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Doesn't the letter from Ellie's mother in her artifacts during Winter imply that her mother had been bitten right before giving birth (assumably prematurely to save the baby)? She mentions something about her time getting cut short and has the clear mindedness to write a letter to the child she knows she's never going to meet. It seems like that goes a long way towards a pseudo-scientific explanation on why Ellie is immune, as some mutation was passed to her in utero that produced some sort of immunity.
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Jun 18, 2013 20:52
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ghost bones posted:Doesn't the letter from Ellie's mother in her artifacts during Winter imply that her mother had been bitten right before giving birth (assumably prematurely to save the baby)? She mentions something about her time getting cut short and has the clear mindedness to write a letter to the child she knows she's never going to meet. It seems like that goes a long way towards a pseudo-scientific explanation on why Ellie is immune, as some mutation was passed to her in utero that produced some sort of immunity. I just interpreted that as ordinary childbirth complications.
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Jun 18, 2013 20:57
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DeathSandwich posted:Another though I've had about the ending: The reason Ellie is immune is because the cordyceps in her is a mutant strain. Wouldn't it reason then that anyone whom she would bite or otherwise infect then catch her stain of cordyceps and then be immune to the bad kind? Yeah from the sound of the logs and conversations at the end theres nothing special about Ellie. The reason she is immune is because of the mutant cordycep strain. The doctors mention this when they said they found nothing unique or out of place from the blood and tissue samples. It's why they were like oh well time to open that brain up.
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Jun 18, 2013 21:00
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Took me a couple days to get through Summer, but then last night I just could not stop and shotgunned through Fall and am now partly through Winter and HOLY poo poo, this game. I really do not get the combat complaints... the first infected bit in Winter (that's not a spoiler, shutup) was a little tough and I died a couple of times, but if you use the plethora of tools the game just hands you, it's really bearable. Toss the nailbombs out there, use the molotovs and then try to corral enemies so they linger in the fire and light up, lighting up others too... it's doable. All that pales in comparison to the people bits, though. Seriously, it cannot be said enough that the people battles in this are amazing. Sure, you should be stealthing, but don't play it like a stealther trying to line up the perfect kills and whatnot. Honestly, I think the listen mode actually makes the gameplay in this game WORSE, because you end up using it as a crutch to try and line up guys. Just get out there and go, if poo poo goes south, take a guy down, then move... the fact that the AI can lose you as you move around and it turns into cat and mouse is the most enjoyable part of this game, especially when you start listening to their chatter as they try to track you. It actually really reminds of the Invisible Predator sections of the Arkham games, in a weird way, even though those actually hinge on you remaining unseen and you are just way, way more mobile than your opponents. Just the whole methodology of sneaking around and picking off guys one at a time and then grabbing one hostage to shoot another in the face before you pistol whip the hostage and go sprinting to a window to dive through, then leaving a nailbomb and moving behind some cover to sneak out of that room while your pursuers get blown up as they try to follow you. It's just so goddamn fun.
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Jun 18, 2013 21:15
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Alright, I think I got my headset issues worked out because I was able to communicate in a few MP games without echoing all the time. I'd like to get a knowledge pool for MP going, because I'm still struggling. I know the basics: stick together, communicate, go for item drops within reason, etc so I'll add my maybe-sorta useful tips to what everyone's posted so far: 1. Mark enemies! When you see an enemy, and it's safe to aim at them, click R3 while aiming to mark the person for all your teammates. That makes it much easier for someone to lob a molotov/nail bomb at them and maybe take down a couple people at once. 2. Put nail bombs by item drops in the "middle" of the maps. There's usually one or two near where you spawn that your team will only ever use, but there's plenty that are in "contested" areas and most people are too worried about spotting enemies than checking the item box. You can actually roll the bomb so it's "in" the box and makes it really hard to see. You'll end up getting some surprise/easy kills. 3. Revive your teammates, BUT don't rush out to them right away. See if they can/are smart enough to crawl back closer to you or somewhere safe. If you go up to where they are, chances are an enemy or two has the spot staked out and will just kill you, too.
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Jun 18, 2013 21:24
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I don't know why it took me until the end of the game to realize I could do it, but there was something extremely satisfying about dropping a bad guy with a shorty while holding his buddy hostage and then turning the gun on the hostage. I didn't even think about it really, just tapped the button absent mindedly, but man was that more violent than flipping him over and stomping on his head. 
