The Last of Us

[ThePest179]

  Bugthing said:

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Hm, not sure about that. Is it at any time specifically stated that the pandemic originated in the US? I mean, people get terrorist news all the time in the USA, so I understand why it's easy to jump to an aimed attack. If it was a terrorist attack, it doesn't help that there doesn't really seem to be a victor. The only group visibly taking a position of power afterward is the army, so unless it was a coup d'etat.. doubt they are the culprit either.

 

 

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The US has done terrible things before (attacking countries for their own interests, incinerating Japanese cities, releasing biological weapons in Korea, the entire Vietnam war, etc.,). I wouldn't be surprised if the military did something like that (aside from the Firefly problem). Rapid evolution does seem like a likely scenario, but the fungus originates in Africa, so an unnoticed migration from Africa to North America seems unlikely, strengthening the bioweapon theory. While it isn't made clear if the pandemic originated in the US, there are implications that it did (the few news reels in The Last of Us make no mention of the fungus ever being reported anywhere else first). What makes it all the more frustrating though, is that there are no news reels that mention any foreign news, so I guess we have to make up what happened to the rest of the world. (Off topic: have you seen World War Z yet?)

 

[scott155]

  Bugthing said:

  scott155 said:

I'll try that, thanks. I'm don't do lots of stealth games, so I suppose I'm not yet used to games making me be really patient

No problem. As for that little area and that last clicker, you can't strangle clickers and to save a shiv you can safely use a gun there. You can still be stealth about it and close in for a headshot. In any other area, simply try to avoid them entirely.

 

If you do have get through areas where combat is unavoidable, always go for headshots to save ammo. Another important tip I left out. If it doesn't wear a helm, you can usually take it out in a single headshots.

 

Success!

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I stealth killed two of the runners, failed and was seen by the third, panic fires to kill the clicker and punched out the remaining runners. Lost a bit of health, but found 3 bullets bringing me back up to the 4 I started with. Not the most graceful tactics, but I made it through

 

[Bugthing]

  ThePest179 said:

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What makes it all the more frustrating though, is that there are no news reels that mention any foreign news, so I guess we have to make up what happened to the rest of the world. (Off topic: have you seen World War Z yet?)

 

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From what I hear from friends in the US, the lack of foreign news is pretty common though. In Europe for instance, people get tons more foreign news. The gaze of the average American is thus pretty much aimed inwards, at least so long as it doesn't concern some sort of disaster or a war in which the USA has conflict of interest.

 

 

  scott155 said:

Success!

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I stealth killed two of the runners, failed and was seen by the third, panic fires to kill the clicker and punched out the remaining runners. Lost a bit of health, but found 3 bullets bringing me back up to the 4 I started with. Not the most graceful tactics, but I made it through

 

Nicely done! Congratulations. This will be far from the hardest 'forced' encounter though, at least you were given a stealth option here.

[scott155]

  Bugthing said:

Nicely done! Congratulations. This will be far from the hardest 'forced' encounter though, at least you were given a stealth option here.

Well, it is the difficulty above "Hard", so I'm not really expecting it to be a walk in the park .

 

 

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Not looking forward to the bit where you have to fight waves of infected with David. That's gonna be tough. It'll probably be a while until I'm there though

 

[Bugthing]

Well, by the time you'll get there you will have gotten a lot better at it too.

[ThePest179]

  Bugthing said:

  ThePest179 said:

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What makes it all the more frustrating though, is that there are no news reels that mention any foreign news, so I guess we have to make up what happened to the rest of the world. (Off topic: have you seen World War Z yet?)

 

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From what I hear from friends in the US, the lack of foreign news is pretty common though. In Europe for instance, people get tons more foreign news. The gaze of the average American is thus pretty much aimed inwards, at least so long as it doesn't concern some sort of disaster or a war in which the USA has conflict of interest.

 

 

 

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I made a very bad mistake here, and mislead you. I looked up the fungus that the virus in The Last of Us is based on, and found out that it is commonly seen in LATIN AMERICAN rainforests and MEXICAN jungles. I apologize for just assuming the fungus thrived in Africa, I should have been paying closer attention to what I was reading. The close proximity to the US would definitely increase the chances of an evolved fungus making its way to the world's #1 superpower and inadvertently causing a chain reaction worldwide (US troop withdrawals from their positions world wide would cause old dangers to arise (Taliban hegemony over Afghanistan, North Korean troops flooding over the DMZ, an Iran-Israeli nuclear exchange, etc) as well as make countries more vulnerable to the infection).

