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Straight up... The combat in The Last of Us Part II is completely and entirely unmatched.

Polygonal_Sprite

Gold Member
The core gameplay mechanics were the major reason I enjoyed the first one and why I didn’t care that much about the story in the second one but had an absolute blast again with the gameplay.

It also shows you can have realism and complex animations in a game without massively sacrificing controller response like RDRIII does.
 
Stealth isn’t strictly about not killing or hiding. I can kill everyone in a room without being seen or heard, and do it in different ways.

What exactly can you do in MGS? Hide in a box?

Play on grounded.

In MGS, mechanics feel tighter.

Hard to put in words.

There is consistency to how enemies react depending on exposure.

But of course TLOU doesn't need to beat MGS in stealth department. It does more stuff. TLOU is more about resource management than being skilled at shooting or stealth.
 

Aenima

Member
This is why i have a feeling that TLOU Multiplayer game coming up is a sleeper hit. Combat was very satisfying in TLOU2 and the reason i kept playing the game. It was a huge improvement over the previous TLOU with all the adicional moves available for the player. Im usually not a big fan of excessive gore but there was so many cool details that i was always facinated to find new stuff.

One example was when i set an explosive inside a house where some npcs was patroling, the bomb went off blowing up one of the npc i run to the location and noticed something driping from the ceiling, it was chunks of meat from the NPC that was glued to the ceiling falling down.

Just not sure if they will keep the same levels of gore for the MP game, but hope they do, its brutal.
 

Bragr

Banned
Stealth isn’t strictly about not killing or hiding. I can kill everyone in a room without being seen or heard, and do it in different ways.

What exactly can you do in MGS? Hide in a box?

Play on grounded.
Killing everyone in the room is possible in most games with throwable stuff that makes noise. Luring people away is normal stealth shit. You shouldn't have to play on grounded for the stealth to work.

In Metal Gear V you have the open-world, you can snipe, you have all tools and gadgets.
 
This is why i have a feeling that TLOU Multiplayer game coming up is a sleeper hit. Combat was very satisfying in TLOU2 and the reason i kept playing the game. It was a huge improvement over the previous TLOU with all the adicional moves available for the player. Im usually not a big fan of excessive gore but there was so many cool details that i was always facinated to find new stuff.

This will be the acid test for gameplay.

You need to put gameplay in Destiny style grind to see how well it holds up after 100 hrs of game time.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Yeah, thats why it was my GOTY despite all the issues I had with the story.

I am a gameplay first kinda guy which is why I was able to ignore the story flaws in many other games like MGSV, Anthem, Andromeda, MGS Survive and even Dark Souls. At some point, you have to remove the gameplay from the story, and the combat in TLOU2 is just plain incredible.
 

Bragr

Banned
But it looks so standard...how is it unmatched in any way? Run shoot, run cover, run stab, run throw...Yes the animations are well done and the voice acting adds some depth of realism - but it's just a standard combat system done well.
Nothing about that is standard, getting the animations and reactions to work this well is absolutely mad. There is also a massive amount of details to everything, the audio design, level layout, the hit detection, it's by far the most technical and complex combat system around.

That said, that doesn't mean it plays the best. I think in recent times it may be number one, but of all time is a bit of a stretch.
 

Vangellis

Member
TLOU2 is without a doubt the most brutal and visceral combat I've played in a game. There are certainly more gory games, but there were multiple times I felt uncomfortable after a kill in TLOU2 due to how real it felt.
 

Aenima

Member
This will be the acid test for gameplay.

You need to put gameplay in Destiny style grind to see how well it holds up after 100 hrs of game time.
The 1st TLOU MP mode was already excelent. Untill ND ruined it with OP DLC weapons. This one being a standalone game is expecting to be much bigger and more ambitious than the previous mode, and hopefully they now are aware that pay to win weapons are not the way to keep players around.
 

fart town usa

Gold Member
You mean like in F.E.A.R from 2005?

OP framed the thread as a question stating TLOU2 had the best combat ever ever....so i have to bring up games that have good combat?
FEAR was the game that came to mind for me too. If it was 3rd person it'd probably look similar but with worse animation.

