Hello there, and welcome to a podcast of such you have never heard and never will hear again! The reason being as this is the only one!
Basically me and my friend Tim, (Off2timbuktooo on YouTube), decided to start recording podcasts for my blog, so he came round a couple of months back and we recorded this! Computer issues ensued and essentially meant that I had no access to the files for about 2 months hence why this is so outdated, sorry! However, we put a lot of work into it and I thought you guys should at least be able to have a listen.
The reason why this will be the one and only podcast in this series is that me and Tim are joining our good friends Ben and Ashley to start a new podcast series which I am delighted to announce here! It's called Ducks in Jam Jars Presents: The Jamcast, (or The Jamcast for short), and will be a fortnightly-ish podcast discussing videogames and funny things in life. So consider this podcast a trial or taster for what is to come when we start recording the Jamcast which should go live around the first week of June.
A lot has been said about online marketplaces in the videogames industry and whether they are good, bad, or somewhere in between. You can probably find various well written articles out there fighting on either side. I just happened to notice something the other day which prompted me to throw my virtual hat into the ring, (a Panama Hat if you were wondering).
I purchased Titanfall on PC a few days back and if I find the time, I will almost certainly be writing about it. However it was the way that I went about buying it, that caused me to think about the issue of online marketplaces. Initially, the Steam marketplace was my first port of call, everything is on Steam these days. Except, everything is not on Steam these days. For the most part, the publishers of Titanfall, EA, chooses to sell it's PC games through their own online marketplace, Origin. This makes business sense, Valve, (the company who run the Steam marketplace), take a cut of all sales made through Steam, whereas if a game is sold through Origin, all the profit stays with EA. It would be nice then, if EA passed some of the savings they're making through selling games on their own marketplace, to us, the consumer, however most new, triple-A games on Origin appear around the £40-50 mark, Titanfall for example on the date of writing is £45 for the standard edition. Yet, this is business, EA is a large company, wanting to make as much money from us as possible, to expect anything better is at best, hopeful, at worst, downright ignorant. The same goes for Valve, any company trying to sell a product has the aim of making money. So moving the issue of pricing aside, let's focus on the next topic. Presentation.
Upon opening Steam, you are taken to the 'Library' tab whereby all your games that you own are presented to you in a list, ready to play. Very user-friendly, very convenient, and gives the impression that despite what I just said, Valve aren't all about the money. Even if they are, it's nice to be deceived sometimes. However, when I opened Origin, wanting to find Titanfall, I found Titanfall straight away. Hurray! How convenient! It's as if EA were reading my mind! These were my first thoughts, and then I took a second to think about it. When I opened Origin, the first place I was taken to was the store-front. Advertisements for Titanfall and Battlefield 4 were blasted at my face. Admittedly, it doesn't take much to then click the 'My Games' tab where I'm presented with all of my games, but it still leaves a bitter after-taste of corporate money grabbing and burned toast in my mouth. Admittedly one of those things may have been my breakfast but EA is probably in some way at fault for my poor breakfast making skills too.
These were just some comparisons I noticed and thought would be interesting to write about, so before EA take notice and decide to shut my ass down, let's move on to the wider subject of online marketplaces. I decided against buying Titanfall through Origin and instead found a discounted copy for an Origin code on another website. But this got me asking, why is it that stores like Amazon were selling Titanfall for around the £30 mark, yet Origin, who are owned by the people publishing the game, couldn't match their prices? The same goes for a lot of online marketplaces owned by games publishers, for example Ubisoft's U-play often suffers the same pricing problem, as does the PlayStation's and Xbox's marketplaces. Surely if companies receive the most profit through selling their games on their own marketplaces they would entice customers through competitive pricing? It's common business sense, right?
