Man...this game's sold out five times city wide. Haven't been able to get my hands on it, jeez.

 

If you're desperate, you can always get it on PSN.

Interesting stat though. Curious if they understocked or it's just that popular.

 

Well, the guy I talked to yesterday says he's never seen a PS3 title sell out that fast. Just word of mouth, but worth consideration.

 

Emphasis mine.

That's a bit more common than you might think. Games critics just do that.

 

I just finished the game. My gameplay time was just a it over 13 hours. I've played longer snes games.

First off, I don't think the game warrants a 10/10. It was a good game, sure, but I wouldn't call it a masterpiece. 8/10 is more accurate probably. It was entertaining, and I don't regret playing it, but there could have been a lot more done to it. Though I suppose that's what DLC is for, and multiplayer (which I haven't done yet - is that what the $10 online pass is?)

The game wasn't that hard, though I was only playing it on normal difficulty. My main complaint that it was too linear. I'm not saying it should have been an openworld game, and I've gone on record before saying that I don't think Skyrim is a very good game, and that I think it's too open. There weren't any choices to make, as far as I'm aware, there was only 1 possible outcome per event (well two, if you count death as another outcome). There was no cause/effect morality system when there should have been, or there should have been multiple plot branches, or even ingame environmental paths to take. The closest thing to a secret was using shivs to open a half dozen store rooms, or finding a dozen firefly pendants.

Combat wasn't anything special. I've seen better, and I've seen worse. I don't think I ever really ran out of supplies, though if I did, I died as a result, and knew to better conserve next time. I've been playing fps for a long time, so conserving ammo by just getting headshots isn't terrible difficult. That being said, I only ever hit max ammo a few times. And as an above poster said, if shit goes down hill, just through some molotovs or nail bombs. Stealth is fairly easy to do, but it can get frustrating at times just getting chewed by clickers before you get the shiv skill. Playing as Ellie is pretty much just like playing assassins creed, since she actually caries a knife that doesn't break. The team aspect of the game was reminiscent of Army of Two, except you can't do it coop, which is a huge shame.

The enemies were boring. Not enough variety. I think I only fought 3 of the bloaters, one in the beginning with Bill, and two at the same time towards the very end. I think I skipped past two of them. And molotovs work well on them, as well as the flamethrower, and if all else fails, shotgun. I was expecting a 4th type, since early in the game you find a letter describing 4 type, though the letter is torn where the 4th would be.

Imagery... honestly, I'm not sure what all the fuss was about. Beautiful environments are pretty standard these days, and it wasn't particularly noteworthy. I do play on a high end screen though, and I wasn't blown away, not like when I saw Anor Londo for the first time in Dark Souls. That being said, it was well done.

The plot was fine, if a bit predictable.

Spoiler

When I read the summery, there was no mention of another woman in the beginning. As such, I figure Tess probably dies at somepoint, probably due to getting infected. It wasn't that emotional when it did eventually happen. Sam and Henry fill an expected roll as well, though I was surprised when Henry shot himself after shooting Sam. I was surprised when Joel fell on the rebar. I actually thought he died, since after the scene of him falling off the horse Khal Drogo style, the next scene is months later and your controlling Ellie with no hint that he's still alive. The ending was alright, nothing special. No one can be surprised when Joel chooses to save Ellie. It wasn't a very hardhitting ending I felt, with him lying about the Fireflies. And while the game is sort of grimdark, it's not that grimdark like Dark Souls is. I guess after how emotional the first scene was, I was expecting that sort of thing throughout.

I don't think it was much like a movie like was talked about above. There were cutscenes, but not an overwhelming amount. The character interaction is really what makes this a good game. The banter was good between all the characters you meet. I don't mind playing a game for the plot, as it gives you something to invest emotions in, and the game did it well. It was just... a bit boring. Lots of walking through desolate towns, with intermittent killing sprees. I wish there would have been more of a survival aspect to it, rather than just the defending yourself part. Though I am thankful it wasn't a quest type game where you collect X amount of Y, but I definitely felt like there should have been more. That being said, I do give kudos to Naughty Dog for not dragging the story along more than it had to be.

 

That's fair enough. When I went into the game I had 0 knowledge about it, I only played it because my friend tossed it at me and told me to beat it. Also coming down from the initial reaction, I'd give it about 9. Looking back at the trailers and whatnot they pretty much ruin a lot of the impact moments.

Spoiler

Like Sarah, you knew she wasn't going to survive.

Thinking back on it, no enemy really felt threatening. Especially the infected, they eventually became a chore to work around instead of an actual enemy, in fact I just snuck around everything unless I had no choice, made it more fun that way. I still think that the characters is the highlight of the game, it certainly feels that Naughty Dog spent most of their time working on them.

Online play gets stale, about the same feeling you get about the enemies half way through. Fun if you play with friends, really damn annoying otherwise. Like Anarchy mentioned in reference to Assassins Creed, that is what the online reminds me of.

 

I just stayed up until dawn playing this game, and I started in Fall around eleven hours ago. Maybe it was the headset, my dark room and the huge TV I was playing it on. Or maybe it was just the fantastic character building and immersion. Or maybe it was the fact that my skin crawled at some of the scenes. No matter the reason, I loved nearly everything about this game.

The Winter portion was fantastic and by far my favorite part. The desperation the protagonist felt and the sheer disgust I had for the antagonist was fantastic. I'm not going to talk details, given that a thread full of spoiler tags is just retarded, but I will say that no other game gave me quite the level of satisfaction and sheer immersion that this game did in the near 18 hours I played it.

 

Deer hunter

 

Well, this is the first game I've played on a console since Final Fantasy X/X2.

It was absolutely incredible. The biggest regret I have, is when I youtubed the soundtrack, the first comment I mistakenly glanced at said

Spoiler

"I don't know why you're all so mad that Joel saved Ellie"

I read it just as I started the Spring. That fucking sucked. Took all the tension out of the finale. And tension was something this game did incredibly well.

Anyway, I think this is a game that you have to go into with a certain mentality. You can't go in looking to have fun killing zombies, with a bit of story on the side. If you want that, this game will disappoint you.

But if you sit down, and focus on the way the game tries to immerse you in the world, you'll find one of the best stories i've ever played. The level of detail in the world is amazing as well. You can really tell how much effort Naughty Dog put into this game.

I think I will be buying my first console when the next gen comes out and I was leaning towards the PS4, but this absolutely confirms it. My biggest regret is that I won't be able to play it again, unless this streaming service thing actually works out.

10/10 from me. Going down as one of my favorite games of all time.

 

They say gaikai (the streaming service) will be running by the end of 2014.

 

At first glance that's ages away, but thats about when I'd probably want to replay the game anyway. Cool.

I wonder how it'll work living in Australia though, having any kind of latency would suck in that game.

 

It works kinda okay with WoW, and I'd imagine a massive game like that has much more resources.

I'm more curious about how much of my precious GB it'll take!