Sony The Last of Us Part II OT - Best Served Cold, update: the story behind the game's realistic facial animations (PlayStation Blog)

[SaysWho?]

You know, I can't believe I forgot to mention this: I enjoyed that the Left Behind DLC explored luring infected to human enemies. I loved that TLOU2 gave you plenty of options to do that. 

[skillzdadirecta]

1 hour ago, SaysWho? said:

You know, I can't believe I forgot to mention this: I enjoyed that the Left Behind DLC explored luring infected to human enemies. I loved that TLOU2 gave you plenty of options to do that. 

I own the Left Behind DLC but never played it. Time to rectify that... gonna try and replay the first game on the hardest difficulty and then the DLC then this.

[Bloodporne]

8 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

Ellie’s pathfinding in TLoU is... super bad. I lost count of the number of times she’d bum rush and shove enemy infected without them going aggro, the unintentional comedy in that game is off the charts.

I really dislike AI partners as it is but TLoU definitely took it to the next level of irritation for me. I ended up getting used to it and just dealing with it but the Bill chapter where both him and Ellie consistently just aimlessly bumble into giant stealth arenas while not aggro-ing enemies at all, bumped me out of cover or would only budge from blocking doorways if I continued to run into them was obnoxious.

 

Every 'level' that somehow involved being separated was my favorite. I wish I could've put Ellie in a dumpster like in Resi 4. I had zero issues with the enemy AI and actually really liked their behavior but Ellie was often ridiculous. 

[Bloodporne]

33 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

I own the Left Behind DLC but never played it. Time to rectify that... gonna try and replay the first game on the hardest difficulty and then the DLC then this.

Left Behind is definitely cool and I definitely recommend playing it right after finishing the base game. It feels kind of like a 'Deleted Scenes' featurette in a way.

[SaysWho?]

18 minutes ago, Bloodporne said:

Left Behind is definitely cool and I definitely recommend playing it right after finishing the base game. It feels kind of like a 'Deleted Scenes' featurette in a way.

 

I liked that Facebook photo part. 

 

Mostly because it was posted, and it was on my Facebook a few days, and then my brother commented, "Okay, I'll bite. wtf is this?"

[Bloodporne]

4 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

 

I liked that Facebook photo part. 

 

Mostly because it was posted, and it was on my Facebook a few days, and then my brother commented, "Okay, I'll bite. wtf is this?"

I'm totally blanking and I played it only a few weeks ago. Can you spoiler and let me know what the hell this was again, I feel like a dummy haha...

[SaysWho?]

Just now, Bloodporne said:

I'm totally blanking and I played it only a few weeks ago. Can you spoiler and let me know what the hell this was again, I feel like a dummy haha...

 

Spoiler

 

[JPDunks4]

6 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

I played the game on hard and this wasn't my experience at all. I set those remote mines down regularly and blew enemies up and they never found me unless they saw me directly. Even if they caught a glimpse of me and I repositioned unseen, they only investigate where they last saw me. At certain points in the game

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I was able to draw infected into attacking human enemies by drawing them out with bottles and watched them kill each other without ever being discovered. This worked at the end in the rattlers compound where they had infected chained up. I shot their chains free with a silenced weapon and they attacked the first rattlers they saw without ever coming for me.

 

I found that if you stayed silent and unseen, enemies never found you... except for dogs and clickers possibly. Did they hone in on you more on the hardest difficulty? @JPDunks4?

 

My experience was that the Enemy Human AI was generally pretty brain dead.  None of the interactions vs the different human factions impressed me at all really.  I found the Infected encounters to be much more enjoyable.

 

That being said, the human enemies did seem to react to my last known spot more so than whee I was.  If I was in cover, and rotated out and around, I could stealth kill by flanking them as they were still focused on my last known whereabouts.  

 

On Survivor, the damn Clickers felt damn near impossible to sneak up on in most situations.  Not sure how much that changes on different difficulties. 

