| Title | The best games of 2013 (so far!) |
| Author | Tom Chick |
| Posted in | Features |
| When | July 4, 2013 |
As the staff of Quarter to Three goes home for the long holiday weekend, we'll leave you with a touch of our own fireworks in the form of an annual half-year list that may or may not include The Last of Us..
Read the full articleWhat are we to make of the fact that there are zero mobile games on this list? Anything? Battle of the Bulge was this year, wasn't it?
BotB was December of 2012.
That maybe he isn't all that into mobile games. Or maybe there hasn't been anything especially great mobile wise to necessitate a place on the list. There is only ten spots. I don't really know as I'm not hugely familiar with his tastes to be able to make a call like that.
Tom stop trolling the Last of Us fans or they wont help you during the inevitable zombie apocalypse.
I am pretty surprised Tomb Raider is in the top spot. Not because I disliked the game... I thought it was fantastic... but there were a few games that I thought were better so far this year.
More shocking though is the absence of Guacamelee. That game is is incredibly tight and it has a really fantastic difficulty progression that will make you get better at utilizing your abilities, because you will have to in order to get through. Every challenging bit in the game will become easy if you have a clear command of your abilities and can think one step ahead.
I know that Tom isn't much of a fan of the game portion of The Last of Us, but I just couldn't disagree more. It is in my opinion one of the best stealth games out there and the thing that I see most people complain about (that later in the game resources become abundant) to me isn't really a bad thing. When it became clear that I wouldn't really have a huge shortage of supplies, I became motivated to actually use all the tools at my disposal. The molotov and nail grenade/trap became indispensable. As far as Tom's idea of Last of Us being "a zombie game that forgot it was a zombie game" is something that I don't particularly agree with either. There are portions of the game where you don't see any infected, but I feel like narratively, these sections make sense. As this takes place so far into the apocalypse that there are going to be areas where you just don't see and infected anymore as they will have either been rural, low population areas, or places that have been cleared out and locked down by people who have settled there. Just the bit about it being 20 years later is going to introduce the possibility of things being a bit different from most zombie fiction.
I agree about The Last of Us; I found both the gameplay and the narrative incredibly compelling. Sure, zombies patrolling on a set route might not make the most sense but there needs to be some suspension of disbelief there, right? After all, it's a video game about zombies.
What I think a lot of the critics seemed to miss was that, while The Last of Us is a "zombie game", it's not a zombie game about zombies. It is a game that focuses on telling a story, on developing the relationship between an old man and his surrogate daughter, in the midst of an apocalypse. Yes, 'finding love during the apocalypse' is a trope that has been done to death. Yes, 'save the girl, save the world' is a trope that has been done to death. But damn if it doesn't create a compelling story. The zombies and the apocalypse are merely supposed to be a frame for the entire story -- they are not the point.
The Last of Us is a game that focuses on the human aspect of life, merely being set in an apocalyptic husk of civilization. It is hunger and sadness and loss and awesomely grotesque head-splatterings. It is shambling hordes and empty streets and sieges and lonely abandoned houses where absolutely nothing happens. But it is also the darker side of humanity, it showcases loss instead of merely featuring it, and does so in illogical but totally understandable ways. And sure, it might be scripted where State of Decay is emergent, but it is only scripted because Naughty Dog had a beautiful, horrifying, gentle, forceful story they wanted to tell. I don't blame them for that.
Of course, most of the criticism has been pointed towards the gameplay so I'm probably preaching to the converted, here. Regardless, for fear of rambling too much, let's just say I agree with your assessment and disagree with Tom on this one -- but I'm not going to berate anyone about it!
I can appreciate your not liking the Last of Us's gameplay, but really I thought it was as well done as Tomb Raider (well, the bow wasn't quite as great, but a good effort :) )
I don't think any decent zombie fiction ever focuses on the zombies. It's pretty standard by now to focus on the people, and the way TLOU did it is such a trope in the industry nowadays -- I mean, for god's sake, the same voice actor just did Bioshock Infinite a few months ago where he led a young girl to safety -- that it gets zero points for innovation or effectiveness. It just felt like its plays for emotion were too obvious. Eventually devs will have to move past this "grizzled older guy begrudgingly helps/wins over young girl in the context of major worldwide calamity" if they want the auto 10/10s..
