Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
S2 Ep109: The Last of Us
83 Plays5 years ago
FULL SPOILERS: The Last of Us (the first one)
Join Dave and Jake as play through and reminisce about one of the all-time best games, The Last of Us in this week's episode! This episode contains spoilers for the first game, but none for Pt 2.
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Join Dave and Jake as play through and reminisce about one of the all-time best games, The Last of Us in this week's episode! This episode contains spoilers for the first game, but none for Pt 2.
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:02
Speaker
you
Introduction to Soapstone Podcast
00:00:52
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? Hmm?
00:01:01
Speaker
Do we start? Yeah. Oh, um, check my notes here. It says good question. Leave open ended in parentheses. That's good. Yeah. We try not to be too definitive about anything here. You know, leave it open to discussion. How do you guys, how do you, the listener feel like we're feeling right now?
00:01:25
Speaker
We'll just do like, oh, this was like the most user voted option. Dave's, oh, Dave's
Perception and Reality: Insights from Transistor
00:01:31
Speaker
bad. Oh, okay. It kind of reminds me of, there's a quote from Transistor that pops into my head sometimes. It's just like, the sky looks blue or the sky is blue because we want it. The sky looks blue because we want it too, I think is what it is.
00:01:50
Speaker
And I don't know why, but that just sticks with me. It's just like the perception of reality. I mean, that was also a digital world where you could literally vote on whether.
Naming Conventions in The Last of Us Series
00:02:03
Speaker
But taking it to the real life corollary, the perception of it, I think, just like how you view the world can significantly impact how you feel about the world too.
00:02:14
Speaker
Well, that's too deep. Yeah. Let's talk about a lighthearted game tonight. Yeah. We'll dial it back. Dive kick. Um, no, I don't know anything about that. Other than the kicks and the dives. Well, there's actually a deep seated lore. Anyway. Another game with deep seated lore. Uh, the last of us. Well, this is the first one. So if you saw the title and you're like, ah, crap, is it going to be two of the talking spoilers for two? I'm not doing that.
00:02:43
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like the title of the game should be specific. Like if this is the Last of Us remake, that should be the whole thing, you know? Not just the one season. Anywho. So two I think is titled like the remainder of The Last of Us or something like that, right? The Last of Us and then like, quote, for real this time or something.
00:03:10
Speaker
Or like The Last of Us. Oh, wait, we found Tim. Tim's still alive. Tim's still alive.
Comparing The Last of Us and Left Behind Series
00:03:15
Speaker
That one's going to follow Tim. Well, I mean, what is that book series? Christian book series about the rapture. Left behind. Left behind, yeah. So obviously it started off with one book, but then it became a book series when it had popularity in a movie, I think. Kirk Cameron, the yada yada. Yeah. He's alive. With the initial rapture and then goes in through like the arc of the end of days, because I think
00:03:41
Speaker
after everybody's raptured, God like comes back and checks after seven years like, shit, did we forget anybody? And those who had repented in that time and haven't been killed or fucked by demons are then like, they also can come or something. I'm not sure about that second part. That's close to it. It's been a while since I've read the Bible, my bad.
00:04:01
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, this wasn't even the Bible.
Impactful Gameplay Experiences in The Last of Us
00:04:03
Speaker
The Last of Us is a non-canon interpretation of the rapture. Is there anything? Did you read the Young Adult series or the Adult series? I mean, Left Behind was a... Yeah, there was like the shorter books that were slightly less violent. And then there was like the adult books where it's like, and this is the part where they try to assassinate the Antichrist.
00:04:24
Speaker
I think the adult books. Yeah, those were like thicker hardback. It's been a while. I don't know. Those are some interesting reads. I this is yeah. Anyways, look forward to our book review of Christian literature. But for this one, we can talk about the other Last of Us.
00:04:45
Speaker
the video game. I think this is the remastered edition is the only one I've seen or played because I was a late comer and I picked this up for like PlayStation. I got it after buying PlayStation for Monster Hunter. Yeah. To put things on the timeline. I also initially played it for PS4 and that was probably just whatever standard edition. And then a remastered was released afterwards because originally I think it came out on PS3 if I'm correct. That sounds right.
00:05:13
Speaker
But yeah, I didn't play it for a couple of years. And then I feel like I got it with the PS4 bundle. I was like, not this FIFA game, something more generic and not in my wheelhouse of interest or Last of Us. And I was like, I've heard good things about this. Let me check it out. And then I played the first half hour and paused the game and cried a little bit. And I was like, I like this game so much.
00:05:43
Speaker
Usually if I pause midway through a game to cry, it's a lamentation for the time spent on that first half of the game. And then... Actually, I didn't buy a copy of this. I played your copy of The Last of Us.
00:06:04
Speaker
Again, I'm the benevolent giver of games, apparently, because when I went to go play this again, I had lent it out to another friend. I'm like, you got to play this game. It's so good for getting that we're going to record this episode. Yeah. But it was thankfully on sale for like 10 bucks on PSN.
Emotional Depth of The Last of Us Prologue
00:06:19
Speaker
Though, to be fair, when you loaned it out to the friend, according to the timeline, I'm aware of this probably would have been months in the past to the point where we didn't know when the last of his episode was happening.
00:06:36
Speaker
I'm shaking my head no, but for the audio listeners, that's correct. Yeah, it's shaking your head. The common universal sign for agreement. No, no, no. So what were your initial thoughts playing it? Did you come in with a bias? Had you heard other things?
00:06:55
Speaker
I tried to, if it seems like really narrative, I'll try to black out the experience, like not have any spoilers, any information about the story, anything like that. Going into this, I was like, there are some adventure games for the PlayStation. Uncharted is one of them. And I've heard good things about The Last of Us. And that was basically it. So other than knowing
00:07:21
Speaker
This is post-apocalyptic zombie game. Didn't have a lot else leading to it. So the prologue was particularly impactful for that. I was just like, oh, this is going to be a field strip. Yeah. Yeah.
00:07:45
Speaker
So first off blanket statement, I still think this is one of the best games I have ever played. That's why I'm never going to get a tattoo of it because what even would the design be? But it is. It's a ladder. Put a ladder on the ground with a little triangle next to it.
00:08:09
Speaker
It's gotta be, it's
Character Development: Joel and Ellie
00:08:11
Speaker
gotta be up there with like Undertale, Bioshock, things that have really stuck with me. Yeah. Because the game, obviously it's great gameplay, but its biggest strength everyone talks about is the storytelling and the narrative of the whole game. It is, oof. All the characters are believable and you feel things and it sucks. Yeah. But it's also good.
00:08:43
Speaker
Like going back to prepare for this, the story elements are really what stood out as noteworthy. And the gameplay I remember is like, ah, third person cover shooter stealth aspects. There's like a lot like that. I think when talking to you prior to this, I was like, another game that's a good third person stealth-ish sort of shooter is like Splinter Cell.
00:09:05
Speaker
I think that's a fair way to put it.
00:09:10
Speaker
You don't like The Last of Us for the same reasons you like Splinter Cell. I don't know anyone who's just like, I like The Last of Us and it was 100% the gameplay. That's what got me. That's the reason this is my game of the year. Hold on, though. I will say early on, the gameplay feels a little bit weird as you're getting used to the controls. Not that they're not intuitive. It's just.
00:09:33
Speaker
you're going between exploratory sections to maybe some sneaking to maybe some active combat with the cover based system. But at the end of the game,
00:09:47
Speaker
My hands were just going over the controller. I'm like, heal, reposition, go over here, throw a rocket at this guy, go and stab this guy to the death, choke this other guy out, go back to stealth, get the shotgun, reload the shotgun, shoot the guy at the shotgun. It feels really good. It is really good. And I don't know, there's a lot we can talk about mechanically too.
