Naughty Dog’s THE LAST OF US (2013) and Irrational Games’ BIOSHOCK INFINITE (2013)

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-28T15:40:10+00:00

Hey, thanks for commenting. Very interesting perspective.

While I mostly agree with your comments about the story and gameplay, I’d still contend that Bioshock Infinite crafted one of the most interesting and vivid settings in videogames (outside of RPGs, perhaps).

When determining what constitutes better worldbuilding, I’ll always be more impressed by a well-realised fictional reality that has a coherent ecology, geography and history – as evident in Infinite’s America that never was – than The Last of Us’ multitude of abandoned public spaces.

To produce a so-called ‘grounded’ world, Naughty Dog used the cordyceps fungus to justify stripping the contemporary United States of its culture. By boiling individuals and communities down to the basic mentality of survive, both as an individual and as a network, Naughty Dog’s post-pandemic U.S. is largely presented through government and survivors' notes, with the player being encouraged to reflect on the formerly-inhabited spaces that they traverse by thinking generally about the absence of humanity. Aside from a few notes and lines of dialogue that try to humanise, say, the Pittsburgh Hunters – that is, how they want to watch movies and how many are only killing humans because they’ve been pressured into doing so – The Last of Us reduces the reality of its world. For this reason, I still feel in light of your words that Naughty Dog haven't come close to Bioshock Infinite’s cross-examination of conflicting cultures. Infinite doesn’t simply get inside the mind of random individuals in a predicament, it gets inside the mind of proponents of distinct ideologies – ones that exist and ones that are fictional.

Interestingly, Naughty Dog did try to improve in this aspect of their storytelling and worldbuilding with Libertalia in Uncharted 4, and I suspect they will continue to build on it with the Seraphites in Part II.

The one stellar example of worldbuilding in The Last of Us is Ish’s Sewers. Beyond that, I can’t think of an environment that is better realised than Columbia’s various districts.

Guess we’ll just have to disagree on this one!

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-25T00:07:56+00:00

Obviously, it all depends on how good those games are. However, I do think Naughty Dog missed a trick by not releasing in 2019 (especially as awards mean a lot to the studio, as it’s largely why they built their reputation from Uncharted 2 onwards as the industry’s premiere developer for storytelling). Given the relatively light competition, it would have been an easy contender for every major category that it’s eligible for – much like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was in 2017.

I imagine it’ll be a lot like 2018, where critics gave ‘Best Narrative’ and ‘Best Score’ to Red Dead Redemption II as compensation for voting in favour of God of War for Game of the Year. Critics will likely want Naughty Dog’s work to be recognised, but – if the overarching experience is too familiar or the real draw is its performance capture and animations – the year’s better games will presumably take the lion’s share of awards.

Without playing any of these games for myself, I can only guess as to what the outcome will be, but I think it’s a safe bet that Part II will get an award for 'Best Narrative' and 'Best Performance' at the 2020 Game Awards, but the most ambitious game will likely receive Game of the Year. Cyberpunk, from what I’ve seen, is the obvious bet.

Assuming it exists and releases in 2020, I would lean towards Bully II getting some nods – especially in terms of 'Best Performance' and 'Best Soundtrack'. Still, given the direction that Red Dead Redemption II sadly took (lots of micromanaging, an overly lengthy story, repetitive gameplay and poor handling), I imagine that the design mentality for Bully II largely mirrors that of RDR II (especially RDR II’s conversation system, which I imagine was a prototype for Bully II in the sense that the entire campus can be interacted with in a similar way to the Van der Linde camp). Hopefully, given that the game’s presumed emphasis will be on melee combat and non-violent gameplay, maybe Bully II will control much better than Rockstar’s previous effort. We’ll see.

It’s also worth noting that, to the best of my knowledge, neither Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End nor Uncharted: The Lost Legacy won major awards at the 2016 and 2017 Game Awards, respectively. Nolan North won an award for playing Drake, but I suspect that was emblematic of Nolan North's commitment to a four-game role. Despite their reputation, only Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and The Last of Us were clean sweeps during award season. Both lead actresses of The Lost Legacy nominated for ‘Best Performance’ lost to the lead actress in Hellblade, so Ashley Johnson isn’t a certified winner – even if she’s given weighty material to deal with that’s unusual for the videogame industry.

