T w e n t y S i d e d

Apologies to the people of Germany. The end credits music has blocked this video in your country. I realize this must be really irritating, but at least this has put an end to music piracy in your country. So you have that going for you.

And so it ends. Is it weird that our most positive season of Spoiler Warning is about a console exclusive that less than half of us have played? It feels weird to me.

And now I’m playing through it myself. There are a lot of little details you don’t get to see in our play-through, or by watching the cutscenes online. When you’re playing on your own you’re probably going at a slower pace, taking in the sights, and maybe even re-starting from checkpoints if things go sideways. Playing like this, I’m seeing little bits of dialog and little animations. Ellie in particular is good at looking busy without dropping into “blank-faced NPC idle” mode.

Since this is probably the last time we’re going to talk about the game, and since I’m finally getting around to playing it myself, I feel like I should say something about the gameplay. But I really hate to end on a down note. I dunno. It’s up to you. Stop here and bask in the happy ending of seeing a game successfully melting our blackened hearts, or read on and listen to me repeat gripes Josh and Chris covered weeks ago. This is it. Turn back now and leave with happy thoughts. I don’t mind. Thanks for watching.

Really. You don’t need to read the rest. It’s the rants of a whole season, distilled into a single post, written mostly while still angry. That can’t be good. Go in peace, and knowing that we really do love The Last of Us.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Last of Us EP35: The Last of The Last of Us”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

At this point in the game – just as we finally enter the home stretch – I’m finally going to get to play The Last of Us for myself. I now own a Playstation 4, along with GTA V and TLOU. These arrived via UPS with no note or indication of who bought them. I have my guess, but I don’t want to say anything until I know for sure. The important thing is that someone was very very good to me and I am very grateful. This is exactly the package I would have picked for myself.

This is the penultimate episode of the season. It’s been a good run. I feel sort of bad about stepping all over our discussion of the ending in my column yesterday, but I think there’s plenty of stuff left to discuss beyond, “How stupid and useless are the Fireflies and are they worse than Cerberus?”.

So I’m curious: Can you shoot these animals, and does Ellie react? We didn’t want to do the experiment and risk the wrath of Mumbles if it turned out the Giraffes were mortal.

The scene just before you leave the Giraffes behind is kind of interesting. As far as either of them knows, this shouldn’t be a big deal. Ellie is just expecting to be “studied”. They should be relieved to be done with travel and danger and fighting for survival for a few days. But the dialog flows as if they both know this is going to be a bigger deal than any of the challenges they just faced. The only explanation I can think of is that Joel thinks they are about to part ways.

And finally: Exhibit Z in the “Proof that the Fireflies suck at everything” files: The tunnel leading to their hideout is the most heavily zombie-infested place in the entire game. How long have they been here and not dealt with the monsters on their doorstep? Don’t they need to come and go once in a while? And while we’re at it, I should point out that with no viable means of trade or farming, there’s nothing for the Fireflies to eat.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.