Live Magazine September 2014 Volume 9/2014 | Page 32

THE LAST

OF US

Video games are a young medium.
Like films at their outset and, more
recently, comics before them, video
games have struggled to find acceptance as an art form worthy of serious critical consideration. The Last
of US is video games’ answer to the
question of “is there a Citizen Kane
of gaming?” The thing about video
games that critics often forget is that
it is the only interactive medium.
The Last of Us maximises the impact of the player being immersed
in the game. Playing as Joel we are
given power over life or death in the
beautiful post-apocalyptic world that
developers Naughty Dog have cre-

ated. As the 50 year Joel escorts 13
year old Ellie across the former United States post deadly plant plague,
it is the player that stands in Joel’s
shoes – like him, we know the old
world and we watch and learn how
Ellie, raised in this new world, acts
and reacts seeing what is different
from our own childhoods, and what
remains poignantly the same. We –
and Joel – are responsible for Ellie’s
safety, and we act out the story. Very
rarely do video games truly use their
medium’s unique ability to truly interact with the story, but The Last of
Us shows what really can be accomplished. The game also possesses
stellar graphics, and fantastic game-

SPECIAL REPORT: aaa games

play – both essential to making the
game as immersive and as enjoyable as it is. It really is a game you can
only understand if you’ve played it –
simply watching it, or even reading
about it will never give you the same
emotional depth of actually playing
it. You won’t get, that is really get,
the ending unless you’ve played and
truly experienced The Last of Us,
something few games can attest to.
Most AAA games seem content to
spend their enormous budgets on
big moments and little plot, but The
Last of Us shows that when done
right the power of a AAA budget can
create something truly special.

Written by Alex Holmes

www.stickytriggerentertainment.com