Well, yes and no. The simple answer would be sure, price retailers out of the game so you can maximise profits on your sales. However this ignores one key fact. The majority of gamers still purchase either in-store or through online retailers such as Amazon, and whilst more and more people are purchasing through marketplaces such as Steam, retail still holds a lot of power. If a company such as EA priced them out of the market, retailers can simply threaten to no longer stock their games and then a massive chunk of their audience will no longer know where to buy their games, not to mention the advertising that physical stores provide for games. Next time you walk into your local games store, notice how many boards, videos and those big cardboard cut-out thingys there are, all advertising games at you. If a retailer stopped stocking a game, the advertising space would then open up for a rival company's game and that alone could significantly damage how well a game's release would do financially. Platform holders such as PlayStation and Xbox are in an even worse situation. They rely on retailers to sell their consoles. In the current situation, platform holders simply cannot risk losing retailers, for if they can't get their consoles into stores, people simply won't buy them.
So the more complicated, business-y and downright dull answer is that business practices and the hold retail has on the market means that currently, competitive pricing through online marketplaces isn't a realistic option, and that's a shame for us consumers. The only marketplace that seems to get away with this is Steam, the Steam sales are well renowned amongst gamers and you can often come away with some incredible deals there, (totally not sponsored by Steam at all). Steam has nothing to fear by offering this service as they very rarely make games in comparison to other similarly sized companies, so it's not often that they have to worry about how well their new games sell. Additionally, whilst the individual games publishers do control how much their games cost on Steam, as the Steam catalogue is so wide, and as the Steam sales are such a regular occurrence, publishers don't have to worry about standing out as directly competing as much as they would if making their game a lower, more competitive price in their own marketplace.
However, it is my belief that soon we will see a change. As evidenced by GAME and other game retailer's shaky financial positions, physical game retail is dying, or at the very least becoming harder to sustain. After games retail dies, I wouldn't be surprised if the only place to buy physical copies of games were supermarkets. That would be the time whereby online marketplaces could really fill in the gap left by games retail, and start to become truly competitive. Additionally, as PC gaming becomes more and more a viable option; with cheaper PC's becoming more available and with gaming on PC becoming less awkward to set up, awareness of online marketplaces will surely rise. The only place to buy many PC games, (especially indie titles), are online markteplaces, and so I predict at some point in the next 5-10 years, certainly before the next console generation, a large shift towards gamers only buying games digitally and leaving physical retail behind, whether it be on their console or PC. This is something that is beneficial to both games publishers and consumers as it creates more profit for publishers and offers more competitive prices to consumers. The only adversarial voice that would appear in this scenario is physical retail, and their grip on the market becomes weaker by the day.
In the end I really liked Titanfall,
9/10
Sorry if all this talk of business bored you, I promise this will be a very rare occurence, in the meantime enjoy a very funny video about Titanfall by the chaps over at Videogamer.
(Disclaimer, all pictures and/or videos used here are not my own, they are courtesy of, in top to bottom order: Shushans, Ask A Medic, Kotaku Australia and Videogamernot that any of those people will actually see this blog but yeah, please don't sue me.)
Hey all you sexy, sexy readers, just a quick public service announcement. My PC has been in the repair shop these past few weeks hence the lack of posts as my laptop is too slow to do any real work with, without it being an absolute pain in the arse. Normal service shall resume in the next couple of weeks or so, thank you for your patience and once again I apologise for the break in content. You will shortly be able to bask in my magnificence once more.
So today I have had zero pancakes. Call me treacherous scum, call me insane, call me what you like, all I can do is apologise and offer my broken soul to The Blood God. Yet if that doesn't satisfy you, here is a hastily written Pancake Day themed blog post, I present to you:
The Top 5 Videogame Characters Who Would Make Tasty Pancake Fillings!
