The Last Of Us Pt 1 remake review: Higher-fidelity blood, sweat, and tears

PS5 refresh redeems combat, reignites drama—but is still chained to 2013 source.

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[Celery Man]

Whee, I'm no longer under an NDA about this!

This seems like the perfect way for Naughty Dog to get their feet wet on the PS5... it's a safe tech demo, for all practical purposes, and if it also happens to be a good remake of one of the best games ever made... cool!

(Seriously though, Naughty Dog has some fantastically talented people working on their games. Ars had a great War Story about their early days working on Crash Bandicoot... obviously the company is different than it was then, but their technical prowess with Sony consoles has been a reoccurring theme)

 

[Celery Man]

>It is the best version yet of an easily recommended PlayStation-exclusive adventure

There's a PC version on the way; so worth holding off if that's your thing.

If that is true, it has not been announced. Are you trolling, brand-new commenter, or are you leaking? (Or are you mixing this up with an upcoming PC port of the Uncharted series?)

EDIT: I somehow missed this news, yeesh. My apologies, commenter! Naughty Dog confirmed that a PC port is coming during a Summer Games Fest-adjacent announcement, and one staffer tweeted the following: "PC version should come out a bit later, but very soon after the PS5 release!" Source: https://twitter.com/JonathanBenaino/sta ... 6965758976

Hasn't Sony basically come out with the 'All PS games will be coming to PC at some point'?

Maybe not with the speed MS is doing it but even without seeing any kind of announcement my first thought was just as that poster's; this is eventually hitting the PC so at least graphically it'll be the best version.

It makes total sense for Sony... once a game's release cycle is over and it sales start to taper off, you can give the title a shot in the arm by re-releasing for PC. At that point, anyone who was going to buy a PlayStation for it probably did, and there's no reason to leave money on the table (and it's not a bad way to win some hearts and minds in the PC gaming crowd)

 

[Celery Man]

Shout-out to the lurker who's given every post in this thread a downvote! That's an edgy way to make your opinion known.

 

[Celery Man]

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.

 

[Celery Man]

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.

That’s me with TLOU Part II. I love that game. And I have a good mind to buy this one. Fantastic games.

I love the second one also, but for slightly different reasons.

(Warning: SPOILERS FOR TLOU2 BELOW)

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(Warning: Also I call a game "art" so if that's too pretentious skip past)

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TLoU 1 is a nearly perfect game. The total length, the pacing, the narrative, the gameplay, the acting, the music, the setting... it all comes together to make one of the most emotionally draining and fulfilling gaming experiences I've had. And the brutality of the combat is a fantastic commentary on violence in games... even if you're desensitized to it, like most of us are, there's still something uncomfortably grotesque about mashing someone's head in with a brick while Ellie goes "Jesus, Joel..."

TLoU 2, though, is art. The way it focuses on upending player expectations is brilliant. The way it confounds the ideas of "protagonist" and "antagonist". The way it makes it seem like you'll have lots of time with a character, but then kills them off right away. The way it completely shifts the narrative focus halfway through. And the way you are forced to do things you absolutely do not want to do in order to finish the game. The final showdown on the beach is so emotionally brutal... I was yelling at the screen, FFS, just go home, no one wants to do this anymore. And then she does go home... to what? (And on top of that, the gameplay is impeccable - everything the first game was and more. And the facial animations... the systems they used* to capture that level of detail makes the acting so much more powerful.

(... frak, I've got to start a New Game+ on TLoU2, I haven't played it since I finished it)

* I do know how they did it, but I can't go into details for reasons >_> Suffice it to say TLoU2 is only the beginning of a generation of games with very, very realistic facial animations.

 

[Celery Man]

Error in article:

"Still no sign of a modern multiplayer mode to build upon the PS3 original" should be moved up to "The good" category.

Agreed. There are enough multiplayer shooters with a "kill zombies" game mode that we don't need to add one to TLoU.