[PS3] The Last Of Us

[Bullwinkle]

The E3 demo at the Sony Press Conference was brutal, but fantastic.

What got me the most, though, was recognizing the bridge in the background.  It takes place in Pittsburgh!!  I'll be crushing skulls in the ol' hometown.

[Turtle]

One thing I really loved was not that action itself, but how human the action and brutality was.

The best example is at the end, probably staged, but where that final enemy turns to look at you and yells, "Wait!" before you kill him.

I heard that you can actually not shoot, and just go separate ways.

[leo8877]

New cinematic from SDCC:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krLNvmYF7lM&feature=player_embedded

[naednek]

New cinematic from SDCC:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krLNvmYF7lM&feature=player_embedded

Man I can already say this will be game of the year.  Naughty Dog = Blizzard of the consoles.

[Turtle]

Only reason they're not as popular was due to the PS3's smaller install base.

Still, with the next generation coming very soon, as interested as I am in The Last of Us, I wonder what their second team is doing for PS4 now that they're done with Uncharted 3.

[leo8877]

Neat new trailer

http://kotaku.com/5934701/this-new-montage-of-the-last-of-us-mixes-bloody-violence-and-wistful-hank-williams

[leo8877]

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/01/24/the-last-of-us-demo-coming-first-to-god-of-war-ascension-owners/

Demo will be included with God of War: Ascension!

[leo8877]

First dev diary.  Can't wait!!

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/02/28/the-last-of-us-development-series-episode-1-hush/

[ATB]

I SO want to believe in this game!

[PR_GMR]

Neat new trailer

http://kotaku.com/5934701/this-new-montage-of-the-last-of-us-mixes-bloody-violence-and-wistful-hank-williams

Yeah, yeah.. I very much want to play this. 

[metallicorphan]

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/01/24/the-last-of-us-demo-coming-first-to-god-of-war-ascension-owners/

Demo will be included with God of War: Ascension!

They have a date now for the demo that comes with GoW

GameInformer

Those who buy God of War: Ascension next week will have access to a demo of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us, but they'll have to wait until the demo goes live in late May.

A recent tweet from Naughty Dog made it sounds like the demo will be going wide, but that those who purchase God of War: Ascension will be able to access the demo early. How's that for cross promotion? You don't have to answer. We think it's pretty good.

[leo8877]

"Red band" trailer.  Looks damn good:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=p4pYIsaZqE0

[raydude]

"Red band" trailer.  Looks damn good:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=p4pYIsaZqE0

Yeah, that makes me wish so much that I had a PS3. Damn Sony for making Naughty Dog publish only on their platform. I guess I'll just wait until the PS4 comes out and drives the PS3 prices down.

[ATB]

Still can't figure out what the actual gameplay is...but admittedly I'm keeping far away from any reports about this game...

[Turtle]

The gameplay is similar to Uncharted in viewpoint and controls, but instead of a lot of enemies coming at you in waves and firing guns like mad, it's a mix of sneaking and melee combat, with the small bouts of shooting with very limited ammo, and extreme deadliness.

Also there is a crafting system where you make various items to survive, like bandages to heal yourself and molotov cocktails.

[wonderpug]

The gameplay is similar to Uncharted in viewpoint and controls, but instead of a lot of enemies coming at you in waves and firing guns like mad, it's a mix of sneaking and melee combat, with the small bouts of shooting with very limited ammo, and extreme deadliness.

Also there is a crafting system where you make various items to survive, like bandages to heal yourself and molotov cocktails.

You just earned yourself some more commission.

[metallicorphan]

Ta,Daaaa


Or in other words,its finished

Naughty Dog has completed development of its next game, The Last of Us.

Naughty Dog co-president Christophe Balestra posted an image on Instagram showing as much earlier today.
Sony has confirmed The Last of Us release date of June 14 worldwide.


A playable The Last of Us demo included with God of War: Ascension will go live on May 31, ahead of The Last of Us release date of June 14.

Naughty Dog's community strategist, Arne Meyer, has previously said the campaign component of The Last of Us is around 12-16 hours in length.

[metallicorphan]

and even before the paint is dry

Sony appears to be making preparations for the prospect of turning Naughty Dog's highly anticipated new game, The Last of US, into a franchise spawning multiple sequels.

Domain registrations for The Last of Us 2 and The Last of Us 3 have been spotted online

[ATB]

Please be awesome.

[Turtle]

Here's a bit of news, The Last of Us will be available on PSN download on release day. But that's not the interesting part.

You won't need to download the full game on PSN to start playing, you just download half, and the rest will stream in on to your hard drive using the Gaikai tech built into the game. Clearly they're trying to test the streaming tech before the PS4 comes out.

[Knightshade Dragon]

Please be awesome.

Hit the front page - I've gotten hands-on with the game again.   

(And yea, it was downloaded on my retail PS3.  Hypercompressed - a ~180mb download that took a full 30 minutes to decompress!!)

[Roguetad]

This looks really good.  I'm loving these late generation games on the PS3 and 360.  Developers are really pushing the limits of the hardware.

[tcweidner]

Nice write up KD, I am really looking forward to this one. 

[ATB]

Please be awesome.

Hit the front page - I've gotten hands-on with the game again.   

(And yea, it was downloaded on my retail PS3.  Hypercompressed - a ~180mb download that took a full 30 minutes to decompress!!)

What no link?

[ATB]

Only thing I don't like about the GT vid is that the girl sounds like she's in her 20's and clearly isn't.

Otherwise looks great. Visceral.

Is ammo an stuff as rare as it should be. I saw you only had 3 shells in the shotgun...but then I saw you basically had an armory in your backpack when you got to the work bench...

Also, in that one QTE when the guy grabbed you, it prompted you to hit square. Did square just break the hold or did it do everything. break the hold and then hit him with the board?