Slide kicking people, jump kicking people, hearing the AI call out your location, blind firing, throwing grenades, etc.

ND is just more cinematic and for people like me, it's the one thing that makes me uninterested in their games. I'm not interested in a Walking Dead melodrama.
 

GymWolf

Member
Stealth isn’t strictly about not killing or hiding. I can kill everyone in a room without being seen or heard, and do it in different ways.

What exactly can you do in MGS? Hide in a box?

Play on grounded.
I'm sorry, you know mgs like the palm of you hand but you minimize the stealth in mgs5 to hide in a box?!

The game well know for being one of the most various stealth game in existence and the reason why he got those high scores (since story and delivery was trash compared to old titles)

I mean even a comedy video like the one made by dunkey show how many funny shit you can do in the game, well beyond what you can do in tlou2 (where i have 2 run on hard and grounded), mgs5 is basically a stealth playground, you have rocket punches, companions, weird shit like the big boss inflatable thing, you can literally make fall a box of ammo into the head of an enemy with the aerial support...even simple things like crouching on the side of the horse to not being seen.

Tlou2 biggest limit during stealth is that it is a grounded and realistic game, no space for cool gadgets and shit because they would be tonally off.

You have your bush, your pass throught tight spaces (revolution...) , your throw a bottle to distract and very few other things, same for the combat, realistic weapons and realistic melee, even days gone, another kinda realistic tlou wannabe game, probably has more gadget to play with, then you have the dogs that follows your smell but they are too slow to really pose a threat in those big sandbox maps if you are not completely retarded or just shit at stealth games, even the new infected are just a different iteration of the creatures in dead space 2 or even the fucking lycan in the order, they attack and they go to hide and repeat, big fucking deal.
I hope that you don't consider climbing, jumping or swimming (all new things in the sequel) something new or exclusive to tlou2...

One things that tlou2 does immensely better is how punchy, gorey, well animated the combat is, mgs5 exactly like death stranding has shitty hit reaction\ragdoll\rigid bodies\lack of gore and very clunky melee.
Also the atmosphere\thrill is better in tlou2, yes.

But in term of variation? Mgs5 wins for sure just for the share amount of quirky stuff you can deploy.

 
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GymWolf

Member
A game that doesn't get enough recognition for his brutal melee combat is dying light, in that game you feel every hit with a blunt weapon, and the gore is pretty good for an older game, the bodies are weighty enough,good ragdoll, there is nothing in the past gen on the same level as dropkicking someone out of a building, that shit was cathartic.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Several games do combat well, but "entirely unmatched" what? The difference makers in TLOU2 is the scenery, anxious feelings you get from enemies, Abby, and Naughty Dog's dramatic story telling. The combat is fun, shows potential but most levels force you into stealth and is limited.
 

Aion002

Member
hell yeah cmt GIF by Redneck Island


Every other tps that attempted close combat on last gen just pales in comparison.

It's just so good.
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
I thought the combat in TLOU2 was very well done and detailed, but kinda boring in it's design, or at least it was for me. Like yeah it's obvious the put a ton on effort on the visual level, and it shows, but not so much on the gameplay side.

To put modern examples, I enjoyed the melee in nu-GoW much more than this, and could name a thousand games with better shooting.

A game that doesn't get enough recognition for his brutal melee combat is dying light, in that game you feel every hit with a blunt weapon, and the gore is pretty good for an older game, the bodies are weighty enough,good ragdoll, there is nothing in the past gen on the same level as dropkicking someone out of a building, that shit was cathartic.
Only played that game for a little bit but yeah, the combat looked very very fun. Are there human enemies in the game? Would love to have some Condemned-like duels with that combat.

Btw, the combat in the first Condemned game is amazing too, beating hobos never was that fun.
 

Thirty7ven

Banned
I'm sorry, you know mgs like the palm of you hand but you minimize the stealth in mgs5 to hide in a box?!

Obviously an exaggeration, pump yer breaks. My overall point is that stealth gameplay depends on many factors, like level design and A.I, not just quirky stuff which Kojima is the king of.

