This guy sounds like someone who hates games and his job (Gaming)

by Kahzgul, Tuesday, September 29, 2015, 20:31 (3342 days ago) @ cheapLEY

His argument seems to be that the Last of Us is flawed because it contains game elements? I'll be honest: If the gameplay in The Last of Us wasn't compelling, that game would have been a painful experience. But they got the combat down to be fun and interesting. Sure the game is linear, but the lines are broad, so you can advance down the street, or through a building, or by jumping a fence and taking a side alley. And there are often large, square areas where you have to get from one corner to the opposite one with a host of enemies in the way and loads of cover to hide behind. The choice of stealth vs. assault is also nearly always available, which means any "linear" area can actually be traversed via two wholly different gameplay experiences, or a combination of them.

I agree that The Last of Us had compelling gameplay and combat, and in a lot of ways it really makes the story stand out and adds a sort of deeper connection to it. The combat can be really, really tense and makes me feel like I am really experiencing what Joel is going through.

But I think he's right (to an extent) with his shiv example. It crossed my mind as well when I first played. Really? He can't just pull that thing out of the zombie's neck? Granted, after that initial thought, I forgot about it, and it didn't really detract from the narrative at all, but I think the point he was getting at was that there are certainly some instances where it can.

I wholly disagree with what appears to be the premise of this excerpt, and i think that author does himself a disservice by speaking in absolutes rather than acknowledging that his own opinions are not facts, his findings are not scientific, and his concept of game mechanics is inconstant.

I can't agree with this attitude. I see this sort of sentiment leveraged against Cody all the time, too, and I don't really get it. It's an opinion piece, of course it's his opinion, that shouldn't have to be stamped all over it for it to be clear. Of course he speaks like his opinion is correct (and taken as fact), that's his opinion and what he bases his thoughts on. I'm not saying that he can't (or shouldn't) try to see things from another perspective, but that's not really what you do in an opinion piece like that.

An opinion piece? No. It's a book. An entire book. The article is just an excerpt from the book, and the attitude taken in that excerpt makes it sound like the entire book is going to be one guy's opinions, coming entirely from a perspective where gameplay is secondary to story and games are assumed to be inferior to film. Again, he's not actually examining anything scientifically, he's not talking to experts, he's not grounding his book in anything other than his biases. I can't take him seriously because there is no scholarly element to this book.