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Jun 18, 2013 21:27
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If you down an enemy, just shoot them. 90% of the time you'll rush to execute and get killed, and if you don't kill the person you downed and you get blasted away instead, it hurts the team more. Unless you need it for missions. Then bash their head in all you want! Oh and if you see an enemy and you can't mark them, just tell everyone where their last general direction was. Talking is honestly the best thing in this game. Oh one last thing. Try not to sprint. Ever. You light up like a Christmas bulb and every enemy knows where you are, and if your sticking together as a team, you just blew your cover. Oh and that one perk that lets you crouch walk even in the enemies listen mode is just wonderful! And speaking on reviving teammates. If a teammate is down on the other side of the map, just let him bleed out. I've had it happen a lot, where they'll down a teammate and someone will charge in to revive him and they'll ambush the reviver before he even gets near the teammate. D0ct0rAlanGrant fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Jun 18, 2013 |
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Jun 18, 2013 21:29
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What season does the game start in? Spring or Summer?
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Jun 18, 2013 21:47
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D0ct0rAlanGrant posted:If you down an enemy, just shoot them. 90% of the time you'll rush to execute and get killed, and if you don't kill the person you downed, it hurts the team more. Unless you need it for missions. Then bas their head in all you want! But it's fun.  I ordered a headset, too. So we'll have to get more games in. It's refreshing playing games with a team that actually communicates and works together, even if I was mute.
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Jun 18, 2013 21:47
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Maels posted:What season does the game start in? Spring or Summer? Summer.
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Jun 18, 2013 21:51
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LibbyM posted:Do infected age? I'm sure I missed a lot of audio logs and stuff like that along the way. I kind of just thought "zombies" and stopped thinking about it. What I don't understand about infected is how they survive at all. The fact cordyceps infects the brain and you can choke them out clearly indicates that they require blood and oxygen to live. How infected survive at all in the dead of winter is beyond me.
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Jun 18, 2013 22:02
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I finished up this game. Well god loving drat this game was a loving trip. This game pulled no punches in the brutality, storytelling, and graphics department. I'm not going to go in depth since it's probably been repeated many times over, but it's up there in my top 5 games. I prefer much more fun, lighthearted, action games so it's not my favorite game (give that to Uncharted 2) but unbiased this is probably one of the best out their. I think now the baseline has been raised quite a bit in the storytelling, immersiveness of games for the future to come close to this. This game can just play with your emotions so much. If I had to pinpoint one scene that demonstrates this playing of emotion through the game was the beginning of Winter where we see this absolutely adorable bunny (sidenote drat all that work to make it move and contort like a real rabbit ) and then Ellie putting an arrow though it's neck. I think that scene was one of the most powerful scenes that I just felt so loving sad.Also don't look at the artbook until the end. It kind of spoiled some stuff accidentally for me. And one other thing, I totally didn't get another chance but I had one guy by the neck with the gun pointed to his head, but I had no ammo. I want to see what happen when you make that click noise. That's another thing, how smart and really the world is. I could pull off a bluff, they don't follow a set path, strategize ways of killing you. I'm once again impressed by you guys Naughty Dog. Maybe some day I can work there, I'll see. As for glitches, I didn't notice many bad ones. One major glitch was freezing up where David and I got separated and I had to kill the clickers which I did the same exact move at the same time and froze up. Another one was when Ellie was a ways away from you when you could only do something she would freeze up and go into the vitruvian man pose but came back and she was fine. Also had a runner stuck in a wall.
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Jun 18, 2013 22:09
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al-azad posted:What I don't understand about infected is how they survive at all. The fact cordyceps infects the brain and you can choke them out clearly indicates that they require blood and oxygen to live. How infected survive at all in the dead of winter is beyond me. It boils down to that old saying about burning twice as bright for half as long. The fungus doesn't care about getting that body to age 80, all that matters is spreading itself and killing uninfected. InequalityGodzilla fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Jun 18, 2013 |
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Jun 18, 2013 22:20
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al-azad posted:What I don't understand about infected is how they survive at all. The fact cordyceps infects the brain and you can choke them out clearly indicates that they require blood and oxygen to live. How infected survive at all in the dead of winter is beyond me. This is what I've been asking... apparently the answer is ~video game magic~
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Jun 18, 2013 22:26
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Feeble posted:It boils down to that old saying about burning twice as bright for half as long. The fungus doesn't care about getting that body to age 80, all that matters is spreading itself and killing uninfected. I would say it's running on the unconscious mind, fight or flight, not held back, wanting it's desires. Everything in the conscious human mind has been removed once the infection gets into the runner stage. Be interesting if the human consciousness still exists at least in the runner stage. I do hear crying and fits of rage as if to try to stop but physically can't. Maybe a reversal of the conscious and the unconscious?
