Jimquisition: Jimquisition Awards 2013 - The Last of Us

[Oly J]

I've had The Last of Us on PS3 since not long after release, I got it with GTA5 by trading in a LOT of old games, but I haven't got around to playing it yet, mostly due to GTA5 and Kingdom Hearts HD being higher on my list, and being very busy over the last 3 months, but I've just put it in now, let's see where this goes

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Jim has spoken. The Last of Us is perfect

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?

Well it's obvious you don't give a shit about other people's opinions on game you've never played, but I read that you argue to convince the spectators not the person you're arguing with

For one, the game has the typical "humans are the real monsters" theme but it presents it through gameplay. The first and most obvious enemies are the infected, the clickers, and the disease itself given a few spore filled areas you have to traverse. There is no central antagonist going "I'll catch you next time Ellie and Joel!". Eventually, humans are introduced as enemies and then spoilerish territory

Spoiler

All your weapons and techniques slowly get better and better. There's a whole room full of infected? Just attract them with a glass bottle and burn them with a Molotov. Later you get a flame thrower and the infected are easy to take care of with some planning. The humans on the other hand get worse as the story goes on. The random bandits with pieces of wood become organized gangs with assault rifles and vehicles. They won't run at you head first either, they'll sneak and flank you. They're way more dangerous and can suck up a lot more of your supplies

As the for the "player arc", I don't quite see your point. Are you saying the only good games are stuff like Fallout and Elder Scrolls where you build a character? Or do you prefer a silent protagonist Gordon Freeman style? The characters you play as are Ellie and Joel and I'm not going to summarize the entire game for you

 

[Goliath100]

I feel like you are being unbelievably vague in your request. Can you perhaps provide a couple of examples of games that in your view do what you are asking for really well (and explain why they do it well), so that I have a valid point of comparison?

Ok, let's talk player arc:
Spec Ops: The Line start as a typical military shooter: Heroic good guys, brown people to shot and a villain with a poorly explained motive. But that the game start blaming the player for everything going wrong. And how the player respond to this criticism is the arc for the player, with Walker as a dark mirror.

And then there is Metro 2033:
A game about not giving in to once less instincts, and then recontextualize the standard shooting, and stealth mechanics into a constant test of just that: Will the player (and Artyom) revolt to their lesser instinct when challange, or take the higher road?

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

"People who don't share my opinions are lying."

Jim.

Stop that, you keep doing it.

He is just baiting you.

 

[Shuu]

Uuuugh! I still really want to play it, but I just can't stomach shelling out for a PS3 for one game

 

[daxterx2005]

Im bitter because ND dropped Jak and made this....

 

[Jimothy Sterling]

I feel like you are being unbelievably vague in your request. Can you perhaps provide a couple of examples of games that in your view do what you are asking for really well (and explain why they do it well), so that I have a valid point of comparison?

Ok, let's talk player arc:
Spec Ops: The Line start as a typical military shooter: Heroic good guys, brown people to shot and a villain with a poorly explained motive. But that the game start blaming the player for everything going wrong. And how the player respond to this criticism is the arc for the player, with Walker as a dark mirror.

And then there is Metro 2033:
A game about not giving in to once less instincts, and then recontextualize the standard shooting, and stealth mechanics into a constant test of just that: Will the player (and Artyom) revolt to their lesser instinct when challange, or take the higher road?

Now It seems quite clear that you have not played The Last of Us, since it shares more than a bit with those "great examples" that you are proposing.
You'd really have to play it to see how it manages to provide both the linear narrative (really quite akin to Spec ops) and the narrative through gameplay, also very similar to that game, with a far subtler moralist purpose... And that ending... it is just so impressively grey. Likewise it shares a lot of the creative combat scenarios with Metro, although 2033 is more open ended, it also falls into the same narrative bottlenecks far more jarringly than TLoU ( while telling an interesting story in a much less proficient way ).

All I can recommend is for you to play it before you make judgements on its value.

