![]() ![]() I felt as if I’d seen it all before, having developed a brief but intense obsession with Splatoon 2 on a summer holiday five years ago. Out this Friday, Nintendo’s family friendly shooter Splatoon 3 is joyous. Remaking it yet again – and charging this much for it – is an indulgence on the part of its developer, but it’s difficult to begrudge them it. This game truly made a difference, and it raised the bar for the whole medium. It was the first time I had played as a teenaged girl, the first time a character’s life experiences mirrored some of my own. It is unfortunate that this seemed quietly revolutionary in 2013, but it really did. It was also unusual at the time for a game to feature a female character so prominently – indeed, in the Left Behind expansion, Ellie took on the lead role, and kept it for the sequel. ![]() But I wanted to see what the game had to say at the end of it. There were moments in the final scenes of Part 1 – and many more times during Part 2 – when I could hardly bear to go through with what I was being asked to do. It is jarring to be in the shoes of a character whose actions we disagree with – more so than when we’re watching an antihero in a film or TV series, because we are performing these actions. Ten years ago, putting players through a story without pandering to their expectations, or giving them agency to change it in some way, was fairly new. But Joel cannot his better nature died with his daughter, years before. Many of us like to think that we could sacrifice ourselves or someone we loved for the greater good, if it really came to it. ![]() When, at the end of their postapocalyptic road trip, Joel learns that Ellie will have to die in order to provide that cure, and goes on a murderous rampage through a hospital full of doctors to retrieve her and take her back out into a ravaged world, it is an act of extreme but tragically relatable selfishness. Part 1 is in many ways a simpler story, a more conventional zombie-movie setup about two people in search for a cure to restore humanity, but it’s still subversive – particularly the ending, which frustrated a lot of people at the time because it wasn’t the outcome that they wanted. Playing Part 1 again – seeing Joel and Ellie find comfort in each other and grow closer throughout the horrors they witness – with the knowledge of what happens to these characters in the sequel is heartbreaking.ĭivisive … The Last of Us Part 2 Photograph: PlayStation In Part 2, Ellie and the rest of the cast grow harder, more callous, more deadened to each others’ humanity with every hour that passes. I found it riveting – it’s far from subtle, but I’ve never played a game that went to such lengths to examine the violence that people do to each other, and to humanise the “enemy” and their motivations. Released in 2020, its unpleasant storyline about cycles of retribution did not land with some players and critics, who thought it was a needlessly violent and dispiriting spectacle. He’s not a good man we know this long before the ending. This time around, I related a little more to Joel, as the parental figure in this story. (I’d forgotten how funny this game can be, but Ashley Johnson plays Ellie so brilliantly and with such superb light sarcasm.) Back then, I thought Joel was a typical gruff male video-game protagonist: he was a foil, and most of the time I wished that I could be playing Ellie instead. And after having experienced a real pandemic, the whole setup hits differently.įirst time around, I related powerfully to Ellie, the traumatised but openhearted and wryly hilarious teenager who shares this adventure with Joel. I wasn’t a parent when I first played those jaw-droppingly awful opening scenes, in which Joel’s young daughter dies in the first hours of the fungal zombie pandemic that devastates the world. Personally, playing it again has made me think about how the world (and my own life) have changed in the last decade. ![]() It really does look and feel like a modern game. People have praised Naughty Dog’s dedication and attention to detail on this remake. (If you haven’t played it, or the 2020 sequel: I’ll be talking about them in some detail, so best to skip this section if you want to avoid spoilers.) There’s been a lot of justified grumbling about whether a nine-year-old game – which has already been remastered for the PlayStation 4 – can justifiably be sold again for £70 for most players, no graphics upgrade could ever be worth that much. I’ve been playing The Last of Us Part 1 this week, a PlayStation 5 remake of Naughty Dog’s landmark horror classic, first released in 2013. ![]()
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