Last of us

Recently I’ve finished the fu**ing awesome LAST OF US (Naughty Dog, 2013) for Playstation 3. LAST OF US is a survival horror action-adventure game where the player takes control of Joel, a character trekking across a post-apocalyptic United States in 2033, in order to escort the young Ellie to a friendly resistance group, the Fireflies.

During the long path to the Fireflies base, the characters must defend themselves against zombies contaminated by fungus spores, bandits, soldiers and a great sort of other enemies. Briefly that’s the main idea of the game.



Why the game is awesome in my opinion as a gamer and game designer? Check some points below:

1) The game balances action, tension and emotion in a unique way. Sometimes you need to solve a little puzzle, sometimes you need to run like hell, and sometimes you have little ammo and lots of zombies around you. LAST OF US puts the player in a kind of ‘wave’ of content and you stay attached to the narrative of the game (a great feature to comment, by the way).

2) The narrative is a good mix between gameplay and cinematography action. It’s not an open world game but the player can experience moments of free action around the scenarios without loosing focus on the main mission. As Bateman (2007, p.107) says “many games now combine open and closed storytelling. They offer the player a chance to play a series of defined story missions alongside the chance to explore a world in whatever order that player wants”.

3) Good characters. As Dille and Platten remind us (2007, p.65-67) there are major types of characters that can exist within a game: the main hero (in that case Joel), the allies (the girl Ellie and others), neutral characters (the background characters), and the enemies (LAST OF US doesn’t have final stage bosses, only packs of enemies all the time). The characters, even the evil ones, are well structured and create empathy with the player.

4) A good end. Some people loved and some people hated the end of the game. I’m on the first group. I don’t want to give out any spoilers but the end is awesome in my opinion. It works with the personality of the hero (Joel) in a rare way we can see in modern games.

It’s immersive. It’s violent. It’s an epic product for a videogame platform. Prepare to be surprised. Make every bullet of your ammo count in this game, and prepare yourself for new ways we will massively have in the new generation of consoles.

Check the game trailer below:

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References:

BATEMAN, Chris (editor). Game Writing: narrative skills for videogames. Boston: Thomson, 2007.

DILLE, Flint; PLATTEN, John Zuur. The ultimate guide to video game writing and design. New York: Skip Press, 2007

JOURNEY: an art framework to play

I really appreciate the work in the area of indie games. Every month we can see good examples of different kind of games in this field.

Some indie games have a very particular way of showing their gameplay. Some have a traditional interface, but others have very different ways of displaying their properties. The game Journey (2012) is one such example.

Journey is a video game developed by Thatgamecompany for PlayStation 3. In the game, the player controls a robed figure in a vast desert, journeying towards a mountain in the distance. Other players on the same journey can be discovered, one at a time, along the way; the two players can then assist each other, but are not allowed to communicate via speech or text and are not shown each other's names.

The only form of communication between the two players is through wordless "singing". This noise also imbues floating pieces of cloth found throughout the levels with magic powers, affecting the game world. The robed figure wears a trailing scarf which, when charged by approaching floating pieces of cloth, briefly allows the player to fly.



Journey was intended by the developers to evoke in the player a sense of smallness and wonder, and to forge an emotional connection between them and the anonymous players they meet along the way.

So we can say that Journey is a trip inside a gameplay. It's a different idea of game (like many others of the same kind) because it balances art (or introspective reflexion) and game. You can appreciate this game as an art framework, but your television is the museum.

With the constant growing of the gaming industry, I think we'll have more and more room to create experimental games like this one. With the expansion of the gaming field we can think outside the box to create new experiences beyond the traditional first person shooters or traditional side-scrolling games.

The indie games area looks perfect for this. Let's try this theory in our own games.