AN ENDING THAT WOULD HAVE HURT.

Naughty Dog are to reveal an alternate ending for The Last of Us.

 The developer has stated that it will reveal one of it's original endings for one of the most successful titles of the year. 

Creative director Neil Druckmann took to Twitter, stating "see how it originally ended" along with an image of Joel (left) with a knife to his throat. 

Druckmann stated that the developer played with "about three or four ideas" for The Last of Us' ending "before finding the ending that worked best for the story we wanted to tell."

  Personally I can't help but feel relieved about the way the game actually ended. Don't worry I won't drop any spoilers, although if you're reading this post then you now know the above doesn't happen. However, I feel that most people were quite satisfied with the ending that Naughty Dog landed on. A brave one for sure. The image is an interesting one, because I can't help but see a likeness between the woman in the image, and the character Tess who appears early on during the game.

  This "orignal" ending will be revealed at a PAX Prime Panel next month, and knowing The Last of Us, I can't imagine Joel's ending would have been particularly neat.

The Last of Us - The game that opened my eyes. PART II

So this is the second part of my series of posts about The Last of Us. Not too sure if this will be the last, or the second of many MORE! There is really that much to talk about... honestly. I mean it.

Ok, so I want to get a bit more specific in this post, and talk about the actual game, and so I shall sub-head this post as... (insert bongo roll)

Living in a dying world

Brilliant. I know. Hold the applause, please.

So lets talk about this EPIC environment that Naughty Dog have birthed into our visual capacity. Many of the development team have described the space that Joel and Ellie inhabit as a character in itself, and I can't  actually think of a better way of describing it really. It is exactly that.
This world will make you do things... Brutal, brutal... brutal things. This is the first game that has genuinely made me think twice about killing an enemy. Stupid right? No, because the game explicitly points out that good and evil don't really exist. Not even the infected are evil. The state of the world has forced humanity into a new existence, to become something else. Something primitive. Something deadly.

Ellie is constantly learning about the world that Joel lost. Our world.

You will gradually realise this as you play through the game. This world that you have the pleasure of inhabiting is an extremely harsh place to be, however it is equally a place of beauty. There are some real stand back and take it all in moments throughout, and Ellie plays a fundamental role to this. She opens your eyes and gives you the chance to really understand exactly where you are and what has been lost in this world.
Understand that Ellie has only ever known the world that exists in the game, and has never actually stepped outside of the quarantine zone where the main action kicks off from, therefore the smallest and simplest of things that Joel, you or I wouldn't give a second glance, Ellie is truly fascinated by.

The level of depth and detail that the development team have put into the environment is astonishing, truly astounding and very much appreciated. They have made it their aim to create a world for the player where almost everything is a point of interest.  What is most ingenious about Ellie's perspective, is that she draws you into her world and forces you to see things through her eyes. She is a lovable character anyway, but when you're making your way through the environment and suddenly notice she has stopped to check out a poster or an old arcade system, you suddenly become very aware of exactly where you are and what has happened here.

The environment if anything, is the most significant character in the entire story, she? shall we say? is why you'll want to literally just stop and take it all in. You'll find yourself twirling that joystick round and round just so you don't miss a single bit of detail... or was that just me?

The Last of Us - The game that made me its needy bitch. PART I

I have been meaning to write this post for some time now. However, I Just couldn't figure out how to form the words that would successfully portray my feelings towards this game. I still am not entirely sure how this post will turn out, but i'm hoping the words will just materialise in front of me. Somehow.

At the time of writing this, it has been well over two weeks since I placed that Playstation pad back on the floor, turned off my console and sat back to consider what I had just experienced. Yes, experienced, because that is the key word. The Last of Us is an experience, and one that I can safely say is unlike any other.
  I think we can all safely agree, that the post-apocalyptic genre or setting, environment (whatever you want to call it) has become a mainstay in the video games, literature and movies of today. It's been around a long time, but it feels more and more predominant as time goes on. I guess the longer humanity lasts, the greater the fear is it might just all end... or at least come very close.

Personally I have a fascination with the notion of the end of the world, or shall we say the end of the world as WE know it. So The Last of Us was always going to be a game I couldn't ever... EVER avoid playing. This was inevitable. And honestly after months of anticipation I literally couldn't imagine a scenario in which I played this game and thought, what the F*** was that pile of balls!? No, that wasn't going to happen, and it didn't. Far from it.

Joel is a man that gave up the moral high-ground a long time ago, the only thing that matters now... is surviving.

This game is my Breaking Bad. By that, I mean that Breaking Bad is so good that it has completely redefined how I look at television dramas as a whole. It's like when people tell you to watch The Wire. I have not yet done so, but I know when I do, I probably won't know what to do with myself. 

Actually, that is exactly how I felt after finishing The Last of Us. When that final cut scene came to an abrupt halt and the end credits rolled whilst that hauntingly perfect theme by Gustavo Santaolalla creaked for one last time, I was stunned, I was sad, I was shocked, I was angry, and I was so many more things.

Honestly, it's really hard to describe, but think of it like this. You meet the girl or guy of your dreams, they tick all the boxes, they make you believe in something greater than what you already know, they even tell you they love you, and you spend a significant and concentrated amount of time with them. It's perfect. It really is. But then you wake up one day and they're gone. No note. No goodbye. Nothing. Just the memories of that first special play-through.

This GAME, as i'm sure you can all tell, successfully drew me into it's slick, sexy post-apocalyptic convertible and then threw me out the passenger door with nothing but the bus fair home. But like the needy bitch it made me, I can't blame The Last of Us. It did everything it was supposed to. Everything that I asked of it. But can I really be blamed for just wanting more?

This is more than just a game, I genuinely believe that. This is emotional and dramatic storytelling at it's very best, and the best part is you get to be a part of it. Play The Last of Us, and I promise... I guarantee you will come away with a new perspective of what video games are truly capable of.

I hope this post has shed some light on how much this game means to me, and I have so much more to say about the actual game itself and the specifics that make it great, so I will post further about the actual gameplay soon, but for now I just wanted to express how it made me feel.