Video games have moved firmly from entertainment to art. It's been like that for some time now, even though many don't consider it art or don't enjoy it for the new ideas. So I'm going to borrow a phrase from Yahtzee and call The Last Of Us something which describes everything it is, which is the video game equivalent of Oscar Bait. The fact that we've gone far enough to have Oscar Bait shows how far video games have come.
So what does the movie Oscar Bait do? It hits all the right notes of a drama, with gripping stories, believable characters, and quite often, a really depressing story. All of this is in the game. Also what seems to be in the vogue for "serious" video games is moral quandaries. Put the right kind in your game and people will automatically love your story (except for Haze). Be it white phosphorous from Spec Ops: The Line or Bioshock's slug extraction, moral iffy-ness amazes gamers, and possibly people in general. This game picks all the right story tropes and puts them together to hit home. Children of Men's last hope girl, general grizzled morally ambiguous Papa Wolf with a past trauma, along with a bunch of situations and plot devices that seem to be taken from the Zombie Movie Handbook (if one exists). The plot is indeed predictable, but still moving.
So how about the actual gameplay? Basically it comes down to a more personal and realistic Uncharted through the lens of a post-apocalyptic survival horror. Joel can't break necks like Drake or make jumps like Drake or Rambo it up like Drake, but it's quite obvious where the base of this game is. They refined the stealth mechanic, fixing almost everything people complain about in stealth games. All the enemies don't magically know exactly where you are if one person spots you (well, except for maybe the infected), hit-and-run guerrilla style fighting actually feels like you're picking them off, and there always ways out of a situation if you screw up. Straight shoot outs are generally a bad idea, and a brick is probably one of the most useful tools in the game. On the hardest difficulty, the game gets incredibly tense as you scramble along hoping they haven't seen you.
The Last Of Us is derivative in a good way. It takes the good things, refines them, and puts them together in a way that feels right. If I were to give a letter grade, gameplay A-, story B+.
A culmination of the good things to make a good thing
Video games have moved firmly from entertainment to art. It's been like that for some time now, even though many don't consider it art or don't enjoy it for the new ideas. So I'm going to borrow a phrase from Yahtzee and call The Last Of Us something which describes everything it is, which is the video game equivalent of Oscar Bait. The fact that we've gone far enough to have Oscar Bait shows how far video games have come.
So what does the movie Oscar Bait do? It hits all the right notes of a drama, with gripping stories, believable characters, and quite often, a really depressing story. All of this is in the game. Also what seems to be in the vogue for "serious" video games is moral quandaries. Put the right kind in your game and people will automatically love your story (except for Haze). Be it white phosphorous from Spec Ops: The Line or Bioshock's slug extraction, moral iffy-ness amazes gamers, and possibly people in general. This game picks all the right story tropes and puts them together to hit home. Children of Men's last hope girl, general grizzled morally ambiguous Papa Wolf with a past trauma, along with a bunch of situations and plot devices that seem to be taken from the Zombie Movie Handbook (if one exists). The plot is indeed predictable, but still moving.
So how about the actual gameplay? Basically it comes down to a more personal and realistic Uncharted through the lens of a post-apocalyptic survival horror. Joel can't break necks like Drake or make jumps like Drake or Rambo it up like Drake, but it's quite obvious where the base of this game is. They refined the stealth mechanic, fixing almost everything people complain about in stealth games. All the enemies don't magically know exactly where you are if one person spots you (well, except for maybe the infected), hit-and-run guerrilla style fighting actually feels like you're picking them off, and there always ways out of a situation if you screw up. Straight shoot outs are generally a bad idea, and a brick is probably one of the most useful tools in the game. On the hardest difficulty, the game gets incredibly tense as you scramble along hoping they haven't seen you.
The Last Of Us is derivative in a good way. It takes the good things, refines them, and puts them together in a way that feels right. If I were to give a letter grade, gameplay A-, story B+.