00:10:12
Speaker
that I guess we could get into, but we should mention the prologue. We should. Every time you're like, the prologue, I'm like, here's why the game's good. Derails entirely. Yeah. So I'll let you describe the gist of the prologue, but it's impactful.
00:10:34
Speaker
OK, I'll try and do a summary. Right. I'll provide corrections. So basically it starts off with a cinematic. There's like a young girl on a couch. This is Sarah, Joel's daughter, and she's up very late. Joel gets home from like a very long shift doing whatever he does for a living. And you get to see the interaction between them. You can tell it's like a single parent type of situation.
00:11:05
Speaker
but they have a really good relationship. They're very close and they're kind of joking around and then they watch TV together and she falls asleep and he carries theirs and puts her to bed. Does she, she give them, gives them like a birthday present, right? Like that was one of the reasons she was staying up, I think as a watch, right? Yeah. Um, so then,
00:11:28
Speaker
you start to like hear some noises and you start playing as Sarah and you're kind of like a sleepy 12 year old, you kind of like walk around your house like, Oh, what's going on? And like, you're in your PJs and you move lethargically. Yeah, this is actually when I wasn't like, since it's the start of the game, I'm like, I'm not really sure if I want to just be playing as an unresponsive 12 year old girl for the next 13 hours. Yeah. You don't know where it's going at this point.
00:11:55
Speaker
But essentially you're going around your house looking for your dad. You see the TVs on your dad's room. So you then you catch like a bit of a news bulletin saying like, oh,
00:12:05
Speaker
There's all this shit going down at the hospitals, returning away people, a lot of incidents of violence. And then an explosion happens on the TV and the live news coverage, but it also happens outside the window, like a couple miles away and you can see it in the distance. Yeah. So that kind of draws in like, hey, shit's going down and not too far from you. Yeah.
00:12:29
Speaker
And then you kind of wander downstairs. You see all these missed calls from your uncle to your dad. And then your dad comes home and he's like, hey, like nobody's come in here, right? Like you're good. Nothing's going on. And she's like, what the fuck's going on? He's like, stay away from the windows. Your uncle will be by soon. We got to get out of here.
00:12:50
Speaker
And then your neighbor comes in, kind of breaks through the glass, and Joel, your dad, shoots him. Yeah. And she's like, what the fuck's happening? We're like very panicked. As one day. She's like, you shot him. He's like, we got to go. Right.
00:13:07
Speaker
And then as you drive into the city based on the news bulletin, like, hey, everyone needs to get out of here. Shit's going down. And this is like the start of the zombie infection, right? Yeah. I'm not sure exactly where this takes place, but I'm pretty sure it's Raccoon City. I think it's somewhere in Texas. It is in Texas, yeah.
00:13:29
Speaker
But essentially, everybody's panicking trying to flee the city. There's a lot of congestion with people. Stuff's literally falling apart. But you kind of
00:13:43
Speaker
now start to play as Joel because you're in a car crash. Sarah's leg is injured. So you're carrying around your daughter trying to get her through this mass of people and some zombies while your brother Tommy has a gun is helping protect you guys. He does pretty well, actually. Tommy crushes it. He actually does. More kinesthetics than me. That was how to use a gun correctly.
00:14:11
Speaker
This is one of the things I appreciate about the game kind of early is the the AI companions
The Fireflies and Moral Ambiguity
00:14:17
Speaker
are usually remarkably capable. Oh my God. Yes. I don't know why it took so long in game development for them to be like, let's have the other people actually worth.
00:14:29
Speaker
anything in the situation and I mean admittedly Tommy's interactions with the zombies are mostly scripted he's just like oh we'll like break down this door whatever the cap one in the head does all this other stuff yeah but he feels close to like the protagonist for his contribution to this escape I love that
00:14:48
Speaker
Yeah, he's he's solid. So essentially, he blocks off a door for like a couple of infected. And he's like, you guys go ahead, I'll meet up with you. And you get to the bridge towards the city limits, where there isn't going to be any infected, the traffic seems to be going through. And they seem to have like a perimeter of some military defense. Like, okay, we finally made it out. We're good.
00:15:16
Speaker
But at that point, you're accosted by a soldier who calls in, hey, we have two stragglers, like, what should we do? Yeah. And then his commanding officer tells him, like, we can't take any chances with this infection. Like, you should shoot them. Yeah. And so. And he resisted at first. Yeah. He's just like, there's a little girl. He's like, understood.
00:15:41
Speaker
Um, so he fires and ends up killing Sarah. Tommy then shows up at the last minute and shoots the soldier. Single headshot again. He's a fucking pro. But then you go over to your daughter who's bleeding out and she's 12 and you've played as her and then you've played like kind of carrying her around. Um,
00:16:09
Speaker
and she dies. And that's like in the first 30 minutes. And then it goes into like these credits of some of the early game music and it starts telling me about like these news bulletins of how the outbreak is progressing in the following weeks, months, years. And it really sets the scene of like, here's where everything went to shit. And that was like your baseline.
00:16:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's really impressive what they accomplish in the prologue, but they basically accomplish a level of, whether it's to be satisfied or not in the rest of the story, foreshadowing for Joel, where it's just like,
00:16:52
Speaker
uh concern about what the course of his life will take um it's not a he's like begging her not to die basically it's it's the most emotionally like charged situation but it would be it's not fake right it's not like
00:17:11
Speaker
sometimes games are like, and here's the point where you're supposed to be emotionally invested. And you're like, I'm still thinking about gameplay. I got nothing here. And it's not like somebody like fell off of a cliff. Lion King started like, no, like you had enough interaction in character building that you give a fuck about these characters at this point. And everyone is acting normally for we're panicking during a zombie outbreak, just trying to get our families safe and out of the city. Um,
00:17:41
Speaker
So, yeah, when she died and it went to credits, I immediately started crying. And the thing is, when I play this again, it happened again. I knew what was going to happen, but it still hit me in that same way. It's the same for me, actually. I saw the shot and then, like, hand-dagging her not to go and stuff. I was just like,
00:18:06
Speaker
I turned to Jenny and was just like, oh, right, this is the last one. Yeah. But it's it's such a good opener because. It gets you invested in the universe immediately, gets you invested in the characters, teaches you loss right off the bat, but it puts you. I think more than other games oftentimes show a
00:18:36
Speaker
It gets you invested before, this is the whole of them like killing the doc or whatever. This is the point where in the story you're supposed to be invested, but they make sure that you're invested. They do that with some like gameplay. They do that with some cool characterization. They show that interpersonal communication between the people. Like you're rooting for them by the time tragedy strikes. So it's not just plot device.
00:19:03
Speaker
Yeah, Jake and I have had an ongoing joke for years where I'll say, but Jake, we grew up together, which is usually how a lot of character we didn't actually, by the way, that's just how a lot of character backstory is kind of just injected. Yeah, it's like.
00:19:21
Speaker
hey, buddy, we've been friends for years. Like that's just like, oh, they know each other. That's how they do kind of push that in instead of giving you a tangible example of that. Yeah, you should feel something because they were friends. Instead, they show it. They don't. They don't tell it. Show don't tell.
00:19:39
Speaker
I'm in my show until very difficult. David, what is this? What is this? It's just like losing in my hands. I'll never tell. Glowing Eldritch device. Just stand there smiling. The ruin of Amonkara. The prologue, like you said, the title pops up right after that segment and it's just like emotional manipulation of the game.
00:20:08
Speaker
And then I think 20 years passed and they're like, hey, summertime. And then the rest of the game is post apocalypse to a
Seasonal Narrative Transitions
00:20:19
Speaker
certain extent.
