The zenith of Naughty Dog’s ambitions was realized twice – once in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (which was the game that began their meteoric ascent), which blended pitch perfect pacing, incredible encounter design, and spectacular setpiece moments that added a sense of you actually, literally playing a controllable movie to proceedings.

Developers mostly deliver a paradigm shifting game such as Uncharted 2 once ever decade or two. Naughty Dog, however, delivered a game that, arguably, was even more seminal, and the ultimate realization of their vision for what video games can be. In 2013, Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley delivered to the world The Last of Us, a post-apocalyptic third person action adventure game that to this day is regarded as one of the best games ever made. There are many, many reasons for that game’s enduring appeal – it took a relatively tired trope (the zombie apocalypse was, if you can believe it, even more fatigued of a setting in 2013 than it is now), and then flipped it on its head with multiple subtle subversions and impeccable execution. It had extremely empathetic characters, with very relatable flaws and identifiable conflicts. It had top notch performances by the voice actors. And the gameplay was top notch, taut and nail-bitingly tense, blending elements of survival, horror, stealth, and action games in one package that, while not doing anything new, did what it did to near perfection.

There is a reason we are still talking about The Last of Us seven years after it came out – it was a lightning in a bottle moment, the single instance in time where you can say Sony solidified its reputation as a publisher of high quality content (remember, almost every marquee Sony game since has followed in The Last of Us’s footsteps to at least some extent), the moment where even people with no interest in PlayStation suddenly had to pay attention to it, the single moment in time that solidified a lot of people’s faith in Sony’s ability to deliver compelling content for their consoles even if third parties bailed on them (as they had earlier in the PS3 gen, when most announced PS3 exclusives became multiplatform titles). It’s not an exaggeration to contend that The Last of Us was, to at least some degree, responsible for the dominating success that the PlayStation 4 would experience, starting less than half a year after this game’s release. It should come as no surprise to anyone that The Last of Us is Sony’s highest selling game of all time.

The sequel to any such game has a lot of expectations riding on it – with The Last of Us, the stakes are even higher, because the original game was such a perfect, self-contained story that a sequel seems almost necessary. Do we really need a The Last of Us Part 2? Will a game like it stand out as much in today’s market, when so many other games (including almost every Sony first party game) have cribbed from it? Will The Last of Us’s laser sharp focus on just having a few mechanics, cutting out extraneous fat, be as palatable in an era of 100-hour open world games with loot and RPG elements thrown on top? And, more importantly, given the talent churn that Naughty Dog has seen (in no small part because of their culture for horrific crunch), which includes most of the design team as well as Bruce Straley (one of the two creative heads for the original Last of Us), can we even expect the current team to be able to recapture the magic?

It’s hard to know whether or not The Last of Us Part 2 will be able to recapture lightning in a bottle, to be perfectly honest. There are many things that are working against it – the original Last of Us was a new IP (meaning there was no baggage, and no expectations attached to it), and while it generated a lot of hype pre-release (especially after the incredible E3 demo), it was still being marketed in an era where Naughty Dog hadn’t yet fully become the Naughty Dog (though, in the wake of Uncharted 2, they were well on their way, of course). There is, of course, the aforementioned talent churn and personnel turnover, including half the creative duo that powered the original game to such stupendous success. And, regardless of your own personal thoughts on them, there have been undeniable shifts in the gaming market in the last seven years. Linear, cinematic adventure games were all the rage. A new game in that style, polished to literal pitch perfection in its execution, was bound to catch everyone’s attention. Things are very different now, and a game like The Last of Us Part 2 does run the risk of not having that same kind of universal appeal simply because of those shifts.

Then, too, we must consider that there have been very few instances of direct follow ups to these kinds of seminal games ever doing as well as the original did (even if those follow ups end up being beloved in their own right)  – Mass Effect 3 isn’t as universally beloved as Mass Effect 2; Metroid Prime 2 isn’t as universally beloved as Metroid Prime; Dark Souls 2 is nowhere close to being as beloved as the original Dark Souls. And, just looking at Naughty Dog, Uncharted 3 was nowhere near as beloved as Uncharted 2.

Typically, this happens because of the aforementioned expectations factor. Once you have a game that catches everyone’s attention, you have a lot of eyes on you, and the pressure of a lot of expectations to deliver, expectations that can often feed on themselves and perpetuate the hype even further, leading to a self-sustaining cycle. Once there is that kind of expectation attached to a product, it is inevitable that it will end up disappointing someone or the other. It’s not even just a video games thing – look at, for example, The Dark Knight Rises versus The Dark Knight, or anything J.K. Rowling has written post-Harry Potter, and you will see this is a near universal trend. It’s basic human psychology, and it is impossible to work around. By simply existing, The Last of Us Part 2 has created a set of expectations around itself – and for at least some people, those expectations will not be met, and those people will be vocal about that disappointment.