Niiice!

[Knightshade Dragon]

Only thing I don't like about the GT vid is that the girl sounds like she's in her 20's and clearly isn't.

Otherwise looks great. Visceral.

Is ammo an stuff as rare as it should be. I saw you only had 3 shells in the shotgun...but then I saw you basically had an armory in your backpack when you got to the work bench...

Also, in that one QTE when the guy grabbed you, it prompted you to hit square. Did square just break the hold or did it do everything. break the hold and then hit him with the board?

Niiice!

Yea, the language is certainly a little more 'salty' than I think some folks anticipated, but it is rated M.  The arsenal in the backpack thing doesn't help as much as you might think - without that one rare piece you can't make something good with it, and you can't upgrade stuff without the bench.  You can make basic stuff like nailbombs and medkits, but there is always a tradeoff.  It feels pretty balanced.

On the QTE, you hammer square till it breaks the hold then he 'reacts' in a contextual way.  If you are near something you might smash their face into it.  It works exactly like Uncharted in that way. 

[ATB]

Yea, the language is certainly a little more 'salty' than I think some folks anticipated,

I didn't mean language. I mean she sounds much older.

[Turtle]

Eh, I can deal with that. The girl has been through a lot.

To get more than 1 weapon you have to craft a holster right? Also, the ammo for those other weapons should be pretty limited as well.

I really, really hope they fold a lot of stuff they have for Last of Us into Uncharted.

I also really like how the gore feels reasonably horrific, and is kind of just there and not glorified with geysers of blood and slow motion headshots.

Are there difficulty settings in the demo, what did you play at?

A very nice video with a great selection of character and combat moments.

[Knightshade Dragon]

To get more than 1 weapon you have to craft a holster right? Also, the ammo for those other weapons should be pretty limited as well.

  I *think* you can carry 1 rifle, 1 melee, 1 pistol, and 1 throwable.  To carry a second of those you have to craft a second holster.  1 melee can be a bat, a stick, a pipe, etc. and they are your best friend, as are the throwables.  The ammo is very limited and honestly it's not recommended a lot of the time as it attracts a LOT of attention.

I really, really hope they fold a lot of stuff they have for Last of Us into Uncharted.

Me too.  This game has come a long way from Uncharted. 

I also really like how the gore feels reasonably horrific, and is kind of just there and not glorified with geysers of blood and slow motion headshots.

  Agreed.  It's pretty horrible, but it's the new reality for the characters.  It makes sense in context and nobody feels great about it in the game. 

Are there difficulty settings in the demo, what did you play at?

  Yea, three of them.  I always play stuff for review or preview at Normal or Medium as that's usually what's balanced for "everyone". 

I'm very much looking forward to this game.  Naughty Dog has a hit on their hands. 

[ATB]

ARGH! To wait for reviews or to get on launch!?

[MonkeyFinger]

ARGH! To wait for reviews or to get on launch!?

Easy question - launch, launch, launch! 

[Knightshade Dragon]

ARGH! To wait for reviews or to get on launch!?

Launch on this one.   I'd stake my rep on it, even only spending 2 hours with it.  Naughty Dog has outdone themselves.   We've not seen multiplayer, but I don't even need that for this game.  The only thing that might sting is if they (uncharacteristically) made a very short game. 

[ATB]

ARGH! To wait for reviews or to get on launch!?

Easy question - launch, launch, launch! 

Pre-ordered!

[ATB]

ARGH! To wait for reviews or to get on launch!?

Launch on this one.   I'd stake my rep on it, even only spending 2 hours with it.  Naughty Dog has outdone themselves.   We've not seen multiplayer, but I don't even need that for this game.  The only thing that might sting is if they (uncharacteristically) made a very short game. 

I SAID Pre-ordered!

[Ralph-Wiggum]

ARGH! To wait for reviews or to get on launch!?

Launch on this one.   I'd stake my rep on it, even only spending 2 hours with it.  Naughty Dog has outdone themselves.   We've not seen multiplayer, but I don't even need that for this game.  The only thing that might sting is if they (uncharacteristically) made a very short game. 

Would it be that uncharacteristic for the game to be short? I seem to recall Uncharted 3 being shorter than 10 or so hours long, right? And I don't recall Uncharted 2 wasn't much longer. I would consider both of them fairly short games.

[Turtle]

According to the web, the average play time was around 11.5 hours for Uncharted 2. It went as low as 8.5 hours for people, probably rushing through, and as high as 13. That's pretty reasonable for a game of this quality and production value. I suspect you'll be doing more sneaking and scavenging in TLOU so this number could jump.

[tcweidner]

Been waiting on this one for over 2 years, gonna grab it day one

[Knightshade Dragon]

According to the web, the average play time was around 11.5 hours for Uncharted 2. It went as low as 8.5 hours for people, probably rushing through, and as high as 13. That's pretty reasonable for a game of this quality and production value. I suspect you'll be doing more sneaking and scavenging in TLOU so this number could jump.

Yep- this.  The thing that I look at is the quality of those hours too.  I enjoyed every second of the Uncharted series. 

[Turtle]

Except for 3's horrible encounter design. Ugh. Thankfully, we know that designer wasn't working on TLOU because he was too busy messing up the encounters in Uncharted 3.

Much like Uncharted, this is one of the games I'll break out to show the storytelling potential of games. I once brought Uncharted 2 out at a club game night back when most of them didn't have PS3s, and had almost the entire room enthralled as they watched someone play the intro segments to it.

[Zarkon]

I did some tradeins, and I'm getting this day one (Survior Edition or whatever) for about $25 in cash.  I'll probably play it for a few weeks and then sell it used for $40-50.  Unless it becomes 'rare as hell' in which case $$$.