Silly Cody, the spoiler is for the game (Gaming)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Tuesday, February 18, 2014, 14:32 (3727 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Okay, SPOILERS incoming.

Ways in which it's like DLC:

It does explain how Ellie manages to keep Joel alive after his near-fatal injury, and that is a question the original game does not address, but you could argue that it's unnecessary to know--the original game worked without knowing. A lot of the gameplay is similar to the Ellie section of the original campaign.

Ways in which it's like an expansion:

We get new gameplay dynamics that enable us to pit different enemies against each other. Ellie faces many more enemies at once, and this makes the game harder than the original in that she can't face them toe to toe like Joel. We get a new story about a character we care about. We know the outlines of the story, but we don't know the true meaning of the story to the character. In a sense, Ellie gets the prologue that is analogous to Joel's prologue in the original game. It's a narrative expansion that changes the original game to something closer to the dual-protagonist story they claimed they wanted, and in that way you can claim that they've made the original game better.

Stuff you may or may not care about:

Lots of exploration and finding bits of story in the environment. This would be characterized as collecting fun, something I doubt you'd care about, but it's in the spirit of the original, which to me successfully contrasted sections of fear and combat with sections of quiet and reflection.

Great writing, artwork, and acting.

Virtual teenage girl goofing off in a mall that is not very game-like, in that there is no objective per se. However, they try some interesting things to integrate player interaction with character development. I think this works to varying degrees of success, but I give them credit for trying to combine gameplay AND narrative.

Other factors:

Just discovered that the documentary I mentioned earlier is now free on Amazon Prime, so there is the cost issue. Still worth it to me, for reasons I've already stated.