videogameblog

I'm finally free!! I submitted my critical project this afternoon after working on it for virtually two months straight. It should be up on here at some point in the future. I'm paranoid about posting it immediately in case the plagarism bots somehow find this site and give me -4000 points. Now I'm done writing about The Last Of Us: Left Behind I can finally start writing about The Last Of Us: Left Behind!! woo hoo!! I'm gonna try and cover all the games I played while I was writing my project (starting with this one). I'm like 10 behind on this blog right now and I fear I'll struggle to recollect alot of the thoughts I had when I played them. Expect all my posts up until the end of April to be especially short!!

I initally played The Last of Us: Left Behind as a potential candidate to be the focus of my third critical project chapter (which it ended up being). When I played the base game last year I wasn't crazy about it, so I'd been hesistant to try it's expansion. Wish I'd played it earlier though because it's LEAGUES better than the actual game. Instead of playing as Joel (yawn) you instead take control of Ellie, which is much more engaging. She can't really aim properly, she can't do melee without sneaking up on the enemy and her health is much lower. These factors make you alot more thought into positioning and movement during combat. Playing as her feels like a slight step towards the TLoU2 combat system. As you play, you traverse through two alternating sequences, both set in shopping malls. One takes place during a period in the game when Joel is injured, leaving Ellie to care for him. She's looking for medicine in a shopping mall, fighting through looters and infected as she does. Her movements through the mall cause her to reminice on memories from before the main game begun, when she was still living at the FEDRA camp. These memories act as the second sequence, following Ellie and her romantic interest, Riley, as they explore an (seemingly) infected-free abandoned mall. It plays like a walking simulator, focusing on character and environmental interaction instead of combat. Putting a walking-sim-esque sequence alongside some improved Last Of Us gameplay allows for both sides to maintain engagement way more effectively than they would be able to usually. I'd have no protest playing either of these halves idependently, but switching between two distinctly unique sequences every 15 minutes keeps things fun and refreshing. Both the present-day and memory halves frequently cut at periods that leave you anticipating what might happen next, so they're usually welcome. They manage to maintain this back and forth consistently throughout, I never felt disappointed to be switching. The switch also acts as an effective narrative device, demonstrating the changes that Ellie has gone through. She goes from being hesitant to sneak out of her dorm to murdering like 16 people by herself.

Although it's the least memorable half of the game, the present-day sequence was still very enjoyable. It's been a few months since I played, but I remember thinking the mechanical and narrative progression was better here than it was in the main campaign. Your goal is simple, find medicine for Joel. Because the player already knows that Joel makes it through alive (this portion takes place mid-campaign), there isn't really any stakes. Instead, I was motivated to play by the engaging level design, combat encounters and anticipation to switch back to the memory sequence. This is another thing that the switch is effective at; It allows this portion of the campaign to function without any narrative interference, since the player will contintue through in order to experience the narrative unfolding in the other half. This makes for a much more focused experience. This half is the only one that features combat sequences. They aren't too frequent, but gradually increase in difficulty in a way that allows players like me (who haven't played in a long time) to re-acclimatise to the systems. This negated any frustrations I might have had, and still allows for the inclusion of some challenging encounters in the latter half. There's one in particular where you have to kill like 11 guys. Ellie's lack of combat experience encouraged me to sneak around, planting traps and luring enemies in order to get kills. I mentioned it before, but this felt more like TLoU 2 than anything in the main campaign. Ellie's playstyle here translates over neatly to the sequel. She's also way more fun to control than Joel, you have to do more active thinking about how to engage each enemy since you really can't risk getting shot much. This half acts as a nice way to pace out the narrative of the memory sequence while also providing some ludic engagements through it's combat and puzzle sequences.

The memory half of the game is undoubtedly the better one. The player follows Ellie and her romantic interest Riley as they navigate through an abandoned mall. It's in this half that virtually all of the narrative elements of the DLC lie; combat is completely omitted. As you walk through the mall, you find out about Ellie and Riley's relationship as you interact with various items and areas. These interactions were the focus of my critical project chapter; I argued that they act as 'conduits' for the pair to express emotion for eachother. My favorites are the photo booth and the arcade machine. There's some really creative reflections of Ellie's actions in the alternate half of the game at play here; one part has you having a watergun fight with Riley, utilising cover and sneaking around to try and get the first hit. You then cut to the alternate sequence, in which you're sneaking around shooting and stabbing people for real. As I mentioned before, it acts as a concious and effective highlighting of Ellie's character development. I've written at length about this half over the past month so I'm pretty exhausted with writing about it. I'll probably paste my project chapter in here once it's graded, it goes into detail about the queer themes throughout. Overall, I found this sequences utilisation of the environment to be creative and narratively engaging. You consistently feel this looming dread as you play, although the sequences themselves are lighthearted and fun. This is because the player knows that by the end, Riley cannot be around anymore; she's not present when the game starts. I really liked how they bait you into thinking that her absence is due to her leaving the city with the fireflies, giving you a bittersweet moment of relief. This is swiftly ripped away when she kisses Ellie and tells her that she's not going to leave; recontextualising a moment that should be heartwarming into one of dread.

Despite it's short length, The Last of Us: Left Behind is able to carve out it's own identity, providing an extremely memorable experience in the process. Both gameplay halves compliment eachother excellently, providing the player with breaks from combat and narrative. It's the least divisive game in the walking-simulator genre I can think of, and I think if the combat-oriented sequences were omitted then some people (LOSERS!!) would be alot less fond of it. It's cool to see how many elements here made their way into The Last of Us: Part II. Things like the narrative switching and Ellie's combat system are echoed pretty significantly in the sequel, acting as some of it's strongest parts. Even if you didn't enjoy The Last of Us like me, i'd highly recommend trying this out. It's like the main campaign if it was good.