How to evaluate the game The Last Survivor?

I wanted to write it myself, but I wrote and wrote all those things. But because of the style of writing, Zhihu this guy writes more clearly, he has been using:

Commenting on the end of life is tantamount to commenting on that naughty dog.

Comments on naughty dogs cannot be made without their series of works.

Since The Enchanting Wolf and Jack and Dast belong to another style of games,

I intend to start after these games.

It is necessary to talk about the mysterious sea area first.

From the dangerous wolf in PS 1 to the naughty dog, after Jack and Dast in PS2, to the series of Mysterious Sea, and now to the end of life, the naughty dog is more and more aware of what he wants to express. There is only one key word for the rest of my life, and that is "survival". More specifically, it survived in the four-corner relationship among man, monster and nature under the background of the spread of fungi for twenty years. Then how to express this point becomes the key to the plot. Speaking of the story here, I think the story of all film and television works (including games) is just an accessory. I don't need any novel plots. How to express them? People come and go in the play, the performance of the plot and the tension of the performance are the soul of a film and television work. Also applied to the game, the naughty dog's game has such tension.

Since Jack and Dast, the naughty dog has been focusing on shaping the character. This point began to sprout in Mysterious Sea 2, and then blossomed in Deep Sea 3. Drake was shaped quite plump in Shenhai 2, just like a real person with life and personality. In the game, he was shot, he was exhausted, he quarreled with Elena, Sullivan came to save him, and he was full of complaints. These look really ... real, coupled with impeccable facial and motion capture, the game's customs clearance process has become a journey to cultivate the feelings of players and Drake. So that after I bought Shenhai 3 and entered the game, seeing Drake at first was like seeing an old friend. For the old players of the series, it's nice to see you again.

Then there is telling stories. In fact, the story of the mysterious sea area is nothing. It's nothing more than a story about a treasure hunter and a bunch of people robbing for treasure. Coupled with some grand scenes, it is a sentimental story of a summer movie. But as mentioned above, the story and plot are not important, but how to make the story gripping is the key. Although the story of the mysterious sea area is simple and has no high technology, as a game rather than a movie, it is obviously more difficult to combine the story with the play part. Balance is very important, you can't tell too many stories and deprive players of the right to take the initiative to operate. You can't let the player kill the enemy all the way and make him forget why he did it. Naughty dogs are good at mastering rhythm. High tide and low tide always come in the most suitable place, fierce fighting, sneaking into the plot, and then accidents may happen and something has to be done because of what happened. Part of the game is plot-oriented, and the plot is separated by the players layer by layer. From time to time, let Drake make jokes or perform emotional dramas. Everything happens naturally, and everything naturally moves the player. As Inception said, you should make the idea implanted in other people's minds extremely simple and natural, and let others accept it naturally. Nolan is teaching you to play games.

Finally, the game system, which is the rule of the game and the soul of the game. Game systems can be diversified, but they cannot be flooded. There are too many examples of flooding. For example, Resident Evil 6 and Resident Evil 6 have a good foundation. So many protagonists have reunited for generations, but the seemingly hot setting has not caused any players to sing. It took me 28 hours to go through all the procedures, and I feel that I don't want to watch this game anymore. The biggest problem with Biochemical 6 is that the core experience is a mess. Capcom crammed everything into the game, including long and smelly gun battles, actions, dives, racing cars, countless QTEs and a world view close to reality, but the protagonist posed during the battle. In addition, Japanese factories are naturally inexperienced in shooting games, and of course they have to count disgusting shots. Biochemical 6 is undoubtedly one of the worst games of all time. Then, back to the mysterious sea, the same gun action sneaked in and chased the car. The naughty dog's idea is, hey, let's play an action game, as long as others are not bad. The core experience is defined as action, so the naughty dog has made great efforts in crawling, jumping and rolling. Therefore, it is understandable that so many people on the Internet spit and shoot their hands. But at the same time, you have to admit that those collapsed ruins chased you and climbed the cliff for a long time, which made you unforgettable.

The picture is really beautiful. In recent years, the technical strength of 3A manufacturers is not much different. What is commendable about naughty dogs is that they know a truth. It is more important to make the game picture comfortable, such as how to make it real.

After completing the mysterious sea area, the naughty dog didn't want to eat his old money, so he had to publish a new work.

