Vonlenska

Oh man. This feels weirdly personal. Ryan Davis had an incredible presence. He had been married for less than a week. I feel terrible for his spouse and Jeff, Brad, Vinny, Patrick... all of the Bombcast folks. 34, goddamit. He'll definitely be missed.

Much of what I take issue with is tied up in how The Last of Us ends. Dasein (high-five for Heidegger, by the way), I am not arguing that "this game has a high body count and therefore can't tell a serious story," or that the game must explore the "effect of violence on a real person's psyche." I am arguing that the way the game sets up it's last act highlights how contrived Joel's superhuman ability to kill and the plot armor he is protected by. The spell broke for me. The thing is, I'm not exactly wanting to convince you to feel a certain way. I had a reaction to the end that sucked. I don't think it is the "right" reaction that everyone should have or some such, but there are concrete things I can point to as problematic in the last act.The problem is, it requires discussing the ending. Much of The Last of Us was a joy for me, and the conversation I want to have about it is for taking the game in as a whole. I would be resistant to what I am saying about Joel if I were partway through myself.

Speaking only for myself, I don't particularly disagree with any of that. It's not that the brutal kills are brutal that I have a problem with - it's that it only goes the one way. What undermines the story is that Joel personally kills, by hand, hundreds of people, and Joel comes out the other side of it no worse for wear. He's not a survivor, he's the Video Game ProtagonistTM who clears the boards of countless enemies every time at no personal cost. He's a superhuman, not a person who did what he had to to survive. ENDING SPOILERS

Thank God. I registered just to say that I am so happy to see someone else had these sorts of reactions to the game. There is a lot to love in this game, but goddamn if it isn't hard to take Joel's character and arc seriously when he is murdering entire platoons in between story beats. Edit: Specifically, the Ending...