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Jun 18, 2013 22:29
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Feeble posted:Don't we see runners feeding on corpses at a couple of points? Do we ever actually see them eating, though? There's plenty of shots of them wailing on dead bodies as you run by, but I can't remember any of them feeding.
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Jun 18, 2013 22:30
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zenintrude posted:This is what I've been asking... apparently the answer is ~video game magic~ It's basically impossible to say because we have only a vague idea how EVIL CORDYCEPS differs from real varieties. Does it just live in the brain, or does it actually bond with nerves? Can it force muscles to contract without nutrition? Is the human body sustained by people-food, or is the fungus sustaining it somehow? For that matter, is the cordyceps actively feeding on the body, or is it somehow drawing nutrition from outside it? But really, who cares? That's all just  behind some modifications meant to put a bit of flavor on a setting whose real strength lies in how it affects the characters within it.
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Jun 18, 2013 22:30
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Feeble posted:If I had to hazard a guess it might be that the fungus is basically overclocking their body. They can whale on you because their muscles aren't restricting themselves like they do on normal people, they don't freeze to death because their running a 105+ fever at all times and they shrug off gunshots because their nervous system is fried. I'd imagine the human body can be twisted into doing all sorts of horrifying things when you stop giving a toss about the preservation of higher brain functions. Of course the trade off for this is that they're basically tearing themselves apart. It also fails to explain what they sustain themselves on... Don't we see runners feeding on corpses at a couple of points? Pretty much the first infected you see when walking with Tess is the group eating some dude, right around when you first learn about your Listen skill. Also the only glitch I've had so far is to have a corpse on the ground inexplicably ragdoll into the air like 10 feet before settling back down. This is something I've already killed so it isn't like it's impact damage or anything, just a body deciding it wasn't done yet.
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Jun 18, 2013 22:31
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BMB5150 posted:I would say it's running on the unconscious mind, fight or flight, not held back, wanting it's desires. Everything in the conscious human mind has been removed once the infection gets into the runner stage. Be interesting if the human consciousness still exists at least in the runner stage. I do hear crying and fits of rage as if to try to stop but physically can't. Maybe a reversal of the conscious and the unconscious? Sam questions this and Ellie is kind of dismissive about it. Later you see runners sobbing into their hands so, yeah. The infected were the weakest part of the story for me when I expected the game to initially focus on them. Hell, Ellie's infection exists in her brain so technically she's an infected who retained consciousness.
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Jun 18, 2013 22:41
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Tamayachi posted:Pretty much the first infected you see when walking with Tess is the group eating some dude, right around when you first learn about your Listen skill. Later in the game you see a mob of rats fleeing toward you, presumably from the Infected. That makes me think the Infected feed off whatever meat that wanders by, and maybe the fungus slows their metabolism down enough that they can stumble around in abandoned apartment buildings for a few weeks between meals. Their aggression serves as both an impetus to hunt and eat and as another method of spreading the infection.
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Jun 18, 2013 22:47
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Red Pyramid posted:Later in the game you see a mob of rats fleeing toward you, presumably from the Infected. That makes me think the Infected feed off whatever meat that wanders by, and maybe the fungus slows their metabolism down enough that they can stumble around in abandoned apartment buildings for a few weeks between meals. Their aggression serves as both an impetus to hunt and eat and as another method of spreading the infection. Although it doesn't the explain the family of giraffes or the lab monkeys. And they didn't eat the buck. You'd think they would have discovered it just sitting under a tarp. Speaking of the monkeys, they were deliberately infected with cordyceps for study but they didn't turn into roving monsters so animals are apparently unaffected by the fungus.
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Jun 18, 2013 22:54
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al-azad posted:Although it doesn't the explain the family of giraffes or the lab monkeys. And they didn't eat the buck. You'd think they would have discovered it just sitting under a tarp. Speaking of the monkeys, they were deliberately infected with cordyceps for study but they didn't turn into roving monsters so animals are apparently unaffected by the fungus. Well real Cordyceps species only specialize in infecting one specific species - some variants target ants, others target grasshoppers, etc - so it's not too absurd that the human variant wouldn't respond the same way to monkeys. Also, something I meant to say earlier - Troy Baker deserves a loving medal for his performance in this, especially if Joel's facial animation was taken from him at all. He's a good actor, but this is easily his best performance. There's just so much subtlety to it. There's so many moments in the game when things are getting intense and he could easily get away with chewing the scenery a bit, but 99% of the time he just lets the emotion just barely start to edge into his performance. Just enough so you see it there, but not so much that it becomes overbearing - and that makes it all the more effective when he really does let loose and and go all out on a performance. It suits a nuanced character like Joel perfectly, and my opinion of Baker's voicework has gone from good to great with this performance. Though, to play devil's advocate, it probably does help that Joel's probably the best animated character he's played outside of maybe Snow from Final Fantasy XIII. And Snow is...well, not quite as nuanced a character as Joel is, and I say that as someone who enjoyed those games.