But Tomb Raider (like the shitty Assassin's Creed Vita game) had a strong female lead making all the decisions and her boobs weren't TOO BIG, so it's automatically better in Tom's book. Get with the program. Devs, if you're reading this, make your next overly scripted action game feature a black lesbian woman and watch Tom's 5/5 roll in
I don't understand how the voice actor factors into the issue, beyond talking about the frequency of the trope, but I suppose that's a fair enough criticism. I'd also argue that The Last of Us succeeded where Bioshock Infinite failed in that it made me care about 'the girl'. I never got the feeling that Booker was anything but a pawn in the grand scheme of the plot -- though I think that was at least part of the point.
I'm at a loss, though; could you give me an example of another game that deals with the same subject matter? Beyond Bioshock Infinite, of course. I'm having trouble thinking of another example, even though I'm sure there are plenty of them.
Well last year The Walking Dead (Telltale's zombie "game") used and abused the father figure/young girl dynamic for virtually all of its major plot points. People pretended like that was the height of videogame storytelling, because "omg kids are in danger this activates my paternal instincts!11!" That is the most direct comparison to what Bioshock and TLOU did. Also Hitman: Absolution centered around an out-of-character cold blooded clone assassin suddenly deciding to renounce his life of murder to protect a single girl from a vast, persistent plot to murder her.
Only one I like is Wargame, the rest of those games were crap.
Ah, fair; I had forgotten about The Walking Dead. Never played Hitman: Absolution, however, so wasn't aware of that as well.
That being said, I would still argue that The Last of Us did a better job with the content than any of the other mentioned titles. I think that's specifically because Ellie strikes a good balance between strong and vulnerable, where other characters lean too much towards one extremity; too strong and the player wonders what the point is; too weak and the player starts to resent them. (I'm imagining Elizabeth as the former and Clementine as the latter, though Ashley from RE4 would be another good example with Clem.)
Ellie holds her own, shows real human reactions to the brutality of the world around her, and is actively helpful without pulling you out of the world and reminding you 'this is a game' by having a gun come hurtling towards your face. Alyx from Half-Life 2 is another good example of such a balanced companion; helpful and strong enough to stand on their own but vulnerable enough at times that you need to assist them.
I don't know. I don't think it's fair to write off The Last of Us simply because the content was "already trodden ground" (though it is a fair criticism of the industry that we've been seemingly inundated with such games). In my opinion, I think The Last of Us did the best job with the content and deserves to be recognized for it.
Monaco continues to look interesting, but every time someone mentions "score chasing" with regards to a title I'm immediately turned off of it. To each their own, of course, but if enjoyment of a game requires giving a damn about high scores, it's not for me.
Is there any way I could convince you to drop the gay little acronym for The Last of Us? Every time I see Tlou I am thinking about skipping to my lou...
I wouldn't write off TLOU, and rereading my original post I see how overly dismissive it was. I think it beats The Walking Dead, Hitman and Bioshock, on both a storyline and gameplay level. Hitman didn't really even try to effectively connect on an emotional level; Bioshock as you says was more plot focused than character focused; and Walking Dead was rather contrived and one-dimensional. TLOU wins if only because of the certifiably psychotic finale, which doesn't give any easy answers. I was left uneasy, and had difficulty understanding what to make of the climax, where all those other games telegraphed what they wanted you to feel at all times.
But the whole time I was playing, I kept hoping this would be the last AAA title to really rely so heavily on this grizzled vet/young girl relationship. Even though it sets the standard, I want to see new things. (I think a lot of people agree with this sentiment when they give TLOU a 10/10, but then insist they don't want a sequel.)
No way. Cause every game reviewer out there would give it a 10 out of 10 since it's got a black lesbian and then Toms just gonna do it again and give it a regular score of 3 out of 5. Front page on Metacritic time. Imagine the rage and hate mails generated by that review! One of them could be yours !
They wont be any help anyway. All they do is run up to a zombie and yell "OH YEAH! I disagree . " and then skitter off back under a bridge.
I'm with you. When I was a kid all the games had scores , I just wanted to get past the damn robot in Zaxxon.