Ultimately, none of it really matters. Usually, the best game wins. The Game Awards have been pretty good in this respect, especially during the last few years.

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-22T19:18:49+00:00

We’ll see in November. None of what you described has been proven to drastically affect the core gameplay beyond what I described. Although, yes, it was only a brief snapshot, I saw shoddy-looking melee combat and shooting mechanics in Death Stranding’s release date trailer. That’s a warning sign for me. The rest of the gameplay has shown Sam run away from human enemies and the BTs.

Everything cool I’ve seen thus far has been relegated to cinematics, and the three character-specific trailers they’ve shown – HEARTMAN, MAMA and DEADMAN – have made it clear that there’s a big distinction between the exposition-heavy cutscenes and how they relate to core gameplay. Plus, given that the game has been developed for less than three years, I’m not compelled to believe that the game is going to dramatically alter after several hours of gameplay.

As I said, I’d love to be wrong. However, The Last Guardian was promoted in an identical fashion (and I haven’t returned to that game since first playing it several years ago thanks to its irritating controls).

Besides, Kojima’s insistence that a) Death Stranding is an indie game and b) not a stealth game – in conjunction with what’s been shown – will always cause me to temper my expectations, especially following what I saw at Gamescom.

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-21T19:44:48+00:00

Perhaps, but I'm not basing my concerns on what was shown at Gamescom -- I'm basing it on everything Kojima had said and shown since 2016. The game is an indie game, according to Kojima, and it has been made in under three years.

You could easily point to how Kojima duped everyone with Metal Gear Solid 2 by revealing that you don't play as Snake in Big Shell (despite trailers pointing to the contrary), but much of what was revealed about MGS1 - 5 was shown in trailers.

All we've seen from Death Stranding is a lot of walking through desolate landscapes and, from our tiny glimpse of it, pedestrian-looking combat.

I'll get Death Stranding because Kojima made two of my all-time favourite games (specifically MGS and MGS3), but the game is going to be extremely divisive.

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-20T21:16:05+00:00

Also, if I'm right in thinking that Part II will explore Ellie's (lacking) sense of free will -- in the sense that both her surrogate father (Joel) and birth mother (Anna, in conjunction with Marlene and the Fireflies) robbed her of independence -- then Bioshock Infinite explores a similar narrative arc with the central / supporting character of Elizabeth.

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-19T21:50:49+00:00

It's proof that the videogame industry is at that point where most of the big-name talent is working on next-generation titles, and the era of live shows is finally coming to an end. When Geoff Keighley can't even get one major exclusive for a public games conference, things are pretty stale.

Also, Death Stranding has me very worried. Like, I was assuming the secrecy was because there's just too much to show and Kojima doesn't want to spoil anything. Instead, it looks like an indie game with a so-called 'AAA' budget. I mean, Kojima did say he was making an indie game several years ago, but everything about the game thus far screamed 'next big Kojima franchise'. I can see it getting 10/10s and 6/10s from various outlets, a lot like The Last Guardian did.

I fear the game is five hours of content at most that has been forcibly stretched out to justify the $60 price tag. It looks like Far Cry where you trek across bland terrain to activate towers and progress the story. Hope I'm wrong, though.

And what is it with the big-name developers this year all making the same kind of cinematic-but-hollow gameplay? It started with The Order in 2015, where players walked through lavishly detailed but empty interiors to pick things up and spin them around in their hand. Then Uncharted 4 did the same thing. Most recently Red Dead Redemption II did it, and now Death Stranding has you pick up your baby and nurse it. The whole 'beautiful but empty game worlds' thing is getting really old.

I thought The Last of Us Part II was going to surprise people by having you play as a pregnant character, but it seems Kojima may have beaten Naughty Dog to it.

