I actually prefer character over plot.
I'd say that there is something fundamentally wrong with this game - it's trying too hard to be a playable movie, and as such, sacrificing gameplay. There are a lot of "slowly progressing forwards" moments with no gameplay, either in the form of puzzle-solving, enemy combat, or exploration. After the scriptfest that was Uncharted 3 (a terrible game in what was a great series), this is a new low for Naughty Dog.
I did notice that, but it didn't bother me much. Helped with immersion and such. And there were certainly far more playable parts than there were cutscenes. If you've ever played Metal Gear Solid 4... now there's an example of a real playable movie.
There didn't seem to be too much of it either. I was incredibly thorough with my exploration after I figured out that this game absolutely does not want you to backtrack more than a few meters (another problem I had with it; several times, I'd pass a point of no return without knowing I'd passed one, making me miss out on some items) and I usually found at least one or two items in every area even if there wasn't anything else to do.
"Oh yeah, and the five minutes of soundtrack that was there was alright."
What?
"Moral of the story: life goes on right till it doesn't." —Shaky, Crossed: Wish You Were Here
I cannot stand games that have an "atmospheric soundtrack". They hardly even try to set the mood because most of the time, you can't even tell there's a soundtrack at all. This game is no different. But, like most other games with such soundtracks, there's one or two tracks where they actually try. And again, that happened here.
Erm, I think you're being quite fuzzy with definitions here. Isn't atmospheric soundtrack what most games try to have anyway, as a method of immersing the player into their world? Pretty much any music that isn't Soundtrack Dissonance (like Depths Of Fear Knossos playing synth music in Greek dungeons) would count then.
Nevertheless, I have listened to the entire TLOU OST on YouTube and I agree it's quite subpar on the whole. There are many, many games that did better, and it's beyond me as to how it got nominated as Best Soundtrack anywhere. Even if you cut it down to guitar tracks, last year's Lone Survivor did a better job, and that was a one-man work.
So many reviews now use phrases like "I don't understand why this is so popular/GOTY/etc." or some variation of that sentence, then proceed to use several examples that are based on preference over one thing over the other.
@NTC 3 Not necessarily. When I say atmospheric, I generally mean low-key music that blends into the background, which is what most games do nowadays. Anything else, I refer to as "melodic," because it's generally music that attempts to stand out through its own melody and set the tone itself instead of letting the environment do it. You tend to see that a lot more in retro games, like in any given Mega Man game, for example. Then there are some that have a mix of both, like the Batman Arkham games, or are borderline between the two, like the Metroid Prime games, and I generally like those too. It's just when games get so atmospheric that they might as well not have an OST at all that it starts to bug me.
@marcellx I understand perfectly why Last of Us was so popular, I just disagree with that popularity. If I wasn't objective enough for you, I apologize, but I really have nothing else to say. It's been months since I've played the game, and I can't remember enough to say anything else about the game, positive or negative. Which may be telling in and of itself, but, uh, you got me otherwise.
^ I suppose it really depends more on a genre than anything. Off the top of my head, last year's Remember Me is hardly retro, has a strong, defined OST, and the recent Transistor also has very melodic (and beautiful) soundtrack. However, I do agree that, worryingly, this trend appears to grow. Killzone: Shadow Fall has a very low-key soundtrack compared to the powerful music of all previous installments, and Silent Hill: Downpour has one of the weakest, blandest OS Ts I listened to, making prequel's boring tracks seem great in comparison. I suppose good composers are getting expensive these days.
There's no problem with not liking something that's popular, or as much, I was just commenting on a trend that I've seen going on for a while.
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Barely rose above my low expectations
Perhaps it's a testament to how jaded I am, but when I hear cries of "GOTY" or "BEST GAME EVER," I immediately lower my standards in order to enjoy myself, and this game is a prime example of why I do it. Which is not to say I think the game is bad; I found it reasonably enjoyable and on the whole average. But I don't think it deserves all the accolades it received.
The game's strongest point is the visuals. It may just be because I'm not a fan of the whole "zombie apocalypse" genre, but the game's environments genuinely impressed me. It was almost breathtaking. I also enjoyed the implementation of resource management, at least in theory.
In practice, though? There's a lot of times you can't afford to think about managing your inventory. The game presents a choice between combat and stealth as many good games do, but unlike a game I recently played, Deus EX: HR, it didn't seem to want to commit to doing that. It seemed like half of the game's encounters featured either waves of enemies that already know your location when you begin or feature so many enemies positioned in such a way that detection is nigh-inevitable. And on the other hand, there are some areas which strongly discourage combat and are relatively easy to get through killing less than 2-3 enemies. It's as if they're giving you an illusion of choice as to how to approach situations, when in reality, you have to play the game how it wants you to play it. I didn't particularly care for that.
The story was simple and passable, nothing special. The game gives you a lot of character and not a lot of plot, which is the main problem I have. If you're only mildly invested in the characters, like I was, there's not much left over to keep you entertained. There's nothing really unique about it either, no particularly interesting setting details, and anything that could have been interesting (such as the rampant moral ambiguity or the ending) is touched upon in only the most superficial terms. Overall, the story left too much up to the player. Without the serviceable gameplay, I would've been thoroughly disengaged.
Oh yeah, and the five minutes of soundtrack that was there was alright.
There's nothing really fundamentally wrong with this game, but I'd still say it's a definite rent. Unless you somehow haven't heard all the hype, in which case go nuts.