 

The main issue with the Human AI, is the same issue with most games AI, they know someone is killing their friends in the vicinity, yet they slowly walk up to the same pile of 5 bodies alone, and are easily body #6.  It happened way too often, which made encounters way easier than they should've been.

 

 

 

 

[JPDunks4]

I remember laughing a lot in the first game, when Ellie would essentially be out in the open during stealth sections, and enemy AI would just casually not see her. In a hyper realistic type of game, it did kind of ruin some immersion for me, but it's a game.  I had it happen a few times in this game, but not nearly as often or as distracting.

[Bloodporne]

5 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

 

  Hide contents

 

Ohhhhh I forgot that there was a Facebook punchline to this whole thing, right. 

 

Funny thing about Left Behind is that once again I thought the last encounter should've been an encounter during the midway point or so, much like the base game's last encounter, in terms of aggression, tactics and so on. I was like fuck yeah, here we go, and it's over.

[Greatoneshere]

12 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

MGS games other than Phantom Pain? Sure. Phantom Pain’s enemy AI is much more interesting than anything in either TLoU game and I don’t think it’s even close. Not that MGSV’s AI isn’t prone to abuse as well, of course, but the enemies in TLoU2 very obviously “cheat” when it comes to their awareness of things, and the baddies in MGSV generally behave more based on where you’ve done stuff and not where you are. In MGSV, throw an explodey thing somewhere when you’re unseen, and the AI generally explores where it blew up. Do the same thing in TLoU2 and as you crank the difficulty, the enemies magically hone in on you without any real reason.

 

 I can’t speak for Tenchu, I somehow managed to never play one of those.

 

Again I don’t think the AI in these games is BAD, but I wouldn’t go higher than passable / fine. It works a lot better outside of stealth than in it, where just about everyone in the game is super dumb.

 

I can agree with this. I didn't think it was stellar on hard in terms of enemy AI (the game was never hard, especially compared to the likes of truly hard games like Cuphead or Dark Souls) but it was good enough, is where I land I think.

[Kal-El814]

11 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

I can agree with this. I didn't think it was stellar on hard in terms of enemy AI (the game was never hard, especially compared to the likes of truly hard games like Cuphead or Dark Souls) but it was good enough, is where I land I think.

 

Yeah, I'd agree with that. It's not like you need AI to be "good" for a game to succeed... the AI in the recent Hitman games is objectively ludicrous but it works within the clockwork of any specific level. You also need it to be consistent for that series to work and it's rigidly consistent.

 

It's fine in TLoU2, though I still wish the different human factions had different tactics, that's the only real "miss" in the AI department, I think.

[JPDunks4]

4 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

It's fine in TLoU2, though I still wish the different human factions had different tactics, that's the only real "miss" in the AI department, I think.

I agree with this.

 

Spoiler

When we are first introduced to the Scars, with the bows impaling you, and the whistling, I felt they were going to be the "Stalker" equivalent of the Human Factions.  I expected them to be stealthy, and maybe have tracking mechanic or something similar to the Dogs.  After that first introduction, they basically just acted exactly like the WLFs.  That was pretty disappointing.  

 

[Kal-El814]

1 minute ago, JPDunks4 said:

I agree with this.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

When we are first introduced to the Scars, with the bows impaling you, and the whistling, I felt they were going to be the "Stalker" equivalent of the Human Factions.  I expected them to be stealthy, and maybe have tracking mechanic or something similar to the Dogs.  After that first introduction, they basically just acted exactly like the WLFs.  That was pretty disappointing.  

 

 

Yeah, agreed. Especially after reading about the effort they put into 

 

Spoiler

the whistling

 

it's kinda lousy that it's mostly sizzle (cool sizzle tho) and not steak.

[Greatoneshere]

12 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

It's fine in TLoU2, though I still wish the different human factions had different tactics, that's the only real "miss" in the AI department, I think.