Also, it is a bit silly to value works of art by age. You think Picasso's paintings should be better than the Sistine Chapel or the Lascaux Cave paintings? You think Justin Radiohead is better than Sergei Rachmaninoff? Of course not, even if they are hundreds of years apart and use different techniques and probably the newer ones had many technological advances to ease their production... The value of the piece is not tied solely to the technical limitations of the time, in fact it can be enhanced by that perspective. Classics live through time. as a representation of their time.

 

[Grimh]

I freaking love this game so goddamn much, and I agree with you, the ending was fantastic.

The only thing I really don't like about the game is listen mode, which admittedly you can turn off.

 

[Goliath100]

Snip

Do you have any direct examples of that? That does not fall under "accidental subtext" or over analysis. And it need to be consistent break from status quo.

[quote/]Also, it is a bit silly to value works of art by age.[/quote]
This have become a straw man. What you are proposing is that The Last of Us should be placed in the same historical as Half-Life 2. Code word being "the same".I'm not saying that X game need to hold up to modern standards, but that a game from 2013 need to be judged like it was released in 2013. The argument that keeps being used is:"Final Fantasy 7 looked great when it come out, so it looks great now, without historical license."

 

[Metalrocks]

really a shame this game only came out for PS3. i would love to play but since its not available on pc, it makes it harder to play it.
wondering what his #1 will be. maybe tomb raider or gta 5.

 

[Lopende Paddo]

that game was awesome.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

This have become a straw man.

I don't think you know what a "straw man" is.

What you are proposing is that The Last of Us should be placed in the same historical as Half-Life 2.

No, nobody has proposed that.

You seem to have a habit of putting words in people's mouths that they never said. You were the one who brought up the age of games as a factor, and fixated on it. Nobody else has mentioned it as a factor.

Code word being "the same".I'm not saying that X game need to hold up to modern standards, but that a game from 2013 need to be judged like it was released in 2013.

Who, exactly, is it who isn't judging The Last of Us as if it wasn't released in 2013?

Also, what happened to your answers to my responses to you? I patiently answer all of your questions, most of which are vague and tangential, and then you simply claim that my arguments have "no meaning" (despite them being all about meaning) - and then don't even bother to answer straightforward questions, while you continue to harangue other posters according to your arbitrary standards of what a proper game is.

 

[Jimothy Sterling]

Snip

Do you have any direct examples of that? That does not fall under "accidental subtext" or over analysis. And it need to be consistent break from status quo.

This have become a straw man. What you are proposing is that The Last of Us should be placed in the same historical as Half-Life 2. Code word being "the same".I'm not saying that X game need to hold up to modern standards, but that a game from 2013 need to be judged like it was released in 2013. The argument that keeps being used is:"Final Fantasy 7 looked great when it come out, so it looks great now, without historical license."

Wait, so you actually have not played the game but keep on hating it out of principle? What? Really? Prejudice? I'm sorry I cant keep discussing this with you if you are just assuming negatives to prove your point.

Also, as I said before, I'm quite sure that we have a language gap. This hasn't become a straw man. A straw man argument is when you attack a miss-representation of the rival idea. I have not done that at any point ( do you mean a fallacy? because I'm not aware of falling in any of those either ). All I am saying is that works of art must be valued observing their context, and in that sense how old they are means very little. It is undeniable that TLoU doesn't revolutionize many aspects of action games. It uses a lot of the same standards as many games before it, but that doesn't take away of its accomplishments... Mainly how thoughtfully and significantly it understands how those existing components interact with the whole experience, not simply "because it is a game" but going beyond that mechanical question.

For example, Without really comparing both, Romeo and Juliet used fairly standard romantic novel tropes, but it still managed to create probably the most iconic love story in history. Does it use more subversive new styled words? no. It just makes excellent use of well known pieces and crafts something special.
In this sense, you can't really judge artistic content solely by its technical achievement, but instead by how much it accomplishes to fulfill a desired experience in the audience. And in that sense TLoU is truly remarkable, it's comparative subtlety, it's assumption that maybe the player isn't dumb.
And yes Casual Shinji, Gustavo Santaolalla's score is absolutely integral to this accomplishment. As much as Austin Wintory's score did for Journey.

