PS5 refresh redeems combat, reignites drama—but is still chained to 2013 source.
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The Last Of Us Pt 1 remake review: Higher-fidelity blood, sweat, and tears
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Interesting. So what you mean to tell me is that FMVs are commonly used in video experiences, even up to the present day?
Apart from the hit experience Quantum Break, which gets a pass for obvious reasons, what are some other AAAA titles which used FMVs?
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Nope! As I describe, utter newcomers are the ideal customers here. There are no Easter eggs rewarding prior experience or understanding of the series. The biggest exception is that anyone who's played the second game may experience certain events of the first game with newly opened eyes—but the same could be said for someone who loves a film series, watches a sequel, and goes back to the original.
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No, this is literally the original game with better graphics.
Bold of you to assume that I didn't the first time around!The article":9moml5eb said:
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Celery Man
Ars Legatus Legionis
If you’ve never played The Last of Us and have a PS5, get this immediately. Or get the PS4 remaster. It is, hands down, one of the best games of all time. It’s the only game that I finished and immediately re-played because I didn’t want it to end.
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>Instead, TLOU appeared to host the tensest and most brutal combat ever seen on a gaming console.
Looks like someone never played Manhunt.
Looks like someone never played Manhunt.
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GJDitchfield
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
Not on-topic, but ... for a while now, my usual browser, Firefox 103 on linux, cuts off the bottom line of captions in the image galleries. Brave has no problem, so I guess all of the Chrome variants work just fine. Does anyone else see that problem? Moonshark?
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While I get people being mad about $70, luckily I was able to snag it for $30 with points. I would've waited for the PC version - but no one knows for sure how long that will be (my guess is early next year). Kind of dreading the only really scary part - the boiler room, lol.
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I'm intimately familiar with the series—and reviewed the leaked "adults only" version of Manhunt 2 roughly 15 years ago:
https://www.thestranger.com/film/2007/1 ... 4526/games
You're not necessarily wrong; I lauded Manhunt 2 at the time for how it elevated the survival-horror genre, and if you want a real trip on a modded PS2, the Internet has your back. But TLOU Pt 1 is a more three-dimensional take on a similar mechanical experience: believable brutality through scarcity, crafty foes, and savage survival.
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It depends though—will the PC version of a game sell enough copies to pay off the work of porting? I don't think all titles will benefit (financially) from a PC release.
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It's incredible that there's so much vitriol for the pricing of a completely optional luxury product. Gamers really are entitled.
I'm bummed that a Mazda 3 Premium Turbo Plus costs $37,000. I'm not cursing Mazda for that.
Also after watching the Digital Foundry review and seeing them side-by-side, I think people have on rose colored glasses about the Remaster's graphics. The cut scenes look close to each other because it's an FMV vs. real time rendering (although this version is still clearly 2 levels above). The rest of the gameplay looks so much worse in the Remaster compared to this.
It's a shame that more of the gameplay/speed didn't get revamped, but I understand how there'd be a lot of complaining about that too.
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You do realise you don’t have to buy it or play it, right? It’s there if you want it. That goes for a PS6 remake as well.
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That’s me with TLOU Part II. I love that game. And I have a good mind to buy this one. Fantastic games.
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My list is a bit older since I mostly play indies these days, but Nier: Automata (2016), DMC 5 (2019), Destiny 2 (the game is older, but even the latest expansions still use FMVs), The Walking Dead (2018, not the Telltale version) all use FMV cutscenes. Probably several more that I don't know of or follow.
Real-time rendered cutscenes are pretty good these days (see my praise for The Quarry*), but even AAA titles like Spider-Man can have story cutscenes with stiff animation, plasticky skin textures, robotic stares and generally uncanny valley level presentation. Not something that bothers me much, but a game director may have a particular vision for their game and story, and sometimes pre-rendered is still their pick (and I'm not saying pre-rendered is necessarily better, sometimes the jump from real time to FMV can be very jarring, especially when it comes to resolution, motion compression artifacts, color balance, etc).
*EDIT: PS I wonder if the decision to go full real time rendering on The Quarry directly impacted the monster design. The game features a traditional monster**, but designed very non-traditionally, specifically one that has much less hair/fur than usual, and I wonder how much of that was artistic intent, and how much was because it's just so darned difficult to get a realistic real-time fur shader, especially one that has to scale and run on PCs and consoles.
** SPOILER
it's a werewolf.
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It's not FMV. FMV is Full Motion Video and was used to combine interactive gameplay sequences with actual movie-like footage. Wing Commander 3, 4, and Prophecy all used FMV. Games like TLOU use CGI (Computer Generated Imagery). The question is whether the footage is pre-rendered or rendered in-engine in real time.
Games still use pre-rendered CGI today. Nobody is "falling back" on it. The use of pre-rendered CGI has become less common as game engines have improved and real-time rendering has become more advanced, but there will always be a visual advantage to creating output in advance as compared to rendering it in-scene, on the fly. And some games split the difference. There are titles that still do storytelling scenes in-engine, but they lock the camera angle or prevent you from taking action during the relevant sequences.
Pre-rendered footage also gives the developer more control to ensure players don't miss critical moments or important clues. Nobody wants to put important blink-and-you'll-miss-it hints in a game and then discover that players tend to be looking in the other direction or are distracted by something else going on.
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I never did finish the Platinum off in the PS3 or PS4 versions, Ill give this a hard look, but only after a sale, as I refuse to pay $69 for any game anyways.
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I believe I read just enough to surmise: do play this and just enough comments to know it's coming to PC. As someone that barely got on the PS3 boat (I think I played Uncharted 1 to completion and uh... Was really psyched to play Blu-rays of the dark knight trilogy), this one always got stuck in my head as something worth looking into.
