There is as much anticipation as there is uncertainty surrounding this game. The makers of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus have been working on a follow up for a few years now, but there have been a lot of delays. The game was originally scheduled for late 2011, but now even a 2012 release date isn’t completely certain. To further terrify fans, the game’s designer and executive producer both announced that they would be leaving Sony. They will supposedly both be involved with The Last Guardian until it is released, but it is still alarming news. When a director of a film quits just as filming has completed, it typically means that the movie will be a mess. That probably isn’t the case, and there are plenty of talented people involved that can ensure this game will be at the same insanely high level of quality as Team Ico’s other titles though. We’ll have to wait until it is released to be sure though
The Last Guardian,[1] known in Japan as Hitokui no and previously referred to by the working title Project Trico, is an upcoming video game developed by Team Ico, to be published exclusively for the PlayStation 3 video game console by Sony Computer Entertainment.
The title is being designed and directed by Fumito Ueda, and is expected to share stylistic, thematic, and gameplay elements with his previous titles, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, though it is unknown whether it will be directly related to either.[2] In May 2009, a purported proof of concept trailer became publicly available online, weeks before an updated version was formally revealed at E3 2009.[3] The Last Guardian was originally given a late 2011 release date internationally at the 2010 Tokyo Game Show, but was pushed back to 2012 on April 20, 2011.[4] Further complications, including Ueda's departure as a full-time employee of Sony though remaining as a consultant on the project, have left the release date in question.
Gameplay
The player controls the boy, who must care for and work with the large creature, Trico, using its animal instincts to solve puzzles.
The Last Guardian is a third-person perspective game that combines action-adventure and puzzle elements. The player controls the unarmed boy who can run, jump, climb and perform other actions similar to the gameplay in Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. The player may also need to use the environment to silently move around or defeat shadow-being guards, though initially the boy is weaponless.[13] The guards, although slow-moving, can capture the boy, and if the player is unable to free the character in time, the game will be over.[14]
The player's movements are augmented by interaction with Trico who the boy can climb upon and ride. As stated by Ueda, Trico is "driven by animal instincts", and it is up to the player to guide the creature, "taking advantage of his natural behavior", in order to complete puzzles.[6] For example, the player may have the boy throw a barrel that gains Trico's interest, causing it to move to a specific location. The player may also need to find the way for Trico to sit still in order to allow the player to complete a section, while the natural tendency of the creature is to run ahead of the player.[6] Unlike typical sidekicks in video games, which immediately react to a player's command, Trico will be difficult for the player to control, and may take several attempts to coerce the creature into performing a specific action.[13]
The player will also have to care for the creature, either by feeding it or removing spears and arrows that are stuck in its body.[6] Through the course of the game, the player will gain better command of the creature, an aspect Ueda considered equivalent to training a pet; initially in the game, the creature may wander off to explore something that interests it more than the boy, refuse to eat food it thinks smells badly, or choose to go to sleep when it wants to. By performing certain tasks, the player will be able to come to control Trico better, and Ueda believes "each player will have a different Trico to work with depending on how he or she chooses to interact with him".[15] However, the player may still want to take advantage of the creature's natural habits; the game includes sections where by letting Trico roam free, new areas for exploration may open up
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Etichete: action-adventure, Hitokui no Owashi Trico, Ico, player characters, puzzle, Riku, Shadow of the Colossus, Sora, The Last Guardian, Trico, Ueda, Xehanort
The Last of Us
The Last of Us
The Last of Us (Q4 2012/Q1 2013; PS3; Naughty Dog, SCEA)
Another original game, but this one comes with a pedigree that immediately demands respect. The makers of the Uncharted series turn their collective eye towards the survival horror world with The Last of Us, as the story follows a man and a 14-year old girl who have survived an apocalyptic outbreak of fungus. But it’s, ya know, scary mutant fungus. Nature has begun to reclaim the cities, and the man and girl have a father-daughter type relationship that is constantly tested as they struggle to survive day-to-day. It doesn’t exactly sound uplifting, but Naughty Dog has proven that it can do character development, which could make this one of the top games of the year.
The Last of Us is an upcoming post-apocalyptic third-person survival action-adventure video game developed by Naughty Dog for the PlayStation 3. It was officially revealed on December 10, 2011 during the Spike TV Video Game Awards.
Development
The game was first teased before the Spike Video Game Awards on November 29, 2011, with a billboard in Times Square mentioning "a PS3 exclusive you won't believe".[6] Initial trailers showed an apocalyptic event, including riots, epidemic, quarantine, and violence, as well as a clip of the BBC's Planet Earth showing an ant infected with Cordyceps unilateralis, a dangerous parasitic fungus that usually kills insects such as ants. On December 9, players of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception spotted an in-game reference to the aforementioned trailer with the newspaper headline "scientists are still struggling to understand deadly fungus".[7]
At the Spike Video Game Awards, Sony officially unveiled the game, a brand new IP from Naughty Dog, created by an 80-strong Naughty Dog team no-one knew existed. A gameplay trailer, made up of in-engine footage,[8] showed a man and a teenage girl fending off other survivors, and what appeared to be people with unusual fungal growth, before running out into a dilapidated city covered in greenery, reminiscent of the film I Am Legend.[9]
Shortly after the unveiling, Naughty Dog co-president Evan Wells posted on the PlayStation Blog new The Last of Us details:“ The Last of Us is a genre-defining experience that blends survival and action elements to tell a character driven tale about a modern plague decimating mankind. Nature encroaches upon civilization, forcing remaining survivors to kill for food, weapons and whatever they can find. Joel, a ruthless survivor, and Ellie, a brave young teenage girl who is wise beyond her years, must work together to survive their journey across what remains of the United States.[10] ”
The announcement confirmed that the new project is being headed by studio game director Bruce Straley. Former lead designer on Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Mark Richard Davies, has been working at Naughty Dog on the game.[11] After Uncharted 2: Among Thieves shipped in 2009, some of the development team from the game formed the team for The Last of Us, while the remainder worked on Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception;[12] The Last of Us marks the first time that Naughty Dog has become a two-team studio.[5] It is also the first time the studio has introduced a second new IP in the same hardware generation.[13]
Concept .
The concept for The Last of Us arose after watching BBC nature documentary Planet Earth, which showed the cordyceps fungus infected ants, resulting in taking over its brain and producing growths from its head; the idea that the fungus could infect humans became the initial idea for the game. Major artistic inspirations included the movies No Country for Old Men and The Road, comic The Walking Dead and the historical novel City of Thieves.[5]
While the fungus epidemic is the main backdrop of the game, The Last of Us is not a "zombie game", but "a love story about a father-daughter-like relationship", influenced in part by the sequence between Nathan Drake and Tenzin, his Tibetan guide, in Uncharted 2. Joel is a survivor and anti-hero, and Ellie is a 14 year-old girl with no experience of the world pre-apocalypse.[5] The composer for the game will be Gustavo Santaolalla. The team wanted to focus on emotion with the soundtrack rather than horror.[5]
On release of the initial trailer for the game Dead Island, the team was concerned that the two games would be largely similar, both exploring the human or emotional side to an apocalyptic event. However, on release of the aforementioned game, the team realised that the gameplay did not match up to that showed by the trailer; by contrast, lead designer Neil Druckmann feels that the trailer for The Last of Us is "very representative of what we're going for".[5] Druckmann also stated that he wants the story in The Last of Us to raise the bar for other video game developers, as he feels the standard of story-telling is not as good as it should be within the industry.