Stealth needs to be a necessity, dangerous. It needs to flow seamlessly into combat also.

MGS5 controls incredibly well, and you can do a lot of things, but the game not only is piss easy, the A.I was never a threat or never made it look like they were behaving like a human would.

Killing everyone in the room is possible in most games with throwable stuff that makes noise. Luring people away is normal stealth shit. You shouldn't have to play on grounded for the stealth to work.

In Metal Gear V you have the open-world, you can snipe, you have all tools and gadgets.

I’m not saying TLoU2 is doing something never seen, it just pulls it all together like never before.
 
Can I just take a second to say... this game looks incredibly last-gen now after seeing the Matrix. The lighting on the characters looks flat to me now. Also, the game looks SUPER WEIRD running at 60fps. I know 60fps feels good blah blah blah, but running at 60 makes the game look cheesier, less gritty and too much like an arcade game to me. It looks and plays much better at 30fps in my opinion.

Anyways, back on topic. The combat is definitely one of the best parts of this game and no other game has ever come close to it, as well as the animation system. Naughty Dogs are truly video game developer gods.
 

GymWolf

Member
Obviously an exaggeration, pump yer breaks. My overall point is that stealth gameplay depends on many factors, like level design and A.I, not just quirky stuff which Kojima is the king of.

Stealth needs to be a necessity, dangerous. It needs to flow seamlessly into combat also.

MGS5 controls incredibly well, and you can do a lot of things, but the game not only is piss easy, the A.I was never a threat or never made it look like they were behaving like a human would.



I’m not saying TLoU2 is doing something never seen, it just pulls it all together like never before.
I think that tlou2 ia is not perfect either.

Like it was for fear, some of it is smoke and mirrors to make look\sound the enemies smarter than what they really are.

Still, a good\great ia for a slow paced, realistic tps, but still exploitable and hardly super challenging even on grounded, the biggest challenges during stealth were the moments with like 2 bloaters and a couple of clickers in a small space, against the humans i always felt like the predator, not the prey, they were never smart enough to out-smart me, especially because they scream their intentions like morons :lollipop_grinning_sweat: , sure it helps immersion, much less the level of challenge, that's probably why everyone loved the cultists more as human enemies, but you eventually memorize the whistling patterns aswell.

I think that the ia in mgs5 was decent during stealth, much less during combat.
 
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Mobile Suit Gooch

Grundle: The Awakening
Honestly, if it wasn't for the story and the bad press surrounding it, I would have gotten this. I await the multiplayer stand-alone.
 

xPikYx

Member
Aside from what people's opinions are of the way the story turned out...

Gameplay wise Naughty Dog nailed the intensity of survival and combat.

This is one of my favorite videos demonstrating that.


30 seconds is all i need to make my case.


but since this is a forum for discussion...

Please name a game that blends as perfectly; intensity, brutality, realism, visceral nature, hit reaction, enemy AI, controls, animation, physics, graphics, NPC voice acting, dialogue and feel as well as this game does. Theres none.

The simplicity of the controls, the verticality of the environments, the feel of the weapons. Perfection. People who despise the story are even praising the combat, its truly special.

That blood spray at 45 seconds in. Jesus christ. When I play other games it feels like im in Day Care.

GOAT combat.

btw theres literally thousands of vids I could have posted this was just one i had saved recently. if you dont like the video just play the game on a high difficulty. :messenger_peace:

This game is a masterpiece, end of story
 

geary

Member
Stealth in MGS isn’t tense at all(I guess it was a bit with the fixed camera, but mostly it’s the alarm sound that triggers the player) and if you think the only thing you can do to play like a ghost in TLOu2 is to sneak around in the grass like Solid Snake, then you don’t know the game.

Don’t @ me with MGS by the way, I know that series like the palm of my hand.
Have you played old Thief and Splinter Cell games? Stealth is not even close to those.
 

Bragr

Banned
Obviously an exaggeration, pump yer breaks. My overall point is that stealth gameplay depends on many factors, like level design and A.I, not just quirky stuff which Kojima is the king of.

