For the most part, it’s a cheap sensation, guided by stress and the meaningless accrual of points. Shooting enemies, sneaking past guards, crafting Molotov cocktails, searching for items with which to level up: These are all mechanics, and they work by creating an emotional response, similar to the dopamine rush of social media, that compels people to spend hours immersed in a digital realm.Īnyone who has gobbled up pellets in Pac-Man is familiar with this thrill. Video games operate through what people in the industry call mechanics - the actions that allow a player to navigate the world and give a game its logic and structure. The Last of Us Part II carries a 95 rating on Metacritic, with cautions like “ uncomfortable” and “ misery simulator” giving way to pronouncements like “ one of best video games ever made.” A cheap sensation turned art Most of the early reviews from critics are similarly awed. And then there are endings that make you start to think about your relationship with the character and - really - your relationship with narrative itself.” “There are endings where you think ‘Well, that’s perfect,’ and that’s that. “I’m still thinking about that ending,” he said. He’s biased, of course, but in his estimation the sequel’s finale is on par with the original. Mazin recently played an advance copy of The Last of Us Part II, and is now working through it a second time. “I’ve never experienced anything that viscerally made me question the value of love,” he said.
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Craig Mazin, the creator of the 2019 mini-series “Chernobyl,” had his pick of projects to pursue after that series won 10 Emmys he decided to develop The Last of Us for HBO based largely on the poignant brutality of its ending. If the game succeeds, it would help establish The Last of Us as an enduring and lucrative pop culture franchise.Įven if you don’t play the title, you’ll probably start to hear about it. The Last of Us Part II goes on sale Friday, needing to meet critics’ high standards and appeal to an audience broad enough to recoup hundreds of millions of dollars in production costs. Now, seven years later, a sequel is debuting under a staggering load of expectations. The title sold more than 17 million copies, won numerous Game of the Year awards, and is being developed into an HBO series. The sequence helped establish The Last of Us as one of the most successful games in the medium’s history, a high-water mark of both artistic achievement and commercial viability. The only way to move the story forward - and reach an ending in which I’d already invested 14 emotionally debilitating hours - was to murder the pleading doctor while his colleagues screamed “No!” and called me an animal. At this juncture of The Last of Us, however, there was nothing but a glaring lack of alternatives. A lot of games, including highly ambitious ones, present you at various points with a kill-the-guy/don’t-kill-the-guy binary, allowing you to shape at least a part of your character’s morality. Video games are constructed around choice, and when I played the game for the first time, I expected one here. He stands there limply, holding a scalpel, so technically he’s not unarmed - but you’ve got a gun and the gameplay has made it clear, after hours of close fighting, that your character could subdue the man peacefully if he wanted. At the climax of The Last of Us, a blockbuster 2013 video game that is superficially about a zombie-fungus apocalypse but is really about the lengths a parent will go to protect a child, you are forced to kill a doctor.
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