00:20:19
Speaker
A lot of cities are now quarantined at this point. They have kind of like a martial law going on throughout. A lot of people are getting by by any means they can trying to avoid direct government interaction, trading food cards for supplies, etc.
00:20:44
Speaker
Uh, so Joel is still alive, but now old. You got to figure like he's in his fifties at this point. He's a bit more gray of hair. Yeah. And.
00:20:57
Speaker
Your friend Tess comes by to meet up with you and you guys were supposed to do a trade, some drugs for weapons or something of that nature. And as you start to go out with her, you get taken through a tour of what life is now. You get to see
00:21:16
Speaker
kind of like a trash burnout city. Not a lot of people are in the streets because a lot of people are kind of holed up in buildings. They need permits to go out and cross between zones. And there are some more. Urban districts, which are kind of like, if you imagine like trash fires. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's like one of those. Yeah.
00:21:43
Speaker
I think one of the standouts for me was like military runs everything. This is a military run state or whatever at this point. The bastions of humanity are in these cities where the military is in charge for the most part. Joel's like a smuggler or some kind of illicit sort of against the law figure, but they're still operating under that space while they're in Boston.
00:22:12
Speaker
One of the things I like is like, again, they don't do a whole lot of telling. They just like walk through the city and get a feel for what the future is like. And one of the things you learn pretty quick is like, Tess is remarkably well connected and more useful than Joel is for interacting with other people.
00:22:35
Speaker
Like, she gets you out of situations, she gets you through checkpoints, she does all this stuff. Joel is just there to help out when needed. Yeah, there are a lot of times as you're kind of walking through to get to your destination, where people go like, hey, Tess, what's going on? Like, trying to like wheel and deal a little bit. And she's like, not now. And they're like, oh, shit, okay. Like, Tess is fucking pissed.
00:23:00
Speaker
And she also mentions when you first run into her in the game. Oh, two of like Robert's guys jumped to me, so I had to deal with them thinking like she had some bruises. So like she fended them off type thing. Later on, you find out she killed them like you overhear.
00:23:19
Speaker
other of Robert's hired men saying like we should have sent those two guys for tests like she just murdered them like oh so she's a complete uh thriver and survivor in this time. Joe obviously is too but he's I feel that takes more of a backseat.
00:23:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think he's he's kind of held back from his past a little bit. He's not literally getting drunk every day, but it's clear that his prior everything that's gone on with him kind of holds him back. Yeah, he's definitely haunted and he's just trying to get by. Yeah. But yeah, that's that's that's kind of the opener, I guess. Eventually you do you have like a raid on Robert's warehouse, right?
00:24:07
Speaker
And that's where you hear some of that. And the game does use that mechanic of if you sneak up on the enemies, they'll do the whole like dishonored slash so many games before it back and forth where you hear their dialogue like you mentioned. But one thing I like that this game does is a lot of times that dialogue
00:24:27
Speaker
lend some humanity to the enemies, because at the end of the day, they're goons, right? They're just there to be killed. They're mooks or whatever you would call them in your construct of a video game. But the game's brutal in many ways, and killing other people that are kind of just out for themselves in the same way you are is...
00:24:53
Speaker
one of the themes, like survival, like you were mentioning. So lending some humanity to it, I think, makes it matter more. But that doesn't slow you down. No, not at all. That's what you're saying about how the game can be a little bit brutal. You can obviously shoot people. That's fairly straightforward. But if you sneak up on somebody and then you start getting into a fight with them instead of you choking them out,
00:25:22
Speaker
A lot of times you will do this really heavy like overhead punches to kind of beat them into the ground or you kind of push them off and like slam their head into something. Being that a pipe or a wall or something where that neck's probably not doing so hot. Yeah.
00:25:42
Speaker
They're lethal blows, pretty much. I think there is. Isn't there an option to not kill people? You can knock them out, too, if you choose to. But it's sort of. I never knew if strangling them actually just knocked them out or if that was death. Yeah, I think it counts as like knocking them out. But past the point, it doesn't make that much sense in the story.
00:26:02
Speaker
So going for non-lethal takedowns is not always the best idea. I will say that first firefight where you encounter the people who roberts men that are like, hey, you can't come here, get out of here, Tess, whatever. They're just threatening you. They actually don't.
00:26:19
Speaker
open fire on you until Tess is just like, screw this, pulls her gun and shoots one of them in the face. Like, she, the murderous intent is strong with the protagonist in this game.
Winter Challenges and Survival Skills
00:26:36
Speaker
Yeah. So they get through a bunch of people to get to Robert. There's also a rebel faction called the Fireflies, which are kind of like the underground resistance faction of this game. Named after the musical artist. Isn't that a song? Maybe it's a song. What was the artist? Ellie Goulding. Was that one of them?
00:27:00
Speaker
That's probably true. Ellie Goulding, Firefly, I was pretty sure. I was thinking of... No, no, no. You're right. L City. I'm thinking of something else. It was in college. You know music at those times. I didn't really... Like the artists though. They're terrorists. Exactly.
00:27:21
Speaker
But yeah, not too much is known about them. I just thought a lot of people put faith in them because they're not the establishment, which you have seen them like the government and the military treating people like shit. Yeah, pretty bad. They're not bad. They're not the military. So thumbs up.
00:27:44
Speaker
But basically, Robert's supposed to sell you some guns. Basically, he cheated you out of a deal and sold them to the Fireflies. Fireflies now say, hey, if you want those guns, you gotta do something for me, because it's a very trade-based economy.
00:28:01
Speaker
It's worth noting, they torture Robert to get this information, break his arm in this co-op test Joel torture thing. Bad cop, bad cop. Yeah, bad cop, bad cop. Which we now just know as cop cop. Right cop. And then once they get the information, they execute them. Because they're the good guys. Yeah, yeah.
00:28:28
Speaker
Nervous, protagonist laughter. But basically you're sort of like, Hey, I can give you the guns. If you can just smuggle this, something for me out of the city. They're like, I want the guns. Agreed.
00:28:46
Speaker
But the very short version is they want you to smuggle a girl out of the city. There was like 14. Yeah. And Joel being Joel, not being the most friendly and social with people, it's kind of like, I don't have time for this shit. Yeah. But you guys both really want the guns. So Tess goes off to investigate the cache of weapons. And you were kind of just held up in an apartment room. Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:15
Speaker
Um, so like while you're waiting, he starts to like fall asleep on a couch. She's like, what do you do? And he's like, killing time. She's like, what should I do? And he's like, you'll figure it out. And then passes out instantly. Yep. So he's very terse, very much an asshole. Yeah. Very, he's in it for like himself and maybe Tess, but doesn't really have any ties to anybody else.
Moral Conflicts at the Climax
00:29:42
Speaker
It's a very,
00:29:44
Speaker
to fight and survive, don't trust anybody unless they have something for you. Cause yeah, pretty cutthroat at this point. And as the player, you also have the context at this point, like, you know, some of his standoffishness toward Ellie. I mean, part of it is just cause like you said, he's an a-hole, but as this standoffishness kind of continues and he stays terse and like he doesn't really interact with her in the same way he interacts with Tess, it's coming from his past, like,
00:30:14
Speaker
Yeah. As soon as you see like another girl around Sarah's age, you're like, wait a minute. Yeah. You're the surrogate, aren't you? You're here in this situation. Yeah. And I'm sure a lot of people have seen the memes already of like the Calvin and Hobbs, Ellie and Joel. Um, but that's what the whole fucking game is about is their journey out West. Yeah. Cause basically,
00:30:42
Speaker
again, a high level kind of speed through a couple of things and then we can talk about more stuff is, um, yeah, she was bitten. She is infected, but she has not turned. Whereas everybody else gets bitten and turns within like two hours. Um, so they believe that she has the cures. They're going out like a day, but to the fireflies to try and meet up with them and possibly look for a cure.
