Naughty Dog creates a winner
Name: The Last of Us
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Platforms: Playstation 3
Genre: Third person shooter, Action-adventure
Rating: Mature
The latest game from the renowned Naughty Dog game developer is The Last of Us, a post-apocalyptic, flesh-eating survival drama for PlayStation 3. With fewer shoot-em-up skirmishes and no treasures to hunt, Last of Us is something of a departure for the studio best known for the slick, globe-trotting action-adventure series Uncharted.
ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT
The combination of emotional storytelling and ground-breaking visuals in Last of Us is further proof that video games can be just as contemplative as other art forms when developers truly desire and work toward it.
Last of Us is set 20 years after an epidemic has transformed scads of humans into a dangerous horde known as “the infected.” The game thoughtfully depicts the ruins of Boston, Pittsburgh and other US cities after the world has been plunged into chaos and mother nature begun reclaiming the environment.
FINE DETAIL
Last of Us tells the story of Joel, a gruff outlaw tasked with escorting a mysterious 14-year-old girl named Ellie past collapsed skyscrapers, across flooded streets and through abandoned buildings. The game's designers and artists toiled away for three years to make the hauntingly beautiful world of Last of Us as nuanced as the relationship between Joel and Ellie.
Beyond dialogue and notes scattered across the landscape, the developers employed what they call “environmental storytelling” to subtly recount what happened as society collapsed, whether it's how a house was barricaded to show how the family inside endured, or what a bookstore looks like when it's used as a makeshift processing centre for survivors.
WINNING GAME
With less action than typical games, Last of Us gently invites players to explore all the devastation. The virtual settings in the game are littered with small details of humanity, such as children's drawings untouched on walls in offices, ceramic gnomes smiling in overgrown gardens, and family photos still displayed in wrecked living rooms.
Last of Us, which has already received glowing reviews from many game critics, is well worth checking out for those who love visually stunning, atmospheric and imaginative games.
By Derrik J. Lang
Bangkok Post/ AP
Vocabulary
- skirmish (n): a short fight between groups of people or soldiers
contemplative (adj): thinking quietly and seriously about something
epidemic (n): a large number of cases of a particular disease happening at the same time in a particular community
scads (n): large numbers or amounts of something
horde (n): a large crowd of people
escort (v): to go with somebody to protect or guard them or to show them the way
gnome (n): a plastic or stone figure of a small creature like a man, used as a garden ornament
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