Weekend Confirmed 170 - Xbox One, The Last of Us

By Ozzie Mejia, Jun 21, 2013 11:00am PDT


Weekend Confirmed Ep. 170: 6/21/2013

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Jeff Cannata @JeffCannata

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  • So a few things about the Last of Us criticism:

    There is no food eating mechanic because it doesn't fit into the game's time/space logic. This isn't a Bethesda game with a day/night cycle. Its structured into episodes, and the episodes are played out in real time. If it had a day night cycle it would probably hurt the logos of the scenario, because you would have to ignore the fact that the sun is rising and setting in an hour or whatever.

    You don't not see Joel and Ellie eat for power ups because it would be bizarre for them to have a snack in the middle of wadding through a pack of infected. On one hand you're asking for a scenario where food is scarce (which it isn't necessarily in TLoU fiction) , on the other hand you're asking for a hunger gauge that depletes itself in the course of a couple of hours, which is just silly.

    That said, Joel and Ellie are not presented as immortals who don't need food to survive either. Spoiler: A. You actually watch Joel, Ellie cook and eat with Henry and Sam. B. The whole Winter section begins with Ellie hunting for food.

    In terms of "verisimilitude" here, TLoU contrasts itself against Tomb Raider, which used hunting deer as a tutorial for shooting the bow weapon. It also treated a rusty spire through the gut as something the character can just "tough out," which of course TLoU refutes that with Ellie bartering for antibiotics to save Joel. end Spoiler

    So I think I read a bias into Garnett/Jeff's analysis, which is towards literal realism, rather than the logos of the game scenarios, which I think The Last of Us is basically masterful at. Once again it comes down to this wrong idea that video games are first hand "experiences," rather than mechanically driven games.

    Ellie doees say she's hungry during a piece of in game dialogue---but that's not meant to make you go "Oh! Maybe if I eat this bag of cheetos Ellie will feel better!" That's the same logic that says when a girl protagonist kisses her boyfriend it makes the male player feel gay. Its a way of giving you information about her as a character.

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