00:31:09
Speaker
Yeah, she's there. She is there. They're kind of hope to find a cure because apparently the fireflies are like.
00:31:19
Speaker
Um, not to make a, I was going to think of like a fallout reference for what faction they would be, but it kind of doesn't exist. They're kind of the enclave pre-war people. They have the scientists, they have the facilities, they have actual technology. Um, and so she represents humanity's hope basically. And Joel doesn't really care. Like he is suspicious of her when she claims she's immune.
00:31:50
Speaker
Tess is the actual one that gets her out of that situation when they they're almost discovered like after he finds out that she was infected yeah and Tess is like oh no like Ellie let's get out of here Joel's just like gone spring off in this direction running man
00:32:10
Speaker
He sees it as an obligation like this is some shit we now have to deal with and also he's skeptical. Again, he's fairly jaded and it's also been like 20 years of the apocalypse. But Tess has enough hope to like this can actually be a thing that could possibly save humanity.
00:32:30
Speaker
And she kind of explains this to you after she shows her bite mark, after you got out of a tussle with some more infected, which happens a lot throughout the game because, again, zombie apocalypse. There's a lot of it.
00:32:45
Speaker
Yeah, Tess is an interesting character because she kind of she acts as Joel's conscience, I think, in the early game. And he again, they do they show don't tell a lot in this, but there's tons of like hints that there was something going on between them, that they had a relationship that maybe didn't work out.
00:33:07
Speaker
And the exchange I think I remember that drives that home the most is when Tessa is trying to convince Joel to take care of Ellie, to bring Ellie out west to the Fireflies. She's like, if this means anything, if what we had like
00:33:25
Speaker
If what we are means anything, then help her. And like without further elaboration, you're just like, ah, gotcha. Yeah. This is one of his remaining connections to humanity. Yeah. She dies heroically. Holds off the military. She might have shot one guy. Yeah.
00:33:56
Speaker
But yeah, basically the relationship becomes jelly and jelly. Oh, and jelly. Yeah. The characters. Did I look it up wrong or what happened? Yeah, I don't think this is supposed to be slash fiction. That's not it. There is no jelly pairing here.
00:34:16
Speaker
This is a father daughter story. Ellie kind of gets thrust on the situation of having to trust Joel to have her smuggled out and go across the country. Yeah. And Joel is kind of, again, forced to play babysitter and he's
00:34:36
Speaker
I guess in it for the weapons also it's kind of like Tess's dying wish also can't really go back into the city easily so he's just kind of along with it and in Joel fashion when Ellie's like hey I'm really we're using that from that one Joel fashion
00:34:57
Speaker
at least he's like, Hey, I'm really sorry about Tess. Like I don't even know what you're going through. And he says like, we don't need to talk about that. He just everything. He's better than me at it. Yeah. Nice. Freaking great.
00:35:15
Speaker
I mean, he's the worst, but he's great. He's a well-written character. Yeah. So like Joel is Joel throughout the whole fucking game. Now, he does have his bits of like growth and he grows as a character, but the root of who he is does not change. There's no scene throughout the game where I'm like, Joel wouldn't do that. Yeah.
00:35:40
Speaker
That's actually probably his one of his core character traits is that he doesn't change. That's one of the reasons his actions are harder to justify as the game goes on. Yeah. He's very much like a means to an end. It's survival and getting stuff done for what needs to get done. Yeah.
00:36:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's I guess it doesn't take too long for Joel to get his confirmation that Ellie's actually immune. There's like these spore rooms, I guess, if they're contained where the zombie infestation in this universe is like a fungus or something like that, that like travels to the brain, causes people to turn into these like plant monstrosities, clickers. And if a body kind of sits and just decays over time, it releases these spores.
00:36:33
Speaker
Yeah, and these spores are like immediately dangerous to everybody who doesn't have a mask but Allie just breathes them in she's like I have no allergies and Joel is like you can't be doing that and she's like I already told you I mean
00:36:58
Speaker
But yeah, she's actually immune. And at that point, Joel's kind of like, huh, maybe there's a little bit to this, but he still doesn't want to trust her. It takes I guess this is we're still we're still in summer. Oh, we can't hit through all seasons. You know that we're not. But there is one point in particular like it occurs in summer where Joel is being a guy attempting to drown him.
00:37:27
Speaker
um one of the opponents like gets the drop on him or something and uh Joel as you as Joel like try to fight back use your whole quick time event thing but it's it's a losing fight and he's Joel can't reach his gun in the water and uh when you're about to lose it um
00:37:47
Speaker
Ellie comes up, picks a gun up out of the water and just shoots the guy in the head. Just real quick. And Joel gets up, takes the gun. She's freaking out, you know, as a 14 year old, probably should be if she shoots a guy in the head. And apparently this is like the first person she killed. Um, and she's just like,
00:38:11
Speaker
Uh, you know, I'm glad I could save your life. And Joel's like, I told you to stay wherever. Yeah. He's immediately like defensive parent type and he's not like, thank you. Yeah. Um, even though like logically he would die, right? It's like if she actually listened to him, he would die. Then later she would die or whatever. He's not being rational about it. No.
00:38:35
Speaker
But what's great is Ellie very much is his foil in that regard and all regards. Cause she's very, I wouldn't say hopeful and optimistic, but she's much more lighthearted. Yeah. In some ways she is.
00:38:54
Speaker
Yeah. She's willing to trust people. She's very cheery, given everything that happens. I think she understands life is shit, so take the good things where you can.
Gameplay Mechanics and Tension
00:39:10
Speaker
And she's also very open with her feelings. She wants to talk about the deaths of
00:39:14
Speaker
A lot of people you meet throughout the game. Tess being one of them. And Joel really doesn't want to address any of it. Yeah. Because he's very much bottle it up, throw it in the corner, leave the room, forget about it. Is that a room on the flag? We're in the room. Let's try the room.
00:39:37
Speaker
There is a scene after she saves his life, though, where he has to go through a courtyard where there's a bunch of enemies and there's a rifle that he provides for her, and has her test the bolt mechanism, stuff like that, gives her some basic instructions, and she's like, I got it.
00:39:57
Speaker
Because she's remarkably capable. Whenever she gets a gun or a horse or something like that, she already has some experience for that in the game, which is pretty funny given that it's the apocalypse. She's like, oh, I play video games. Knows how to use a gun. Yeah. But as he's going down the ladder to this courtyard where she's going to provide cover for him,
00:40:20
Speaker
Um, he, uh, like turns to her and says like, it was either him or me. Then he goes down the ladder and she kind of smiles and just says, you're welcome. And then aims down sides. And it's just the perfect exchange. It's perfect. Like,
00:40:42
Speaker
And it's those little moments that build their relationship together like through the story. Yeah, it's those little character. It's an ongoing co-dependence as Joel learns to trust Ellie more. Ellie learns to trust Joel more and they become this dynamic duo.
00:41:01
Speaker
Right. Because there are a lot of sequences throughout the game, usually as kind of like puzzle sequences. We're not a cut scene per se. You can interact as a character, but you need to like hoist her up so she can climb through something small to then go open the door on either side. You rely on her. She relies on you to murder zombies, but later she also starts helping you murder zombies. Yeah. Or jumping on people's backs with like a fucking knife and people to death.
