Storyline:
To be honest, the first part of this story felt a little dry. I think partially because even by 2013, we were painfully familiar with zombie-genre tropes, making most developments feel pretty predictable. The Walking Dead TV show came out in 2010, building off of older works like The Road and Dawn of the Dead that really showed (1) that the true horror of the zombie-apocalypse is not the zombies but the other humans and (2) if you meet a small child mid-game, that kid is definitely going to turn into a zombie. Like the moment that kid was introduced, I said out loud to my wife “that kid is going to die” (prompting her to ask “what?!” as she was in the other room entirely not paying attention).Games like Dying Light managed to create a world where the zombies were still a huge threat but the plot and conflict was still focused around two factions. This made it feel different. Not to mention that only a small subset of humans you interact with in dying light are evil. In The Last of Us, almost 95% of the humans you come in contact with want to kill you on sight because… reasons?
The second act of this game (I guess you could say Winter and on), I found extremely good. To be honest, I think it saved the game for me. I mean obviously the Walking Dead and The Road also had cannibals, but it’s really not overplayed and it’s an opportunity for Ellie to develop as a character. Up to this point in the game she has expressed a shocking resilience that almost mocks the situations, but only after the winter do we really see it affect her. To me, the part of the game where I said “oh shit, it is a great game” was the start of the Spring, where it becomes clear that as Joel starts to see Ellie as more of a daughter, Ellie starts to becomes increasingly less attached and able to fill that void for him. A total flip from the “Fall” and really quite moving and sad.
Then there is the ending. Every part of the final cutscene in the hospital parking garage is extremely well-done. It paints Joel as almost frightening. I found myself on his side until it is mentioned that Ellie would want to die to give humanity the cure. BUT what’s more amazing than Joel’s clear acknowledgment of this fact in his immediate reaction is how the cutscene is mashed together. But showing us Joel driving away with Ellie before even revealing how the conversation in the hospital went, it shows that he doesn’t even really care what Ellie wants. He made up his mind, and there was no changing it. While the game could have made this more of an internal struggle, or even made it a choice, or left it open-ended, the fact that the game showed you the resolution before even showing the choice made such an amazing statement about who Joel is.
Gameplay:
I found the game slightly repetitive. Though I will say that partially had to do with my familiarity with zombie-tropes mentioned above. Additionally, I found the stealth element of the game to be nothing new. While Joel and Ellie’s lack of combat mastery made failing stealth somewhat less dire than, say, in the Batman: Arkham games, I really didn’t feel a huge incentive to be stealthy. Rarely was there the opportunity to avoid combat entirely, and even if there was it seemed like the easiest solution was to kill everyone. In situations where it would seem to be narratively beneficial for Joel and Ellie to avoid combat altogether (think, the very last level where Joel is needs to sneak around like 10 armed men to save Ellie), there were hidden threats that seemingly spawned from nothing-ness to shoot me in the face.That being said, it was narratively interesting for me as of course in this situation things would go horribly wrong. There would obviously be limitations on Joel’s ability to hear someone not making any sounds behind a box. In fact, in some of those situations (where I succeeded), it was extremely rewarding. Still, this just drove home the idea that while stealth was an element of the game, direct conflict was the only way to victory.
Another general issue I have with stealth games is that I really feel like I cheat the system sometimes. I talked about this before when discussion Alien: Isolation, which I feel like did a fantastic job letting me off the hook. In the Arkham games, I remember hiding behind tables with my pointy ears sticking out, walking almost next to someone to do a silent takedown. I feel like the game lets me get away with little things and I have to suspend disbelief to really accept it. In The Last Of Us, I feel like this is compounded. I would sneak up to choke a guy out and he would literally yell “oh shit!”, but for some reason no one else in the room could hear him. I would also find myself in situations where I’d fire a gun in a different room than an enemy (but absolutely in ear shot), and those outside the room would hardly notice. This was especially true in the final encounter you have with the Infected where you are surprise-attacked after sneaking by at least 4 clickers and a big dude, and none of them seem to notice because they are slightly obscured by a bus.
This wouldn’t be much of an issue to me if it didn’t make up so much of the game. The boss fight Ellie has in the second half of the game would have been an awesome element to add-in more frequently, mixing up combat to offer something slightly different.
Beyond the story reasons mentioned above, I think I also enjoyed the gameplay in the game during the second act because it featured more individual combat. It was laughable sometimes to see Ellie stand up behind Joel and walk right in front of a dude with a gun, but he didn’t see anything because he didn’t see me. Similarly, I could often tell if a situation was going to get tense when I was crouching and Ellie was walking upright behind me. That being said, I would NEVER suggest taking away the bits of the game that had the two of them. It would be interesting to see a mode of this game where Ellie’s placement mattered more to the stealth element.
Ok, seriously last gameplay complaint. I don’t actually have a solution to this, but I’m really excited for when cover-based video games create a solution for how to introduce a surprise attack when the environment is literally built for a fight. I’m thinking of the level at the hydro-electric plant where as soon as you walk in you see 3 boxes in a concave formation around a door with loose bricks all scattered around. I saw that coming from a mile away. It would be really cool to see this used to build tension, perhaps introducing it when there was no fight at all.
