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Cursing, terror and throat slashing sets Naughty Dog's latest apart.
It starts right after the ambush cutscene. In the smoking and totaled truck, Ellie tells Joel she's OK, and the passenger door flies open. A crazed attacker is on the young girl -- groping, grabbing and pulling. Ellie's clawing and screaming, Joel reaches for her, and another attacker throws open the driver's door and yanks Joel out. They tussle through a pane of glass, and the attacker holds Joel's head above a triangular piece of shattered weaponry.
The camera's tight here -- anchored with Joel's struggling head on the left side of the screen -- when the Square button pops up on the right. It's a patented struggle scene from developer Naughty Dog; the kind of stuff we've seen in so many Uncharted games before. The player taps the button over and over and Joel (the character we play as) raises his head. He's going to get out of it and save the day like Nathan Drake.
But in the final moment of the fight, Joel struggles to look over his right shoulder at the attacker, and there's this rage and desperation in his eye -- the vein's visible, his teeth are gritted. Joel breaks free, grabs the attacker's head and slams it into the triangle of glass. It enters at about the the Adam's apple, and the attacker rolls off the glass with a sickening wheeze and clutches the gaping, bloody hole in his throat. He collapses.
The Last of Us isn't Uncharted -- no matter how similar the button prompts look in this early build. And that's the thing: with a passing glance, you could make the case that this does look like Uncharted. Both are beautiful third-person action titles, the ammo icons are similar, and there's a moment where Joel lifts a gate for Ellie that seems pulled from Uncharted 3. But watching the game, that's where the argument falls apart.
After the impromptu tracheotomy, Joel shoots some bad guys from cover, slams one guy's face into the store counter, gets a 2x4 and gruesomely caves in another foe's skull. All this happens over time, of course. Joel moves from cover to cover and blows through his limited ammo in a flash. Throughout it all, there's blood and curses words.
The action is moving with the same fluidity of Uncharted and the polish Naughty Dog is known for, but it's devoid of the happy action. Joel and Ellie spend the next few minutes of the level sneaking around and stealth killing enemies, but there's no humor to it.
When Nathan Drake gets the drop on a pirate, he snaps the foe's neck in one cheery move -- usually with a one-liner tossed in. When Joel puts an unsuspecting attacker in a sleeper hold, the camera comes in tight, and they struggle. The man swings wildly at Joel, and Joel leans in to slowly suffocate the enemy. It's not quick. It's deliberate, upsetting.
That's what Naughty Dog said it's going for with The Last of Us. The team wants us to share the emotions of Joel and Ellie, and from the brief demo I saw -- filled with scavenging for bullets, a segmented health bar, and other humans being a larger threat than any monster -- it's working in a way Uncharted never did.
It starts right after the ambush cutscene. In the smoking and totaled truck, Ellie tells Joel she's OK, and the passenger door flies open. A crazed attacker is on the young girl -- groping, grabbing and pulling. Ellie's clawing and screaming, Joel reaches for her, and another attacker throws open the driver's door and yanks Joel out. They tussle through a pane of glass, and the attacker holds Joel's head above a triangular piece of shattered weaponry.
The camera's tight here -- anchored with Joel's struggling head on the left side of the screen -- when the Square button pops up on the right. It's a patented struggle scene from developer Naughty Dog; the kind of stuff we've seen in so many Uncharted games before. The player taps the button over and over and Joel (the character we play as) raises his head. He's going to get out of it and save the day like Nathan Drake.
But in the final moment of the fight, Joel struggles to look over his right shoulder at the attacker, and there's this rage and desperation in his eye -- the vein's visible, his teeth are gritted. Joel breaks free, grabs the attacker's head and slams it into the triangle of glass. It enters at about the the Adam's apple, and the attacker rolls off the glass with a sickening wheeze and clutches the gaping, bloody hole in his throat. He collapses.
The Last of Us isn't Uncharted -- no matter how similar the button prompts look in this early build. And that's the thing: with a passing glance, you could make the case that this does look like Uncharted. Both are beautiful third-person action titles, the ammo icons are similar, and there's a moment where Joel lifts a gate for Ellie that seems pulled from Uncharted 3. But watching the game, that's where the argument falls apart.
After the impromptu tracheotomy, Joel shoots some bad guys from cover, slams one guy's face into the store counter, gets a 2x4 and gruesomely caves in another foe's skull. All this happens over time, of course. Joel moves from cover to cover and blows through his limited ammo in a flash. Throughout it all, there's blood and curses words.
The action is moving with the same fluidity of Uncharted and the polish Naughty Dog is known for, but it's devoid of the happy action. Joel and Ellie spend the next few minutes of the level sneaking around and stealth killing enemies, but there's no humor to it.
When Nathan Drake gets the drop on a pirate, he snaps the foe's neck in one cheery move -- usually with a one-liner tossed in. When Joel puts an unsuspecting attacker in a sleeper hold, the camera comes in tight, and they struggle. The man swings wildly at Joel, and Joel leans in to slowly suffocate the enemy. It's not quick. It's deliberate, upsetting.
That's what Naughty Dog said it's going for with The Last of Us. The team wants us to share the emotions of Joel and Ellie, and from the brief demo I saw -- filled with scavenging for bullets, a segmented health bar, and other humans being a larger threat than any monster -- it's working in a way Uncharted never did.
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