00:41:31
Speaker
she's just got like a smaller spy butterfly knife. That's basically what it is, or a switchblade or something. It's not the most intimidating weapon, but she makes it work. Yeah, but it's, it's those ongoing things. Like if you get held up with an enemy, you're kind of like grappling, she can attack them off of you and vice versa. Yeah. So it's that in conjunction with like these
00:41:57
Speaker
small interactions and exchanges and the events they're experiencing together throughout this journey, where it's like, this is the other person I have in my life. This is who I depend upon. This is who I trust. This is who I care about if they went fucking missing.
00:42:14
Speaker
Very much literally that. It's the way I would equate it is like at the beginning, she's like a Bioshock Infinite Elizabeth that only kind of provides call outs. And by the end of it, she's a Bioshock Infinite Elizabeth that instead of like pulling a sniper rifle from another dimension to throw to you, pulls a sniper rifle from another dimension and then uses it to cover you. And it's like, it's freaking good. She's entirely capable.
00:42:43
Speaker
And I think that helps the player get invested in the character as well. You're just like, heck yeah, we have this partnership going on. Another good thing about this game is the game is basically broken up into four seasons. Summer obviously being the first one.
00:43:03
Speaker
And then fall is like a new chapter of events, as is winter and spring. So each of these do have time skips. It's not like, man, there's a whole fucking three months of gaming. Right. But it's just enough events in that season and it has the story progress. But at no point, I don't think this game is chaff. I don't think it has extra shit. It's like, I didn't really need that.
00:43:30
Speaker
Right. Because everything is yeah, everything is either building tension or flushing out a character more or the world possibly. And you mentioned there was four seasons in this. So would this be the first base game to include the season pass?
00:43:53
Speaker
He looks way too happy with himself, but I'm also proud of him. But I also hope he dies. That was a good one, Jake. I was sitting on it for a while. That's a good point he's talking about. See, I should just talk enough, wait for you to smile with that shit eating grin. I'm like, it's coming. Just let it go.
00:44:14
Speaker
It's nice, though, because it lets them focus on the main events for given seasons. Somewhere you can wrap up is departure from Boston, the death of Tess, like the escape and like the ambush by the hunters in a city that's trying to kill people. There's some interactions with other survivors, Henry and Sam, which are brothers, and they're kind of an example of like hope.
00:44:36
Speaker
And they're not around that long, as far as the game's concerned, before the younger brother gets bitten. The older brother is forced in the heat of the moment to kill the younger brother, and then he kills himself. And then it's like end of season. It's almost like a show cliffhanger, where it's like, we know you'll be back for the next one, but the next one immediately happens. But the thing is, after the events happens and there's the season time skip, they're not like, hey, so about that thing. Right. It sits for a little bit.
00:45:07
Speaker
Yeah, they don't have like a campfire moment where they're like, all right, now let's all discuss what just happened. They let divinity to me. They let. Yeah, they don't literally go around like, how would you react to this situation? Yeah. But I like that because it allows you to process.
00:45:27
Speaker
Yeah. In the same way they did with the prologue, right? So these events happen with Sarah dying. And then it's like, we're going to let you sit on that for a little bit, a couple of minutes a little bit. Yeah. Then we'll talk about it later. And they'll have the massive jump. Between summer and fall, there's the jump where you know that Ellie has
00:45:53
Speaker
Joel probably honestly doesn't care that these two guys died. But Ellie had to come to terms with it. She became friends with the younger brother because it was the other kid her age going through the same shit. He wasn't actually her age though. He just says that. He's like, how old are you? And she's like 14. How old are you? And he's like, uh, same. And then the older brother's like, yeah, you're 14.
00:46:18
Speaker
Oh, again, that was like a very well written like little kid thing. Oh, I want to be older. I want to impress the other kids my age. Yeah. And it's just such a you just say anything like, yeah, I'm cool. I'm cool. What's up? I am also one of the cool kids.
00:46:35
Speaker
We're the only kids left there for you. Cool kids. The last of us. Roll credits. But yeah, there's I like using that as a the skips to allow you to fill in the progression. You know, they've already had time to process this. You don't have to sit there in the game as it happens. You know, the characters have changed by the end of it because
Character and Narrative Depth
00:47:01
Speaker
of what's happened to them. Yeah.
00:47:04
Speaker
So I want a real quick burn through fall. Sure. No, I don't think a lot really happens in fall.
00:47:13
Speaker
I think it's actually one of the shorter ones, at least according to my notes here. They make it out west, because they had a car at this point. West-ish. West-ish. It's Colorado, which is, you know. Yep. But at this point, they meet up with his estranged brother, Tommy, who he hasn't talked to in probably a decade. Since the prologue, honestly. It was a bit.
00:47:40
Speaker
but basically Tommy's with a bunch of other survivors kind of like running like this small town. It's like a hydroelectric dam. Yeah. They're trying to like get everything's up and running. Sorry, that was me. Dave, I have points still. Okay.
00:48:01
Speaker
But there's that exchange at this point, Joel kind of like wants to pass off Ellie to Tommy. He's like, hey, you can take her the rest of the way, right? This isn't something I need to do. He's like. Well, he argues that they would she would be safer with Tommy. Yes, Tommy has men that can do this. They have the manpower, they have the resources. Let it be his responsibility. It is kind of a lie.
00:48:28
Speaker
Yeah, like because it would end up just being Tommy instead of Joel. She doesn't know Tommy. Joel just wants to, you know, not deal with things. Yeah. And another point here is when he's interacting with Tommy, who hasn't seen a long time, Tommy also saved a picture of Joel and Sarah.
00:48:52
Speaker
flashback to the beginning of the episode, Sarah's his daughter. Oh my gosh. Drawing parallels to Elia. But Joel says, no thanks, you can keep it. He doesn't want to be reminded of his past at all. He doesn't want to be reminded of the sadness or loss of Sarah, Tess, Sam, and Henry. Jesus, Henry. He's just like, bucket over to the side.
00:49:19
Speaker
So he's just looking to dump all these problems in the responsibility of Ellie, who even though you see them grow closer, he's still not the point where he's like, Al, all right. Yeah. But she kind of leaves and kind of steals a horse and takes off and she's like,
00:49:36
Speaker
Like you're the only person I have and you don't even want to go with me. You want to pass me off to this other person who I don't know or trust and I won't feel safe with. Like they have these great fucking exchanges. You're like.
00:49:51
Speaker
That's how the character would react in the situation, realistically. Joel being an asshole would react that way. I'm getting emotional, I'll stop. No, I mean like, it's a fair point. And they actually, they foreshadow this a little bit with Sam and Ellie have a conversation about what they're afraid most of. And Sam is afraid of the zombies, like the walkers, whatever they are. And Ellie's like, what is she most afraid of? And she answers with being alone.
00:50:19
Speaker
She's not afraid of those things. She can deal with those. But if she's on her own, she's not sure that she couldn't anymore. Yeah. And so it's all it all comes together, man. It's like aliens, the name, you know, they're just like, yeah, everything feeds into the storyline and the development of the characters. And this is really the this is the part where like
00:50:42
Speaker
It drives home that Joel is really a douchebag. Cause for me, this is where as the player, I'm like, but we're attached to these characters. Like, what are you talking about passing Ellie off to your brother? You haven't talked to him forever. Like this is your responsibility, but he does not want it to be his responsibility. He's just like, no part of this. It's someone else's story. No more hurt. Yeah. But, so he's, he's not sympathetic.
00:51:13
Speaker
After they go and rest, yeah, because she runs off and there's other hunters out there who are scavengers, essentially, trying to kill anybody and take their shit who they come across.
The Last of Us: A Storytelling Masterpiece
00:51:28
Speaker
He's like, you know what? It is going to be us. He does own up to that fact and they do continue out west.