Stealth needs to be a necessity, dangerous. It needs to flow seamlessly into combat also.

MGS5 controls incredibly well, and you can do a lot of things, but the game not only is piss easy, the A.I was never a threat or never made it look like they were behaving like a human would.



I’m not saying TLoU2 is doing something never seen, it just pulls it all together like never before.
Which game is easier has nothing to do with the quality of the stealth.

I think you are overrating the stealth because you love the game so much. It's good, but I think stuff like Metal Gear, where you can snipe out specific targets and create your own route into an encampment and if you mess up, the entire camp goes into alert mode and it doesn't revert back, or even Hitman, where you hide in plain sight, is a lot more interesting than the stealth in TLOU 2. Or Tarkov stealth, which annihilates TLOU 2 stealth when it comes to tension.

Most of the time it leans on the old outdated tropes of hiding in tall grass and using lures, and while it's good, there is nothing here that elevates stealth or is unique.

There are also some outdated aspects too, like when enemies notice dead or missing crew members and just go back to walking around. Stuff like this really needs to be removed from games entirely.
 

Lethal01

Member
It's great but far from the best when it comes to how all the positives come together to be a fun experience.
As a whole most of the big name hack and slash games beat it despite it shining very brightly in some areas.
 

Bragr

Banned
I think that tlou2 ia is not perfect either.

Like it was for fear, some of it is smoke and mirrors to make look\sound the enemies smarter than what they really are.

Still, a good\great ia for a slow paced, realistic tps, but still exploitable and hardly super challenging even on grounded, the biggest challenges during stealth were the moments with like 2 bloaters and a couple of clickers in a small space, against the humans i always felt like the predator, not the prey, they were never smart enough to out-smart me, especially because they scream their intentions like morons :lollipop_grinning_sweat: , sure it helps immersion, much less the level of challenge, that's probably why everyone loved the cultists more as human enemies, but you eventually memorize the whistling patterns aswell.

I think that the ia in mgs5 was decent during stealth, much less during combat.
Yeah, the difficulty is all about those tight rooms and swarming monsters, the humans are still designed to be picked off, if they were realistic and hurled together in defensive positions when they noticed what was going on, the game would be completely different, and IMO, even better.
 

GymWolf

Member
Yeah, the difficulty is all about those tight rooms and swarming monsters, the humans are still designed to be picked off, if they were realistic and hurled together in defensive positions when they noticed what was going on, the game would be completely different, and IMO, even better.
Absolutely, they still lack self-awereness and danger perception.

Onestly when devs say that genius enemies could be annoying to fight it just sound like an excuse when we have the same ia flaws of the last 20 years...

Gimme your super realistic and smart enemies (if you can really develop them) and put them on grounded mode so the players can chose what level of challenge we wants, we are still light years from human enemies that behave like normal humans.
 
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Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
Yeah gameplay was fun, story was shit. Prob the best in the 3rd person action space.
 

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Its fun and competent. I wouldn't call it unmatched. Really needed more monster variety. They clearly are ok with boss fights; so I hope for TLOU3 they put more than just one. Its ok to have boss fights in your super serious game.

I do get annoyed when people, usually ones who haven't played it, insist its just a movie-game. Yes there are parts of the game that are barely interactive (the first couple hours are tutorial city) but for the most part its just a regular ass videogame. Its not any less interactive than Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, or Gears.
 
The mixture of stealth and action along with survival horror really is understated.

The graphics, story and attention to detail is right up there only with Red Dead Redemption 2, but the gameplay runs circles around it making it possibly the most impress AAA video game to date.
 

Sleepwalker

Gold Member
I'm sorry, you know mgs like the palm of you hand but you minimize the stealth in mgs5 to hide in a box?!

The game well know for being one of the most various stealth game in existence and the reason why he got those high scores (since story and delivery was trash compared to old titles)

I mean even a comedy video like the one made by dunkey show how many funny shit you can do in the game, well beyond what you can do in tlou2 (where i have 2 run on hard and grounded), mgs5 is basically a stealth playground, you have rocket punches, companions, weird shit like the big boss inflatable thing, you can literally make fall a box of ammo into the head of an enemy with the aerial support...even simple things like crouching on the side of the horse to not being seen.

