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It's a little unfortunate that - due to the differences in spatial relationships in a 3D space between ACTUALLY being there and sitting in the middle of a surround system while imaging yourself inside the television - they had to use the Detective Vision trope, but the stealth gameplay is probably better than even the Ground Zeroes demo. I won't play the game on Hard or higher, my brain gave up the ability to manage resources sometime after Resident Evil 4's tetris briefcase, but forcing yourself to manage resources and therefore play stealthily really opens the game's mechanics up.
It also just has very satisfying impact in combat. The contextual melee stuff is almost always fantastic, and shooting a dude in the shoulder looks and feels like you shot him in the shoulder. Bullet management never got old, either, and it was always novel hearing your enemies run out of bullets or having them notice that you did.
Snapping to cover points can be a lot of fun in Watch Dogs but I still think the natural cover of The Last of Us is some pretty next-level stuff, you're either in cover or you aren't and it's all contextual. Speaking of which, the other non-combat context animations are great too, from the Nathan Drake hand-on-wall stuff to Joel putting his arm around Ellie when they're in low cover together.
When people complain about the gameplay seeming rote or one note I'm never quite sure what game they played/watched. It's a very visceral experience, especially when you factor in lights off, late night, headphones on, Clickers stumbling all around you. The survival horror elements can be incredibly nerve-racking at times (particularly a certain segment in the middle of the game involving some generators) but it's just as fun to go in guns blazing on the lower difficulties.
And, of course, the narrative and cinematic quality of it all. Despite what RJCC said (and it is true), I think the gameplay compliments the story and adds to the storytelling in ways a lot of games with similar ambitions fall just short of the mark on.
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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." © Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
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