 

[jmarquiso]

I guess GTA V is Jim's game of the year. Good choice, I loved it.

Wouldn't it be great if he pisses people off and chooses Saint's Row IV

 

[Daniel Lowery]

I guess GTA V is Jim's game of the year. Good choice, I loved it.

Wouldn't it be great if he pisses people off and chooses Saint's Row IV

Yeah, it would be. Imagine all the rage.

 

[Lightknight]

Im bitter because ND dropped Jak and made this....

Jak and Daxter 1 sold 3.64 million copies in 2001. Huge title for the time.
Jak 2 sold 2.78 million copies in 2003.
Jak 3 sold 1.85 million copies in 2004.

The downtrend was fairly blatant. I would count the 2009 game but they only released it on the PS2 for some insane reason. So I'm not including it in the numbers since it only sold 460k units.

Then they started the Uncharted series and found out that they had an amazing gift for these kinds of games:

Uncharted 1: 4.63 million in 2007
Uncharted 2: 6.28 million in 2009
Uncharted 3: 6.12 Million in 2011.
Uncharted Vita: 1 million but the highest selling game on the Vita.

The Last of Us came out this year and is already up to 3.75 sales so far. So it has already been more successful than Jak and Daxter has ever been and has been selling faster than any of their other IPs. In another year it should shoot past any of the uncharteds too as it's one of the best sellers of the year.

That's the kind of business decision that any company would make if they could.

 

[daxterx2005]

Im bitter because ND dropped Jak and made this....

Jak and Daxter 1 sold 3.64 million copies in 2001. Huge title for the time.
Jak 2 sold 2.78 million copies in 2003.
Jak 3 sold 1.85 million copies in 2004.

The downtrend was fairly blatant. I would count the 2009 game but they only released it on the PS2 for some insane reason. So I'm not including it in the numbers since it only sold 460k units.

Then they started the Uncharted series and found out that they had an amazing gift for these kinds of games:

Uncharted 1: 4.63 million in 2007
Uncharted 2: 6.28 million in 2009
Uncharted 3: 6.12 Million in 2011.
Uncharted Vita: 1 million but the highest selling game on the Vita.

The Last of Us came out this year and is already up to 3.75 sales so far. So it has already been more successful than Jak and Daxter has ever been and has been selling faster than any of their other IPs. In another year it should shoot past any of the uncharteds too as it's one of the best sellers of the year.

That's the kind of business decision that any company would make if they could.

I'm not even talking about all of that.
Last of Us was originally a Jak game, but sometime during development they went "Nah" and they gutted everything Jak and LoU was the end result.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

I think the game is excelent and deserves all the prizes it gets, However, I really didn't like that ending. It does not make sense. It destroys everything you were building to.

I'm intrigued to know what particular aspects of the ending caused you to feel it "destroyed" everything that was being built towards. What do you feel the player/character was building towards?

Personal opinions are always going to differ, but I honestly thought it was not only the best way to end it but also the only way to end such a story.

 

[M920CAIN]

Jim said "a brilliant story". What's so brilliant about it? it's just a zombie apocalypse cliche story. What makes the game good is not the story, the story by itself sucks. What makes the game good is the two characters, the relationship of father who misses his daughter and girl who he threats like the daughter he lost and misses. That's the good part, finding humanity in a dire situation, and also the girl is a strong child for taking care of her newly wounded papa during the winter.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

What makes the game good is the two characters, the relationship of father who misses his daughter and girl who he threats like the daughter he lost and misses.

That's part of the story. I'm not sure why you think that the characters in a story are somehow separate from the story. Perhaps you are thinking of "plot" when you say "story"?