As the very bones of it, you have a small-team-based shooter with a focus on stealth, teamwork and not taking a whole lot of bullets. If someone gets gunned down, if there's enough of them left to crawl away they can try and do so-- generally at short ranges they'll just cop another bullet, or if they're off on their own, but there is a great focus on people reviving their downed teammates.
I said teamwork? Well, this is really one of the best things, for me. I don't know what it is, something about how the high bullet damage, stealth features, limited lives and such combine leads to a team-based game where
people actually work as a team.
Obviously if you stick together you have more chance of reviving one another, but you can also 'mark' targets whilst aiming at them, making their location show up on friendly screens for a short period of time. Even in the short time I've played I've had a lot of intense moments where I've run to a teammate's aid, managed to pop around a corner and kill an enemy coming in to finish them, and then get them back on their feet. Or vice-versa. And of course there are times where you just get yourself killed, too, trying to save a buddy.
And I may have, er, booked it from a downed ally once or twice with a cry of "save yourself!" I mean, I'm not a
coward or anything... ;_;
Now, to fully explain the importance of stealth and such, I'll have to tell you about the 'listen mode' mechanic. Holding R2 causes you to crouch low to the ground, listening(obviously), and enemies walking or running about on the other sides of nearby walls will be highlighted as you hear them. (Standing still, unsurprisingly, negates an enemy's attempts to hear you.)
This sounds like a mechanic that could easily be overpowered and annoying, but it only works at close ranges and personally I mostly just use it for the occasional glance around when I'm lurking somewhere-- or stalking an enemy across the map.
So you'll occasionally spot enemies trying to flank your team, or maybe someone sneaking up behind you.
Oh yeah, that's right-- there's a rather interesting crafting system, too. I haven't really had a chance to use this much, but I'll tell you the basics- scattered around maps there are caches of parts and materials, like duct tape, sharp things, alchohol and what-not. Buy pressing select you dive into your character's backpack and the crafting menu, where you can use said supplies (and a bit of time) to upgrade melee weapons, make bombs, medikits and the like.
You can also spend points gained during the match to buy yourself some extra ammo and upgrade guns, which makes a bit less sense but is kind of vital with how scarce ammunition is.
Kinda sick of staring at this screen for so long, but before I go a word on the maps: I haven't played them all or explored them in much detail yet, but from what I've seen it lacks that whole arcade-y, arena-like feel that plagues a lot of shooters like the more recent CoD games, and for that matter Uncharted 3. The levels feel very natural in design, which really does make it feel like you're a band of scavengers heading out to hit high-value scavenge targets in the ruins of civilization.
Levels are actually quite sprawling, which, coupled with the small teams really emphasizes the whole focus on stealth and covering one-another.
Oh, and there's also loadout customization that I haven't delved too far into, and some very, very interesting features with regard to just what the 'parts' you collect (basically XP) in matches does.
Argh, I keep thinking of more things that I should talk about, but here's a big one(for me, at least): when first starting multiplayer, you choose a faction to play as. (There are two.) As that faction, you form a little camp with just a few people(it's all very abstracted), needing to keep them fed, healthy and all that.
As the game progresses and you earn parts, more people flock to your camp- unlocking stuff for you and giving you profits, but also requiring you to do well in future matches to support the growing population. Each match counts as a day in the life of your little camp.
It's quite a fascinating touch, even though you don't really need to think about/participate in it a whole lot-- but leveling up is a matter of how long your camp manages to survive, and how large a population you gain.
As a nice, yet rather
creepy touch, you can also choose to link your game to a Facebook account- it doesn't post anything to your wall or anyone else's, but it attaches the name and profile picture of a friend to each of these little virtual people who live or die under your care.
As I said, a tad bit creepy- but also fascinating.
My IRL dad almost starved to death after a pretty rubbish match, and some girl I used to know was having a nervous breakdown, which seemed eerily similiar to real life.
Okay, done now. Oh wait, and the voice acting builds upon what they did in Uncharted to achieve even more aweso--
Done. Yep. It's great.
Author
Topic: The Last of Us (Read 5080 times)