[PS3] The Last of Us - Page 6

Almost at the end when Joel was running away with Ellie in his arms, I thought they will going to shoot him and he will die seeing Ellie and his daughter as one person. Ellie will never wake up and whole journey would be his last struggle to regain what he already lost. I think it would quite good end too, but a lot more depressing.

This is why I loved the ending so much. The way the world has been for the last 20 years, is it really worth saving? Much of the time, as Bill puts it, "normal humans scare me more". Many people have gone from normal people to murderers, killing others in cold blood to survive. How can they go back to civilized society after all that? Those who wanted a better life searched for it, like Tommy and his crew.

And as Joel said, it's not about surviving, but about finding something worth fighting for. What's the point of him surviving in that world if he has no reason to want to survive? He's lost literally everyone, and when he finally finds someone he cares about, he's told he's going to lose her?

Sure it's selfish and morally ambiguous, but I'd absolutely make the same call as Joel.

I thought the exact same thing, the soldiers kept yelling that they had Joel in their sights and it was his last chance, etc. I guess they didn't shoot in case they accidentally shot Ellie.

I loved the moral ambiguity and grayness of the characters. There were very few characters who were clearly good and clearly bad - in fact Ellie was the only character who was clearly good. Joel was good in some ways, but bad in another - he killed a lot of people, some that they didn't need to, and others in ways that might not be ethical. The Fireflies, although with a seemingly noble cost weren't that moral either, they had no problem killing Joel and didn't seem very sympathetic to him when he was having a hard time letting go of Ellie.

Even that creep guy that you fight in the restaurant - where you have to stab him to death, that guy was introduced as a decent guy, but obviously he was fine hunting down Joel, trying to kill Ellie when she wouldn't join his cause - etc.

After playing Ni-No-Kuni and The Last of Us in the past two weeks I am thoroughly impressed with the PS3 exclusives. I had been playing only Xbox 360 games, my PS3 hasn't been used in years (I own like 25 X360 games and 5-7 PS3 games) but I am very impressed.

I love what you said about characters being morally in a gray spot, Joel in particular.

Take a look at it from the perspective of one of those nurses at the end. Some dude starts murdering people in their hospital, breaks into the surgery room, shoots a surgeon and steals the only chance mankind has at a cure. To them, he's essentially evil incarnate.

But we get to see it all from Joel's perspective, so we see exactly why he did what he did. Can't give enough props to Naughty Dog for how the story played out.

Yeah, from Firefly members point of view it sucks so much.

Agreed.

When you break into the surgery room and the doctor holds a scalpel at you warning you not to come closer, I didn't want to kill him or the nurses, so I just walked towards him thinking there might be an option when you just break his arm or something, but instead Joel automatically snatches the knife and sinks it into the doctor's neck - pretty gruesome.

I've been taking turns playing the game with a friend. Anyways, its his turn, and we're at the fight with the sniper in the 3rd story window down the street. He tries a few times to go down the left, but we're playing on hard, and almost out of supplies. He keeps getting sniped while fighting the thugs by the first burned out building. Eventually, he gets frustrated and says "Fuck it, I'm gonna brick him." He proceeds to sprint past all the thugs in the area, pushes his way past the three at the door, sprints up the stairs and kills the guy.

What difficulty? I died on hard difficulty around 10-15 times before I got past it.

The fact that you play as short stint as Sarah gets you more emotionally invested in the character. Just a couple minutes of development make a huge difference, we cared about what happened to her and Joel more now than if the game just started out as "Heres a guy, he loses his daughter" (as messed up as it sounds to say that.)

I suspected it would come down to a "we can save mankind but she'll have to die" type thing, but I had no idea how it would be handled. This was a good example of one of those "happy sad" endings that left me fulfilled and overall happy with the situation, but knowing full well that it was a very selfish and morally ambiguous outcome. I can't remember the last time my heart was beating so hard during a game. The possibilities kept racing in my head. "Oh he's not going to reach her in time. Oh they are going to shoot him as he's running with her for the exit. Oh Marlene is going to change his mind and he's going to give her up." When they first cut to him in the truck I remember thinking to myself "She better fucking be in that back seat." The game kept me guessing, and I love it.

It was also very important in how they put you in certain situations, and used gameplay instead of cutscenes. When I barged into the operating room, the doctors didn't pull assault rifles out of their asses and start blasting me. One goes for a scalpel, another cowers in a corner. It occurs to you that you're dooming countless numbers of people to death by infection, but you don't care. I didn't hesitate. I remember shooting the doctor cowering in the corner and she fell to the floor and started crawling towards the door. Now obviously as someone who plays lots of video games, graphic violence doesn't bother me and I can separate reality from fiction. But I remember a very distinct moment during that situation that very few games give me, and I can only describe it as "channeling my character." In this case, Joel. I knew what I was doing was wrong and selfish, but I didn't care. I aimed for her head and pulled the trigger.

It's the kind of ending that leaves a lasting impact on you. It's not as simple as "a good ending or a bad one" or "happy or sad." It was, just like the majority of the game, gray. Joel is a man who clearly has done bad things and killed innocents, and as unsympathetic or morally ambiguous as the Fireflies seemed, a cure is obviously a invaluable step in mankind's recovery. But I can't say I wouldn't have done the exact same thing. The perspective you gained throughout the game makes the ending that much more powerful.

I got the feeling the ending could have been averted had Marlene discussed the surgery with both Joel and Ellie beforehand, or not discussed the surgery at all. Discussing it with Joel only was a full-retard moment for Marlene.

That said, excellent game.