that doctor is not one of The Last of Us now

[jesse_dylan]

I finished The Last of Us, which I really enjoyed but was a fairly stressful experience. And all I got out of it was two (two??) trophies, and I think I may have shot an unarmed doctor in the face.

I did like the game a lot, mostly the characters and story, and the setting (ruined cities and some nature) was fun. The action and violence were not super my thing, but it was cool. The level design felt pretty contrived.

I've been playing a lot of games about teenage girls lately. I have no idea what that's about. It's also a little weird that I seem to relate more to them than to boys or, specifically, the typical big burly man characters.

My favorite part of the game was a short section playing as the girl in a natury area.

Comments

[zesty_pinto]

I feel like a game like that was made to appeal to humanity, so that you felt the violence wasn't your thing reflects what the game designers probably wanted (plus, the influences for the game include The Road, which centered on a man's quest to keep his son's morality in a very broken world. I never played the game though, and probably never will, but I liked watching the story (and to be honest, after doing the same with GTA 5 and then later buying the game, it probably was for the best anyway).

I'm looking forward to seeing how the sequel goes, but yeah, I'll probably just watch it and enjoy it like a film.

[jesse_dylan]

Yeah, might be all right. I decided quickly that easy was for me! (easy mode) I will also say that I was more on board with the violence than I typically am. By the end of the same (SPOILERS) I was gleefully killing EVERYONE in the name of survival and of protecting someone I cared about, making arguably awful (as the designers intended) moral decisions and being fine with it. There were also times when I felt "I" had to survive by killing everyone, and I was kind of murdering people aligned with the creepy people, and in a moral way of thinking, they didn't deserve that. But you don't have time to think when you're surviving. And the ending itself, many would find morally ambiguous and unsatisfying, but, even though I'm not a parent, I totally got it. I'm not sure if I would have done that, but I was still on board. (SPOILER END)

Which goes along with what you were saying about The Road (and it sounds from The Last of Us 2 that maybe the attempt at morality failed a bit... sounds like Ellie wants revenge on someone, although I haven't seen the trailers)

I did play through all of GTA 5 (back in the PS3 era! man). I enjoyed it, particularly the natury bits and the city simulation. I did like the characters. Storyline, eh, I was into it, but it wasn't super my thing. There were, however, many many frustrating moments where I just hated the designed and wanted to break my controller. It was better than other GTA games in that respect, and I think with Red Dead 2 they really "fixed" a lot of that (at least to my mind). I was only frustrated a couple times. So yeah! Sometimes maybe watching is better! I think there were points in The Last of Us where I thought, "This is far more powerful because it hinges upon my interaction." Of course it's all a suspension of disbelief in a game as sort of funneled as that where there isn't even an illusion of choice, just a linear path.

Wow, sorry, I guess my tea made me chatty!

[ioplokon]

The horror that the zombies in The Last of Us represent is the loss of bodily autonomy (which is basically what the entire game is a meditation on). Maybe it's BS but to me, a lot of the contrivance and limits the game places on your movement as a player serves to heighten your awareness of these themes through design. I think of it as the anti-Tell Tale game since the big take away is the gut punch at the end as you, the player, have literally no choice over what Joel chooses to do (which is... eliminate what little bodily autonomy Ellie has, then lie about it).

[jesse_dylan]

That’s one way of looking at it! I’m not sure that was their intention with the linear design. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with a linear narrative design. It’s tried and true and can lead to a powerful sense of emotion. After all, films and books are entirely linear (usually), and a game has the added nuance of being interactive.

I suppose I was commenting more on the linear nature of the environments. Again, not necessarily bad and definitely not a new technique. Even open world games like Red Dead 2 employ linear mission design if not linear environments. It’s just very obviously gated here, almost like a ‘90s console JRPG.