The Last Of Us

[Mogster]

Yeah, going from 60 to 30 in any game makes things look awful for a while. If you only ever play it at 30, or give it time to adjust it looks fine as long as it's consistent. I'm not really sure why you'd want to drop the framerate mind, given the choice, but each to their own.

[Rain Birds]

It's not juddery at all, the frame rate is entirely consistent. And whilst it is jarrng going from 60 to 30 it's perfectly playable once your eyes readjust.

It is playable, though considerably worse. I would liken the difference to going from an SD to HD movie - the former can be fine in isolation, but it's easy to tell that you're not watching in HD & a direct comparison will be extremely unflattering. 60fps has more impact in a way, because it directly and significantly affects gameplay. That's not to say 30fps is unplayable - I'm quite happy to play games at that frame rate if it's consistent, but the improvement in visual clarity and gameplay shouldn't be understated.

[Simmy]

Why did they include the option though if 60fps plays so much better? Why would you opt for the locked 30fps?

[Down by Law]

Because certain vocal people on the internet (nutters) prefer the more 'cinematic' experience that 30fps brings.

Which any sane person will tell you is a load of bollocks

[Flub]

I blame Neogaf

[Janski]

Better shadows innit

[joffocakes]

It is really jarring when you switch to 30fps. So much so that I think it maybe isn't 30fps? It's so incredibly juddery, like watching the game via zoetrope*. I think most games I've played over the past few years have been 60fps anyway, with the exception of Mass Effect and I really noticed that game clunking along horribly. Still brilliant though. I'd welcome any other big hitters I missed from last gen getting the "remaster" treatment.

It's my first time playing The Last of Us and I'm very much enjoying it. Just got into a hotel. It reminds me of Manhunt more than anything. Which is great because I loved Manhunt. Even though I'm a squeamish little girl when it comes to violence...

That jaw-crack death scene

*hyperbole.

[Mogster]

It is really jarring when you switch to 30fps. So much so that I think it maybe isn't 30fps? It's so incredibly juddery, like watching the game via zoetrope*. I think most games I've played over the past few years have been 60fps anyway, with the exception of Mass Effect and I really noticed that game clunking along horribly. Still brilliant though. I'd welcome any other big hitters I missed from last gen getting the "remaster" treatment.

It's definitely 30fps. It's just rare that you'd switch between framerates in the same game like this. I had a similar experience with Dark Souls on the PC, which has an unlocked framerate with DSFix with a 30FPS toggle you can enable. Dropping to 30FPS from 60 feels utterly horrible.

[Rain Birds]

Having now finished this it's

interesting that the extent of Joel's honesty or lack of is dependent on whether you listened to all of the recordings in the hospital.

Also, I never want a sequel...at least not with the same characters nor the same sort of game with different characters. All the key elements are so perfectly wedded to one another that it just wouldn't be the same. It would feel like a dilution. By all means revisit the world in which it's set, but only if that has its own unique components. Do something a bit different or leave it alone. It's too close to perfect.

[JoeK]

I'd be more than happy not to have another game in that world really. It tells it's tale very well indeed and for me there's nothing more to be said about it. It is pretty much as complete a game as you're going to find!

[Minion]

I don't feel mugged but then I didn't have a PS3

[Cappuccino Kid]

Infamous Second Son says a big fat hello.

The PS4 visuals of this are odd. Some parts of the game has the lighting make it look like the colours are washed out, then it flicks back to proper colour again. And the part of the game in the subway that's filled with spores looked absolute appalling. Way way worse than I remembered it being on the PS3. Rose tinted glasses? I don't think so. I've noticed it auto-dropping in res under certain lighting conditions, and that section with the spores made the engine go all fucked and jagged.

Other parts of the game look stunning though, like the part straight after the subway. But yeah, while I'm really enjoying another playthrough of this. I feel like I've been mugged by paying full price for it again.

I agree wholeheartedly about the subway spores bit. I had no idea what the hell was going on there, I basically just swam about at random until some button prompts popped up, and Ellie had somehow made her way further along. I'm amazed it got through playtesting to be honest.

But that aside, cor, this really is something special, isn't it? I've not played the PS3 version, so I don't know how much of a visual upgrade this is (or isn't), but it certainly looks lovely. It's the little touches that really get me though. Ellie teaching herself to whistle; birds tweeting; the fact that the game doesn't feel the need to explain absolutely everything, either mechanics- or story-wise. It trusts you have enough intelligence to fill in the gaps, which is a very rare thing in AAA gaming.

[Monkeyboy]

Oh God, I'm up to...

the hotel basement bit. Still shits me up, even though I know what to expect.

[layten]

This is fucking amazeballs. Does anyone else handle clickers by shitting themselves and RUNNING THE FUCK AWAY?

Just reached Pittsburgh now. I kinda had a feeling something like that was about to go down.

[Monkeyboy]

The thing that makes Clickers more tricky, is when they're mixed in with Runners. More chance a Runner will spot you, thus alerting the Clickers. If I can't stealth strangle a Runner, a molotov lobbed from the shadows usually does the job. But yes, when all else fails, RUUUNNN!

[Minion]

Clickers suck so hard! I like burning them

[Wickedkitten]

Oh God, I'm up to...

the hotel basement bit. Still shits me up, even though I know what to expect.

Ugh I did that bit earlier and

made the mistake of running directly up the ramp as soon as I turned on the generator. Ended up getting to the end of the hall and turned the corner to make the sprint to the card reader only to end up running directly into the bloaters corpulent arms

I'm actually enjoying this even more this time round because I'm noticing a lot more of the smaller details and not rushing to see what happens next so I'm getting a lot more if the optional convos than I did last time.

