Tag: The Last of Us

The Last of Us HBO Review: When Change is Best.

The Last of Us is my favourite video game of all time.
However, in recent years my opinion of its continuation has been rather rocky.
First there was The Last of Us Part 2 which, while I loved the gameplay, I thought the story was so poor that it made me lose interest in playing it again all togethor.
Then there was The Last of Us “Remake”, which seemed like an overpriced remaster to me than anything else.
Because of these issue I was having, I was a bit skeptical of how The Last of Us’ HBO adaptation would turn out.
Granted, there were plenty of signs that it would turn out great.
Not only was the creator of Chernobyl, Craig Mazin, behind the project but The Last of Us is also a video game that lends itself really well to be adapted into a cinematic format.
After watching the entire first season, I can say that I should have had more faith because the show is a fantastic adaptation of the video game, with plenty of excellent changes.

The best part of The Last of Us adaptation is undoubtedly how it diverges from the original game in interesting ways.

Created by both Mazin and Neil Druckmann, the director of both Part One and Two, the story is almost the same as the original game.
Twenty years after the Cordyceps fungal infection jumped to humans and brought about the apocalypse, ruthless survivor Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) is working as a smuggler, alongside his partner Tess (Anna Torv).
Wanting to get a car to search for his missing brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna), Joel accepts a deal with Marlene (Merle Dandridge), the leader of a revolutionary group known as the Fireflies.
The deal is to escort a spunky, foul-mouted teenager named Ellie (Bella Ramsey) through the infected landscape to safety. 

So begins the characters’ journey across a desolate America.

However, when this plan goes awry, and Ellie’s immunity to the Cordyceps Infection is revealed, Joel has to escort her across the country.
As they journey, the two fight off infected, likewise ruthless survivors, and slowly begin to grow closer as a father and daughter.
This father and daughter bond is the heart of The Last of Us so the creators of the show had to get it absolutely right when casting Joel and Ellie.
Thankfully, they did an excellent job with the casting, as Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey bring new depth to the characters.
I will say that I was a bit unsure of Ramsey when starting the show.
I knew from seeing her in Game of Thrones that she could act but the prior performances of hers I had seen never screamed Ellie to me.
Then I saw her first scene in the show and I felt like a fool because she absolutely nails her portrayal of the character. 

Ramsey’s first scene was enough to convince me that she was the perfect choice to play Ellie.

These great portrayals of the characters are very faithful to the original game, for the most part.
Oddly enough though, this show is at its best not when it is following the source material but when it is doing something different.
In fact, I would say that the best episodes of the show are the ones where this is the case.
Episode Five, “Endure and Survive”, gives the characters of Henry (Lamar Johnson) and Sam (Keivonn Montreal) a completely new and interesting backstory, while also concluding on a much more explosive fight.
Episode Nine, “When We Are in Need”, expands on David’s (Scott Shepherd) character through showing how he runs his group as a manipulative cult leader, while hinting at his sickening past, making him a much more disturbing character than in the game.
Best of all though is Episode Three, “Long, Long Time,” which gives Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett) a completely different, much more emotionally engaging story, which actually rivals Joel and Ellie’s story across the season. 

I did not expect Bill and Frank’s story to be this good before watching it.

Honestly, it was when the show actually recreated the game beat-for-beat that we got less interesting episodes.
Take Episode Seven, for example, “Left Behind”, where everything is pretty much the same as the game, except for a downgraded final attack, resulting in an episode that I felt like I had seen before because, well, I had, and was thus less interested.
This is not the only issue with the season because the final episode, “Look for the Light”, goes by so fast that it feels a little short.

I feel like the finale would have had more impact if certain scenes had more time to breath.

Not only this but there is a bit of cognitive dissonance with the ending, in my experience.
One thing that I appreciated about the show was how realistic it was.
Joel kills hundreds of people across the game but that is just not realistic to the real world, so they scaled it down for the show.
But Joel’s final decision requires him to become that killing machine so, when it happens in the last episode, it does feel slightly at odds to what came before.
Speaking of being at odds with what came before, it is really weird to watch those terrifying cold opens in the first few episodes, which expand on the nature of the Cordyceps Infection, only for that infection to barely feature in the latter half of the season.

The cold open of Episode One was a fantastic and terrifying addition to the show but it feels weird given the lack of infected later on in the show.

These problems are relatively minor to the show’s successes, however.
They adapted events from the game well and made some incredible changes to the original story.
You want to know how much I liked the changes?
I liked them so much that I am actually now open to seeing how they will adapt Part Two.
Who knows, they might actually make some changes that make me like the story.
As for the adaptation of the first game, though, it is mostly fantastic, being good enough to rank high up with other good video game adaptations, like Arcane and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.
It will be interesting to see what is in for The Last of Us franchise going forward.    

The Last of Us Remastered Review: My Favorite Video Game of All Time.

