strategy, EU4 is out in August since they pushed the release date back. That's not a good sign. But I'm looking forward to EvW more. That game is gonna be good.

So, NAMCO BANDAI are making a browser based dating sim amazingly called, NAMCO High.
Try to guess who's the creative director.
Discuss

oh my god
it wasnt a joke
this is hilarious

The Last of Us' enemy AI from your description seems reminiscent of FEAR's. They'd to similar stuff, like spot flashlights, attempt flanks, regroup, make tactical retreats, etc. And I was referring to the dramatic and atmospheric similarities of TWD and TLUS, not so much the goals and core gameplay. Also the Walking Dead has been in existence for nearly ten years, but the show really spiked its popularity through the roof, and it aired in 2010. The game was more of a response to the demand for the franchise. In retrospect, it probably didn't have much of an impact on TLUS initially; however, it was kept secret until recently. For all we know, they could've took note of the popularity of TWD in mid-production. Game companies and teams make drastic style changes to compensate for popular trends. This is quite common in the media industry, even in gaming; the Medal of Honor franchise, Saints Row 1, the Silent Hill franchise, and the Duke Nukem Forever franchise are such examples. I don't think TLUS is as bad as DNF, let alone bad in the first place (its probably great), I just couldn't help but notice lots of translucent market antics going on in the sidelines.

Ultimately, the finished product will be the subject of its authenticity, and the gamers its judge. I don't even own a PS3, so take my post lightly (except the marketing part)

Everytime people talks about games that just came to sale, I feel like I don't know anything...

Skullgirls: Still da baws.

yeah. ok.
who cares about all this high-class bull♥♥♥♥.
just enjoy the ♥♥♥♥ game.