There is also the factor of diminishing returns, though that’s not as much of a given (and it’s hard to even know how much it would apply in this situation), but a lot of times, the newness of something helps add a halo around it. Any follow-up is hypothetically disadvantaged because it lacks that newness – it by definition has to be more of the same, at least to some degree, because if it is not, then you risk alienating your fans in entirely different ways (look at Deus Ex Invisible War versus the original). It’s unclear if The Last of Us Part 2 will suffer from this much, if at all – there has been a near-decade gap between it and its predecessor, and assuming that the gameplay will have been expanded over the original is reasonable (and backed by the tantalizingly exciting glimpses at the game we have been afforded thus far). But there is still a possibility that it does kick in, even if only to a very minor degree.

The sum total of all these factors suggests that it is unlikely The Last of Us Part 2 is anywhere close to being as much of a seminal moment as the original game was. I do not mean this to cast aspersions on the game’s quality, nor do I mean this to suggest that it will be inferior to the original. It is likely going to be an incredible game, probably one of the top rated games of the year, and a frontrunner for the Game of the Year awards come December.  But you can be very well received without being the kind of lightning in a bottle moment the original Last of Us was – again, just using Naughty Dog as an example, Uncharted 4 is extremely beloved, with rave reviews and record-breaking sales. For many, it’s even better than any other game in the series, including the much-vaunted Uncharted 2. But it’s Uncharted 2 that has carved its place in history as a major point in time for video games – in the process, of course, also burdening its follow-ups with having to deal with the pressure of that kind of expectation.

I fully believe The Last of Us Part 2 will be a bold and incredible game, and I expect to be impressed by it in so many ways come June. But at the same time, I don’t hold the expectation that it will be the kind of breakout sensation the original game was. Of course, there is a possibility that it happens – while rare, it has happened in the past (Grand Theft Auto 3 to Vice City to San Andreas, Super Mario Galaxy to Super Mario Galaxy 2, Halo to Halo 2, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to Skyrim). Maybe The Last of Us Part 2 surmounts the various factors stacked against it to emerge triumphant as yet another “lightning strikes” moment for Naughty Dog. But I at least take solace in knowing that, even if it does not, it’s still likely going to be a damn good game. Ultimately, that’s all I care for.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

WARNING: This feature contains spoilers for every game we discuss, so if we begin talking about a game you don’t want spoiled, skip ahead to the next entry.

GOD OF WAR – REVELATIONS ABOUT FAYE

God of War was full of moments that shook us to our core. The Blades of Chaos, the reveal that Atreus is Loki- but rather than talking about the parts of the game that we’ve talked about countless times, we wanted to highlight something else. The revelation about Atreus right at the end of the game was certainly a huge moment, but something else that also gave the story an entirely new layer of depth was finding out that Faye had essentially been the orchestrator of Kratos and Atreus’ whole journey. She had Kratos cut down the tree that would send them out into the world, she marked the paths that both of them would want for the entire game- she was basically the writer of their story. Replaying God of War with that knowledge lends a whole new meaning to the game’s narrative.

]]> https://gamingbolt.com/15-moments-in-video-games-where-our-jaws-dropped-to-the-floor/feed 0 439930 https://gamingbolt.com/15-final-bosses-that-were-disappointingly-easy https://gamingbolt.com/15-final-bosses-that-were-disappointingly-easy#respond Fri, 04 Jan 2019 17:06:09 +0000 https://gamingbolt.com/?p=380154 The “Final Boss.” Nothing puts a mark of closure on a video game journey quite like the “final boss” – the last obstacle before the game finally acknowledges that you have completed the objective of main scenario progression. There may be other tasks to accomplish, between side quests, post-game content, or even any type of DLC that may get released for a game, but the crux of the story is generally meant to end when the final boss meets their demise.

What with all of the drama that goes into this encounter, you have to expect some sort of comparable level of difficulty, right? Perhaps a test of all acquired skills or abilities, battles against learned patterns from foes of the past, or at least some sort of test of fortitude that matches the gravity of final boss battle. Not always the case, as we shall see in some examples of disappointingly easy final bosses in amazing video games.

Warning: spoilers ahead.