1. Kirby
Now immediately when thinking of which characters I would include in this list, Kirby stood out. Including Kirby is somewhat of a cheat, but bear with me. Kirby is loveable, a great fighter and doesn't look very appetising, so why stuff Kirby into a pancake? Simple: one of Kirby's powers is to inhale and absorb his enemies thus stealing their powers. If Kirby inhales a knight for example, he gains a sword. Therefore it would make sense that should you stuff a lemon in Kirby's mouth, Kirby will become a citrus delight for your pancakes. The same goes for any flavour you like for your pancakes, just shove the ingredients into Kirby's maw, give him a shake over the pancakes and enjoy. Is Kirby being able to become essentially any flavour a cheat or a great idea? If you already have the ingredients to shove into Kirby's mouth, why not simply put them on the pancakes rather than forcing Kirby to regurgitate Nutella? The decision I leave to you dear readers.
2. Scrooge McDuck
A pancake classic is duck and hoisin sauce. This Pancake Day, why not head over to Disneyland, grab the first person in a Scrooge McDuck costume and proceed to fry them in a pan with some plums?* Scrooge is a very wealthy duck, so it stands to reason that he will have had a relaxed lifestyle so his meat should be tender and delicious. However should he prove to be too old a duck for your ageist tastebuds, there are also his younger grandnephews to chomp on; Huey, Dewey and Louie.
*Note, please for the love of God don't do this, people in Disney costumes taste awful, be sure to remove the costumes before cooking.
3. The Clickers
As Matt Lees of ex-Videogamer fame proved here, the Clickers from The Last of Us make an excellent mushroom substitute should you be able to, you know, avoid their deadly bites and hack them to pieces before any more infected show up on the scene. I've never had mushrooms in my pancakes, but I'm sure if you cooked them up with some sausages and maybe some bacon it would be a pretty good combination. Whilst yes, finding the ingredients for this recipe is marginally more dangerous than a trip to your local Tesco, you will have created a potentially awesome and original pancake at the end of it. Worth the effort? Hell yes.
4. Epona
Last year we had the horse-meat scandal here in the UK, and it turned out that a lot of our favourite burgers, sausages and so on contained a considerable amount of horse. I really like sausages with apple sauce in my pancakes, so it's more than likely that at least one of those sausages were made of premium-grade horse. The thing that troubles me is that I didn't notice a thing. I wouldn't be able to tell you the difference between a regular pork sausage and a horse one. As such, horse-meat may actually be pretty decent. Maybe, when roaming the wilds, instead of focusing on wild boar and cattle to hunt, we should be focusing on horse too. This is why I say that Epona, perhaps the most noteworthy of video-game horses, might make a decent sausage to slip into your pancake. If your back garden doesn't happen to lead out into the Hyrule Fields however, other videogame horses such as Agro, or Rapidash will suffice.
5. Tropius
Okay I'll admit I was running out of ideas here. It was late so I searched 'fruit pokemon' in Google and this is what came up. Apparently, Tropius is a Pokemon that grows bananas as a beard, so yeah, give it a shave or something, cook up the beard bananas with some sugar to get it all nice and caramelised and serve it up with some pancakes. Then go deal with your neighbours who will be complaining about the six-foot, flying Pokemon in your back garden. That, and a decomposing horse, an infected zombie-like creature, a family of talking ducks and a pink blob that: in between asking for a mercy killing, it spews maple syrup from its mouth. You awful human being.
(Disclaimer, all pictures and/or videos used here are not my own, they are courtesy of in top to bottom order: SuperLakitu, The Disney Wiki, VideoGamer TV, gameswallpaperhd, Zeldapedia, and IGN, not that any of those people will actually see this blog but yeah, please don't sue me)
So as you may know, Sonic Boom was announced the other week. A new Sonic game with a single trailer demonstrating what the game will look like, how some of the gameplay will function and giving hints to the story. It is too early to tell for sure how the game will turn out, there's not even been a release date announced yet, but like most of the gaming internet I'm going to speculate and draw conclusions on how this game will turn out based on a single trailer. This is why I am worried about Sonic Boom. I should preface that I am a Sonic fan, through my childhood I spent many an evening at my friend's house badgering them for goes on their Mega Drive and in this method I managed to complete all of Sonic 1, 2 and 3. I really don't know why they put up with me for so long. But throughout recent years Sonic has struggled to find his place. He has tried going all 3D, he has tried punching people in the face, he has tried sticking to his trademark of going really fast, yet whilst hinting at excellence in some of his games, none have really made an impact like the original games did.