5 stars
Naughty Dog is one of, if not my absolute, favourite video game studios.
The first game I played on the PlayStation 3 was Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and I have kept up with that brilliant series as it has continued over the years.
But, I think we can all agree that Naughty Dog’s undisputed masterpiece is their 2013 game The Last of Us, created by Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley, which was remastered for the PlayStation 4.
The tale of Joel and Ellie travelling across a post-apocalyptic America is the height of video game storytelling, with many emotional and heart bounding scenes.
There were numerous times I cried during my first play through, even in the first 20 minutes, which is something no video game has ever done for me.
Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson both give enthralling performances as the two lead characters, with the game following their growing father-daughter bond in both its positive and negative consequences for the two.
This culminates in an ending that is so morally ambiguous that it makes the simple line of “Okay” crushing.

okay
The ending of The Last of Us leaves you conflicted but that’s what’s so great about it.

It is not just Joel and Ellie though because almost every other character is exceptionally written.
From Joel’s partner in crime Tess (Annie Wersching), to his estranged brother Tommy (Jeffrey Pierce), to the paranoid Bill (W. Earl Brown), to brothers Henry (Brandon Scott) and Sam (Nadji Jeter), and many more, the characters of The Last of Us are some of the best in video game history, with Joel and Ellie right at the top.
The story accompanying these characters is also enthralling, which shows how amazing the writing is because the story could have easily become very cliched.
There are so many zombie games out there, many with save the world plot lines, so it would have been easy for The Last of Us’ story to fall into this cycle of mediocrity.
However, with the game focusing on the fantastic growing relationship of its two leads, and having a new type of zombie never seen before, the game jumps over the mediocrity scale by a wide margin and leaving it completely in the dust.
Having the source of the infection be the very real Cordecyeps Fungus was a stroke of genius and it makes for some incredibly scary enemies to fight.
Speaking of, the gameplay in The Last of Us is also amazing and accompanies the brutal story well with its likewise brutal conflict.
Fighting Clickers, Runners, Stalkers, and Bloaters throughout is a constant nerve wracking experience.

clickers
The Clickers are one of the most terrifying renditions of zombies ever put to screen, be it a movie or video game.

This culminates in a flooded basement segment some time into the game that is absolutely terrifying the first time you play it.
But it is not just the infected that you have to worry about because people are even more dangerous and, whether you go in using stealth or go guns blazing, it is almost always an intense experience trying to take them out.
Although, it is probably best not to go in all guns blazing on Grounded Mode because, if you try to do that, you will die… a lot.
Seriously, Grounded is an incredibly difficult mode to beat the game on.
I must have died around 100 times in the final, brutal combat sequence of the game.
What makes the combat of The Last of Us so satisfying though is its intensity.
You can just feel every punch that Joel dishes out.
Also, when you play as Ellie during the winter segment, which is my favourite level of the game, she is realistically much weaker than Joel, making gameplay a lot harder, as you have to think of new ways to get around or kill enemies.

ellie and joel baby girl
The Winter segment is gripping, with its emotional conclusion being a turning point in Joel and Ellie’s relationship, and the point where their personalities flip.

Helping the intensity of the combat is the reward of it you feel from scavenging and then crafting from various materials, creating Molotov cocktails, nail bombs, smoke bombs, and med kits to help you throughout the game.
The supplies needed to make these things are also fairly spread around throughout, adjusting the quantity based on the level of difficulty you are playing at.
Upgrading your weapons is also fairly handled, based on how much you scavenge as well.
Materials to build weapons is not the only thing you can find scavenging though, because there are also various notes and pieces of information that create side stories about people trying to survive in the outbreak.
One of these stories is about Ish, who I didn’t find much about on my first play through but on subsequent ones, where I made sure to scavenge, he became a very fleshed out character, even though we don’t meet him in person.
Accompanying this fantastic level of story telling and gameplay is the incredible soundtrack by Gustavo Santaolla, who deserves just as much praise as Druckmann, Straley, and the rest of the creators for adding to the game.

walk in the woods1
Santaolla does an incredible job with the music for the game and I cannot wait to hear his soundtrack for the sequel.

All of this combines to make The Last of Us an emotionally intense experience that is, without a doubt, my favourite video game of all time.
Accompanying this masterpiece in the Remastered addition is the DLC, Left Behind, which mostly details the last happy moments shared between Ellie and her best friend Riley.
Just like the main game, Left Behind is fantastic and a worthy addition to the story.
So, as you can expect, I am incredibly excited for the sequel, which will be released tomorrow.
Unfortunately, a lot of story details were leaked about the game and I accidentally stumbled across one of these spoilers the other day.
I don’t know if what I saw is true or not but, even if it is, I won’t allow it to taint my experience of the game.
And whether I end up loving, hating, or even having mixed feelings about the sequel, The Last of Us will remain an incredible experience for me that I will constantly find myself replaying for many years to come.