Before deciding to regard the rest of his life as the end, the naughty dog thought of several schemes. The first plan is actually a sequel to Jack and Dast. Later, it was overthrown because the naughty dog felt that he had grown a lot after communicating with fans. They are not the naughty dogs they were eight years ago. If there is another Jack and Dast, it will not be the former Jack and Dast, which is unfair to the series and fans. So they decided to make a new IP. With this attitude towards games, it is doomed that naughty dogs can't make bad games, which is enough to make other game "producers" ashamed.

Then they finally decided to spend the rest of their lives together.

Just like a big boy who is full of adventure and treasure hunting to save the world, he grew up overnight. He wants to tell you a story seriously.

With the successful experience of the mysterious sea area, the development of new works faces only one problem, how to do it better.

This characterization is undoubtedly much more difficult than Shenhai, because the rest of the doomsday life is to show normal people in extreme background. The social order has already fallen apart, and their spirit has been numb by the living environment. In the game, they can do anything to survive. They can gang up to kill lonely passers-by, eat people for food, or decide for themselves who should live and who should die, because they think they represent justice. These characters sound absurd, but in real games, you can understand why they do it, and you even start to want to understand them more and sympathize with them. In addition to these "villain" characters or passers-by, the NPC interspersed in the game is also quite human. When Sarah was shot by soldiers, or when Dantè s was bitten, he volunteered to stay and cover, while Henry watched his brother get infected and committed suicide without his spiritual support. I believe that the emotions of the players are also ups and downs. At least when I saw Tess showing the bitten wound, I subconsciously said "Oh, no". NPCs are all shaped in this way, not to mention the protagonist. The player always controls Joel and Ellie, plus the player himself. This is actually a journey of three people acting together, and in this process, they have experienced the psychological change of the protagonist. This is due to the strong sense of rhythm of the naughty dog, and there are countless details, such as countless small dialogues and small spit in the game. One detail that impressed me deeply was the bus stop in the later period. As usual, Joel tried to push Ali up the wall and take down the ladder. As usual, the player ran to the wall and pressed the triangle, but Ali didn't run as usual. Players are as confused as Joel. At this time, the player noticed Ali's psychological changes when he turned to the perspective. There are countless small details that are carried out at the same time as the player, which also makes the character very full. A story is made up of people, and one person is made up of many other people. These people come and go, all alive.

In most movies with the same theme, the doomsday story has a grand perspective, and elements such as landslides and big scenes fill the screen, all of which are abandoned for the rest of my life. As the plot of a game, all the stories are from the perspective of people, and the protagonist is one of many survivors. A player can see the world through his eyes. In addition to the story of the protagonist's experience, players can also pick up other recordings and notes during the process and piece together others.

Let's talk about the system. This time, the protagonist is not a battle-hardened superhero, but an ordinary person who survived in the doomsday environment. In order to reflect the protagonist's viability, the system of broken cans and broken bottles to synthesize weapons is very suitable for this setting. Plus, it won't automatically return blood after injury. After being robbed and beaten, it will be super hard and straight. You can only carry two weapons with you and put the rest in your bag, which is quite in line with the style of this game world. AI is also a bright spot. The enemies of mankind will adopt different strategies according to whether you have a gun or not. They will outflank the siege. They are much more dangerous than monsters. However, the fly in the ointment is that their AI sometimes looks a bit stupid. They sometimes act as invisible people and run to the enemy to scare you, but these will not affect the combat experience.

The picture, to my surprise, can be more beautiful than the sea of God. This time, the naughty dog turned art into smell. There seems to be a smell of old sofas around the hotel in Pittsburgh. When you walk around the dam in autumn, you can smell the rain mixed with mud and cotton shirts. Sometimes I will stop at the passing roof. After a fierce battle, the sun rises, colors and halos. I think I can smell the grass in the game.

Anyway, finally describe the rest of your life. This game is dark and realistic. It gives you a chance to experience a world and meet some people. Some of these people died and some left, leaving you with a melancholy ending. You feel that you have lost two good friends.

There are two kinds of people who play games in this world, artists and businessmen, and naughty dogs are the former. The rest of my life is the best game I've played since I owned the PS3. I look forward to and can't wait to play their new works.