So, reason number 1: Sonic is not an MMA fighter.
Now, I'm not going to go into the lore and history of Sonic the fucking Hedgehog, but I am fairly sure he hasn't been a professional fighter of any kind. Yet for some reason, Sonic, Tails and Knuckles are wearing athletic tape on their hands and legs. Knuckles, I can understand, he's a tough guy, he wants to prove his toughness by wearing some tape, fine, but unless the story is going to reveal that Sonic is the victim of a horrible house fire and the tape is simply covering up his burn wounds, the tape suggests that Sonic is going to be involved in some kind of fighting. This is a bad thing. Sonic has never got fighting right, he can just about get away with jumping on peoples heads, but as soon as he tries to throw a punch, he loses the plot. In Sonic Unleashed, the game let you transform into a Werehog, (yes, I know), a tougher, meaner version of Sonic, who could throw a punch and it was terrible. I wanted Sonic to punch me so I could just forget the time that I played as him. The fighting itself was fairly basic, but combined with the floaty sort of always trying to pick up speed way Sonic moves, it just never felt right. Sonic has always been at his best when running and or jumping.
Reason number 2: Sonic needs to develop an allergy to guns.
The Sonic universe has always had a weird relationship with guns. Traditionally used by Dr. Eggman, (or Robotnik depending on your preference for classic videogame villain's names), to shoot at you in the end of level stages, the protagonists never felt the need to use them. That is until Shadow The Hedgehog. Simply put, it was a disaster. I only played it once, so admittedly the rest of the game after the first hour may be the finest thing ever created, but sources I trust assure me it's not. A lack of any decent aiming or lock-on and again Sonic's floaty physics lead to a game that was irritating and awkward to control at the best of times, and un-playably difficult at the worst. This leads me to believe that Eggman actually isn't the villain of the Sonic universe, guns are, in that everything they touch in that universe either dies or turns to shit. That is why it worries me that in the trailer for Sonic Boom, we see Tails wielding some kind of plasma gun. Sonic games need to have momentum and speed, that is their trademark, and yet to be able to shoot effectively, you need to break that momentum by pausing to aim. I'm all for taking Sonic in a new direction, the Mario & Sonic Olympic titles prove that new directions can be effective, but unless Big Red Button Entertainment completely change Sonic's formula, I just can't see any form of shooting mechanics being able to work.
Reason number 3: Sonic was never actually that good.
Okay, so before you all come at me wielding machetes screaming "THIS IS SPARTA... wait, SONIC", hear me out. Sonic was a good game at the time it came out. It felt truly fast. Its speed was its selling point when competing with other platformers of the time such as Super Mario World, and later on Rayman and Super Mario 64. That sense of momentum felt great as it was something truly different, yet going back to play it now, well, it's just lost it's sheen. No longer is speed and momentum a novel idea in gaming. You forget about having to pause mid run to go back and pick up some lost rings, not having quite enough momentum to get over a loop and ending up having to stop, go back to pick up speed or use the spin dash. It was great at the time, but only an average game when analysed today. Some of you will say: "Alright dickhead, it's an old game, they do look worse when they get older" and fair point, a lot of games do, but the real greats, they stand the test of time, and whilst the graphics may not be as shiny as compared to today, or may have a different control style to what we are used to, they still are great fun to play. Go back and play Zelda: A Link to The Past, or Super Street Fighter II, I guarantee you they will be just as much fun as they were back then. Hell, you can play a copy of Doom and it will still be as fast paced and action packed as ever. The true classics stand the test of time and unfortunately, Sonic doesn't meet the cut. So, why does this matter with Sonic Boom? Now, if we are to assume that Big Red Button Entertainment are going to listen to various 'core fans' of the Sonic franchise, which would make sense if they want to make a game that appeals to both the core fanbase as well as those not so interested but will pick it up because it's a Sonic game, the majority of the core clamour for 'Old Sonic', Sonic like it was back in the day. So then you are basing a game on one which was