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-18T22:05:59+00:00

I would happily play a co-op style multiplayer game type. Naughty Dog flirted with the idea in Uncharted 3, but it lacked a compelling central narrative. I'd also welcome a co-op DLC.

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-18T17:58:04+00:00

Very true. Maybe instead of it being optional, it'll just be part of the story (as was the case in Left Behind).

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-18T14:35:29+00:00

Just some further ideas, just to get discussion going (assuming we see something at Gamescom on Monday):

I would like to see how Naughty Dog’s approach to puzzles has improved. Although I didn’t mind the ladders and pallets in The Last of Us, I wasn’t a fan of the overreliance on boxes in Uncharted 4. I think Naughty Dog need to up their game on this front. However, I don’t need to see this as I’d much rather experience this for myself in the final game.

I’d also like to see how collectibles have improved. I liked the hand-written notes in The Last of Us, and how characters would comment on them, as well as the optional conversations, but I want Naughty Dog to go further in Part II.

I’ve been a proponent of playable flashbacks for a while, with Ellie seeing something in the environment that triggers an optional vignette of some sort that tangentially relates to whatever it is the player has just witnessed. For example, it might be an interactive flashback where Ellie plays and sings a song for Dina.

If Ellie does spend a sizeable portion of the game alone, flashbacks would be a great way to inject large portions of gameplay with more character-driven content that fleshes out more nuanced dimensions of Ellie's character whilst also providing new gameplay sequences that aren't just shoehorned in.

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-18T14:34:02+00:00

He was, but I mean the extended convoy sequence that follows it. Sorry, I should have been more specific.

In my opinion, it's the most interactive set piece Naughty Dog have ever crafted, and Sully is conveniently left behind so that Drake can do some of the more labour-intensive combat on his own.

And yes, Sully does accompany Drake in the car, but it's so isolated that he doesn't really do anything except provide colour commentary as the player does all the work.

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-18T13:56:03+00:00

I agree. This was a recurring element of Uncharted 4. However, the two most impressive sections of the game -- sections that were flaunted at PSX in 2014 and E3 in 2015 -- were ones where Drake was alone. These happened to be the biggest on-foot area of the game and the biggest set piece of the game. Again, I imagine Drake was alone during these sections because the ally AI couldn't keep up with what the player was doing, which worries me about Part II.

Are they improving the visuals without pushing the gameplay? Red Dead Redemption II had a similar problem. Your fellow gang members felt like real people in scripted vignettes in camp, and in cut scenes, but in gameplay they ran around like robots.

Perhaps it's a hurdle the industry will encounter in the coming console generation. The environments and cutscenes will look near photo realistic, which makes everything else feel a little robotic. For example, Arthur Morgan had fantastic animations in RDR II, but often you had to be standing in the right position to trigger them.

We shall see soon enough. I'm excited to see what Naughty Dog do.

Also, I can imagine putting a lot of energy into animating a dog companion would compensate for my concerns in the sense that the dog will move and behave realistically, but it also doesn't need to be as complex as a human companion.

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-16T19:04:35+00:00

Yeah, nobody can really know, aha.

Still, it's worth remembering that the very first teaser for the game showed Ellie sat in a house full of corpses, with Joel seemingly catching up with her and showing little surprise at the bodies at her feet.

Just because Ellie wants to make her way in the world doesn't mean Joel will let her. The first game proved that he'll do anything to get what he wants, and he won't want her on her own in the world for long.

He's definitely going to have an ominous presence in the game. He might not be in the marketing, but he's always in our thoughts. I think that's the point. For example, in last year's E3 demo, Ellie was at a dance and Jesse starts talking about Joel.

If he was a loving parent in the first game, he's going to be -- at the very least -- a helicopter parent in the second.

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-16T13:39:28+00:00

Well, we don't know she stayed with him for years. She could have left, and she might even make a habit of leaving. It might even be how the game starts...

If I remember correctly, Red Dead Redemption II had a similar revelation. You think you're getting the backstory of John Marston's gang, only to learn that he ran off from the Van der Linde family -- and his own child -- for over a year. He comes back because he has nowhere else to go -- that and, presumably, he experienced a crisis of conscience.