00:51:36
Speaker
This had the game defining exchange also. This part did. In that country home, I wrote down the quote because I was just like, this is the game. So this is the quote. Joel in confronting her because she ran off is like, you have no idea what loss is. And Ellie responds, everyone I have cared for has either died or left me. Everyone bleeping, censored, except for you. So don't tell me I would be safer with someone else because the truth is I would just be more scared.
00:52:05
Speaker
And then Joel pauses for a moment and says, you're right. You're not my daughter. And I sure as hell ain't your dad. And we are going our separate ways. And I'm just like, screw this guy. Like, the thing I love most about Ellie, I think, is she wears her heart on her sleeve through the entire game. Oh, yeah. She tells you how she feels. And she's remarkably authentic.
00:52:29
Speaker
And she's not deceptive and she's not manipulative. And Joel is just the worst. Oh my gosh, Dave, Joel is the worst.
00:52:41
Speaker
But we like Joe. Right. You said after this, he does ultimately decide to take her the rest of the way. Yeah. I do kind of partner up again and ship out and they do get to the place where they're supposed to meet the fireflies. Again, I'm going to do a little TLDR. Yeah. Nobody's there.
00:53:06
Speaker
I'll fill it afterwards with the full plot, thereby making it as this been our pattern, apparently. This is what I can contribute to the episode.
00:53:16
Speaker
So you go to this university where they're supposed to be, you find out that they've all left. As you're trying to leave the university, you find some other hunters are there. You kill some on your way out, you get into a tussle, you get pushed off of, I'd say you're up like a story or two. And then you kind of fall onto a piece of rebar. Straight up rebar, yeah. And it just goes right through Joel. Yeah, the human bits. The human bits, right in the guts.
00:53:45
Speaker
So she like comes down, pulls you off of this spike and she's like trying to like walk you out to get back to the horse and out of this shitty situation. Cause there's still people around. Yeah. Um, and you, you're playing as Joel at this point and you're slow as fuck because you're bleeding out. Um, and Ellie's essentially doing all the work of protecting you both. Um,
00:54:16
Speaker
And there is a point, because one of the mechanics of the game is when you have a ledge or a window, it's around waist height, you can vault over it. So you're forced to go through the window. She's like, hey, can you take the window? And he's like, yeah, that's fine. And so he leans over the window and then just falls immediately. And she's like, can I carry you? He's like, no, I'm fine to walk. And she's like, then fucking walk. And she does.
00:54:39
Speaker
It's like you need to like be you need to help here. You need to move. I can either carry you or you can move yourself. Fucking pick what we have to go. Yeah. And you even. Can I finish this? I'm sorry. I was just going to say this is her leading. Right. This is her rising to the occasion. She's the one telling you, no, you don't have time to go.
00:55:04
Speaker
And there's like one guy left in like a high school chem lab type room. And you kind of get stuck behind this thing. And you are playing as Joel trying to like lean out and get like a shot on this guy, but he has complete coverage on you. She's like, I'm gonna go try and flank this asshole.
00:55:21
Speaker
And he's like, you killed some of my men back there, I'm gonna fuck you up. Yeah, those are my friends. Those are my friends who killed back there, you asshole. And then Ellie flanks them and jumps on with a fucking knife. Again, master with the shiv. Yeah. And she saves you.
00:55:39
Speaker
And you guys get back to the horse, and you finally ride away from the college campus. But then, like, a couple minutes later, you see some snow, and there's kind of trudging along the horse, and you can see Joel's kind of in front, and he just starts to slump off. He's very pale. Yeah. He's lost a lot of blood. He's not in good shape. And then she's like, Joel, Joel, end of season.
00:56:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:11
Speaker
Now to disrupt the flow, one of my favorite scenes in this season was when Joel actually gets the information about where the fireflies left to, which was Salt Lake City. And there's a guy who died looking out a window. And he had to left a recorder with his life story. And he's like, this is my last journal entry. And it's got all of the important things I have to say. And when Joel picks this up, he listens to the first part. And then fast forwards through most of it, hits play, makes sure he's not talking about anything useful. Fast forwards through the rest of it.
00:56:39
Speaker
gets to the part where they actually talk about where the fireflies go throws it away. He's just like character defining. He does not care. He's not here so the player can pick up lore. He just wants to be played off.
00:56:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's my side for that. He's very much a means to an end type of guy. Yeah, it's a great scene, though. It's a complete subversion of like the way I usually play games, which is oh, you found a letter. Let's read the letter. Let's read every letter. Am I playing a Bioware game? Did they write books for this? Sucks to be me.
00:57:20
Speaker
Then do you want to talk about gameplay a little bit or you want to keep going through seasons? I mean, there's not that many. There's not many seasons left. I mean, we might as well hit up on the gameplay, though. So.
00:57:32
Speaker
Very, we talked about the pop and shoot style, some of the stealth. You get some weapons and gadgets to facilitate that, right? Yeah. You do have a bit of an upgrade system as you get like bolts and you're scavenging around. You also have crafting. So you have some basic materials and you can craft that into health packs, Molotov cocktails, shivs, smoke bombs, nail bombs.
00:57:58
Speaker
It's just great because it encourages you to scavenge to get these resources so you can use them situationally. Because I've
Legacy and Hopes for a Sequel
00:58:05
Speaker
been in a lot of them, like, I have three bullets left, or I could throw like a brick over here, hope they group up and throw a grenade. That's value. That's value right there. Yeah. So it kind of forces you to plan out when you're using these limited resources. I actually am looking up right now because I had one question.
00:58:26
Speaker
The nail bomb I remember is a proximity explosive. You can drop it on the ground or like put it on a wall and when an enemy comes by, it'll explode, right? And that's made with just shrapnel, I guess, and the actual explosive. So my question is, where does the proximity sensor come from?
00:58:47
Speaker
This is a low tech thing. You just like stuck some nails in a can. And the can knows when there's enemies to your body. Jake, my answer for that is the L2 button. It goes from the L2 button. It is fun. That gives you a reason to go out and explore a little bit more. And I think other games that have probably come out since this, like we covered
00:59:11
Speaker
Crap, it's not undying, it was something with dead. Dying light? Dying light, thank you. We covered dying light, which also had some of these little crafting mechanics, but Last of Us does it in a nice way, where it's relatively minimalist, there's not a lot of resources, and you can do it in the field, which is awesome. You can, if you're safe,
00:59:30
Speaker
or in an emergency situation, just bust out the backpack and whip some stuff up, which is if you find yourself in a situation where you have to make a med kit in the field, it's pretty stressful and awesome, actually. Yeah. In the same way, you can, by default, have one small gun, like a pistol, and one large gun, like a rifle or a shotgun. But if you want to switch between either of those,
00:59:57
Speaker
Like, you know, switch from your rifle, hunting rifle to a shotgun. You have to go to that slot, hold the button and then toggle up and down. It's not just like, press a button. No, I've now switched. No, you need to get your backpack. Yeah. Hot sauce and everything that you have a bow option. Also, if you try to play real stealthy, stealth archery. Yeah. Yeah. And it helps for ammo because you can retrieve a lot of the arrows.
01:00:24
Speaker
which helps your ammo economy a little bit. We were talking a little bit before this and you ran out of some ammo near the end. I think that's one of the reasons it wasn't as much of a problem for me in my playthrough. There's also a flamethrower, which I did not use as much outside of one specific area. Yeah, that's a kind of specialty weapon.
01:00:45
Speaker
I think it also took all your chemical resources to make the ammo for it or something. I've only ever found ammo for. I didn't know I could make ammo. You might not be able to. I didn't bother. It's just.