mediocre at best and the fans will still complain because it won't feel as good as Old Sonic will with all the nostalgia it brings to the table. Then there's the alternative, BRBE may try to innovate and push the series in a new direction, which may not go down well at first, but when played, if pulled off could actually surprise some people. But then the question is, how far do you innovate? For all the shit I write about Old Sonic, he is still at his best when running and jumping. Move too far away from that and you'll have a game that simply isn't Sonic, and the fans will be pissed. Not enough, you risk falling into the trap of replicating a mediocre game, but then the middle ground is just full of half arsed gimmicks such as the Werehog and Shadow the Hedgehog with his guns, a middle ground where there is a clash between original Sonic's pace and momentum, and having to stop to do whatever gimmick is next. It is a difficult problem to solve and BRBE will have undoubtedly paid someone far more intelligent than myself to try and work around this, but so far, most previous attempts by previous companies have fell short of the mark, indicating that games developers are still struggling to find the solution. Like it or not, Sonic Boom is happening, and it feels like with the game being released alongside a new TV series, Sega alongside Big Red Button Entertainment are really pushing for this to be Sonic's finest hour. I did want to mention a couple of other things that I was considering whether or not to add to this piece. One of these things is the inclusion of dubstep in the trailer, and those gratingly annoying character voices. It just stinks like a rotting corpse, of a company trying to be hip and down with the kids. It seems like something Major Nelson would cook up on an off day. Does it worry me? Yes, it may mean that I don't enjoy the game as much as I otherwise would, but is it a deal breaker? No, I can just turn the volume down whilst playing, it's not going to effect the overall core gameplay and that's why I didn't make a full section or argument for it. It's aimed at a different audience and I just have to accept that.
Just shut up already you bastard!
Now, rendering this article completely irrelevant is the fact that the game isn't even out yet, with no release date on the horizon and only this one trailer to go on. The way developing works, any number of things can change yet. Sega could even choose to scrap the project entirely if they wanted to! Adding to that is the fact that Big Red Button Entertainment have been working on this thing for almost one and a half years already, they are clearly taking their time on this, and their team is made up of some very skilled dudes who used to work at Naughty Dog, so if anyone was going to know what the're doing, it's them. But still, I'm worried, and thought I'd construct a one and a half thousand word article telling anyone who cared all about it when I could have been doing much better things with my life. But still! I hope you enjoyed reading. If you liked it please let me know in the comments below or on my Twitter, (@ZakToms). Similarly, if you want to add to the debate, disagree with me, want to stalk me, have any suggestions or questions for the site, or just want to say hello, get in touch! I will embrace you all in open arms no matter what you think of Sonic. Keep on going fast you beautiful people. Zak
(Disclaimers, all pictures used are not my own, they are courtesy of in top to bottom order: Gamespot , Dan-Dare, Timothy on IGN forums, Sonic1 on Sega Forums, not that any of those people will actually see this blog but yeah, please don't sue me)
So first of all, apologies for the large hiatus in my writing. I've had a fair amount going on with exams and uni work, plus trying to maintain a decent family and home life and so my blog stuff kind of got shoved to one side a little bit, but now I'm back and hopefully will be getting more regular with blog posts.
Anyway, about a month ago I entered the 'Dulljam' games making jam, (whereby various people are given a certain amount of time to create a game based on a theme). We had to create a game based on the idea of dullness and the mundane. A sort of contrast and response to the adrenaline fueled power fantasy's many games aim for. At the time I was mid-way through essay season and needed something as a bit of a diversion so I jumped on Dulljam and wrote a game for it using Twine, (a text-adventure games engine), inbetween writing for my essays. You can find info about Dulljam, other entries and all sorts of amazing and far better gaming articles and commentary than mine at the excellent Midnight Resistance website.