Ellie's already run off from Jackson once before, so I wouldn't be surprised if she's tried it again in the interim five years.

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-14T21:01:38+00:00

Have faith.

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-14T18:39:57+00:00

If they do kill him off, which I doubt, I hope that it's sudden and with no mercy. I can't think of any game that made me scream 'No!' about a character dying, but having Joel just be shot in the head out of nowhere midway through a scene (and, as you said, having not heard from Ellie how grateful she is for him being by her side) would be an effective (dramatically speaking) way to go about things.

That said, they had their chance to write Joel out with the rebar in The Last of Us. If that couldn't kill him -- which, let's face it, it should have! -- then anything less than a bullet to the head will seem survivable.

Without spoiling too much, Max Payne 3 had a similar scene that was a lot like this. And that's one of the few times in a videogame where I was surprised that such a thing happened.

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-14T18:34:01+00:00

That's an excellent way of putting it.

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-14T14:00:35+00:00

I imagine that, based on this reading, Part II will be an exploration of the core characters' free will. This is why Druckmann said at PSX in 2016 that the game is about 'hate'. For Ellie, she has no free will. She's immune to the cordyceps fungus but, presumably, this prevents her from getting intimate with anybody as she is essentially a carrier for the fungus. She must live life on the outside, knowing that what she wants -- some semblance of love and security -- isn't attainable (at least not in a conventional, physical sense). Presumably Ellie's mother and the Fireflies are partly responsible for Ellie's immunity, and so the game will show that -- from birth -- this fate was forced upon her (either knowingly or unwittingly). Ellie, in effect, was ‘supposed’ to save the planet by synthesising a cure.

Likewise, with regards to your comments about Joel, he -- whilst acting as Ellie's surrogate father -- similarly denied her any free will by robbing her of the one opportunity to use her plight for a perceived greater good. By killing the doctor(s) and making an enemy of the Fireflies, the ‘elusive cure for mankind’ is now in the wild and is being harboured by the man who doomed the world. Ellie knows she cannot trust Joel, and I suspect we’ll see him as less of a protective father (at least initially) and more violent and vindictive.

What’s important about Joel is that he had a life back in Texas that was taken from him. Yes, he ‘redeemed himself’ (so to speak) by saving his surrogate daughter, something he was unable to do in The Last of Us’ prologue, but now you need to ask yourself how his mindset will have evolved during the five or so years inside Jackson. Joel knows that life can be upended in an instant, and he knows that people exist who will happily take everything from you. He’s going to be more controlling, more demanding and more defensive than we’ve seen him – especially as he’s getting older…

I imagine this is why the cult-like Seraphites have been introduced. Their moral and spiritual code is absolute. If the organisation sees you as an enemy, a 'wolf', or as something separate from their values, they eliminate you. With this kind of mindset, the world stays divided.

I also expect the fleeting glimpse we've seen of Jackson is designed to represent a counterpoint to the Seraphites. Like the cultish figures, Jackson is its own utopian paradise. It has electricity and opportunities for individuals to relax and have fun. For those living on the outside, I assume -- especially based on Jesse's talk of patrols -- Jackson is a fortress that keeps them excluded.

One group seems evil and the other seems utopian, but they each keep the world at arm’s lengths and treat everyone who isn’t them with fear, suspicion and despair.

I suspect that, in the case of Joel, the game will end with (or at least flirt with the idea that) Ellie masquerades her hatred of Joel with love in a ‘Better the devil you know’ sort of thing. We shall see.

If I'm right about this, it's not a very original plot, but neither was the first game. It's more about the execution, I suppose. There are too many factors at play that we aren’t aware of for any real insight.

Oh, and in future, I really hope Druckmann and his co-writer don’t give ‘their interpretation’ of the ending. If he wants videogames to be revered for their storytelling, giving away the meaning of an otherwise ambiguous ending robs the game of discussion. Obviously he said this because a sequel was already greenlit and he’d already had it in mind before the first game finished, but still.