01:01:00
Speaker
There is a point where I did a lot of stealth, but at some points later in the game, I'm just like, I don't care how many zombies they are. I'm going to let them, let them funnel through this doorway. I'm going to unload and unload all my ammo and step backwards. Yeah. But zombies are actual threats. Oh my gosh. Yeah.
01:01:17
Speaker
So there's like the runners, which just a guy like a track suit, you know, like your classic Slav meme. He squats at you. But yeah, you can, you can punch those to death and be fine. There are clickers, the ones who usually have to stealth around unless you want to use sound to trigger them. Uh, but if they get close enough to bite you, you're fucked. Yeah. It's like one hate kill, isn't it? It might depend on the difficulty, but.
01:01:45
Speaker
No, it's one hit kill. There is a tech option where if you have a shift, you can kind of like automatically get out of the situation and stab it. Yeah. But I never went that way and died a lot. So you're going to get better at avoiding them or just getting the headshots. Yeah. And then they're called speed running for this game is actually shiv running. There's also the the big zombos who fucking shoot mortars of
01:02:15
Speaker
the spores. Yeah. So when you're in it, you're like your health just starts going down. And they take a lot of ammo. And if they catch you, they kind of like start to rip your skull apart, which is bad. Yeah, it doesn't feel good. Feels feels bad, man.
01:02:33
Speaker
Yeah, there's some there's some brutal death cinematics in this. I don't know if Tomb Raider is worse. Maybe a couple of animations were worse. Yeah. Like at least in this, it's like, oh, I'm fucked. And then it kind of cuts the block and it's like you died. Yeah. From what I've heard or seen from Tomb Raider, it's a little lengthy. I'm concerned. There's still I'm trying not to think of it right now. Anyways, can't get the pictures on my head.
01:02:58
Speaker
Yeah, what's funny though is we've covered a lot of the mechanics, the gameplay mechanics for The Last of Us and
01:03:06
Speaker
They're good. Like they're solid. You could play a game that had all of this and I'd be like, it's a good game. Solid seven point five, maybe eight. And then it's like inject the story. And suddenly I don't care about the gameplay mechanics nearly as much, but it makes it a 10. Like it's it's they work well together, but it's transcendent, like transcendental, transcendental in the genre, basically.
01:03:36
Speaker
until the last of us, I don't think stories just were usually this good or engaging from an emotional standpoint. Not to this caliber. It's been nominated for a million awards at this point. Yeah. Um, because it's so fucking good. I did not allocate any time to talk about winter, but winter is one of like the most tense things. Um,
01:04:03
Speaker
Can I do a high level? Yeah, there's like 30 seconds. Yeah. So at this point, Joel is, you're not sure if he's dead or alive. You start playing as Ellie, hunting out in the wilderness. Um, but you're trying to get supplies to help Joel. We're trying to get some medicine. Um,
01:04:22
Speaker
But you do come across some people who you do not trust, who are other survivors, but are also cannibals and crazy. So for part of it, you're playing as Ellie, trying to get stuff for Joel. You get him some medicine. But then you're trying to evade this murderer, this cannibal who's trying to literally hack you up or do other weird, creepy shit to you. And then you also get to play as Joel, who like wakes up
01:04:50
Speaker
half dead again the guy's like in his 50s he was a little bit ago he's remarkably resilient he's on some antibiotics from not too long ago and that's about it and it's like the dead of winter like the snowstorm gets progressively stronger throughout this season
01:05:06
Speaker
uh-huh I say season but I mean like throughout this arc as like things become more and more dire yeah yeah yeah also he's like one step up from just sleeping on a cold stone slab that's basically where is it and he does not die he like literally comes out from death's door and is
01:05:28
Speaker
He fucking like books it to try and find out where she is. Oh, yeah. He comes across some guys who try and kill him. Yeah, he kills them, keeps two of them alive. And then like one guy, he's like, where's the girl? The guy says, as all bad guys do, what girl? That guy then gets a knife in the kneecap and he says, I will not ask you again. Yeah, you're losing the kneecap.
01:05:59
Speaker
So he's just on this murderous rampage to go and rescue Ellie and Ellie's trying to survive to help get to Joel. So that was the best strengthening arc of their relationship, I think. What's funny here is like that scene, this interrogation scene is incredibly brutal because he asks the first guy like, hey, puts the knife in his mouth with his own blood on it.
01:06:21
Speaker
and is like put on this map where she is, where your camp is, basically. And I'm going to check with the other guy, and if it doesn't match up, you're dead. And then once he's done marking the map, he kills the first guy, goes to the second guy, and the second guy is like, he gave you the information you wanted. Like, why would you do that? Why'd you kill him?
01:06:47
Speaker
And he's like, you're getting nothing out of me now. And Joel's just like, that's fine because I believed him. And then just straight up kills the second guy with a pipe. And you're like, what? This is not the protagonist of anything. No. But Joel's a bad person. Overall, yeah. I do like Holland Miami, though. So that explains some of my enthusiasm. Do you like hurting people? Oh.
01:07:18
Speaker
So yeah, winter's insanely good. Again, I felt very tense playing through those sections. Kelly does. I'm sorry, go ahead. What are you gonna say?
01:07:30
Speaker
I was just going to say Ellie remains remarkably capable through all of this. And despite the fact Joel runs off, kills a bunch of people trying to save her. She actually kills the the boss, quote unquote, the leader of these cannibals and a whole bunch before he arrives. Yeah. Yeah. Like before he even gets there. She actually doesn't get saved by Joel. They just reunite shows up. Yeah. Yeah.
01:07:59
Speaker
And then in spring, spring's kind of like the whole conclusion of the game. Basically, they do find the actual place where the Fireflies are at. Salt Lake City, Utah.
01:08:17
Speaker
But they run through some trouble on the way there. So he kind of like wakes up. They've already retrieved Ellie and Marlene, the lady from the Fireflies, who we met in the beginning of the game. She's like, this is going to be so awesome for humanity. This is going to be like our next breakthrough. We're going to be able to save so many people. And he's like, where is she? She's like, well, you can't see her. She's already prepped for surgery.
01:08:38
Speaker
Yeah. And it's kind of implied that Ellie's not going to survive the surgery because the surgery that they're doing is to extract part of AKA all of her brain to kind of reverse engineer how she has immunity. It's like a symbiote type sort of thing that grows on the brain, but it's not she's immune to it for some reason.
01:09:01
Speaker
TLDR, Joel does not like this. Yeah. And ends up killing every single person there. Yeah, pretty much. And takes her out.
01:09:16
Speaker
Yeah, they, uh, there's from a gameplay standpoint, I didn't realize this when I played through, but, um, so he like, again, everything Joel does is brutal because he's like X bandit too. We didn't talk about that, but he and Tommy went bandit at one point in the past. Um, then Tommy does not like this and he looks back on this with a lot of disdain. Um,
01:09:41
Speaker
But when you reach the surgery room where Ellie is prepped and they're literally about to start cutting into her, I just shot them. I just shot the doctors. I'm just like, pop, pop, pop, pop. And we're done. But they also, they at Naughty Dog, made animations for if Joel just approaches in melee, each of these people, like there's a female doctor, male doctors, like the surgeon, some other guy, like an assistant.
01:10:05
Speaker
where he just kills them by like slamming them against things, impaling them, doing all this other stuff. And I'm like, I think these people may be more sociopathic than I am. Yeah. Like when you, the second time I just kind of like walked up to see what would happen. And the surgeon kind of just has this scalpel like point that you always like, don't come any closer. But that's all he had to defend himself with. Yeah. And then you just, yeah, shoot everybody. Yeah.
01:10:35
Speaker
But yeah, Joel, Joel kills everybody, including Marlene, and she lost like her entire crew making it out to Salt Lake City when she went across the country.
