The Rest of the Last of Us

I'm about halfway through playing "The Last of Us," Naughty Dog's newest game.  Renowned for their Uncharted series, Naughty Dog is once again tackling an over-the-shoulder shooter featuring a male lead and his female sidekick sloughing through bad-guys.  In this case, Joel is the protagonist, and the head you inhabit throughout the game, and Ellie is his side-kick, a precocious fourteen year-old who holds the secret for combating the zombie apocalypse.

Just from that synopsis, the game doesn't sound all that original.  The plot certainly is nothing to write home about.  But the acting is incredible and the designers seemed genuinely interested in building real characters.  Joel, especially, is tired and broken.  But each of the side-characters with whom you often interact are fully-developed, often conflicted, people.  Expected emotional cues occur early in the game, and then diverge quickly into rarely trod territory.  So despite its mediocre plot (so far . . . there could be a twist I haven't anticipated) the characters feel real, and I have developed a genuine attachment to Joel and Ellie.

What is ruining the game for me, though, are the baddies.  First, from the trailers and the synopsis on the back of the game, we know already that the world is in the last gasp of ruin.  Anarchy prevails, zombies run wild, and decency is all but unknown.  So we should expect Mad Max-style confrontations, as well as 28 Days Later run-ins with deranged and hostile enemies.  And we get both.

But other than their skins, each enemy seems to behave the same way.  Some zombies hunt by echo-location only, and wander around maps with ears cocked.  Others group together in packs and rush you from corners.  There's the occasional solo--a big daddy who's nearly impossible to gun down (which, because of the limited ammunition practically requires that you just run in circles whacking it with bits of debris you find lying around). 

Your "human" opponents aren't much different.  Especially the "Lord of the Flies" baddies who wander tumbled urban landscapes.  Some you can just sneak past, despite the fact that it's broad daylight and they're staring right at you.  Others gang up and rush you from all directions.  The only exception are the cops and soldiers who sometimes lob a few bullets your direction, which only makes me suspect I'll soon encounter a zombie who lobs some sort of spit-bullet my direction. And there's the occasional solo baddie who's nearly impossible to gun down (see above).

But oh well.  Because really, the bad guys aren't there to be killed.  Unlike Uncharted and Uncharted Two, which were notorious for the massacre you inflict on untold hundreds of red, blue and yellow mercenaries (literally, they all wore different color clothes so you knew how to shift your tactics for them), The Last of Us depends on sneaking and not-killing as much as bludgeoning your way through a map.  In fact, it built itself on that premise.  You're given hardly any ammunition (though there does still seem to be a lot lying around in odd locations) and expected to think your way through and around confrontation.  More often than not, if you decide to go in guns blazing, you're bound to get shot dead in the first charge.

Beyond the obvious disadvantage this lends to your character, and the lazy enemy AI, the atmosphere is fantastic, lush, and, well . . . atmospheric.  At first, I was a little unsettled by how bright the world seemed.  But then I realized that despite the downfall of human civilization, the sun would still shine.  This lack of lens seems an apt metaphor for the game itself.  We see the end of the world unaided, with all the humanity, anarchy, and danger unmitigated by directorial or narrative sleight-of-hand.

So consider this an update rather than a review, because I suspect the ending is going to leave me raw and slack-jawed.  I'll let you know when I get there.

Weekend Update!

Welcome to Friday.  It's a big weekend, with The Hobbit opening in the United States to some serious acclaim and a lot of fan excitement.  Although I plan to see it, I won't wait in line at midnight Thursday (about the time this post publishes, in point of fact).  I waited in line for Fellowship, Two Towers and Return of the King.  I've done my fair share of stomping in the cold with people dressed up like Gandolf, Legolas, and Aragorn. 

While each of those experiences was fun, and I love the movies, I can't seem to find the energy to repeat it for The Hobbit.  I suspect a lot of it has to do with the fact that I haven't read the book.  A lot of people tell me The Hobbit is better story; stuff happens, and there's a dragon.  Yeah, but G.R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones was supposed to have dragons, too, and so far it's a whole heaping load of boring.  So dragons aren't big sellers for me.  I also suspect that the dragon won't make much of an appearance until the third film. 

Yeah, you read that right.  The Hobbit is being released as a trilogy, which means another nine-hour epic watching people walk from one end of the world to the other.  So while I might see this film this weekend, it'll be a matinee showing.

I am, however, more than a little excited for a couple of movies making an appearance in the next few weeks.  Jack Reacher stars Tom Cruise as some sort of hard-as-iron ex-military police officer hunting down bad guys in New York.  Not an altogether original concept, but the trailer makes it look good.  Also, Les Miserables is coming out Christmas Day, along with Django Unchained (the D is silent).   Les Mis is my favorite novel and I haven't seen the musical, but this looks good.  Also, Tarantino is a pretty big draw, so Django is a no-brainer.

Keep an eye out for Zero Dark Thirty, which is being released December 21st. 

In the world of books, despite declining numbers, sales bounced back in October, accounting for about ten percent of the 5% increase across all retail markets.  It was recently pointed out that fourteen of the fifty top-grossing films are part of book series (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Twilight and Hunger Games), generating hundreds of millions, to billions of dollars in U.S. box office revenue.  This seems obvious in retrospect, but each of these series generated much of their revenue in large part based on the pre-existing fanbase that the books had garnered.  Expect to see more page-to-screen hits in the future.

The New York Times is getting into the ebook business; DC has successfully rebooted its superhero universe; The Barnes &Noble boycott of physical DC books from its stores has ended; Publisher's Weekly released their top 10 books of 2012; and Tor recently released their Reviewers' Choice of 2012.

I recently heard about Naughty Dog's new release "The Last of Us."  I'm a big fan of their previous games, including the Uncharted series so I was really excited to hear about this.  It looks like a new post-apocalyptic zombie game, which I'm not a huge fan of, but I'm willing to give them a shot. 

I'll leave you then with a trailer for another movie in which Tom Cruise plays a character named Jack.