I had a great time writing it and it proved a great distraction at the time. It got published on Midnight Resistance the other day so I thought I'd share with you my entry; 'Essay Writing Simulator: 2014 Edition'. As you can probably tell, it was heavily influenced by the mundane essays I was writing at the time. It sets you on an adventure to write an essay, the night before your deadline. Pressure is mounting, will you rush, will you panic or will you pull something spectacular out of the bag!? Despite being about a really dull time, it is a comedy game and will, (try), to get some laughs. I've had some great feedback so far. People have enjoyed it so I'm hoping you will too! If not I will hunt you down and murder you.
The game features multiple endings and branching pathways depending on how you play like an actual real life game, so replaying is encouraged. It took a lot of time and effort to get to grips with coding this so, (this is the last effort I promise), I would very much appreciate it if you give it a go. Also, I've had a look at the other games featured over at Midnight Resistance and they are all pretty excellent and you'll probably enjoy them more than mine, meaning you can make anything enjoyable if you vaguely simulate it in a videogame. I would certainly recommend checking the others out too.
So that just about wraps everything up for this blog entry. Stay tuned for more throughout the coming weeks and months. I promise you, like a guilty lover, that I will stop by more often and pay more attention to you. I will be a better blog. All those other blogs are just using you, no other blog loves you like this one does.
Also, If you have any comments or feedback for the game, either let me know in the comments down below, let me know on Facebook if we're friends, or reach me at @ZakToms on Twitter)
So without further ado, I wanted to get the blog up and running, and what better way to do this than a review of sorts. First of all, my reviewing style should be explained. It's pretty standard procedure to be honest, a list of opinions that you're bound to think irrelevant and a few facts thrown in to spice the stew followed by a score. The score isn't all important, and the main body of text is where you'll really get a feel for what I think about whatever it is I am reviewing, however, people like scores so I may as well pander to them in order to generate at least a view more page views hey? So recently I have been playing The Last of Us, Naughty Dog's smash hit of June earlier this year, and to tell you the truth, before going into this, I was a little worried. Hearing about Bioshock Infinite which came out a month or two before TLoU, and then the subsequent backlash, made me fear the same would happen again. But, I waited a couple of months, no real strong negativity emerged so I thought I was safe.
So lets start at the beginning, that is apparently a good place to start things after all. You play as Joel, a hardened man who has seen too much and that gives him the ability to survive in this post-apocalyptic world. A world where the state is trying desperately to maintain order through force as opposed to 'The Fireflies', a resistance movement committed to fighting for the freedom and rights of the public. You and your companion Tess are tasked with escorting Ellie, a girl in her mid-teens, across the country for The Fireflies for reasons that become apparent as the game progresses. All of this is handled in a heavily narrative driven third person cover shooter/ stealth-em-up, with a nifty inventory system and stunning visuals, oh, and I should mention that you will be fighting mushroom-y people who are pretty much like zombies but aren't zombies because they have mushrooms on their heads.
The Last of Us has often been talked about for it's opening scene. I should take this section as an opportunity to point out that whilst some minor spoilers will be included due to you know, talking about the game, nothing vitally important to the plot will be revealed, suffice to say, knowing the game has a beginning isn't going to offend anyone and if it does, just get out.
Anyway, yes, that opening scene, it really is perfect in setting the tone and tempo for the rest of the game. Not only does it build up from a slow start to an emotionally charged and fast paced finale, it prepares the gamer for a story that will not hold back. This game is rated 18 for a reason, if not for the violence but for the complex and hard hitting story.All in all the introduction to the game does it's job perfectly in shedding light on what is to come whilst getting us to learn about, and begin to care for the characters involved. What the introduction doesn't prepare us for however, is the following three to four hours. The way I see this section of the game is that it is Naughty Dog trying to teach us a lesson. Normally there would be nothing wrong with this, it is normal for a game to try and teach you it's mechanics within the opening levels, (think games such as System Shock 2 where there is a simulation tutorial mission, although things have progressed since then). However, the way Naughty Dog is teaching this lesson is, rather than giving us the knowledge slowly, it throws it at you all at once so you become used to how the game will be, and relieved when it is not as full on as these first hours.