 

5 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

I agree with this.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

When we are first introduced to the Scars, with the bows impaling you, and the whistling, I felt they were going to be the "Stalker" equivalent of the Human Factions.  I expected them to be stealthy, and maybe have tracking mechanic or something similar to the Dogs.  After that first introduction, they basically just acted exactly like the WLFs.  That was pretty disappointing.  

 

 

3 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

Yeah, agreed. Especially after reading about the effort they put into 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

the whistling

 

it's kinda lousy that it's mostly sizzle (cool sizzle tho) and not steak.

 

I do definitely agree with all of this and had the same thoughts too whilst playing. I will say one very cool moment:

 

Spoiler

Was when we were getting notes about a splinter group who had run away from the WLF, and you finally find a workbench, and get attacked from behind as you try to use it. That took me by surprise - if I had paid more attention with the notes and where I was exploring, I would have seen it coming in some way at least, even though I think it was scripted.

 

[Brian]

26 hr 39 min - 206 Collectibles. 
 

[BloodyHell]

10 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

 

 

I do definitely agree with all of this and had the same thoughts too whilst playing. I will say one very cool moment:

 

  Hide contents

Was when we were getting notes about a splinter group who had run away from the WLF, and you finally find a workbench, and get attacked from behind as you try to use it. That took me by surprise - if I had paid more attention with the notes and where I was exploring, I would have seen it coming in some way at least, even though I think it was scripted.

 

Its scripted.
 

There are tons of great moments that i missed the first time around too. It was pretty cool. 

 

there is also stuff where the characters were just being stupid, and I saw the “payoff” coming a mile away. Like

Spoiler

Ellie leaving a drop ladder to an unguarded window at the theater.

 

[Kal-El814]

50 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

Its scripted.
 

There are tons of great moments that i missed the first time around too. It was pretty cool. 

 

there is also stuff where the characters were just being stupid, and I saw the “payoff” coming a mile away. Like

  Reveal hidden contents

Ellie leaving a drop ladder to an unguarded window at the theater.

 

 

This is one of the challenges in interactive fiction, and I think it's amplified in a game like TLoU2 specifically because:

 

1) The main characters are, generally, INCREDIBLY good at what they do the whole time you're in control of them and most of the time when they're not. When they do something that has obviously negative future consequences that they should know better than to do, it stands out. I imagine it's super difficult to have this seem organic

2) The game oozes with verisimilitude, so the times when it doesn't are amplified in comparison

[Firewithin]

does anybody know where or how i can find the soundtrack to download?  it come with my CE but i can seem to find where to download it.

[ShreddieMercury]

I can't stop thinking about this game.  After turning it over in my mind, I feel like this has to be the most accomplished and incredible narrative game ever released, and I don't think it's crazy to assume that it might end up as my favorite ever video game.  The way the story is constructed, the performances, the amount of pure jaw-dropping set pieces and the incredibly dynamic gameplay all combined to make this feel so radically different and superior to most games I've played that I'm having trouble playing anything else.  I know that it's doing a specific thing, and the world of games in general is incredibly diverse, but this feels like something from the future.

 

As I browse the "discourse" around this game online, it's become abundantly clear that video games might just not be ready for something like this.  The game is certainly flawed, but the criticism that I've read has either been laughably immature and clueless ("the writing is bad"/"feminism!"), or alternatively full of bizarre misreadings of the theme and narrative (Vice, Polygon).  @Kal-El814 had a more succinct and accurate interpretation of the game's successes and failures in this thread than anything else I've seen online.  I think it's emblematic of both the intellectual unraveling and tribalism of our culture, but also of where games are right now.  I don't know why I expected this to be received (and thoughtfully criticized) as the ambitious and boundary pushing piece of art that it is when games are by and large filled to the brim with happy meal bullshit.  This isn't a great comparison, but it's like if when film was invented, we got 30 straight years of nothing but Rob Schneider comedies and then out of nowhere came The Godfather.  This game is not The Godfather, and there are loads of other games of this caliber, but the point is that "gamers" seemingly lack the ability to appropriately process something that doesn't spoon-feed exactly what they want and expect, and anything remotely challenging is met with confusion, disdain, and outright hatred.

