Introduction and The Last of Us

Every once in a while I start thinking I should write some blog entries about video games. I don't know why I feel this way - I don't expect anyone to read what I have to say, and I don't think what I have to say is particularly novel or unique.

That being said, I feel like writing about something lets my thoughts about the subject flow differently, and I like having a (relatively) succinct collection of thoughts on a matter.

I plan to do this once a week, and I'll focus on one of the games I'm playing at that time, assuming I feel the game is worth talking about and I have something specific to save about it. Because I don't want to limit what I'm going to say by attempting to talk around spoilers, there will be spoilers. I'm thinking about the game for this entry - The Last of Us - and while I don't foresee any need to talk specifically about how the game ends, I will be mentioning specific scenarios, possibly including the scenario that leads up to the end.

I liked The Last of Us. Quite a lot, actually. Probably more than I liked Uncharted 2 or 3 (I never played the first). My problem with it, though, is the same problem I had with the Uncharted games, and it's a problem I have with some other games. I can't think of an easy way to describe it - I could say the enemies don't behave realistically, but that's not quite right. They do and they don't. I think I could describe it as enemy behavior not being realistic on a macro level, or even better, to say enemies don't have realistic reactionary behavior.

For whatever reason, I don't feel this way with a game such as, say, Call of Duty 4. Everyone seems to think that game was swell, but I thought the campaign was pretty forgettable. I don't remember anything about it - to me it was a bunch of faceless military dudes shooting other faceless military dudes, and I had no connection to them. Since I had no connection, I didn't really think of anyone as a believable person. Of course enemies would stupidly pour out of wherever and try to kill you, because those characters aren't real and couldn't be real. You're a military guy and you need people to shoot. Whatever.

Naughty Dog games, in contrast, create very believable main characters and believable worlds - so much so that I expect everything about the games to be realistic. I thought The Last of Us was going to be better than the Uncharted games with regards to how enemies behave, but unfortunately, they were mostly the same. No matter how many enemies you kill, they keep coming after you.

Maybe this is a silly thing for me to get stuck on, but I always do, and I always try to look past it, but I can't. When you're playing as Ellie and are trying to escape from the town where she was held, and then playing as Joel and trying to get to town to find her, I keep expecting enemies to spot either one of them and say "fuck this, these two have killed at least 50 of our men, I'm getting the fuck out of here." Also, how do these groups of bandits have so many people, and how are they so disposable?

Again, maybe it's a petty complaint, and I don't level it at many games. I almost feel like it's unfair for me to feel this way about The Last of Us but not about Halo 4. In both games, you're mowing down absurd numbers of enemy troops. Halo 4's story is mostly nonsense, though, and the world looks nice, but is hardly believable.

I don't want this to come across as me not enjoying The Last of Us. Like I said, I enjoyed it a lot. When I start feeling this way about a game, I think it's a testament to the game's world-creation that I feel it should be a more realistic place. And in the end, I completely understand that you have to have gameplay, and unfortunately, that oftentimes means shooting. In the last level of this game, where you're fighting through the hospital and the myriad of guards who apparently have no concern for their own lives, what would you be doing as you're trying to get to Ellie? I'd be happy with puzzles, or maybe stealth, or maybe trying to talk your way to her, but I don't know how well that would go over with people in general.