[marcus]

I may be wrong but to me the PS4 version looks near identical to the PS3, testament to how good the PS3 version was but also a bit disappointing at the same time.

Nevertheless a much needed 2nd playthrough, this time on Hard difficulty, then then the DLC which will be new to me.

[MansizeRooster]

I'm playing my first Grounded-difficulty playthrough on PS4, having previously played Survivor and Survivor+ on PS3. I have become very adept at playing with just bricks and bottles, and with a few do-overs have managed to take out large numbers of runners with bare-hand melee.

It requires a lot of do-overs and a LOT of patience, but I think this mode is just on the edge of being completable. It's going to get a lot harder though, and I'm not at the hardest part of the game by any stretch.

I've said it once, I'll say it again; this is quite simply the best game I've ever played. An absolute master-class in every respect.

[Rain Birds]

I may be wrong but to me the PS4 version looks near identical to the PS3, testament to how good the PS3 version was but also a bit disappointing at the same time.

Nevertheless a much needed 2nd playthrough, this time on Hard difficulty, then then the DLC which will be new to me.

If you have a chance to go back to the PS3 version, it's worth doing so. Frame rate aside, it looks pretty ugly in comparison. Up to the balls in aliasing, blurry textures etc. The remaster doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it knocks any of the PS3 HD editions of PS2 games into next week, and that's nice to see for such a recent game.

If I'm evangelising, it's because I'd love to see some other last-gen classics given similar treatment - last gen often had an incongruous mix of 720p resolution with really sloppy image quality & sub-30 frame rate, and that makes them difficult to go back to.

Edit: By the way, it sounds like I'm being harsh on the PS3 version (and last gen in general) - not so. It's an unequivocal marvel given the hardware it's running on, something that proves the validity of closed console hardware (even if last-gen went on to long). Just try and get something like that running on a 2006 PC featuring a crippled GPU with 256mb RAM.

[Jim]

Looks like the problems with the brightness in the underground sections are widespread and looking at this http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/Technical-Questions/Wrong-gamma-in-story-after-applying-patch-1-01-Screens/td-p/44193358 it looks like it could of been caused by the day 1 patch. Those pics look just like mine.

[Rain Birds]

Looks like the problems with the brightness in the underground sections are widespread and looking at this http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/Technical-Questions/Wrong-gamma-in-story-after-applying-patch-1-01-Screens/td-p/44193358 it looks like it could of been caused by the day 1 patch. Those pics look just like mine.

Ahh, I hope so; should be an easy fix in that case.

[Spacehost]

It did look a bit weird to me, but when I got close enough to the walls with my torch on I could see everything fine. Overeager fog effect I guess.

[Cappuccino Kid]

Having praised this for not explaining everything story-wise, I've realised there's one thing that bothers me: what did Joel and Teas want with the guns anyway? I'm not all the way through yet, so if that's being held back for a reason, please don't spoil it, but otherwise it seems an odd omission.

[NecroMorrius]

Probably to sell on.

It is really jarring when you switch to 30fps. So much so that I think it maybe isn't 30fps? It's so incredibly juddery, like watching the game via zoetrope*

Nope that's just 30fps.

[LongHairStu]

Having praised this for not explaining everything story-wise, I've realised there's one thing that bothers me: what did Joel and Teas want with the guns anyway? I'm not all the way through yet, so if that's being held back for a reason, please don't spoil it, but otherwise it seems an odd omission.

I don't think it matters, specifically, what they want with the guns. It just shows that society isn't what it was, and that the characters are lost.

[Pob]

How many people have dived straight into Grounded Mode? I have, and I'm not sure if it's going to suck the fun out of it or not. I forgot that the first encounter of the game is with some runners, and I spunked my two bullets on them. Then when I got to the bit where they introduce a couple of human enemies about 10 minutes later, I had nothing. Cue about 8 attempts to batter one guy without the other one-hit killing me. I eventually did it by using invincible Tess to engage them whilst I hid, which felt a bit lame. Also, a couple of tries saw me knocked down dead with a single punch which, again, didn't feel very Joel-like.

I'll try a few more encounters, but I think having to repeat sections again and again would spoil a game like this. I'd miss out on a lot of the scrappy, prolonged encounters if every single mistake was punished with insta-death. It might end up be a case of total stealth or nothing, which I don't like.

Also, I don't want to be so short of supplies I never get a chance to craft stuff like the shrapnel grenade. I do like having the HUD off (especially as I realised after I'd turned it off that your health is indicated by the controller's light bar), but I think you can turn off all HUD elements on other difficulty modes.

Ultimately I think than enemies doing 300% damage and there being so few resources is a little too hardcore for me.

[Vemsie]

Speaking of Grounded Mode, there's a guy who did a Grounded playthrough on Youtube and didn't get hit once in the entire game.

[Eighthours]

I can't believe that I'm on my third time playing the first few hours of this, and last night I still got killed a gazillion times on that bit with loads of Runners and a Clicker at the bottom of the keeling-over hotel. FUCKING CLICKERS.

[MansizeRooster]

I went straight into Grounded mode on PS4 having completed Survivor mode a couple of times on PS3. Both modes are an extreme test - you're basically going to have to re-do some sections many times to get your plan of attack down to a T.

If you want to genuinely just enjoy the game with a fair challenge, I'd go with Hard difficulty.