01:10:45
Speaker
But he kills her because he's like, she's begging for her life and he just walks at her with a gun after having put Ellie in the truck or whatever. And it's like, you just come after her again, executes her and then leaves. It's real dark. I don't know if this is a good game, Dave.
01:11:05
Speaker
So one of the things I like about this section is when you pick up Ellie, Ellie's unconscious from the medication and you're kind of sprinting out of this dire situation with her. It's in the same way that you were carrying Sarah out of the city.
01:11:23
Speaker
Oh yeah, the exact same. Um, so again, it's been made throughout the whole game, but there are these parallels drawn between Sarah and Ellie and how she's kind of become a daughter figure to him. Um, but he kind of literally, it was the murders rampage against everybody, uh, to get her out, to keep her alive at the risk of potentially likely, uh, save humanity from this disease that's been going on for 20 years.
01:11:53
Speaker
Yeah, she was going to be their vaccine source. That was what the fireflies wanted for her. And she was willing to be too, was the other thing. It's not like she didn't know going into this. Joel probably took a while to pick up on it. Yeah. So it's like a really impactful thing at that point.
01:12:18
Speaker
because the way they show it is he kills all these people, he goes down to the basement where the car park is, the garage. And Marlene's there and she's like,
01:12:36
Speaker
please just leave her like we can do so much for humanity. She was like a daughter to me too. But this is not too late. It's not too late. This is what needs to be done. And then it the game cuts to him like driving away a truck looking kind of flustered. And you don't know what he chose at that point.
01:12:57
Speaker
until like you kind of hear some rustling in the backseat. He looks in the mirror and you see Ellie there in a gown. She's like, what happened? And then it flashes back to he fucking knows Marlene too. It is a very dramatic untelling or telling of the story. Yeah. Meant for maximum, maximum impact. So he kind of abandoned his whole, I don't,
01:13:25
Speaker
Trust anybody, care about anybody. He's like, I care about this girl. So much so that fuck literally everybody else. Nobody else matters.
01:13:37
Speaker
Then do you want to talk about the end of the game? Sure. So in the car, his justification to her, what he tells her is that she was not the first immune person to arrive. Actually, many other immune people arrived and they studied them and they couldn't make a vaccine. So.
01:13:58
Speaker
this purpose that she had basically been building her entire journey around, that she was willing to die for in the end, implied by the way she acts up until this last section. She has that stripped from her immediately. She's just a person. She's immune, great. That'll help if she gets bitten, but her life doesn't carry more purpose than that. She's not going to be saving humanity.
01:14:24
Speaker
And so there's no reason for her to go back and try to sacrifice herself, they're just leaving.
01:14:30
Speaker
Uh, which is, which is all, as we said, she is, you know, presumably the last hope of humanity to actually get a vaccine at this point. Um, but they depart, they do some overland tracking where, uh, you actually plays Ellie for the final section instead of Joel. Yeah. You're going back to Tommy's small town in Colorado as like a safe place to kind of settle down.
01:14:59
Speaker
But presumably, I mean, my my take on it at this point is you're playing with her playing as her because Joel is no longer. At this point, he may not be a sympathetic character, depending on your views of like fatherhood, because I think people get that. Like I'm not a father, obviously, but you can still have paternal instincts and some of this stuff and you can grow attached to characters and you're like.
01:15:22
Speaker
I get not letting them die. I get sacrifice everything for this person. I keep saying 100 percent. But Joel is like 100 percent of the time. But Joel is like he takes that to an extreme. He's literally like. This this could be the end of the human race and I don't care. And he's incredibly brutal and he's sadistic and he's manipulative and he's deceptive. He lies to her.
01:15:51
Speaker
at the very end of the game once more when she asks him, is everything you said back there true? And he he doubles down. He's like, I swear it. Yeah. And then the game literally ends. Yeah. But it's it's so good because they could have left it as, hey, this is a happy ending. Mm hmm.
01:16:19
Speaker
Okay, happy endings have been done. I'm not saying there's no joy in having happy ending for a storyline, whether it's in a game or anything. But I really like that they subverted it for this character is selfish, that selfish. Because I mean, if you ask anybody altruistically, hey, if you had to have one of your loved ones die to save humanity, would you?
01:16:48
Speaker
Yeah, I'd probably pick someone who I didn't love as much, but it's something like a high level question. Theoretically, would you? Yeah, sure. Right. Even more than that, though, would you go against their wishes, you know, if they chose to sacrifice themselves themselves for humanity?
01:17:07
Speaker
Because otherwise Joel wouldn't need to lie to her. He would have just said, hey, they were going to kill you to get the vaccine. He could have told her the truth, but he knew she would have sacrificed herself. So he lies to her and said.
01:17:28
Speaker
I wish it was a good game of the episode. If you haven't played this game, don't listen to me. We're going to talk about some spoilers here in a little bit. Spoiler warning. But yeah, literally all of those events and even the ones we didn't mention, it all builds to this point in such a good way.
01:17:47
Speaker
where I care about every single character and the actions that they take. And it all builds to that moment. And then the game just ends. Yeah. You're like, oh, holy shit. And it feels way longer than 13 hours. It's like 13 and a half hours to beat or something. And you've been you've read. It's a novel by the end. You feel like you've gone through a novel. But it stuck with me for many years. Last time I played this game is like four years ago, by the way.
01:18:17
Speaker
Yeah. I'm really hoping they come out with a sequel. If you're listening to this, the sequel is already out. Yeah, that's true. Episode coming of that short. During that new day, I'll edit it before you get the opportunity to post two hours from now just to make you a liar. No, I mean, presumably, I feel like there's a good chance we'll also have an episode on that one.
01:18:45
Speaker
uh good chance it'd be funny if it was right after this there's a good real good chance actually uh but I mean yeah I agree with you this is one of the honestly just one of the best games ever made um you could put it easily in a top 10 we're barring that a top 15 list for the best game ever made I think for me personally I'd probably throw it in a top 10 and I wouldn't be able to pick everything else in that list so don't make me come up with them now but
01:19:15
Speaker
Oh, we could do an episode on that. It's just us arguing back and forth forever. We got to use the stock sounds. It's just like number nine. Top 10 countdown. You have like a 15 minute episode. After a WatchMojo intro. Then we'll steal their sound effects, those iconic sounds they use, and promptly be sued into oblivion.
01:19:38
Speaker
Let's call it here. I'm trying to lose my voice a little bit. That's fair. That would make me the last of us. I said the thing. Yeah, I mean, honestly, play the game. We spoiled it all, but it doesn't matter. Play the game. I'm not going to buy it for you.
01:19:57
Speaker
In the same way that I could like describe sex, you're like, that sounds cool. Try it for yourself, though. If I describe like a nice dish and you're like, that sounds like gonna be good, eat it. It's gonna be what we describe. That's the only legitimate non-aggressive way I've heard eat it. I describe a nice dish, eat it. This guy fell off his bike and I watched him eat it.
01:20:22
Speaker
Hit the pavement? No, he had some pie after his bike race. Yeah, some nice relaxing pie. Anyways, ask your doctor if the Last of Us is right for you. And if you have any other ideas for episodes, you can send those in. We accept ideas.
01:20:40
Speaker
We don't always operate on them. Very rarely do we operate on them, actually, but you can do so at soapstone podcast at gmail.com. Or you could join the discussion of which it will almost definitely exist on Facebook for the Last of Us Remastered Edition. Not number two. Don't talk about two spoilers on this one, please. But Facebook.com slash soapstone podcast. Until next time, we'll see in the next one.
01:21:10
Speaker
Have a good night.