The Last of Us - Dark Near Past Gamer Title - HBO

[Bugg]

It's never officially been released on PC before now.

 

[Mr Cairo]

I get that is the remake one. So how is it possible for me to have recollection from the game when I have never owned a console?

I cannot find when but it seems that it was removed from the steam library at some point, hence I cannot provide a screenshot. But I personally have completed it at last four times.

Here's another question, if I haven't completed it, then how come I've been able to backseat blind streams on their first run on the game?

Not saying you have not just saying that as far as Steam and Sony are concerned this has never been out on standalone PC in any form, I'm thinking you possibly played it through PS Now/play the cloud streaming service that was playable on PC.

And i am probably the wrong age group I have no idea what "backseat blind streams on their first run on the game" means sorry.

 

[soulsinging]

HBO might pull me back in for this. I'm not much of a gamer, but this one has always been far and away my favorite. It's intense, immersive, has incredible characters, and a gripping story, holding its own with some of my favorite novels. It seems well suited for this transition and I'm very happy to hear that it seems to be getting done right.

 

[ctg]

HBO's new sci-fi series The Last of Us debuted earlier this week and is already a massive hit. Based on the critically acclaimed video game of the same name, the series takes place in the 20-year aftermath of a deadly outbreak of mutant fungus that turns humans into monstrous zombie-like creatures (the Infected, or Clickers). While the premise is entirely fictional, it's based on some very real, and fascinating, science.

Meet the real zombifying fungus behind the fictional Last of Us outbreak

Ants are in trouble, but humans are safe... for now.

arstechnica.com

 

[REBerg]

I enjoyed the first episode.

Spoiler

A fungal reanimation of the dead is as good an explanation as any. The cause has never really been addressed in The Walking Dead and its spinoffs.

 

[REBerg]

Spoiler

Thinking about it, I don't know if the dead are being reanimated here.
The fungus is taking control of the living, rendering them super strong and fast. The affected, however, appear to be killable. I'm not sure if destroying their brains is required.

 

[The Crawling Chaos]

Spoiler

Thinking about it, I don't know if the dead are being reanimated here.
The fungus is taking control of the living, rendering them super strong and fast.

Spoiler

The fungus does not reanimate, it controls to spread. Not does it give super strength or speed, the infected simply become mindless drones throwing themselves at whoever is not infected with... reckless abandon. At least in the early stages of infection (after that it gets more interesting...). They are still just as weak and fragile as regular human beings, and whatever knocks out or kills the host will stop the infected immediately.

 

[Mr Cairo]

Spoiler

Thinking about it, I don't know if the dead are being reanimated here.
The fungus is taking control of the living, rendering them super strong and fast. The affected, however, appear to be killable. I'm not sure if destroying their brains is required.

You are correct and its not.

 

[ctg]

Spoiler: 1.02 - The Infected

I didn't reply to what makes cordycepts so freakish because of my foreknowledge. The opening section showing Jakarta, 2003 showed pretty much all of my thoughts. The people are ignorant.

The mushroom professor said after studying a sample, "This is ophiocordyceps. Why did you use chlorazol to prepare the slide?"

The general answered, "Because that is the preparation used for sample taken from a human."

Baffled and slightly amused the professor announced, "Cordyceps cannot survive in humans."

While that might be true to our world at the moment, it's not true to theirs. Zombie mushroom mutated and caused the whole outbreak. It is a good question for why it hasn't done it to everyone, because the spores will get carries by the wind!?

What I really liked was that the professor wasn't fully vetted pathologian, but she went through the order and was even more baffled, when she heard that the infection spread through bites. The military brought her in to make a vaccine, but there is no such thing. There are chems, that deal with the fungal infection, but there is no bloody vaccination.

In my mind, only DNA mutation can provide a cure and resistance towards the infection. It's what the cordycepts does to their victims.

Ellie most certainly is carrying the mutation. She most certainly don't know it, but others suggests that is the case. The question therefore is, does the Last of Us world has still viable genetechnology that can do thing? Meaning finding it and using it to make a virus that then carries the mutation in the host body?

Joel most certainly couldn't get it and why should he, when his life before had no such things, or it even being a major topic in the conversations. In fact, he told Tess, "You need to stop thinking about this kid like she has some kind of life ahead of her."