Dark Beast Ganon – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Not only is Breath of the Wild one of the most popular Switch titles, and one of the most widely loved Zelda titles amongst fans, its consensus amongst the gaming public at large is overwhelmingly positive. Which makes the fight against Dark Beast Ganon so unfortunate, for a game that was so awesomely different from previous Zelda games, increasing the sense of scale in adventuring in a way that wasn’t really anticipated. There’s no protracted struggle here – it’s Link, his horse, and the Bow of Light (courtesy of Zelda) against Ganon that is significantly monstrous in form and scale, and with an appreciation for the color pink. Your goal is to ride around to the left and right sides of Dark Beast Ganon, at which point golden Triforce glyphs will appear; these are his weak points. Aim your arrows at the center of those glyphs to damage him. There will be three on either side, and one underneath him. The final hit against Dark Beast Ganon will be a shot to an eye that appears atop his head once he has been incapacitated by the other attacks.

The Last of Us director Neil Druckmann says that the scenes between Drake and Tenzin in Uncharted 2 hugely inspired how the team would tell the story in The Last of Us, and how they would build Joel and Ellie’s relationship.

“The thing that inspired us the most was when we were making Uncharted 2,” Druckmann told IB Times. “There’s a sequence where Drake meets up with this Sherpa called Tenzin who doesn’t speak English. And you build a relationship with him through gameplay – at the end of it you feel like you’ve built a bond with this guy even though you haven’t understood anything he’s said to you. It was so interesting to us. What if we built an entire game around this concept, of building a relationship through gameplay?”

“We showed at E3 how Ellie jumps on a guy’s back and saves Joel,” Druckmann continued. “So, even through gameplay you’re led to feel like ‘she saved my ass back there, I like having her around.’ And then there are times when you’re walking around and seeing these horrific things, and Ellie sees it in a different way. She says ‘wow, this place is kind of pretty.’

“And it might make you realise that yeah, it kind of is. So, hopefully through narrative – through dialogue and through action – you start forming this bond.”

The Last of Us releases for the PS3 on May 7. Stay tuned for more info.

No matter how much anyone tries to argue otherwise, graphics matter a lot. I’m not saying that they matter more than the gameplay here, no. That’s a topic for another, more controversial argument altogether. I’m just saying that the importance of a game’s graphics cannot be understated. After all, all our interaction with the game’s world and characters is facilitated by its graphics, and a good artstyle can make or break a game’s immersion, especially in those ones that rely on atmosphere a lot. Even in those ones that don’t, it is incredibly important to remember that our first impression of a video game is always made by how visually appealing a game looks- we are naturally predisposed and inclined to like a game which we find graphically attractive, and we are prejudiced towards those that fail to impress graphically from the get go.

Clearly, graphics are important, then. After all, one should remember that they are called video games. If the gameplay was all that mattered, then we would still have been playing tabletop role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons today.

Having established the importance of graphics irrefutably in everyone’s mind then, we here at GamingBolt believe that it is important to take a step back and put this importance in a historical perspective. For as much as we know that you like to compare the difference in the pixels in the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Crysis 2, I think it’s nice to remember just how we got to where we are. So, let’s have a look in the following (unranked!) list of eight games that absolutely set graphical benchmarks and kickstarted new graphical eras upon their release. Without further ado, then-

METAL GEAR SOLID 2: SONS OF LIBERTY (Playstation 2)

CUTSCENES

Stop looking at the image above. No, seriously. Stop judging the game by the image, and stop contesting its inclusion in the list. That image up there is useless, and the only reason it’s here is because I’m supposed to be putting an image for every game. But seriously, that image is not representative of the game’s graphical quality, nor of why the game set a graphical benchmark in the first place.

I’m sure you guys all remember the E3 2001 reveal for Metal Gear Solid 2. This was the first time that a game truly appeared next gen, the first time that the Playstation 2 looked set to make good on the promises of ‘super computing’ that it had made pre release. Jaws dropped worldwide as gamers gawked at the outstanding quality of Kojima’s visceral masterpiece. And while Sons of Liberty has aged very badly graphically, at that time, it was groundbreaking, more so for the absolute quality of its cinematic cutscenes than for anything else. Few games have had an impact on cinematic storytelling like Metal Gear Solid 2 did, and it was this game’s graphical prowess that not only firmly cemented the MGS series as a graphical showcase, but also made it the pallbearer of storytelling in videogames.

MONSTER MAZE 3D (PC)

FIRST 3D GAME

Look at that magnificent piece of art up there, and marvel at its beauty. This monochromatic pseudo 3D game that you see up there is Monster Maze 3D, a 1981 video game that also holds the distinction of being the first 3D game ever created. Because of this, we must also unfortunately credit it for kickstarting the 3D games revolution, even though later games like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem 3D, Star Fox, F-Zero, Final Fantasy IV, Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot and Super Mario Kart were all more important in actually making 3D an industry standard. The stuff that actually matters, you know?

No, seriously. The gaming industry is not 3D because of Monster Maze 3D. Other games listed above were more important in that regard. However, pioneers have always been credited by history, and thus that shall be the case here too. Congratulations, Monster Maze 3D. For having impacted arcade and home computer gaming by making way for several pseudo 3D games (that admittedly did not set standards even then), you get a place on this list.