What I am trying to say in an extremely convoluted way is that the first hours of The Last of Us are some of the slowest, most frustrating and damn well tedious in the game. Backlash warnings were ringing in my head. I am not adverse to a slow paced game, but after the final scenes of the introduction, it felt like a break was needed true, but not one as extensive as we see here.
The background to the story is explained to the player through dialogue of the main characters, Joel and Tess, and brief exchanges between the citizens. This wouldn't be too bad if not confronted by two separate flaws. One, there is no break up between exposition, and so some of the genuinely interesting backstory may be dismissed by some just trying to progress as quickly as possible to the action. Two, the backstory is framed by some of the most tedious puzzling going, ladder puzzles whereby you must find a ladder, or a plank, and bridge gaps or climb to ledges with them. Finally when you do get to the first proper confrontation since the opening minutes, you are faced with a stealth section. You are challenged to sneak through a dark ruined building infested with 'the infected', zombie-like enemies that will try to kill you mercilessly upon seeing, or in some cases hearing, you. After being eaten, ripped apart, chewed on, cut, took out on a date by and probably both married and divorced by the amount of time you will be seeing them, by the infected, things start to get a teensy bit frustrating. The game repeatedly tells you, try stealth, running your way through won't help, throw a glass bottle to distract them, (remember, this is still a Naughty Dog certified lesson). Me being the swot of the class tried this again and again to a fault until I decided to just go for it and leg it to the nearest exit, shooting a good amount of the infected along the way too. I died. However Ihad made progress. So I tried this method again and lo and behold on the third try I made it, however I couldn't get past the feeling that I had cheated the system. This section was a lesson telling us to expect puzzles, expect a slow and drawn out narrative, and expect not being able to take on all the enemies you face, however, as the player moves from the classroom to the field, things begin to drastically get more interesting.
These first few hours seem a minor blemish upon completing the game but it feels necessary to highlight the flaws with many stating that TLoU is nothing short of perfection. It is a very good game, no doubt, but it has it's annoying aspects as all games do. However, let's now focus on what TLoU does right.
Story and atmosphere.
At it's heart, TLoU is a story about survival both emotionally and physically. You will find yourself relating to these characters in a way that not many games allow you to. Many games suffer from the fact that you feel that it is perhaps unreasonable to cut through hordes of enemies with a machine gun and thus it is hard to relate to someone who would do that. However, as TLoU puts it's characters in situations whereby every kill is a matter of survival, by stealth killing a mercenary you will have saved Joel and the others from a grisly death, you cannot help but feel that you would probably do the same thing and so you relate to the character's circumstances. You care about these characters in a way that is hard to replicate in other forms of media because you are in direct control of their actions. Naughty Dog has come up with a great trick in order to tell it's story here. Obviously inspired by films, the game doesn't feel the need to tell every second of story as some games do, (often very badly). It will simply cut to a new scene, maybe a couple of weeks to a month down the line and the characters will pay reference to what may have happened in the time in-between scenes, and how they feel after the last scene, but they never over explain it. Instead, they simply leave the player understanding that time has moved on, and so have the characters, and new parts of the story are about to unfold. It allows the player to fill in the gaps where other games would try to hamfistedly fill them. One small blemish on the story telling however are the conversations between characters whilst the player is in control of the game. In order to create a sense of reality and immersion, Joel and Ellie will discuss what is happening around them, and as you move further apart, you struggle to hear them. Whilst this is reflective of real life, often you will miss what they say simply because you stopped to pick up an item and this is frustrating when the story is THIS good. In the end I had to turn on my subtitles so I could see what was happening with the story and at the same time be able to improve my chances in the game by picking up valuable loot. A small annoyance admittedly, but still frustrating. The atmosphere in TLoU is a bastard. No better way of saying it. Naughty Dog have created this sense of doom and panic impeccably. Because you know that many of the enemies will kill you in one or two hits, when entering a claustrophobic building or dark sewer, never do you just feel like running through it as you would in most games, you are forced to sneak about. Often I found myself playing certain levels for far longer than I should have, as I was sneaking and being careful when in reality, there wasn't any enemies around, and this is a good thing. It forces you then to take in the incredible amount of detail and hard work put in to craft this beautiful world, you will have more than likely seen it already but the 'drowned street' section of the game is just stunning to look at. This brings me on nicely to the next section, cue segway!