So she pushed the girl, and Ellie said, "There's a FireFly camp somewhere ahead of us and they are working on a cure. A vaccine."

Joel didn't take it kindly. "Vaccines, miracle cures. None of it works."

"F*ck you man," Ellie snapped back. "I didn't ask for this."

"You and me both."

What a lovely start. Both hate each other. Yet, all of them need each other.

All of that in ruins because of a mushroom. Man that is humbling, but I get chills from watching the World As We Know It getting back to a natural state. When you think about it, it is mostly likely what the world looked after the last great cataclysm wiped the humanity and caused millenniums of stagnation and amnesia.

People fought back with their bombs and guns. Didn't help.

I loved watching Ellie's innocence on all things possible. She has really no idea what people were like, but she has a really active imagination for being a kid of the new world order. Being a fourteen how could she know what a library or a hotel or even a hotel guests be like in the old world?

I assume that both the writers of the game and the series had to take a shortcut on that knowledge and provide some avenues for Ellie to have the knowledge.

That is at least a hundred dead on the street. Still in good condition, despite the time. Some even alive after 20 years of ruination. But when you look at that, it's clear that the US government took the advice and considered their people hostile, no matter what.

I also recognize the pattern because I've done that same thing in Days Gone, which perfectly simulates hordes and horde slaying. You use chose points, anything to get advantage, and often it requires moving. A lot, and therefore the trail of corpses stretches the landscape as it does here.

Tess explained that they are all connected and the mushroom grown underground, sometimes stretching miles.

You can find this place in the game. In fact, it's forced upon you pretty much straight at the beginning, after you go through some ruins and get introduced to the infected in a very close and personal way. You most certainly don't get Tess explaining anything.

So I had anticipations when I saw the place. But it wasn't because of the mushroom people. The series however did a marvel job by placing the mushroom people in the museum and not the other kind. The Clickers as the first encounter was well handled. And the problem with them is that they can hear extremely well. And the groaning, or clicking, is their way of doing echolocation.

Clickers are fast and agile creatures that can deliver savage blows in close combat. In most cases, you aren't going to be able to handle them. You need combat experience. What I hated was Joel using all that ammo, when in their world it's very scarce. There just ain't no more factories churning out millions after millions of rounds to satisfy the need.

It's more likely the cases of Mad Max where you have a few, at max. So, bow and arrows become your best friends, instead of relying yourself on a rifle or a revolver.

The other kind. As it has been established in TWD the Living are the worst. The Dead are the normal encounter, but it is the Living that causes most damage. It was sad that Tess got bit, but she made the right thing by making Joel to take the girl and keep going. No matter what.

Scariest part was the Joel's tapping an infected caused a horde run, and therefore Tess sacrificed herself for the greater cause. Joel and Ellie didn't even have time to scavenge so supplies. Maybe this is going in the right way.

IMDB score: 9.5 Runtime: 52 minutes

 

[ctg]

Spoiler: About the Clickers

Watching it for the second time, it bothers me that they're missing the horror element, as the Clickers are in the game one of the hardest encounters. The best way to deal with them is stealth and shank. Going loud is really a problem, except in the cases you're drawing them in to a kill-zone.

The horror element comes in the play very well, because you have to move around of them, while constantly running high on adrenaline. The basic instinct is to fight, and with them, you cannot do that as the Clickers hone on the sound.

Their echolocation isn't as good as what it is with the bats. It's the speed associated with the homing that makes them especially scary, and therefore going around circles and paying attention while the time runs down is not really transferable in the fifty-minute episode.

So, for the horror element, they need to either keep it as currently shown and ignore the lore or then make an episode, where it is evident, because every player remembers what the clicking sound means. In the small screen, the effect is muddled because of the drama composition and not putting in enough of horror.

 

[REBerg]

Spoiler: 1.02

Wow! Two episodes and two dead main characters. They had better pick up the replacement pace.
Down to just Pedro Pascal trying to keep a precocious youngster alive while attempting to deliver her to the people who can harness her power.
Holy Grogu! That seems familiar.