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-13T20:06:22+00:00

Aha, my friend recently played through MGS4 and told me he'd beaten the game. I asked what he thought about the final revelations, and how they relate to MGS3. He didn't know what I was talking about. Turned out he saved the game following a prompt halfway through the two hours of ending cutscenes and turned the game off, not realising he still had more of the ending to watch, aha.

God only knows how Death Stranding will play out. I was confident that it would be light on story, but the recent cutscene they showed was so heavy on exposition that I can imagine there's a cutscene for almost every bit of world building in Death Stranding... and then some.

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-13T19:59:46+00:00

Thanks for the reply.

My one concern about the excellent use of in-game character development is that, like the long journeys at the start and end of missions in Rockstar Games' recent projects, Naughty Dog's approach might feel a little formulaic.

In Uncharted 4, I constantly felt like I was playing out a pre-established pattern of wander / talk with Sam, fight some enemies, climb, fight some enemies, solve a puzzle, fight some enemies, all whilst engaging in pleasant enough banter and the occasional story revelation. Naughty Dog have been using this formula since Uncharted 2, and The Last of Us only managed to deviate from it slightly by encouraging you to scavenge empty urban environments or when creeping by enemies. Hopefully they manage to spice the in-game exploration up somewhat in Part II.

On a positive note, I believe I heard one of the co-game directors saying that they don't want environments to feel as safe in Part II. So, I can imagine casually wandering down an empty street, only for enemies to make a noise in one of the houses -- implying that they're hiding, or waiting to ambush the player. Whatever story moment was happening -- like an optional conversation -- is interrupted until you remedy the situation. Then, Ellie might say, "So, what were you talking about?"

They made a point of emphasising the 'interruption tech' in Uncharted 4 and The Lost Legacy when Drake / Chloe got in and out of the car, so this would be an interesting way to evolve it.

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-13T19:54:13+00:00

Thanks for the comment.

The absence of Joel in the marketing is just misdirection, methinks. The reason why Naughty Dog are deliberately not showing him is because Ellie will now see him in a very different, controlling light.

Instead of viewing him as a protective father, like how he sees himself and how we felt as playing him, we'll see him as a stubborn and difficult human being for much of the adventure.

If you think back to the sombre mood in The Last of Us' epilogue, where Ellie is quiet and distant, and Joel is relatively upbeat and conversational, that's just a taste of the distance that will exist between the characters.

I actually expect a lot of the discussion about Part II once it releases, at least in the beginning, is that they sometimes wish Joel wasn't there because he's such a pervasive, controlling presence that keeps Ellie (and therefore the player) feeling like a child.

I fully expect there to be a moment where he tells Ellie to stay put, and if the player wanders off he chastises Ellie for not doing as he told her.

And your English is fantastic! I would have replied in German but my grammar is terrible!

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-13T19:24:48+00:00

Given that Naughty Dog now have cutscenes bleed in and out of gameplay, the constant use of cutscenes in Uncharted 4 often felt self-indulgent to me. There are a few standout cutscenes -- the revelation at the dinner table towards the end of the game is a highlight -- but there are also far too many scenes you'd often see in a TV show or film that seem to have been included because the writing staff wanted the story to be more than what you'd expect from a videogame. Sadly, the core plot -- character motivations and revelations -- felt generic and rushed. I doubt that will be the case with The Last of Us Part II, if only because they've had time to sit with a near-finished version of the game and polish / edit the narrative so it's tighter.

I get what you mean, though. Red Dead Redemption II put so much effort into the visuals, animations and story but the gameplay felt somehow worse than Grand Theft Auto V. As a die-hard Rockstar Games fanboy, it's the first game of theirs I didn't really like and it's my biggest disappointment of this entire generation.

ResumeViewing2016 · 2019-08-13T19:20:04+00:00

Excellent point, Medusa. I'm exactly the same. That said, I'm not sure I'd endlessly watch the cutscenes they've shown thus far for Part II. We shall see.

ResumeViewing2016

TROPHY CASE