HALF LIFE 2 (PC)

PHYSICS

Half Life 2 is a beautiful game, there can be no doubt about that. It has also aged wonderfully, compared to some of the other games on this list here. However, I think people tend to forget why this game was so acclaimed and deemed so groundbreaking when it was first released. Yes, it had had insane hype leading up to it. Yes, there was that entire episode with the game being leaked online. And oh yeah, this was one of the most expensive games ever produced at the time of its release. But the reason that the final game lived up to it all was that it set the mold for future shooters to come because of the incredibly realistic physics interactions that its Source engine enabled. In this game, things behaved like they were supposed to, making the world all the more realistic. You wouldn’t see a crate bouncing off the ground into the distance in Half Life 2- you’d see it exploding, with splinters flying in all directions realistically. The importance of this cannot be understated or undermined.

]]> https://gamingbolt.com/eight-games-that-set-new-graphical-benchmarks/feed 10 27588 https://gamingbolt.com/earn-triple-cash-in-uncharted-2-this-weekend https://gamingbolt.com/earn-triple-cash-in-uncharted-2-this-weekend#comments Sat, 19 Feb 2011 15:40:07 +0000 http://gamingbolt.com/?p=22390

To celebrate Presidents Day, Naughty Dog is having an event where you will earn triple the cash you normally would all weekend long in Uncharted 2.  You can earn triple cash in all multiplayer modes which is a plus and the event has already begun.  The event event lasts longer than just the weekend ending on 10 AM Pacific Standard Time on Tuesday.

According to Naughty Dog, Uncharted 2 almost didn’t fit on the Playstation 3 due to the need of a lot of memory.

“If anyone on the team makes a face like, ‘Oh, we’re f*cked’, then we know we’re good,” said Christophe Balestra, the ND co-president during an interview with Edge.

“We have to be uncomfortable. Three weeks before shipping Uncharted 2, we couldn’t even fit the game in memory. The day we have no solution to that, that’s going to be a real problem.”

“We shoot for the moon, which is what the artists want to see, we’re driven by artists, and it’s the job of the programmers to make it fit, in terms of memory and frame-rate. The artists will always go beyond what we have at our disposal, and newly previewed U3 level Ch�teau is a perfect example,” he said.

Despite Uncharted 2 barely fitting on the PS3, you might be wondering how Uncharted 3 will even come close to fitting it. Well, ND have the answer.

“We’re at full speed, optimising code specifically for the SPUs, it’s a great resource because SPUs are extremely fast, and if you optimise they get faster than you ever thought they could be. That’s where the quality of our images comes from,” he added.

Uncharted 3 is set to be released on the 1st of November this year.

Source

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves has become the PlayStation 3’s third best selling first party title. “We’re in the Top 10 of all PS3 games sold, and second/third highest first-party title – I don’t think that’s too shabby,” Naughty Dog’s Arne Meyer said while replying to comments on the US PS Blog about UC2’s GOTY Edition Unveil.

“I don’t have specific numbers, it’s a pretty solid estimate based on all the various figures reported by the various publishers and developers (press releases, financial statements, announcements, etc.).”

“As such, it wouldn’t take too much for some games to swap places on an ordered list.”

Later, after confirming the facts, Meyer said: “Digging through some internet searches some more, pretty certain we’re actually the third best-selling first-party game on the platform. Still happy about it!”

Meyer also confirmed that the GOTY Edition of Uncharted 2 will not support PlayStation Move.

• PlayStation Heroes Skin Pack
• Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune Multiplayer Pack
• Un charted 2 Siege Expansion Pack
• Currency Multiplier which grants Double XP up to level 10 in Multiplayer
• Golden Guns option for the AK-47 and the 92FS 9mm pistol for use in Multiplayer
• Early access to “Revenge” Booster – you still have to purchase it with in-game cash!
• Uncharted: Eye of Indra – Motion Comic Bundle (which includes Episodes 1-4)
• Uncharted: Eye of Indra – Rika Raja and Daniel Pinkerton Character Skins
• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – Avatar Pack 1
• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – Avatar Pack 2
• Uncharted Avatar Pack 3
• Uncharted Avatar Pack 4
• Pinball Heroes – Uncharted for the PSP

Check out the trailer for the GOTY edition below:

See that incredible XMB Uncharted 2 theme? Yeah, that’s about to be released along with some DLC next week for Uncharted 2. This new DLC will also include a bunch of new multiplasyer skins. The new pack is called the Sidekick Skins Pack and will be released on the 18th of August.

We’ll keep you updated as more info comes our way.