 

[The Crawling Chaos]

A few comments about your comments, @ctg

Spoiler: On Ellie's knowledge

Being a fourteen how could [Ellie] know what a library or a hotel or even a hotel guests be like in the old world? I assume that both the writers of the game and the series had to take a shortcut on that knowledge and provide some avenues for Ellie to have the knowledge.
> People are dead, knowledge isn't. It can be found in books, it's passed on in schools. It's explicitly stated in the series that Ellie is going to school and learned a lot from books. Just because I never set foot in a courthouse doesn't mean I don't have a pretty good idea of what goes on during a murder trial.

Spoiler: On the Infected and the Shroom

That is at least a hundred dead on the street. Still in good condition, despite the time. Some even alive after 20 years of ruination.
> Not dead, all of them are live Infected who have gathered to "commune" with the mushroom underground, waiting for it to signal a new prey nearby. I don't really know what to think about that ability, actually. It is never mentioned in the games as far as I remember, and I can't really see the use for it at the moment. There's nothing particularly cinematic about it... Maybe it'll be put to good use later.

Spoiler: Ammo Conservation

What I hated was Joel using all that ammo, when in their world it's very scarce.
> All due respect, and I don't mean that as a personal insult at all, but that's a gamer's reflex. You know you're going to have to go through more hordes of undead with that same gun in later levels, so you try to save your ammo for as long as you can. In real life, when confronted with a clear and present lethal danger, you don't save your bullets thinking about what may or may not happen two hours or two weeks later. You deal with the threat with what you have at that moment and that's that. When and if another danger rears its head later on, then you'll figure it out.

Spoiler: Clicker Tactics

Watching it for the second time, it bothers me that they're missing the horror element, as the Clickers are in the game one of the hardest encounters. The best way to deal with them is stealth and shank. Going loud is really a problem, except in the cases you're drawing them in to a kill-zone.
> I understand why they cut it out, and the museum is definitely an interesting set piece both in the game and in the series, but I really missed the original introduction of the Clickers from the game in this episode. In the game, our protagonists first run into them inside the collapsed tower that can be seen at the end of the first episode, and at the start of this one. And there's a nice little segment in there, in which you have to evade a few Clickers using stealth as you progress through destroyed office spaces, using the desks and booths as cover. It's a tense, suspenseful moment that always reminded me of the Velociraptors-in-the-kitchen scene from the first Jurassic Park and I think it would have worked well in the series too.
Back to your point. To be fair they did try to sneak past the Clickers using stealth at first. They only opened fire after they were spotted, which is exactly what you'd do in the game too - since you can no longer shank a Clicker who has located you. Going loud is certainly not the best option, when you have other options, but it wasn't the case here. I think the series is doing a good job so far, even with the horror. These Clickers were hard to kill and they're definitely not something you want to run into at every street corner.

Spoiler: My own, brief thoughts

I liked this second episode too. I find it extremely faithful to the original game, not that this automatically makes it a pass, but it's certainly appreciated. The fact that it's so faithful however makes the little changes all the more apparent, and I sometimes wonder why they were made. For instance, in the game it's human soldiers, not a horde of Infected, who are pursuing the protagonists after their failed encounter with the Fireflies. Maybe they thought fast zombies would be scarier? I think the scariest predators in The Last of Us, as in any other post-apocalyptic fiction (The Road, The Walking Dead) are actually the men and the lengths they go to to survive. I also like my zombies seldomly seen, a little like the shark in Jaws. The less you see them, the scarier they become when the characters do end up finding them. So I can't really get behind that change. It's a very minor nitpick of course.
I like that they gave us a glimpse of the start of the outbreak at the beginning of the episode, and I even hope most episodes will start with a little flashback showing what went on everywhere in the world. It's not really on point, but it expands the lore and gives us fans of the games something new to chew on.
I can't wait for episode 3. I was expecting great things with that show, but I never thought I would love it that much. I even watched the first episode twice and I'm considering doing that with this one as well. And that's something I have never ever done for any other show before. So kudos to the showrunners!

 

[The Crawling Chaos]

More information and comments about the changes related to the mythology (mycology?) of the show.

Spoiler: Fungi

Turns out this symbiosis-via-mycelium that connects all Infected within a certain area was introduced for a very particular reason, which the original game writer - and now showrunner and series director - Neil Druckmann explained in an interview: In the game, the fungus spreads via spores, which means the human protagonists have to cross certain areas wearing gas masks. For the show, they didn't want our beloved actors' faces hidden behind expressionless masks so they tried to research other ways fungi grow and spread in nature, hence... mycelium.