Tlou2 biggest limit during stealth is that it is a grounded and realistic game, no space for cool gadgets and shit because they would be tonally off.

You have your bush, your pass throught tight spaces (revolution...) , your throw a bottle to distract and very few other things, same for the combat, realistic weapons and realistic melee, even days gone, another kinda realistic tlou wannabe game, probably has more gadget to play with, then you have the dogs that follows your smell but they are too slow to really pose a threat in those big sandbox maps if you are not completely retarded or just shit at stealth games, even the new infected are just a different iteration of the creatures in dead space 2 or even the fucking lycan in the order, they attack and they go to hide and repeat, big fucking deal.
I hope that you don't consider climbing, jumping or swimming (all new things in the sequel) something new or exclusive to tlou2...

One things that tlou2 does immensely better is how punchy, gorey, well animated the combat is, mgs5 exactly like death stranding has shitty hit reaction\ragdoll\rigid bodies\lack of gore and very clunky melee.
Also the atmosphere\thrill is better in tlou2, yes.

But in term of variation? Mgs5 wins for sure just for the share amount of quirky stuff you can deploy.



now i need to replay mgs v. is there any enhanced version or should I go pc?
 
30 seconds is all i need to make my case.


but since this is a forum for discussion...

Please name a game that blends as perfectly; intensity, brutality, realism, visceral nature, hit reaction, enemy AI, controls, animation, physics, graphics, NPC voice acting, dialogue and feel as well as this game does. Theres none.

The simplicity of the controls, the verticality of the environments, the feel of the weapons. Perfection. People who despise the story are even praising the combat, its truly special.

That blood spray at 45 seconds in. Jesus christ. When I play other games it feels like im in Day Care.

GOAT combat.

btw theres literally thousands of vids I could have posted this was just one i had saved recently. if you dont like the video just play the game on a high difficulty. :messenger_peace:

I disagree it's pretty good great in fact but it has one massive flaw enemy variety. At the end of day your still shooting dudes with guns and zombies . The AI definitely seems better than most games but it doesn't change your choices much. Here's some games I would put above it.

MGS5- Just unprecedented choice in a 3rd person not seen before or after. Does lack enemy variety though.

Doom 2016 and Eternal (ESPECIALLY ETERNAL) Okay there first person but I think there similar enough to compare.
 
It is really great. I've thought the combat since Uncharted 2 has been fantastic, though. Everyone would always go on about Gears of War, but that game had zero verticality and the movement and escape options weren't nearly as fluid. Not that I have anything against Gears, just seemed odd to me.

Best ever, though? There are a few Japanese TPSs that I'd probably rank higher. MGSV and Vanquish come to mind. None of them look as good in motion, though. It's the best looking game ever, top to bottom.

Smashing someone upside the head with a 2x4 is still the most brutal kill I think I've ever experienced in a game lol. You get some real windup on that bitch. From the first TLoU.
 
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I disagree it's pretty good great in fact but it has one massive flaw enemy variety. At the end of day your still shooting dudes with guns and zombies . The AI definitely seems better than most games but it doesn't change your choices much. Here's some games I would put above it.

MGS5- Just unprecedented choice in a 3rd person not seen before or after. Does lack enemy variety though.

Doom 2016 and Eternal (ESPECIALLY ETERNAL) Okay there first person but I think there similar enough to compare.
Eh stupid phone anyway doom 2016 and eternal. Look and feel amazing much better enemy variety core combat is far more interesting choices to make in the moment to moment combat.

Horizon zero dawn ( Just machine combat ) simply incredible enemy variety and complexity. All the medium and heavy machines can feel like mini boss fights and you fight multiple of them at once.

God of war 2018. Like I mentioned before this is basically a really deep melee action game with a pretty deep TPS attached. When you ve unlocked everything you basically have 10 range attacks which can be fluidly combined with a deep melee system as well.

Resident evil 2 remake Okay last of us 2 definitely has better combat than this. But I enjoyed RE2 as a game more overall. But that's more to do with level design than the combat
 
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