Last week, Austin Walker wrote about endings over at Waypoint, focusing not only on literal game endings, but also on letting go. Preparing to return to the world can be a challenge, certainly; I’ve never come back from Trumbull Valley, for instance. But sometimes it’s all too easy to leave […]
the last of us
11 posts
The past couple weeks, I’ve written about patriarchal constructions of fathers and daughters in The Last of Us and Rise of the Tomb Raider, and I wanted to spend some time this week wrapping up these assorted musings. My last two posts have worked to put these two games in […]
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the gendered labor that’s represented in The Last of Us, and since then, I’ve been thinking a lot more about the implications of the game’s representation of gendered family structures. Gerald Voorhees talks about The Last of Us’s representation of “paternal masculinity” as […]
I recently revisited The Last of Us, and after (re)playing the game, I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of gendered labor and the manner in which such labor comes to be represented. Indeed, the game’s depiction of fatherhood has been discussed quite a bit, especially when the game was […]
Recently, as I re-read Raph Koster’s A Theory of Fun for Game Design, I kept thinking about the differences between the games Koster was using as examples and the games I’ve most often been writing about lately, the indies and the so-called walking simulators, games that often have low levels […]
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the cliché of the grizzled, brown-haired hero, wondering just what it is that keeps them at the top of the game-protagonist heap, and what encourages designers to keep on designing them. I’ve been thinking about these men, so similar, and about Lee Everett […]
Moms have it rough, man. I’m talking socially, of course, considering the fact that the United States is only one of two countries in the world that doesn’t provide paid time off for new mothers. (Get it together, United States.) But I’m also talking representationally, and it is this particular […]
PlayStation recently announced plans to launch storyline DLC for The Last of Us, 2014’s Left Behind, as its own title on the PlayStation store on May 12. It will be available on both PS3 and PS4 for $10 / £8 / €10. The package also includes a two hour […]
A video released the other day for the upcoming The Last of Us DLC gave an encouraging glimpse into something that I have come to realize is sorely lacking from video games: female friendships. In the clip Riley (who I was excited to see is a person of color), who […]
This week, I wanted to continue my exploration of The Last of Us, with a little dash of something I didn’t get to talk about: The Walking Dead’s 400 Days DLC. As I played through 400 Days, I found myself thinking a great deal about my choices and what impact they would […]
Confession: I almost didn’t finish The Last of Us, and I’m going to tell you why. Spoilers abound here. You’ve been warned. In the months before the release of Naughty Dog’s take on an infected apocalypse, I heard the hype. I saw some images, but avoided trailers (in an effort […]