Conflicted about TLoU

[York_Beckett]

So I just finished The Last of Us, more or less.

It certainly was quite the experience, with some truly outstanding bits here and there, most of which I could've put into a full review.

However, what I'm still a bit uncertain of is the story. I haven't looked up any other threads regarding the subject matter, as I wanted to avoid spoilers.

There was nothing bad about it at all; it was well-told, had some excellent bonding moments between the characters as well as an interesting world to explore.

But what gets to me is just how much people go nuts for it. While certainly good, I can't exactly understand the "greatest video game story ever told" aspect that's been floating around. It's miles ahead of most games on the marbeket nowadays, but all in all, we've pretty much seen most of before. It's very well-told, but otherwise somewhat predictable.

In regards to "good endings", I'd put both Silent Hill 2's (especially the "Leave" ending, because it was the one that truly completed James and Mary's story, and left most emotional impact) and Bioshock: Infinite's story above this one, simply because they were more effective in terms of getting an emotional response as well as presenting a huge, interesting idea.

Maybe I just wasn't in the right moodset for it, or maybe I'm just lying to myself at this point.

I think a been-there-done-this story is perfectly fine if it's well-told (ala Sam Raimi's A Simple Plan), but in the end, there's just something about The Last of Us that didn't quite click for me (no pun intended.)

I'm just curious to see if anyone else had a similar reaction.

 

[gavinmcinns]

I'm with you, I prefer a story like Dark Souls. I hate it when games try to hammer in movie-story telling into their games. I much prefer to absorb the story from my interactions with stuff in the game.

Infinite's ending was very good in my opinion. The rest of the story wasn't really there but the ending was quite good. Another great ending is rockstar's red dead redemption. I've never seen anything like that in a game before.

 

[Zhukov]

Eh, I loved it.

However, I'm not quite ready to run around screaming about it being the best video game story ever created. Although it's certainly up there in my book. Shame about the incredibly overused zombie apocolypse setting.

It's still in the honeymoon phase of it's reception. Remember when Skyrim was the greatest game ever made in the history of everything ever?

 

[Evonisia]

It probably didn't click because there's a very slim chance of getting a brilliant story from a Zombie apocalypse scenario, at least not any more.

As for why everybody calls it "Best game evarr", a good game will often be given this praise. BioShock Infinite got this praise when it came out despite it's well, laziness.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I think we're all a little weary of the incredibly generic zombie apocalypse scenario and all the tropes that go with it. Dead Rising, Dead Island, Left 4 Dead, Tell Tale's Walking Dead, Walking Dead Survival Instinct, every Resident Evil game ever made...

 

[Miss G.]

I love this game. A lot of, if not most of my praise for the story stems from the fact that it, in and of itself, was enough to get me to play what outwardly seemed a zombie apocalypse game, a game with shooting elements, a game that is not a JRPG (a genre that I play almost exclusively), and a game that would be a definite pass for someone as easily spooked as myself. I played it during the day, with my brother and sister around for moral support, ...and the lights on, and had a harrowing, tense, emotional, wonderful, satisfying experience that I would've sadly missed out on had a few minutes of a Let's Play not completely pulled me in. I cannot say that for any other game since I started gaming, so for me, it really is that great.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The story/plot of The Last of Us is generic as hell, but that's just the top skin.

It's the characters that are the real meat of the narrative. And it uses the familiarity of the setting and the story to its advantage to pull a couple of fast ones. The intro is the perfect example...

Spoiler

You know Sarah is going to die the instant you see her onscreen (she's the very first thing the game even shows you). What you don't know is that the game puts you in her shoes for the first half to experience the anxiety of being home alone at night while a disaster is slowly unfolding. The other part ofcourse being that she gets killed not by a zombie, but by a soldier who you thought was there to keep you safe.

Bill is another good example...

Spoiler

On the surface he's the typical insane hermit/mountain man you see in many apocalypse stories, but underneath it all there's way more going on with his character. He presents himself as this lone wolf who doesn't want company, he even has that rather stereotypical speech of, "taken care of others will get you killed". But the truth is that he's totally lying to himself. The only reason he's alone is because Frank (his partner) in all likelihood left him, judging by the note you find in Frank's "house". And more than that Bill finds out Frank probably never even cared about him at all. So when before Bill saw his situation as him simply not choosing to love/take care of others, he realizes now he was never loved in the first place, and that he's not some badass einzelganger, he's just a lonely pathetic old man.

The difference with The Last of Us is that it's not a post-apocalypse/zombie story, it's a "road movie" set in the post-apocalypse. It's not about saving the world or discovering the secret behind the fall of civilization, it's about following these two characters on their journey and seeing how it changes them. And in that regard it's something not seen too often, if at all, in games.