The Last of Us

...it's a zombie story. The scale of a zombie story is always just on the survivors. There's no threat of the world being destroyed in a world that's already been destroyed.

There's nothing new or groundbreaking about focusing on the survival of a handful of people in a world overrun with zombies.

edited 16th Sep '15 6:46:13 AM by TobiasDrake

"Nothing new or groundbreaking" describes my opinion on The Last of Us as a whole. From story to gameplay, I had a very "seen it all" approach to how the whole game goes down. Tropes Are Tools, so I'm not saying the game is bad or badly executed, but I can't really say it does anything I've never seen before in the Zombie Apocalypse genre.

I appreciated the fact that it doesn't treat the zombies as though the entire world is screwed forever and actually takes the time to show that both a) life is moving on and thriving despite the zombies, and b) civilization is rebuilding.

Even without the cure in Ellie's brain, there is hope for the world. The planet continues to spin.

Usually zombie stories are all, "Raaar, the world is doomed and everyone's dying, let's watch these survivors slowly try to stave off the inevitable until they all eventually die too." Whereas if I had to summarize The Last Of Us in one scene, it would be Joel and Ellie watching the giraffes move through the city overgrown with verdant green life, unfettered by the fact that zombies ate the world, illuminated by a bright, hopeful sun.

edited 16th Sep '15 7:10:21 AM by TobiasDrake

Most good stories are focused on characters who drive the story. Essentially, the characters and their growth is the story. The Last of Us is no different. Even if there are higher stakes, the primary focus should still be on how the characters handle it.

Is the world rebuilding, though? Nature is - the cordyceps does not affect them. The extinction of humanity is not the extinction of all nature. But aside from Tommy's settlement, humanity is pretty much in QZ zones that are falling apart, or groups of raiders that are being destroyed. Most of the infected we see are relatively recent.

Tommy's settlement is nice, but who says it will survive? I hope it does, but there is no guarantee.

edited 16th Sep '15 8:58:36 AM by SilentColossus

It's the Tethercat Principle. Narratively, where we leave a character or concept is where we're meant to assume they stay.

Typically, in a zombie story, when we see settlements like Tommy's it's only so that it can be overrun by zombies or destroyed by humans by the end of the story. The point of settlements like Tommy's is to drive home the idea that civilization can never return and any attempt to restore civilization is a hopeless cause.

The Last Of Us, however, ends with Tommy's civilization fully intact and thriving. The last we see of them, everything is going great. The credits roll with Joel and Ellie joining the reconstruction of society with a bright, optimistic sun in the sky.

edited 16th Sep '15 9:14:22 AM by TobiasDrake

I also note that the one time Tommy's settlement is assailed, while there was some mayhem and trouble, the populous gathered together and (with some help from Joel) fended off the invaders with, if I recall right, relatively few if any casualties.

Aren't most good stories about execution rather than original-ness?

(That being said, I dislike it when people hype stuff as original xD)

I dislike people who do both. I dislike people who hype stuff as original and dislike people who do the opposite via harping on everything being unoriginal. The only exception to that rule I think is a poorly executed Cliché Storm but the keyword there is poorly executed.

Optimistic endings or "It's all okay and civilization will rebuild" kinda kills zombie fictions in my mind. It's definitely something that rose up with Kirkman's popularity, and incidentally I'm not a big fan of Kirkman. If Ellie had died or if the supposed cure had all been for naught, that would've been more powerful to me. To me a "happily ever after" ending is as overdone as a "civilization's boned" ending - it just leads to an eventual lack of harrowing tension.

edited 18th Sep '15 7:09:40 PM by Jenaiqueserasera

I don't see the ending as "happily ever after", particularly in regards to the relationship between Ellie and Joel. I like the idea of the latter destroying Ellie's trust in him with his actions, despite all that they've been through.

Personally, that might be a nice story itself.

I think the Last of Us's ending fits the game and the characters, but it's not very hard to see coming.

It was in the game's nature for things to not always work out the best and Joel is a horrendously broken individual, so the fact that he made the choices he did is a natural progression of his character.

(and yeah "happily ever after" doesn't describe T Lo U's ending at all. Joel potentially doomed something that could help rebuild humanity because he was too afraid to lose his replacement daughter, and Ellie might have lost her trust in him completely as a result.)

