Goliath100 said:
Warning! This is a personal opinion.
I hate The Last of Us, not the game itself, and not the developer (despite the fact I can't stand anything they made in 7th gen). I hate what it represent: The idea that a "great" game can have all it's "great" parts being non-interactive. All the "great" part, they are all cutscene, or an equivalent to a cutscene (aka scripted events). And gameplay is standard shooting mechanics and lazy stealth mechanics. The gameplay is not very good, or in other words: Sterling gave a game award to a movie.
Questions to fans of The Last of us:
1: How do the Mechanics interact with the narrative, specifically the theme or the characters?
2: What is the player arc?
Yeah you are a bit off base there (I'm not sure if you have or haven't played the game).. I loved the narrative, true, a lot of it is given because of the cinematic experience... but I personally thought that one of the biggest strengths of the game was how much the gameplay complemented the tone and the atmosphere of the narrative. How the characters react both coherent with the basic narrative and also with your emerging actions. Jim explains quite well how although the main story is as it is with in the scenarios you are forced to "improvise". There is also a lot of care placed into the characters reflecting the narrative changes: if they have opened up to each other, or started trusting each other the npcs will try to protect Joel ( or ellie ) more effectively Etc.. etc...
While the goal and the cutscenes remain the same, it is the moments between cutscenes that really manage to immerse you int o the universe of the game, make you feel like in the moment to moment gameplay your options matter.
Also, neither the gunplay nor the stealth seem at all lazy to me, the stealth is probably one of the most organic and nerve wrecking designs out there. The inclusion of clickers is profoundly interesting since, they can't see you, but they can hear you, so you can be very close to them without making a sound and they will ignore you. Particularly at the start of the game, it provides a very interesting rock paper scissor mechanic to the combat and exploration.
The gunplay on the other hand, is intentionally frantic, Just like the original resident evil gave you pretty uncomfortable combat systems to crank up the tension. In the last of us, when you have your gun up, and one bullet left... you are almost praying that the bullet will shoot straight and kill that last clicker, so eager to eat your face. It is part of the dynamic. (That is also why a lot of reviewers and fans of the game have recommended to play it in HARD, as it really creates a very tense and visceral experience).
There are many more details like this, that enhance the violence not in the typically glorified manner of many current games, but instead, make you consider if you want to fight at all. Of course I wish some changes could have been made, as not everything is perfect. I would have much liked if enemies would have cowered if wounded or outnumbered. Or if there had been less collectibles breaking the flow off the game, or even if the combat was less "monster closet" based. But all in all it was quite spectacularly executed.
About your last question... I wouldn't want to spoil the character arcs of the game to anyone here.