The Last of Us

[inm8#2]

Looks cool, but I share the sentiment of, "Another post-apocalyptic/survival/zombie game?"

[KatieHal]

I think that for me, the reason I like those set-ups so much is seeing how they're done differently. What version of the future does this story set up and why, and so forth.

[KatieHal]

Another trailer for The Last of Us has been released tonight at E3!

http://youtu.be/8ZYkj0glnqs

[Fierce Deity]

Another trailer for The Last of Us has been released tonight at E3!

http://youtu.be/8ZYkj0glnqs

Wow, if there was a game that could take "Best in Show", it would be this one (even though I know E3 is far from over). That video was beyond epic. The gameplay is heavily scripted, which adds to the environment. But I want to know how scripted it is. When Joel gets in trouble, will Ellie save him every time? Also, the part where Joel uses his gun even though he was out of ammo, tipped the assailants to the fact that his gun was empty. They used the same function in the game I Am Alive. Good to see they are using the same idea for a better game. 

Good stuff. I am putting this under my must-buy list.

[darthkiwi]

Wow, I was really impressed by that. While I'm still not a fan of zombie games per se, I'm really impressed that this one is also dealing with the fact that other humans would be a danger as well.

And if we can expect the same level of intuitiveness in the combat as we saw here - the girl asking him if he's all right when he gets hurt, helping him by stabbing people in the back and throwing bricks, and enemies noticing when you're out of ammo - well, I'd be very, very impressed and, more importantly, very immersed with this..

[KatieHal]

Not in that video is the way the guy playing this section for the audience then just dropped the control and walked off stage, like a boss, to close Sony's press conference. Bad-ass!

[Deloria]

I do wonder when zombies first started being associated with viruses and stopped being "just" reanimated corpses.

[KatieHal]

Hm...turns out, there's a wiki page about that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_(fictional)

The page links the earliest connection to science with raising the dead as being Mary Shelley's Frankenstein:

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, while not a zombie novel proper, prefigures many 20th century ideas about zombies in that the resurrection of the dead is portrayed as a scientific process rather than a mystical one, and that the resurrected dead are degraded and more violent than their living selves. Frankenstein, published in 1818, has its roots in European folklore,[6] whose tales of vengeful dead also informed the evolution of the modern conception of vampires as well as zombies. Later notable 19th century stories about the avenging undead included Ambrose Bierce's The Death of Halpin Frayser, and various Gothic Romanticism tales by Edgar Allan Poe. Though their works could not be properly considered zombie fiction, the supernatural tales of Bierce and Poe would prove influential on later undead-themed writers such as H. P. Lovecraft, by Lovecraft's own admission.[7]

And the idea of the plague coming from a movie based on an H.G. Wells novel:

The 1936 film Things to Come, based on the novel by H. G. Wells, anticipates later zombie films with an apocalyptic scenario surrounding "the wandering sickness", a highly contagious viral plague that causes the infected to wander slowly and insensibly, very much like zombies, infecting others on contact.[9]

[MikPal]

Ok, just checked the gameplay out.

To tell you the truth, nothing I haven't seen before. AI's pretty standard, plenty of scripted events, looks linear enough to tell a story without getting lost (which at least I consider to be a good thing). So, why does our heroes break the neck of a guy he doesn't know would even be a threat and get into a firefight with people that are only defending themselves from this neck breaking loony and his knife wielding/brick throwing daughter?

(Posted on: 17-06-2012, 16:20:15)

And after doing some more reading the story sounds pretty much like The Road with a gender swap, actual zombies and action.

[KatieHal]

Well, I do know the two main characters aren't actually related...so there's that.

Often in these stories, there's a strong story thread of how humans are the bigger threat than the walking dead are--so the violence between human survivor groups comes down to that. I have to go kill them before they'd kill me, because we all know that's what it's going to come down to. That sort of thing. Who knows? Maybe the game lets you take more peaceful solutions?

[Fierce Deity]

You know? The forty times that I've seen the E3 gameplay video, I hadn't once asked the question as to why Joel is choking out strangers. But when I showed it to my friend, that was the first thing he asked. What does that say about my morbid curiosity and the prolonged survival for the human race? I don't know, and I don't care.

But truthfully, I'm assuming that this is not the first level of the game. There needs to be some sort of a setting or plot that will allow us to understand the reason why Joel is such a BAMF and why he felt like those guys who were looting the hotel were a threat. Regardless, the video has showed that there is enough of a choice in the gameplay and the progression in exploration, that you might not have to be a neck-breaking jerk. Time will tell.

[KatieHal]

A different video I've seen shows him and the girl in a truck and barely getting away from a set-up by some other humans--they made it look like some guy was wounded, Joel didn't buy into it, and sure enough it would've meant them getting robbed or more likely killed if they had stopped for the guy. No idea if these people were the same guys or not, but that's one example!

[Fierce Deity]

A different video I've seen shows him and the girl in a truck and barely getting away from a set-up by some other humans--they made it look like some guy was wounded, Joel didn't buy into it, and sure enough it would've meant them getting robbed or more likely killed if they had stopped for the guy. No idea if these people were the same guys or not, but that's one example!

I saw that video too. That's what made me like Joel's character so much. He seemed like he had experienced enough deceit and betrayal in his life before the apocalypse occurred. Only makes him that much stronger, considering how Ellie was so quick to trust him. They make a good team, I reckon.