As I said before, I'm not sure I like this decision. I'm still weighing its pros and cons. It adds another layer of body horror. But in a show where mushrooms grow out of people's bodies, splitting their face open, was that extra layer really necessary? In fact it seems pretty mild in comparison, even when the Infected gives Tess the vampire's kiss in episode 2 - a nice scene surely, but not that disturbing to me in a show that also gives us spastic echolocating monstrosities.
The next point comes from the showrunners themselves: No gas masks, allowing us to see the actors' faces. I'm not sold. In the age of superhero movies the audience is used to seeing actors' faces concealed behind masks. And a lot of actors even relish the challenge of not relying on their face to convey emotions. I get that poor Pedro Pascal also plays the nearly faceless Mandalorian in that other show, and maybe he welcomed the idea of being able to breathe through his mouth and nose on set for once, but it's not like the humans of The Last of Us spend their lives breathing through gas masks either. They only wear them at specific points, in unventilated areas that are saturated with spores.
I also think that the horror of spores should not be underestimated. The mycelium gives us something more tangible, more visible to fear, true... but is that scarier than knowing you can become infected via tiny, invisible spores that might be anywhere around you without you even being aware of them? The showrunners went for body horror rather than paranoia. I'm not sure the trade-off was worth it in the end, considering the show could have had both (Clickers and Bloaters for body horror, spores for paranoia).

So the jury's still out on that one. But that's what we got, so I hope the showrunners are able to make the most of that decision and really sell us the concept in future episodes.

 

[ctg]

In the game, players often have to navigate areas filled with spores, necessitating a gas mask to avoid infection (though they often seem to take those damn masks off well before it seems safe to). While gas masks aren’t really a game item that players interact with that much, the vulnerabilities of breathing in the infection remain a moment of high tension.

Showrunner Craig Mazin explained that this change came out of a need to build a bit more believability into the show’s world. “If we put spores in the air,” Mazin told Comicbook, “it would be pretty clear that they would spread around everywhere and everybody would have to wear a mask all the time.” It’s a welcome change as we’d have been robbed of Pedro Pascal’s wonderfully expressive face like we were in that other show where he’s escorting another young person with special physiological characteristics. The world is full of original ideas.

That said, Mazin hasn’t ruled out spores in the show down the line, saying “I don’t necessarily know if we’re going to see any spores this time around, but to say that our world is devoid of them would not be accurate,” in an interview with Variety.

The Big Ways The Last Of Us Show Changes The Game’s Lore

Though HBO's adaptation of the hit survival-horror game hews close to the source, it makes some key deviations

kotaku.com

 

[ctg]

Spoiler

People are dead, knowledge isn't. It can be found in books, it's passed on in schools. It's explicitly stated in the series that Ellie is going to school and learned a lot from books. Just because I never set foot in a courthouse doesn't mean I don't have a pretty good idea of what goes on during a murder trial.

It has been twenty years since the Old World was working. Since then, it has been perverted. This is especially in the case of Ellie. She is too young to have been blasted with loads of information about everything. Instead, she has an innocent look into things. At least in the games, and in that dialogue she shows it, while in the TV series she has a bit too much knowledge about all things. But I think that is the acting/directing/writer problem that should have been solved in the production, or at least in the editing room. But for now, it's passable, because there are hints of it in her act.

All due respect, and I don't mean that as a personal insult at all, but that's a gamer's reflex. You know you're going to have to go through more hordes of undead with that same gun in later levels, so you try to save your ammo for as long as you can. In real life, when confronted with a clear and present lethal danger, you don't save your bullets thinking about what may or may not happen two hours or two weeks later. You deal with the threat with what you have at that moment and that's that. When and if another danger rears its head later on, then you'll figure it out.

How many factories have you seen churning out ammo? There aren't any known in the Last of Us world. Bench presses and hand loading yeah, and you can even find those things in the game, but you cannot ever use it. The thing about the game and TV series is that they are in the survival situation, where everything depends on what they have and what they can get access to.

