Age of Gaming E01 - The Last of Us Remastered

Starwalker Studios presents Age of Gaming your podcast dedicated to video games present and future and celebrating the journey of gamer culture from your mom’s basement to the mainstream.Today I’ll be talking about The Last of Us Remastered on PS4.

Starwalker Studios presents Age of Gaming your podcast dedicated to video games present and future and celebrating the journey of gamer culture from your mom’s basement to the mainstream.Today I’ll be talking about The Last of Us Remastered on PS4.

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The Last of Us RemasteredBuy The Last of Us Remastered on Amazon & support the show.The Last of Us has received widespread critical acclaim for its writing, voice acting, sound design, level design, music and art direction. Its narrative was praised for its characterization, subtext, exploration of the human condition, and depiction of LGBT characters. Considered one of the most significant titles of the seventh generationof video games, and by many critics as one of the greatest video games of all time, The Last of Us received over 200 "Game of the Year" awards, and was the second-largest PlayStation 3 video game launch of 2013 (after Grand Theft Auto V), selling over 1.3 million units in its first week. As of July 2014, the game had sold over 7 million units worldwide.An updated version for the PlayStation 4, The Last of Us: Remastered, was released on July 29 in North America, July 30 in Australia and Europe, and August 1 in the United Kingdom. It includes the downloadable content episodeLeft Behind, previously released on PlayStation 3 on February 14, 2014. Like the original title on the PlayStation 3,The Last of Us: Remastered received critical acclaim, praised particularly for its high FPS rate and increase in graphics.Source: Wikipedia

Action adventure survival horror game

Third person shooter

Why I love this game

Beautiful graphics. Realistic rendering of the world and people.

Excellent motion capture. You can really connect with & empathize with the characters because the dialogue & acting is so good, and the motion capture realistically portrays facial expressions and body language. Each character’s personality comes across as much as in a movie.

There is so much detail in the world! Clothing and hair are realistically rendered (even games that are otherwise excellent graphically often fail here). The little details in the world really help with immersion, and are worth noticing. The griminess of places that have been abandoned for years is realistically rendered. I’ve been in abandoned houses, and it was very authentic.

The sound is amazing! Not only are the sound effects realistic and well done, things like position and distance are done accurately as well. This is an area that fails in other games, like Destiny, where people or creatures in the next room over or up or down a story, sound the same as if they’re in the same room with you. In The Last of Us Remastered you can rely on your ears to tell you where opponents are.

The sound effects really enhance the immersion. I really recommend wearing a good headset when you play this game. It’s like you’re there. I use the Playstation Gold Wireless stereo headset by Sony.

The music is artfully done as well, enhancing the mood and suspense, while at the same time staying in the background where it belongs. The music doesn’t overpower like in so many other games. It swells when appropriate, then fades away again.

The high fidelity graphics and sound make this game super immersive. You really get into it and feel like you’re there. I found my heart racing in tense situations, and felt the adrenaline rush when I was getting my ass kicked. The game is actually frightening at times due to the ambiance and suspense. Hearing clickers in the dark really upped the pucker factor for me.

I played the game on the normal default difficulty. Overall I would say the game is not difficult. I had a pretty easy time of it, however there were specific encounters that were skill checks and took me a few tries to get past.

I love that you don’t just send out a spray of bullets at everything in this game. Resource management is extremely important. In the beginning I wasn’t careful enough taking my shots and frequently ran into ammo problems until I learned to be more careful.

I enjoyed the crafting and character advancement in the game. I feel it found a good balance between giving you some good customization options without it getting overcomplicated like it does in many RPGs and MMOs.

The controls were easy and intuitive, and the gameplay was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the stealth, hiding and ambush mechanics, which I tend to enjoy in any game that has them. There are definitely situations where charging in will get you killed and you need to be stealthy.

I thought there was a good variety of weapons to use, without it going overboard. Again I think there was a perfect balance between not enough and too much.

If you just got the PS4, I highly recommend this as your first game. Probably not worth it if you played the original on PS3, but the graphics are a lot better from what I’ve seen.

You also get the Left Behind with it, which was DLC on PS3. It’s alright, I’m glad I didn’t pay extra for it though.

The story is amazing with more than one twist and turn along the way. I highly enjoyed it. It also does a great job at really pulling you in in the beginning.

I am NOT a fan of zombies (I think they’re dumb in most IPs), but I really enjoyed this game. The infected are terrifying and lethal, not at all campy or stupid.

Playing this game is like being in an interactive movie. This is the best that next gen gaming has to offer! Even if you’re not into horror, you owe it to yourself to play this game. I’m usually not into horror myself, finding much of it stupid, unbelievable and not scary, instead relying on cheap “jump scares” (jump startles really). This game isn’t campy or stupid, it’s something believable you can take seriously, and it is at times truly scary and horrifying.

Also the graphics and sound when you blow someones head off or light them on fire with a Molotov cocktail are quite satisfying and visceral.

I’m not one to replay a game on higher diff, but I’ve actually considered it for The Last of Us. Just like I will often want to see a really good movie a second time, I’d like to play it again. Not sure about higher diff though, might be too much for me!

Tips

Watch your resources! Take your shots carefully. Save ammo every way you can. You will never have enough. Make every shot count.

Use stealth and ambush tactics whenever possible. It allows you to take out a foe without taking damage. Health is another resource to manage in this game as making med packs uses resources you could use to make other things like Molotov cocktails. Also, if you’re stealthy you can often take out foes one-by-one as opposed to them all coming at you at once.

Make use of the bottles/bricks. I never did figure out if one is better than the other in certain situations, or if they’re the same. I tended to use the bottles for distraction and the bricks to attack and stun, assuming that would be the way to go, but I don’t know if there’s anything mechanical in the game that rewards that strategy. Stunning an opponent before you attack can help with a sneak attack, and you can use bottles/bricks to lure opponents away from you or to an ambush spot.

Become proficient with the bow. It’s a great way to stealthfully take out foes at range. Once you get the feel for it, you can actually be very accurate with it.

Upgrade your long rifle to get armor piercing ASAP.  This really helps with the bloated infected, especially the first time you encounter one, which I found really challenging.

If things are going badly, run away and hide. This is much better than dying. Also learn to anticipate when a strategy isn’t going to work and withdraw early in order to avoid wasting ammunition.

Molotov cocktails are great to use on shriekers. It’s also a lot of fun.

Explore, explore, explore. You’ll find pills, which are definitely worth looking for as they allow you to purchase advancements. You’ll also find parts to mod your weapons and make things like nail bombs, Molotov cocktails and first aid kits. You also get some trophies if you find everything (which I didn’t).

My one complaint is it’s not always obvious which direction will lead you to a cut scene and a new area. Once this happens you can’t go back, and more than once I didn’t get to explore an area because I tended to somehow always pick the way that took me to the next area. It would be nice if you got a dialogue asking if you wanted to go on before taking you past that point of no return.

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