Hey Cody! (Games as Art, etc.) (Gaming)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Tuesday, September 29, 2015, 02:02 (3343 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I can't say I disagree with that.

I still think people are expecting weird things from games. Yeah, the Last of Us tells a pretty compelling story. I can't help but thinking that the same story would have worked better as a movie, if done correctly.

On the other hand, there is something to be said for feeling more attached to Ellie because of actually "going through" something with her through the gameplay. I did have fun playing The Last of Us, a lot of fun actually, but there are a lot of ways that the gameplay doesn't live up to the story the game is telling. It's sort of the opposite of Destiny actually, where the moment to moment gameplay is incredibly fun, but there's not really a deep narrative experience. There's good and bad about either approach, but I'd argue that something like Destiny has the better experience, where the "art" of the game is its moment to moment mechanics, whereas the "art" of The Last of Us is its narrative, with its gameplay just sort of tacked on to that.

I feel quite differently, myself. I think The Last of Us works as well as it does specifically because it is a videogame. It is one of the few games that has really tapped into the unique storytelling potential of the medium. The player's relationship with Ellie forms the way it does because we are literally responsible for her well being. It is up to us to keep her safe. That relationship develops when she starts to help us in actual impactful in-game ways. The first time I saw her throw bricks at a Hunter or jump on a hunter and fight back, I was literally proud of her. She had watched me, learned from me, and was now taking care of herself. That's a kind of narrative development that I think can only be achieved in games because it plays on our active roll in the experience.