I finished The Last of Us on PS4 and think it was overall very good, but I’m pretty disappointed in the ending. It’s not that it wasn’t well done, but that I didn’t have a choice in how it went. I may have even made the same choices Joel made, but it is possible that I would have wanted to choose differently. Frankly, in the end, Joel turned into a selfish a**hole. I haven’t played the DLC mission yet, because I was so disappointed in the main ending, but I will get to it sometime when I’m done with Diablo III.
Yes, I’m playing and am addicted to Diablo III on the PS4. Note that I’m calling it Diablo III, but there’s all sorts of additional crap in the name, just like with The Last of Us. Since my interest is in the games, not helping their marketing, I won’t bother with superfluous words in their titles.
I played Diablo III when it first came out for PC (and had to deal with the annoying Battle.Net authentication crap and always forgetting who I was). I finished the game with a Wizard and enjoyed it, but the mouse-based UI was a carpal tunnel-inducing nightmare! So I waited for the PS3 version, which I bought so I could play with my wife. We played for a few hours, but my wife didn’t enjoy it as much as I did. Now this new version for PS4 looks great, includes all the content from the DLC, and has a great control scheme using the controller. The game hasn’t crashed on me, but has done so for a friend. It also has a few annoying bugs/omissions. The first thing it did was ask me to join my Battle.Net account to my PSN account and they would give me a gift (at least I’m pretty sure that’s what it said). I did that before creating a new character, but then, when I created a character, it asked me to do it again. Well, once I logged in, the accounts were connected. But as far as I know, I didn’t get any goodies because of it. Not a big deal, but an unsatisfying experience.
The game itself looks great. I’m playing a crusader this time and started on Hard mode, but quickly bumped up to Expert. The Crusader is a serious butt-kicker and none of the bosses have given me much trouble. I died twice in the main campaign and not yet in the Resurrection of Evil expansion missions. Once I finish, my wife promises to play with me, so I will suggest she create a Crusader and I’ll play some other class that I haven’t played.
The co-op aspects of the game are great! It supports couch co-op, so my wife can pick up a controller, select her character, and join my game. Loot is separate, so we’re not competing for gear, which is a huge improvement over most RPGs that support co-op. Additionally, it is easy for friends to join your game over the Internet. I’ve had a friend join me a couple of times, and it works very well. In couch co-op, both players remain on the screen, so it limits how far apart we can be. Network co-op players have their own screens, so they don’t have to be near each other or even enter dungeons together. It is pretty flexible.
Two other interesting co-op aspects make this game shine. Sometimes you find gifts for your friends who play the game. You can’t do anything with it other than send the gift to your friend. These are usually legendary items, so it is worth sending and receiving gifts. In addition, if a monster kills your friend, it may pop into your game world as a mini-boss, almost always at a bad time, like when you’re in the middle of combat with a big mob. If you kill the “nemesis,” then you get nice rewards as well as a gift for the friend that was killed. If the nemesis kills you, it may appear in another friend’s world to try to kill them. It is a nifty mechanic that keeps players on our toes.
I highly recommend Diablo III for the PS4. It is a terrific package that has the potential for many tens or even hundreds of hours of fun. The Last of Us is an extremely well done game with engaging gameplay, but a disappointing ending.
And while we’re talking about disappointing endings, I’ve given up on Far Cry 3. While the free-form gameplay is the best shooter I’ve played maybe ever, the scripted stuff was pretty awful. I’m now in the middle of the end of the game, and it is all scripted. As I was looking for hints on how to survive the helicopter mission, I saw that there is no more actual game play before the end and you get to make a choice from two lousy options. This isn’t much better than The Last of Us, in that here you are, the greatest warrior on the island and able to do pretty much anything, yet your only future is disappointment or death. I play games for fun, so these crappy endings are not making me happy. I know real life doesn’t have happy endings, nor do many movies, but games are escapist fare and should have happy ending possibilities. Even Mass Effect 3 had happy-ish possibilities if you worked hard enough and made the right choices.