 

This might be an awful description of my thought process, but I was very moved by this game, and have since been continually stunned and appalled by the various reactions to it.

 

 

[Kal-El814]

@ShreddieMercuryRising That was very kind of you to say, thank you

[Greatoneshere]

1 hour ago, ShreddieMercuryRising said:

As I browse the "discourse" around this game online, it's become abundantly clear that video games might just not be ready for something like this.  The game is certainly flawed, but the criticism that I've read has either been laughably immature and clueless ("the writing is bad"/"feminism!"), or alternatively full of bizarre misreadings of the theme and narrative (Vice, Polygon).  @Kal-El814 had a more succinct and accurate interpretation of the game's successes and failures in this thread than anything else I've seen online.  I think it's emblematic of both the intellectual unraveling and tribalism of our culture, but also of where games are right now.  I don't know why I expected this to be received (and thoughtfully criticized) as the ambitious and boundary pushing piece of art that it is when games are by and large filled to the brim with happy meal bullshit.  This isn't a great comparison, but it's like if when film was invented, we got 30 straight years of nothing but Rob Schneider comedies and then out of nowhere came The Godfather.  This game is not The Godfather, and there are loads of other games of this caliber, but the point is that "gamers" seemingly lack the ability to appropriately process something that doesn't spoon-feed exactly what they want and expect, and anything remotely challenging is met with confusion, disdain, and outright hatred.

 

You are right about the user response, but critics overall (barring the strange ones like Vice or Polygon) have unanimously praised the game despite the option they had to cow tow to users. It has one of the highest critical video game ratings on metacritic, so I think at least reviewers understand the depth, etc. of the game that you're pointing out, for the most part. The common, average person?

 

Don't ever expect anything out of them.

[SaysWho?]

I'm finally getting around to reading articles on WaPo and indieWire on this game soon after it came out. The WaPo one on the deleted scenes is damned interesting. The first one sounded great, but the reasoning for its removal makes a lot of sense. Some ideas sound great on paper and could be great if the story were different/told differently, but the effectiveness of it may well have been limited.

[JPDunks4]

Spoiler

When Ellie got caught by the trap set by the Rattlers, I really thought they were going to take her in to their camp, and she would end up caged next to Abby.  From there, the two are forced to talk and understand each other's histories a bit more and their reasoning for what they've done.  Ultimately teaming up to and working together to escape.  I was wrong, but that was my initial thoughts. 

 

[SaysWho?]

This girl cried for about 10 minutes during a scene in the game.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Starts about 44 minutes into the video.

[Spork3245]

9 hours ago, JPDunks4 said:

  Hide contents

When Ellie got caught by the trap set by the Rattlers, I really thought they were going to take her in to their camp, and she would end up caged next to Abby.  From there, the two are forced to talk and understand each other's histories a bit more and their reasoning for what they've done.  Ultimately teaming up to and working together to escape.  I was wrong, but that was my initial thoughts. 

 

 

Spoiler

I had the same thought, but afterwards with Ellie helping Abby to find the Fireflies as Ellie wants to create a cure.

 

[SaysWho?]

4 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I had the same thought, but afterwards with Ellie helping Abby to find the Fireflies as Ellie wants to create a cure.

 

 

Spoiler

Which is the sad thing about this revenge tale: they could have worked together for something they both wanted if they both hadn't been caught up in killing the person who killed her father/father figure.

 

[heydude93]

7 hours in...won't lie, I'm surprised by how genuinely...emotional the story is? How is it making me cry so much? The first one had feels aplenty but this story is going beyond what I usually expect from videogames.

[atom631]

On 7/13/2020 at 7:57 PM, atom631 said:

  Reveal hidden contents

Day 1 Abby  - hostile territory  

 

@BloodyHell now i know why you didn’t respond. 