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Jun 18, 2013 23:03
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Naughty Dog certainly deserves a reward for the animation in cutscenes. There are many moments with subtle facial twitching, blinking, and quivering lips you never see in any other game. After Joel turns Ellie away at the ranch house it zooms in on his face and you can see how visibly torn up inside he is. And Ellie's reaction when Joel lies to her is this wavering "...okay." I'm 100% positive she knows he was lying but wanted confirmation on the direction he was going with their relationship. Strange how it all looks more believable than what was done for L.A. Noire and that was a game where they practically pasted live actor's faces onto the bodies.
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Jun 18, 2013 23:07
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al-azad posted:Naughty Dog certainly deserves a reward for the animation in cutscenes. There are many moments with subtle facial twitching, blinking, and quivering lips you never see in any other game. After Joel turns Ellie away at the ranch house it zooms in on his face and you can see how visibly torn up inside he is. And Ellie's reaction when Joel lies to her is this wavering "...okay." I'm 100% positive she knows he was lying but wanted confirmation on the direction he was going with their relationship. Strange how it all looks more believable than what was done for L.A. Noire and that was a game where they practically pasted live actor's faces onto the bodies. To be fair to LA Noire, the faces were excellent in that. They were more let down by lackluster body animation and some uncanny-valley inducing texturing/coloration than by the actual facial animation.
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Jun 18, 2013 23:11
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Red Pyramid posted:Later in the game you see a mob of rats fleeing toward you, presumably from the Infected. That makes me think the Infected feed off whatever meat that wanders by, and maybe the fungus slows their metabolism down enough that they can stumble around in abandoned apartment buildings for a few weeks between meals. Their aggression serves as both an impetus to hunt and eat and as another method of spreading the infection. I don't think the rats are fleeing from the infected because they're getting eaten, I think it was just one of those cliche "Oh poo poo something is coming" moments they do in a lot of games and movies. Thinking about it right now, I don't think I remember seeing any evidence of the infected eating anything besides people, implied or otherwise. But I suppose the Cordyceps could evolve in 20 years to rely more on sunshine and water while somehow maintaining the basic requirements to keep a human body going I guess?
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Jun 18, 2013 23:13
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Tamayachi posted:I don't think the rats are fleeing from the infected because they're getting eaten, I think it was just one of those cliche "Oh poo poo something is coming" moments they do in a lot of games and movies. Thinking about it right now, I don't think I remember seeing any evidence of the infected eating anything besides people, implied or otherwise. But I suppose the Cordyceps could evolve in 20 years to rely more on sunshine and water while somehow maintaining the basic requirements to keep a human body going I guess? See, that doesn't work because it's a fungus, not a plant - it doesn't photosynthesize, it breaks poo poo down and digests it. I'm pretty sure the actual cordycepts just feeds on its host, which just sustains it long enough for the body to emerge from the host and release spores. A cordyceps apocalypse is much more than a simple mutation away. But again, that's just that really shouldn't hamper one's enjoyment of the game.
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Jun 18, 2013 23:17
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I was also just reminded of how much I love dropping 3-4 hunters with a single molotov and while they're still screaming and flailing around Ellie just gasps "Holy poo poo, Joel." Little bits of dialogue like that make her a thousand times more enjoyable of an AI companion for me than Elizabeth or any of the other highly touted AI characters out there. I also thought the ongoing joke books thing was pretty drat great, too. Especially when you find them in her gear during Winter.
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Jun 18, 2013 23:23
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ghost bones posted:I was also just reminded of how much I love dropping 3-4 hunters with a single molotov and while they're still screaming and flailing around Ellie just gasps "Holy poo poo, Joel." Little bits of dialogue like that make her a thousand times more enjoyable of an AI companion for me than Elizabeth or any of the other highly touted AI characters out there. She always said stuff like that to me after I bashed a guys face in with a pipe. Like she's saying "God drat, I know it was him or you, but did you have to do it like that?" Amazing.