 

[Bugthing]

  ThePest179 said:

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I made a very bad mistake here, and mislead you. I looked up the fungus that the virus in The Last of Us is based on, and found out that it is commonly seen in LATIN AMERICAN rainforests and MEXICAN jungles.

 

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Ah, thank you for looking that up. Makes a *lot* of sense, seeing as how the game starts out in Austin, Texas and the people there got virtually no warning of what was about to happen. A day's worth of vague, disconnected news bulletins at best.

 

It makes sense that Joel and Tommy ended up more to the north rather than Mexico. The infection spread out from Latin America. The north simply got more of a headsup on what was happening than the south ever did, so their quarantine zones must have fared better (initially, at least) than anywhere else.

 

[Bugthing]

[ThePest179]

  Bugthing said:

 

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Ah, thank you for looking that up. Makes a *lot* of sense, seeing as how the game starts out in Austin, Texas and the people there got virtually no warning of what was about to happen. A day's worth of vague, disconnected news bulletins at best.

 

It makes sense that Joel and Tommy ended up more to the north rather than Mexico. The infection spread out from Latin America. The north simply got more of a headsup on what was happening than the south ever did, so their quarantine zones must have fared better (initially, at least) than anywhere else.

 

 

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Now that we got that straight, what do you think happened to the rest of the world? we have an idea of what happened to Latin America and Mexico (overrun or close to overrun) and to the continental US, but what about Europe, Asia, and Africa? You have a better imagination than me so....any ideas?

 

[Bugthing]

  ThePest179 said:

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Now that we got that straight, what do you think happened to the rest of the world? we have an idea of what happened to Latin America and Mexico (overrun or close to overrun) and to the continental US, but what about Europe, Asia, and Africa? You have a better imagination than me so....any ideas?

 

 

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Well nobody outside North and South America made contact with the USA in 20 years. Or well, nothing is mentioned anyway. You could postulate that both continents are big quarantined areas now and that the entire world avoids those places. But if that were the case.. I think a lot of other people would have still tried to get off the continents in the first weeks, even if the UN military destroyed all outgoing boats and airplanes. But there seems to be no sign that people were amassing near the harbours or airports. Any mainport would become a hotzone of infection due to the insane congregation of people. A harbour city like Boston wouldn't have had a chance in hell to stay free of infected, so I couldn't see the military establishing a large quarantine zone there. My conclusion is that there was already some news about the infection reaching other continents and that the general consensus on travelling to them would have been negative.

 

It would have to slip through eventually. I can't see the infection happening by plane. Nobody gets on an airplane wounded, not in our post 9/11 society anyway. A boat seems more likely, but it's still a long trip from the USA to Europe. People in Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia would be warned long before the first boats from across the atlantic manage to dock. They would probably redirect any approaching boat back to North or South America. Alaska - Russia appears more likely, since the distance to the mainland is a lot shorter. But then, Alaska isn't very populated so the infection would need more time to spread through it. Those areas in Russia that border with Alaska are also sparsely populated (I saw The Long Way Around), so infection would take a long time to reach China - the most densely populated country on the planet. But when it does.. boom.

 

I think something would have gotten out eventually, but I'd expect much better prepared quarantine zones in Europe / Africa / Australia and maybe even functioning governments.

 

Edited June 25, 2013 by Guest (see edit history)

[Bugthing]

Hey, does the game use the word quarantine wrongly? I thought a quarantined area, like a boat when someone gets sick, is where the sick people stay and nobody gets to leave or enter. It appears to be the opposite in the game.

[scott155]

  Bugthing said:

Hey, does the game use the word quarantine wrongly? I thought a quarantined area, like a boat when someone gets sick, is where the sick people stay and nobody gets to leave or enter. It appears to be the opposite in the game.

"Quarantine" can be used either way. For small outbreaks, the infected individuals would be contained to stop it from spreading. In a larger outbreak, healthy individuals would be sectioned off in order to keep the infection out.

 

 

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As for spreading, remember it's not just people that can spread it. This a fungus and also travels through airborne spores. The likelihood of airborne spores traveling overseas might seem like a far stretch, but it is possible, especially given the scope of it's spread. Air currents could carry them very far all the way to other continents, or they could land on a boat at sea and then be spread when the boat docks. This may not happen for many years, but it is possible.

 

Also, I've really screwed myself on the first bloater battle, unless you can sneak somehow. Little bit of health and no molotovs.

 

[Bugthing]

  scott155 said:

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As for spreading, remember it's not just people that can spread it. This a fungus and also travels through airborne spores. The likelihood of airborne spores traveling overseas might seem like a far stretch, but it is possible, especially given the scope of it's spread. Air currents could carry them very far all the way to other continents, or they could land on a boat at sea and then be spread when the boat docks. This may not happen for many years, but it is possible.