 

Spoiler

Easily the scariest and creepiest part of the game. Probably of either game. 

I actually played straight through from that part to the end, nonstop. A marathon session, at least for me. 
 

I had about 28.5hrs on the game clock. What an exhausting game. It gave me anxiety from start to finish. I felt there were a few sections that got a little long in the tooth , but it was really an amazing game. 
 

my only complaint i have is that stealth in this one felt neither required, rewarding or effective. Anytime I tried, i got spotted. It just felt like it took too long. Most times, you easily recouped all your ammo from the enemies you killed anyway.  and if you did even a little exploration, you would easily find max ammo. 
 

the story was phenomenal. In the end,

 

Spoiler

It was heartbreaking to see Ellie not really be able to play guitar. It was the one connection she had left of Joel. And after this long journey of seeking revenge for him, she gained nothing and lost that last piece of him. 
 

 

[skillzdadirecta]

41 minutes ago, atom631 said:

@BloodyHell now i know why you didn’t respond. 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Easily the scariest and creepiest part of the game. Probably of either game. 

I actually played straight through from that part to the end, nonstop. A marathon session, at least for me. 
 

I had about 28.5hrs on the game clock. What an exhausting game. It gave me anxiety from start to finish. I felt there were a few sections that got a little long in the tooth , but it was really an amazing game. 
 

my only complaint i have is that stealth in this one felt neither required, rewarding or effective. Anytime I tried, i got spotted. It just felt like it took too long. Most times, you easily recouped all your ammo from the enemies you killed anyway.  and if you did even a little exploration, you would easily find max ammo. 
 

the story was phenomenal. In the end,

 

  Reveal hidden contents

It was heartbreaking to see Ellie not really be able to play guitar. It was the one connection she had left of Joel. And after this long journey of seeking revenge for him, she gained nothing and lost that last piece of him. 
 

 

 

You play on normal? Because on hard the ammo was NOT that plentiful and stealth was necessary in a lot of parts.

[skillzdadirecta]

On 7/17/2020 at 8:11 AM, SaysWho? said:

This girl cried for about 10 minutes during a scene in the game.

 

  Hide contents

 

 

Starts about 44 minutes into the video.

 

Damn was she able to finish the game???

[johnny]

12 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

You play on normal? Because on hard the ammo was NOT that plentiful and stealth was necessary in a lot of parts.

I didn’t play on hard but watched a play through of somebody who did and they barely had ammo. And when they did find ammo, it was usually one bullet lol. They used a lot of hand to hand combat 

[skillzdadirecta]

5 minutes ago, johnny said:

I didn’t play on hard but watched a play through of somebody who did and they barely had ammo. And when they did find ammo, it was usually one bullet lol. They used a lot of hand to hand combat 

Yup. That's why I liked the stealth and the melee so much. Bullets were precious on hard. I only used guns when I absolutely had to.

[atom631]

6 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

You play on normal? Because on hard the ammo was NOT that plentiful and stealth was necessary in a lot of parts.

I played on moderate. So i guess thats normal. I also played on normal on the fist one and remember that ammo was scarce and you really had to analyze your options before proceeding. This one, I would lob a brick, wait for a few to go to it, lob a mollie (or whatever). Then just clean up the rest. 

[SaysWho?]

7 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

Damn was she able to finish the game???

 

She hasn't finished yet, but she's still playing. She's actually at the part @atom631 was talking about with 

Spoiler

that creepy ass boss.

I LOVED the foreshadowing. It's part atmosphere, part level design. You're unable to get through that door, but you hear frightening sounds behind it. And in my mind, I thought that maybe it was an optional fight against a big infected or two that I didn't have to do since it was behind what I thought was an optional door. Once the power is on and you backtrack to that area, the entire door and wall is busted open and you have to go through it.

Like, bravo you fuckers, you crept me out. I love shit like that, though. Reminds me of P.T. when the girl is down the hallway and the lights go out. I stood there for 10 minutes not wanting to move.