I think the fact that people gas up the game so much hurts it more than anything. It has good things about it like a post-apocalypse that isn't brown as hell, unusually good dialogue, some subtle and very mature moments of characterization (see: bill's sexuality), but in spite of this the story still feels very by-the-numbers.

edited 18th Sep '15 7:25:52 PM by wehrmacht

Yup, the overhyping of it is definitely detrimental overall, and some of its fans can be outright rabid - just look up any video on Youtube or discussion on a forum that slightly criticizes the game or suggests it isn't GOTY every year. They get hella defensive, and even the non-crazy fans often ignore the game's technical, plot, and gameplay flaws.

I'd like the story to end where it has, too, for this reason. I think it's a fitting end to a decent game, but I don't know if we really need a sequel. It's a good game, but it's not a legendary best-game-ever, and sometimes sequels will kill a franchise rather than help it.

edited 18th Sep '15 7:26:51 PM by Jenaiqueserasera

part of the problem is that quite frankly, games are still trying to figure out how to do narratives properly.

not to say we don't have games with at least interesting stories, but the art of telling a story in an interactive medium is still something we're trying to get a feel for. Many games still run into problems like ludo-narrative dissonance, holding the story hostage to cutscenes, bad dialogue and dated Uncanny Valley animations ruining those same scenes, etc.

So when a game that is above-average for game standards comes out people latch onto it, even if by the standards of other media it isn't as impressive.

another game in the same universe would be fine, it just shouldn't have joel and ellie in it at all. you can get some mileage out of it still.

edited 18th Sep '15 7:31:06 PM by wehrmacht

edited 19th Sep '15 8:22:26 PM by SilentColossus

Exactly.

Video Games are a young medium and, unfortunately, not as matured as it really should be by now. Its still figuring out how to tell a story properly and keep the audience participation high.

Some have reserved story telling to just cut scenes and you go from Point A to Point B to be rewarded with more plot. Others have low plot, but LOTS of environmental storytelling to leave things for observant players to understand. And then a few have tried to build the plot around their gameplay mechanics with hit or miss success (Portal vs. "I've never met someone so good at this arbitrary task! I love you!")

The Last of Us does a good job at delivering character traits, interactions, and development very smoothly. Where some games would hold Ellie hostage by making things an Escort Mission and create a player-AI bond over her survival (which NEVER works out), they just had her talk and interact with the levels as we walked through them to endear her to us. We liked her because she's the girl who throws silly jokes at us between zombie attacks and has her own personality.

The "Left Behind" DLC also was REALLY good because it re contextualized so many gameplay mechanics into different creative ways to endear Ellie and Riley to us. Throwing bricks at a car for a contest? Water gun fight? And a REALLY CHARACTER DRIVEN Arcade Button Mashing Game??? There's a VERY HIGH rate of storytelling here that doesn't push gameplay aside (Story Gameplay Integration) and they actually work together pretty well. There's a reason the 'Winter' segments of that DLC are considered the most boring.

It isn't the most creative story in the world, but it DOES tell its story in the medium VERY well.

I honestly thought the goofing-around-in-the-mall sequence was the worst of the DLC. Way to make your world feel much less threatening and your characters seem so much more dumb. "Sure, there's infected and bandits everywhere, but let's be loud and have a water gun fight!" It felt like the devs wanted to do a Twenty Eight Days Later shopping scene, but their execution was so much worse. It didn't feel like meaningful character development, overall. I do agree that at this point I'm not sure developers quite know how to make perfectly "emotional" and lifelike sequences to tug at our heartstrings. A very few have done it with tremendous success, but almost every attempt falls short overall.

edited 19th Sep '15 11:57:06 PM by Jenaiqueserasera

I agree. Now what they need to do is figure out how to incorporate the gameplay and story integration into the base game filled with combat.

They're teenagers who lived in the relative safety of the Boston QZ. As such, they act like it. And going into that shopping mall did prove to be a mistake; but they are kids.

Yeah. They're kids who want to BE kids in a world that won't let them and, actually, the world DOES kill one of them for that mistake. They don't have the cynicism (admittedly, logical cynicism but still) or life experiences to think in such away. On top of that, they're in love (to what extent is up for debate in some circles, but there is still romantic attraction to an extent) and love blinds and makes people do stupid things.

I feel like Left Behind was one of the better DL Cs I've seen just because its a DLC that takes its time where as most DL Cs RUSH through their content and have rather awkward pacing with their narratives and also does try to do something new with its established concepts rather than just more of the previous (which is why 'Winter' of the DLC is disliked by most). Its a DLC that is ABSORBED in its Plot and characters and it strives to convey it with as much audience interaction as possible.