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Jun 18, 2013 23:26
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Is it me or does this game look like poo poo? Almost every texture beyond 20 feet or so away looks like im playing on low settings, and the outlines of each shape seem to tear away and move as you move the camera. I keep hearing about how detailed and vibrant the graphics are, but it looks so harsh on my 46'' TV. 720p resolution as good as it gets? I wonder if my Playstation 3 is just too old to load everything as quick as it should, or if that is even an issue.
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Jun 19, 2013 00:31
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I'm loving the story and gameplay, but I have to say one of the most striking things I've taken away from this game was how well Ellie's "Pthblblblblb" was motion captured. 
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Jun 19, 2013 00:38
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Dirk Digglet posted:Is it me or does this game look like poo poo? Almost every texture beyond 20 feet or so away looks like im playing on low settings, and the outlines of each shape seem to tear away and move as you move the camera. I keep hearing about how detailed and vibrant the graphics are, but it looks so harsh on my 46'' TV. 720p resolution as good as it gets? I played the game on a "fat" ps3 and I wasn't too impressed with the graphics either. While they were certainly serviceable, they didn't look as bright or vibrant as they did on the videos released before launch.
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Jun 19, 2013 00:41
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Hot Dog Day #82 posted:I played the game on a "fat" ps3 and I wasn't too impressed with the graphics either. While they were certainly serviceable, they didn't look as bright or vibrant as they did on the videos released before launch. The most noticable thing to me was the schoolbus and wrecked car models. They're completely flat.
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Jun 19, 2013 00:47
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Hot Dog Day #82 posted:I played the game on a "fat" ps3 and I wasn't too impressed with the graphics either. While they were certainly serviceable, they didn't look as bright or vibrant as they did on the videos released before launch. I'd really like to know which console games you guys played this generation that look better. Nothing about this game looks like poo poo.
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Jun 19, 2013 00:47
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Multiplayer chat: Some of you are likely much farther along than me. Is there a cap on Load out points? When do I earn more? What milestones?
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Jun 19, 2013 00:51
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G-Whizard posted:I'd really like to know which console games you guys played this generation that look better. Uncharted 2?
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Jun 19, 2013 00:52
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Wait, older PS3's have worse graphics than newer ones? I haven't heard that before.
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Jun 19, 2013 00:58
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Holy poo poo this combat is brutal
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Jun 19, 2013 00:59
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G-Whizard posted:Nothing about this game looks like poo poo. Yeah, some of it really does. It's easy to overlook during levels where you're constantly occupied, or like the part in Winter where the whole town is snowed over and you can barely see in front of you when you're outside, but in the slower levels when you're not fighting anyone or running away from something or someone as fast as you can, it's definitely noticeable. Some of the textures look decidedly last-gen, or at least really early this gen. But even with the graphics sometimes falling short of the quality of everything else in the game, it's still a great game and low-res textures isn't reason enough not to play it. Make no mistake though, the graphics aren't underwhelming throughout the whole game by any means. There are lots of times when the game is really gorgeous and breathtaking. Rageaholic fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Jun 19, 2013 |
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Jun 19, 2013 01:02
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PunkBoy posted:Wait, older PS3's have worse graphics than newer ones? I haven't heard that before. I haven't heard that either, I was just mentioning that I was on a fat ps3 since the other poster mentioned that his was an older model too. Oh, and for what it's worth, I didn't think that the game looked like poo poo at all. I just said that it didn't look nearly as good as it did on the releases videos that came out prior to release. Maybe it is a tv issue, but the game didn't look nearly as colorful or vibrant as it did there. I loved every moment of The Last of Us and the graphics never tool away from the experience.
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Jun 19, 2013 01:04
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Hot Dog Day #82 posted:I haven't heard that either, I was just mentioning that I was on a fat ps3 since the other poster mentioned that his was an older model too. Oh, and for what it's worth, I didn't think that the game looked like poo poo at all. I just said that it didn't look nearly as good as it did on the releases videos that came out prior to release. Maybe it is a tv issue, but the game didn't look nearly as colorful or vibrant as it did there. I loved every moment of The Last of Us and the graphics never tool away from the experience. My guess it's a trade-off. More features and stuff and had to drawback the graphics so they can accommodate for all of the new stuff in this. Graphics at some points are amazing, but yeah some points it's not as good as it could. One of the easter eggs are the Jak and Daxter and Uncharted board games where the texture is artifact ridden. But that takes a much closer look and would easily be looked over when you're enthralled in the action.
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Jun 19, 2013 01:10
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