 

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The spores.. you don't ever really see them in the outside air. The clouds always occur in buildings and sewers. If they spread like you say they do, nobody in the USA should still be alive after twenty years of minor exposure. Trace amounts of spored don't seem to be enough to infect anyone, it's either very high concentrations in indoor areas or direct bites.

 

 

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Also, I've really screwed myself on the first bloater battle, unless you can sneak somehow. Little bit of health and no molotovs.

 

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It's actually quite easy once you figure out how to do it. First of all, the ammunition is endless here, so try not to switch to melee. As soon as you run out, some runners will appear that always drop some ammo. Secondly, the bloater can't actually hit you with its ranged attack as long as you keep moving. So never stop moving.

The only thing you have to be careful about is its turn rate. Once it directly faces you, even if you think there's enough distance between you and the bloater, it will suddenly rapidly come at you. So don't take too much time lining up a shot.

 

So keep your distance, never stop circling it and kill the runners only to restock on ammo. It took me a couple of tries on surivor, but once you get the hang of it it's not that hard.

 

[scott155]

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Thanks for the tips, Bugthing, but I actually already beat it Now I'm at the part after Joel falls down the elevator shaft (Not stuck yet, that's just where I am.)

[Bugthing]

Nicely done. Kinda itching for a replay, but there is just no time. I'm in the mddle of a big move.

[scott155]

  Bugthing said:

Nicely done. Kinda itching for a replay, but there is just no time. I'm in the mddle of a big move.

Yeah, I plan on playing through single player at least four times. Probably more since it's so fun.

1.Normal (Done; See the story, get the trophy, and unlock Survivor)

2.Survivor (Current; Get the trophy and unlock Survivor +)

3.Survivor + (Future; Get the trophy)

4. Easy + (Future; Get trophies I miss, get all collectibles without fearing for my life and to brutally murder all the enemies I was formerly terrified of in my "Survivor" runs)

[BTGBullseye]

No PC version, no play for me. Sounds like it would be fun though...

 

The way I see it, devs want to develop for consoles so they can use the limitations of the console as an excuse for not doing what they should have when making the game, and the publishers want it because they can milk a lot more money out of each copy of the game. MW3 is STILL $50 when it's on sale, same as the Angry Birds Trilogy that you can get on it's native Android for $5! (even Guitar Hero: Metallica is that price, and it came out in 2009!)

[Bugthing]

I'm not sure if it always works like this with PlayStations, but with TLOU Sony itself was the publisher. I figure that grants them some pretty exclusive rights. I would totally get a PC version if they decided to make one though. I'm not really a PS3 player, my girlfriend has one. Can't get a feel for the controller.

 

Analogue moving around is pretty awesome (you run or sneak and everything in between depending on how far you push the stick). I wish keyboard manufacturers would take a hint and give us analogue WASD keys.

[scott155]

  BTGBullseye said:

No PC version, no play for me. Sounds like it would be fun though...

 

The way I see it, devs want to develop for consoles so they can use the limitations of the console as an excuse for not doing what they should have when making the game, and the publishers want it because they can milk a lot more money out of each copy of the game. MW3 is STILL $50 when it's on sale, same as the Angry Birds Trilogy that you can get on it's native Android for $5! (even Guitar Hero: Metallica is that price, and it came out in 2009!)

Well when the PS3 is so outdated it becomes cheap, be sure to buy one to play this game! Or mooch a friend's PS3 for a bit. I agree that several dev's do that, but I honestly love both The Last of Us and the Uncharted series from Naughty Dog. I don't think they're just out to make money. I mean, obviously money is a big part otherwise that would be a pretty shitty business model, but by the quality of The Last of Us it shows that the people involved in making it really cared about it. IMO they're great devs.

 

I've always done more console gaming than PC (Largely due to the fact that I've never had a good PC), but I personally feel The Last of Us is a good fit for the PS3. A PC version would be cool, yes (Not that I could run it anyway, but still), but Joel's not supposed to be good at aiming, he's not trained. So the somewhat imprecise nature of using an analog stick works in this context, in addition to the weapon sway. That's my opinion, anyway.

[BTGBullseye]

  Bugthing said:

Analogue moving around is pretty awesome (you run or sneak and everything in between depending on how far you push the stick). I wish keyboard manufacturers would take a hint and give us analogue WASD keys.

XBOX and PS3 controllers can be plugged into a PC and used identically to the console usage... Why does nobody seem to know this? (I admit analog WASD would be interesting though)