Most games would have taken the Button Mash Arcade Sequence and made a cutscene of it, but Left Behind makes it playable and puts us in Ellie's shoes which makes her characterization resonate a lot better with the audience. We, the players, find the entire thing as 'stupid' as Ellie did at first, but who DIDN'T get more into it as Riley narrated and determined to hit the button prompts. This is highlighted even further as the camera focuses entirely on Ellie's (VERY well done) facial animations instead of focusing on Riley or making the entire screen black due to her closed eyes.

It also highlights the contrasts between world weary and beaten survivor Joel and naive and youthful Ellie. To Joel, a brick is just a means for drawing away enemies. To Ellie, its the means to start a game with her best friend. The gameplay is establishing and informing the characterizations of our player characters.

edited 20th Sep '15 3:20:44 AM by InkDagger

If I had to choose my favorite part of the game, it would be the way the characterization isn't confined to the cutscenes. Most games...well, really, most games seem to consider half-decent characters entirely optional. But even in the ones that do have good characters, it only actually shows in the cinematics. The rest of the time, they just stand around woodenly, maybe performing the occasional ambient action.

In TLoU, the game never stops characterizing. Joel and Ellie are constantly talking, bickering, bonding, even throughout the normal gameplay segments, which makes their relationship (the highlight of the game's story) feel all the stronger and more natural.

I would say that I wish more games would pick up on this simple trick, but given the caliber of dialogue writing in 90% of triple-A games...maybe it's just as well we're subjected to less of it.

On the subject of Left Behind, I wholeheartedly agree that it's one of the best pieces of DLC out there. It actually had a point, rather than just tacking on a few more meaningless levels. It bridged the gap between the University and Winter chapters of the main game, and explored Ellie's backstory and motivations at the same time, so it was relevant to the main game while still exploring its own territory.

As for the mall and the goofing around therein, I liked it. It illustrated what a sheltered life the two of them had been living (as sheltered as you can get in this world, at any rate), showed us the all-important relationship between Ellie and Riley, and provided some creative and amusing twists on familiar gameplay. Not all of it held up hugely well to a second playthrough, simply because the element of surprise was gone, but on the first run it was pretty charming.

And I may be in the minority, but I liked the winter segments because they provided an eerie sort of contrast. In one chapter, you're using a particular set of gameplay mechanics to play childish games, in the next, you're using them to fight for your life. It tied in nicely with one of the game's major themes - that innocence is the price of strength. Ellie and Riley took one night to act like kids (which they were), and Riley got killed for it. In the winter segments, we see that Ellie has taken that lesson to heart. She's not joking or playing anymore, she's killing, without hesitation, to survive.

And finally, it showed a real, complex, meaningful relationship between two girls, one of them black. When's the last time that happened in a triple-A game?

Not to mention a gay relationship too. <3

Of course, how could I forget! That's pretty notable in the entertainment industry period, let alone a mainstream video game.

(Sure, we could debate the exact nature of their relationship until the cows come home, but the point stands irregardless.)

Neither one of them should've walked away from the mall. I'm just a biased sucker for grimdark and harrowing worlds, especially in zombie apocalypses, though, so take it with a grain of salt; however, with how they acted and how the world is, both of them should have never had a fighting chance. That's why I stick more to the Romero rather than Kirkman idea of zombie takeovers. Kirkman's ideas are just too hopeful and naive, and something like "Oh, look at them living out childhood innocence in the midst of chaos!" isn't something I buy as very realistic. Romero is definitely darker on the whole, and that's how I like my zombie apocalypse narratives.

edited 20th Sep '15 7:31:08 PM by Jenaiqueserasera

actually the fact the game doesn't make a big deal of it and reveals it in a really subtle way is legitimately one of the best parts of the game. this aspect alone is MILES above the storytelling in 99% of AAA games.

The stumbling blocks most games fall into are numerous, but i think the most common one for me is the dialogue being terrible. It's often stilted, melodramatic, not something a real person would say, Narm, etc.

This is often a problem with movies too but it's especially bad in games. The importance of dialogue cannot be overstated because bad lines or bad delivery of lines can completely and utterly ruin scenes.

the fact that everyone had that awkward accent in Heavy Rain completely ruins the game for me. They should have hired american actors or just had the game in french with english subtitles.

T Lo U for the most part has great dialogue, which always feels appropriate, doesn't fall into Narm, and sounds like something a real person would say.

edited 20th Sep '15 7:38:38 PM by wehrmacht

I'll agree on that. Overall TLOU has great writing. What the characters say feels like something humans would say, as opposed to Narm thinking like with, say, David Cage, where the dialogue is what someone thinks humans would say and ends up failing miserably. Game may not be perfect, but dialogue-wise it's a step in the right direction.

They kissed each other. On the lips. What's there to debate?