What We Played #110: The Last of Us, Rayman and Animal Crossing

With the great and the good making their way back from L.A. there was only one thing to do. Run for the hills. The hills of southern Germany. As the mercury crept through the uncomfortably high 30s I have wondered if that was the right choice.

Before leaving though I did play through episodes 2, 3 and 4 of The Walking Dead. It remains a good story but I was left with a feeling of an almost complete lack of player agency.

Beyond some trivial points there seems to be little that you can do to influence the story such as leaving you a spectator in a conversation where valued friends die when a punch to the right face at the right time would have saved them.

That puzzles have but a single solution grates too. At times it’s like playing a mediocre, early nineties point and click adventure ‘game’, a minimally interactive story. But that story’s good so I’ll play through episode 5 when I’m back in the UK.

I expect it’ll end up in the same bucket as Dragon Age and Mass Effect: games that weave an effective illusion of player choice while rail-roading you through all of the major plot points regardless of what you have done.

[drop2]Perhaps due to all the air miles he’s been collecting, Kris’ gaming has all been iPhone-based. He found Rayman Jungle Run “a lot of fun” and was sad it ended so soon. While FIFA and Need for Speed stumbled and stalled in their attempt to evoke enjoyment.

Tuffcub is the first of several to have played The Last of Us which he says “has the best prologue of any game, ever”. Beyond that though things didn’t go so well in his post-human adventuring:

The actual game parts are rather disappointing with some annoying difficulty spikes and a hell of a lot of ideas recycled from Uncharted. The graphics are less than impressive in some places as well, and very glitchy – when you get the sawn off shotgun (it has some strange name like Boomer or Mavis) Joel tucks in the back of his jeans. Unfortunately when you crouch and climb up stairs, the gun barrel clips outside of Joel’s body and he gets a stumpy black pole sticking out of his bum.

Thing improved when he dabbled online though with the multiplayer getting a “surprisingly good” rating. He’s also played the “cheerful and repetitive” Rayman Origins on his PS Vita, the still “awesome” Remember Me, the totally tubular Sine Mora Vita and an orange and blue splash of Killzone 3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aJK9XTvjkXw

DanToo too has been playing The Last Of Us and only that since release. He says it’s deserving of its 10/10 reviews delivering an “intense story which was desperately tragic at times”. It’s not without the odd rough edge though feeling “a bit clunky, and a bit of a mess, to begin with” before he warmed to it.

Dom’s been playing Animal Crossing New Leaf. “I’m not sure why I’m compelled to play a game about moving house and getting a new job when I’ve just done that in real life – my guess is that there are talking animals in it rather than real people.”

When not living his Dr Dolittle fantasies he’s played a little bit of Monster Hunter, Assassins Creed 3, Zelda: Skyward Sword, Lego City Undercover, Monster Blade and Real Racing 3. Which has almost inevitably led to a degree of storyline confusion. “I should just play one game and finish it!” Probably Dom, probably.

Tempting the wrath of Teh Interwebz, which is available for hire now that Microsoft have back-tracked so far it’s like living in 2005 again, Aran has played the stunning Mirror’s Edge and proclaimed it merely “alright”.  His main gripes being “fiddly controls and floaty combat”.

Conversely, he finds Bioshock Infinite “brilliant”.

When Colombia was first unveiled in the opening sequence I actually said wow. It’s such an interesting world that I spent ages just walking around taking it all in. The story is really good and Elizabeth is a great companion character. With Booker I kind of felt there were moments where he was inspired by Captain Mal from Firefly. It’s a game that is hard to tear yourself away from and I’m now near the end. Bravo Irrational. Infinite is excellent.

The jet-lagged Peter, despite being really busy since he got back from E3, has managed to squeeze in a bit of Mario Tennis Open and Mario Kart 7 on the 3DS, both of which are lovely colourful fun.

They provided a welcome contrast to the other game he’s played a bit of this week.  Yep, The Last of Us. “It’s really good. Grim, but good. I’m only a couple of hours in so there’s a long way to go but it’s a lot better than the demo suggested it would be.”

[drop]Finally we get to Blair who along with half the planet (if we can extrapolate from the TSA team’s shenanigans*) has been playing The Last of Us. He didn’t get it at first, enjoying the story but finding the gameplay “poor with difficult stealth sections” that he disliked.

It took several hours, after I kept playing for the story, before it all clicked and I was able to swiftly sneak past or take out enemies with ease. I’m about 80% way through the game and there have been several really incredible moments but it’ll have to do a lot to surpass BioShock Infinite as my GOTY.

He also found time for a little Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes which has grown on him and Game & Wario which he’s been playing for TSA’s review. That’s it from us, what’ve you been playing?

*Note that we may not constitute a statistically valid sample with which to validate such a conclusion.