It's also sort of nice that it's not so transformative that every time I talk about it I have to say The Last of Us (2022) afterward, like I do with Resident Evil (2002, 2019) and Resident Evil 2 (also 2019 I think?). Looking forward to that PC release.
It's also sort of nice that it's not so transformative that every time I talk about it I have to say The Last of Us (2022) afterward, like I do with Resident Evil (2002, 2019) and Resident Evil 2 (also 2019 I think?). Looking forward to that PC release.
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Remake vs remaster: can you go prone (added in Part 2), and do any levels take that into account?
The pre-order and deluxe bonuses, extra pills/parts and early unlocks respectively, seem like cheating. Wouldn't mind the extra skins, but not worth $10 (regardless of the $70)
The pre-order and deluxe bonuses, extra pills/parts and early unlocks respectively, seem like cheating. Wouldn't mind the extra skins, but not worth $10 (regardless of the $70)
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I'm pretty content to just take this at face value. The official story is that whle working the flashbacks in Part II,Druckman said "I want to do a remake that looks like this" and they did, because he's kind of a Big Deal at this point and he loves this thing.
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Marvellous game. Not at that price though, this gen is just too expensive, especially for a remake. Glad I don't have a ps5 really.
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Oh cool. I hadn’t heard that quote before, but it makes sense. I’m sure he basically has carte blanche at this point to do what he wants.
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I liked pt II slightly better than pt I (even without finishing pt II, I just couldn't get past the rat king)...although both games got me so down, just looking out of an abyss the entire time.
As for this coming out on the PS5, like every other remake or remaster, if people didn't buy them, they won't keep making them.
And I'm an idiot that owns (for example) GTA V three times already (360, PS4, and PC), although the PC has trainers, and I honestly just like blowing things up in a sandbox.
Nintendo has been doing this since the SNES days. Nostalgia bait makes money.
As for this coming out on the PS5, like every other remake or remaster, if people didn't buy them, they won't keep making them.
And I'm an idiot that owns (for example) GTA V three times already (360, PS4, and PC), although the PC has trainers, and I honestly just like blowing things up in a sandbox.
Nintendo has been doing this since the SNES days. Nostalgia bait makes money.
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I had the same issue with the screenshots. Not sure what's going on but I can barely make out any of them. My monitor's set to normal levels of brightness and contrast and I've never noticed this on previous Ars reviews.
I've personally never been able to get into these kind of narrative-driven "guided tour" games that put you on a very specific path in which every player has a near-identical experience. That and the storytelling has always seemed, from a distance, a bit heavy-handed.
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The graphics look nice, but I can't justify a purchase after playing the remaster on my PS5 in the past year. Will probably get it at some point at a discount.
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I've been hearing that you cannot, fyi. Some of the mechanics from TLOU2 were not brought to TLOU Part 1
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I played the remastered version on the PS4, and while it's still one of the select few survival horror games I actually liked... probably because of the strong narrative... it still was damn annoying how it just sort of ended abruptly. There was no real resolution or anything that sort of tied together the point of the journey they went on. TLOU 2 was even worse in that regard. It was sort of like a book that ends right at the climax. Then they had that DLC story bit, but it was more of a prequel side-story.
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"If you can't watch them on PS5, cross your fingers that they find their way to YouTube one way or another."
Yes, you can find them on YouTube—just like you've been able to do for the last eight years. Since this commentary track was added in The Last of Us Remastered...
Yes, you can find them on YouTube—just like you've been able to do for the last eight years. Since this commentary track was added in The Last of Us Remastered...
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I searched the article for news on an upcoming PC port and didn't see it, so was thrilled when I saw your comment. Also, cherish that apology from Sam, he isn't wrong very often.
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Personal preference here, i like the pre-rendered cutscene from the PS4 more. Usually i'm a fan of in-engine ones, but the PS5's look, although more detailed, bland in comparison. Almost Gear of War level of "monochromatic feel".
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Dropping a really massive endgame spoiler unannounced is rather crude, no? Some of us have not played this game...
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This. I bought the remastered version on PS5 but haven't played it yet (thanks for the years old spoilers btw lol) I would like to experience to experience it in all it's glory and I can appreciate the work that went into this level of rework but 70$...looks like I'll be waiting a while yet to play it when the price comes down a bit...
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Yep, sorry, already played this on the PS3 as so many others have pointed out. Spending more raw cash on another copy of a game I already own is not going to happen. I suppose Sony might get some ROI for those people that have not played the 1st installment yet or for those that missed the first part and were introduced to the series via part 2; maybe collectors/completionists; but otherwise it seems like Sony threw money away that it likely won't recover.
This reminds me of when music bands would rerelease an album on newer audio media every decade: Vinyl > 8 Track > Cassette > CD > digital ... then expect everyone to shell out more cash for the same content they already own. It's nothing more than marketing hype and a racket.
This reminds me of when music bands would rerelease an album on newer audio media every decade: Vinyl > 8 Track > Cassette > CD > digital ... then expect everyone to shell out more cash for the same content they already own. It's nothing more than marketing hype and a racket.
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I'm sorry; The Game has been out ofr 10 years now. When exactly were you planning on playing it ? ALSO - YOU made a choice to read the comment section and spoil things for yourself. Nobody forced you to read spoilers about a 10 year old game.
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There is also a show coming out on HBO if I'm not mistaken and a supposed PC port. Now is the time to re-release to build hype for both.
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I was watching two streamers play Portal 2 last night, and I realized that I've had it sitting in my shame pile for 11 years now.
I'll get round to it... someday.
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