the last of us playthrough: fuck pittsburgh edition

[queenlua]

If I were writing for Rock Paper Shotgun or something, I could totally babble a bunch of pretentious nonsense about why the game I'm currently obsessed with is objectively awesome and artful or something.

But if I were being 100% honest with myself, I would admit that the point where I went from "this is fun" to "this is zomgbbqawesome" probably started somewhere around the point when I realized, "okay, as much as the southern-dude-from-the-south-with-a-thick-accent is such a zombie apocalypse stereotype... damn, Joel's accent is puh-ri-tee fuckin' hot."

...the game has other merits, though, I promise!

• Somehow I'd gotten the impression this was a blast-through-hordes-of-zombies-with-like-twenty-shotguns game. I have no idea where or how I got that impression because it's not true at all. It's a pretty good balance between stealth and melee, and there's certainly some sequences where you're having to systematically gun down load o' zombies... but getting ganged up on is dire enough, and resources are scarce enough, that nine times out of ten you need at least some subtlety or stealth in your approach. And damn what a stealth experience it is, the most fun I've had since Metal Gear. Possibly more fun. The level design's terribly clever—there's enough rubble/cover lying around in all areas that you never know when to expect the next attack, and there are dozens of different ways you can approach any given scenario. And the pacing is nice—this is totally wuss-girl-gamer of me but I really love the sequences when you get to breathe, when it's just grabbing stuff from houses and lugging around planks to cross obstacles or whatever—the scenery's really quite lovingly rendered—and it just offers a really palatable sense of relief after the intense combat/stealth sequences.



• I'm amused at how much of the story is told via characters-talking-while-you're-walking around-and-exploring (as opposed to conventional cutscenes), and how much of a convention that is in action games nowadays—because I distinctly remember thinking it was terribly novel when Prince of Persia first did it.



• I kind of hate that all modern video games seem to assume you have an GINORMOUS HONKIN HIDEF TV with ALL THE PIXELS. My TV isn't great but it's not a piece of shit, either; it's only a few years old and moderately-sized. But on my screen, environments that are supposed to be brown and sparsely lit become black and fucking impossible to see—yes there are sections where this is the point and you get your flashlight out or whatever, but I've compared against Youtube recordings and my screen definitely shouldn't be that dark. (And I already turned the brightness up and everything!) And then whenever there's text on the screen I have to squint because everything renders in 0.2 point font. Blugh.



• So I think there's actually a kind of interesting resonance between combat and storytelling in this game. It's a characterization thing, and maybe I'm reading too much into it, but—okay, you know how in a lot of games, it feels kind of trivial to blow through a bunch of enemies with bullets a-blazin', right? Not so much in TLoU; every kill (at least in my playstyle) has to be so premeditated that it feels really tense and hard-fought and painstaking.
  
  And that intensity, after a while, sort of makes you appreciate just how good Joel is at killing—and the fact that he's so damn good at it really starts to freak you out after a while. It did me, at least. The way he murders the shit out of people in hand-to-hand melee doesn't have any of the stylistic flair you get out of a usual cheesy action game; it's just rough and raw and kind of horrifying. Normally in action games, killing tends to make you feel like a badass warrior; here, it just makes you feel kind of frightened of the dude because damn I guess that's what it took to survive the zombie apocalypse and God help us all if he becomes any more mentally unbalanced than he already is.
  
  I didn't think you could get that much out of Yet Another Action Combat System but there you go.



• relatedly I'm really terrified Joel's going to snap or do something horrible because (1) that would be the worst thing (2) it would continue the disturbing trend I have of developing intense TV crushes on characters approx. 20 seconds before they become kind of terrible and (3) god i really like his and ellie's relationship so much at this point and he's going to fuck up somehow i know it and (4) unf that accent nom



• THE SOUNDTRACK IS HORRIFYING. Sometimes it makes dramatic noises in response to "ohnoes enemies are coming at you" but sometimes it makes dramatic noises for NO REASON WHATSOEVER and makes me jump the hell out of my skin



• basically everything in the game is horrifying like I don't think you understand I was fighting an encounter yesterday and by the end of it my heart was pounding and every single bone in my body was shaking. this game is literally taking years off my life why do I love it so much. why do i stealth games in general. my poor heart.



• I like how you get to play freaking Settlers of Catan with your items. And by "like" I mean "arghhh." See, they do the thing where you "craft" items by combining basic parts—rags + alcohol = healing kit, for example—but dear god there are never enough rags, which is awful since I need those for both health kits (important because I suck and get injured a lot) and molotov cocktails (important because I am a wimp and have to attack my enemies from afar).



• ...I managed to get all the way to the sewers without realizing how to use those power-up pills. HEY GUYS THE POWER-UP PILLS HELP NO WONDER MY HEALTH BAR FUCKING SUCKED



• So listen. I am, by nature, an oblivious and carefree person, which means I'm awful at paying attention to my surroundings and staying safe. I grew up in a southern town which is just small enough that everyone leaves their doors unlocked all the time and the most worrying crime the newspaper has to report is people illegally dumping stuff in dumpsters that don't belong to them. Despite living in a city for the past four years, I still manage to alarm my friends with behavior that I always thought was pretty blasé. (You mean everyone doesn't walk home alone at 2am while drunk? Well what was I supposed to do, waste money on a cab? Pssh get out of town.)
  
  But The Last of Us has put the fear of God in me. If I go out to the convenience store after dark, you better believe I'm power-walking down that street and keeping a wary eye over my shoulder. Opening the door to my apartment is now fucking harrowing because it's right off a crowded city street with a narrow hallway leading to it, and when I'm trying to turn my key in the knob and I'm thinking oh God if there was a Joel lurking in the shadows this is the moment he would shiv me my back's turned and everything AHH KEY FIT IN THE FUCKING LOCK OH GOD. Also all loud abrupt noises are considered to be clickers until confirmed otherwise. So yeah I've been mad jumpy this week can you tell.



• Joel collecting comics for Ellie is so damn cute.



• The notes strewn about aren't as cool as the game wants you to think you are. I get kind of annoyed at text-based infodumps in games in general (FFXIII being the most hair-pullingly awful grievous offender in this department), but just... all the notes have the same ending, y'know? No way you're reading someone's random diary entry unless they're desperate or about to get nommed by zombies.



• The hunters are opportunistic, they attack whoever they come across so they can grab loot, and so on. I get that. What I don't understand is why they keep coming after you after you've killed literally like one hundred of them and even hound you to the fucking suburbs. Like. If I watched some terrifying dude singlehandedly demolish one hundred of my buddies, I know I sure as hell would not be fighting; I'd be all "well good afternoon sir please go on your way oh god don't kill me I will give you all my stuff just no murder okay"



• Someday I'm going to visit the real Pittsburgh and my instinctive reaction will be pure unadulterated loathing. Some kind person will unthinkingly invite me to some CMU tech conference and I will collapse on the floor twitching violently and shouting "NEVER AGAIN"

In conclusion, I'm like only halfway through and there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to beat this before Friday and then I'm going to be in the forest until Monday night and sob why can't I plug my PS3 into a tree ;_;

i just want to find out what happens and then probably cry a lot and then write some terrible fanfiction about it okay

Comments

[queenlua]

unfortunately said ps3-exclusivity has been the biggest barrier in my convincing everyone to go play this D: one of my BFFs in this area fucking loves this style of gameplay but just can't do non-PC games. alas.

[amielleon]

I have no objection to using a PS3's controls or anything, it's just. PS3. Expensive.

[queenlua]

That too.

Maybe price'll come down when the PS4 launches? (jesus god how is the ps4 coming out already)