Hey there good looking.
This world is beautiful! Not in a way that you are analysing the frames per second or are admiring the shader quality, it is just beautiful in the way a Picasso or Monet piece is, you cannot help but admire it. From the vibrant overgrown cities, to the dank, dark sewers, everything fits, it feels real and again, just as you would gasp at a beautiful vista, or feel uncomfortable or threatened in a dripping cave or sewer, the characters do so too. The detail put into the character design is also pretty sweet. When Joel has to swim, he stays wet, if he gets injured, you can notice blood trickle down his arm or stain his shirt, it is just little additions, that sound unimportant in the long run, but do a great deal to creating a believable and wonderfully immersive game. The best praise that I can give this game in it's visual department is that it genuinely feels next-gen, it feels like it would be at home on a PS4 and so I really wouldn't be surprised if Naughty Dog release a PS4 Game of The Year edition fixing a few minor glitches and polishing the visuals even further.
I am a Stealth God.
This is what I said to myself as I played through TLoU. At it's heart, TLoU is a third person shooter, but it is a stealthy one. Due to your limited ammo, often taking down the enemy silently is the best way to progress, not that you can't run in all guns blazing, and in fact there are some levels whereby you're forced to do this, only things will get considerably harder later if you are wasteful with ammo.
Naughty Dog have performed a miracle in doing one simple trick, removing the mini-map. The environments you're placed in are often small enough that as you progress through the level, you get to know your surroundings and react as the characters would to them, all the more allowing you to relate to them as I mentioned earlier. This does allow enemies to take you by surprise every now and then (thoughts of stumbling blindly into a garden full of clickers still embarrass and haunt me to this day), but again this only adds to the sense that what you are playing is as close to reality as it can be. Also, in later levels, you are given the opportunity to explore an area before enemies come to attack you (look for an abandoned house near the dam), and so you know all the in's and out's of the area and can feel as I did, like a Stealth God as you choke one guy, before sneaking into the bathroom, taking another out with an arrow and shoving an axe through the head of the final enemy, all of this without enemies noticing your sneaky presence.
When you have to fight, the weapons are varied enough to keep things interesting, every gun, from the revolver to the hunting rifle feels different and so you begin to develop tactics as to what gun is better in different situations. Hand to hand combat also feels weighty with every blow connecting with sometimes brutal force, Naughty Dog really have treated us with the sound design as you bash someone's head in.
Another aspect worthy of mention is the inventory system. You can scavenge each environment for bandages, sharp objects, alcohol, all of which you can use to craft various objects. However, wonderfully, often you need the same items for various crafting recipes, so you are forced into a decision between the safety and second chance of a med-pack, to the offence of a molotov cocktail for example. It's just another layer of survival brilliance added to the overall package.
Scores on the door
9/10
Pros, excellent visuals, Great combat, Tense atmosphere and chilling storyline Crafting mechanics, You can live out your dream of being a post apocalyptic hitman
Cons, some very minor visual glitches, Annoying in game conversations, Those first few hours All in all an excellent game and one I'm sure will be on many people's GOTY list, and fully deserving of all the praise it has received, all of this without mentioning the so far un-tried by me yet apparently surprisingly deep online mode. However the mis-steps with the opening few hours keep it just shy of a perfect score. Reviewed by: Zak Toms, Played on: PS3 Played for: 30 hours aprox Mode tested: Single player campaign Reviewed on: 28/10/2013
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