FireFlies and CERN most certainly has access to a lot of gear. The rest, not so much. And its evident from the episode one, where they go to look for the car battery and find an old junk that has been traded over and over as if it is a relic. And they still keep going about it in the episode two, and in fact they encounter that technical that the FireFlies had used to get to the town house.

However, Joel doesn't even think about checking the fuel or does it have a battery before they head in. He avoids it, and the same goes to Tess.

Now, Joel's background is that he's a Desert Storm vet and in his twenty years running ops in the aftermath of the outbreak, he has killed a lot of people. He carries his M4, and yet, when they come to the murder scene, his instincts does tell him to grab some ammo, even though he'd just spent 3 mags, 90 rounds on two clickers.

The average rifleman's basic combat load is between 5 to 8 magazines, or between 150 to 240 rounds. I give the ammo waste, because he was thinking about going back to the very end, until Tess made him to promise.

If the FireFly camp is the next destination or even if he abandons it and decides to head to see Uncle Tommy, what he has left isn't really much, even if it is the remaining 150 rounds. Going full auto in close combat is allowed to increase hit chances. But when you are in the survival situation, blasting away what you have instead of trying to think: 'I still need ammo tomorrow...' is a sure way to find yourself in doom.

In the Last of Us world, you fight with what you have, not with what you can get from the shop.

 

[The Crawling Chaos]

Spoiler: Reply to ctg

It has been twenty years since the Old World was working. Since then, it has been perverted. This is especially in the case of Ellie. She is too young to have been blasted with loads of information about everything.

Actually, you're the one telling us that. The series and the games tell a very different story:

Ellie is obsessed with and has been exposed to a lot of pre-pandemic culture and habits. Again she says it herself in this episode: She learned a lot about the old world from books. Now, if you look at the Ellie from the games, she is familiar with all sorts of video games and even has her own favorites. She's able to ramble on about popular pre-outbreak TV shows. She collects comic books of franchises she likes throughout the first game. It's precisely because she grew up in a different, bleak and sterile world that she wants to find out as much as she can about the old one. As a child she was also into space exploration and dinosaurs, as we learn in the second game.

Anyway, like I said, The Old World may be dead. But knowledge of it isn't. There are many ways for people to learn what it was like, from first-hand accounts of survivors to fiction, literature and other types of old-world entertainment.

How many factories have you seen churning out ammo? There aren't any known in the Last of Us world.

Not true.

In fact in episode 1 the FEDRA soldier talking to Joel mentions that the only two things that factories still churn out are precisely "pills and bullets, bullets and pills". A paramilitary dictatorship will always need a constant supply of weaponry to keep its citizens in check. And with all the robbing from rebellious factions, corruption and smuggling going on behind the scenes, you can bet it's much easier for Joel to find bullets in that world than it is to find a fresh cup of joe.

However, Joel doesn't even think about checking the fuel or does it have a battery before they head in. He avoids it, and the same goes to Tess.

Why would he check the fuel or rob it of its battery? They're not looking for a vehicle at that stage. They believe the fireflies are about to give them everything they need and more.

Now, Joel's background is that he's a Desert Storm vet

Incorrect. We don't know that.

His brother Tommy is a vet. That's his truck we see in episode 1 with the "Desert Storm Vet" bumper sticker. Not Joel's.

Anyway, it wouldn't change anything. Soldiers faced with the possibility of immediate death point and shoot until their target drops. Then, and only then, they start worrying about ammo.

even though he'd just spent 3 mags, 90 rounds on two clickers.

Exaggeration, I guess? I don't remember that many shots. And Joel used both the M4 and his revolver.

If the FireFly camp is the next destination or even if he abandons it and decides to head to see Uncle Tommy, what he has left isn't really much, even if it is the remaining 150 rounds. Going full auto in close combat is allowed to increase hit chances. But when you are in the survival situation, blasting away what you have instead of trying to think: 'I still need ammo tomorrow...' is a sure way to find yourself in doom.

The survivor mentality is not about saving your strengths for a tomorrow that may never happen, it's about surviving today, the next hour, the next minute, the next second.

And when a Clicker catches you in a tight confined space, your first thought is not "Let's go for a double tap to the head and save the rest for tomorrow's Clickers." It's "I'm dead in 3 seconds if I don't drop it here and now with everything I have."

You do what it takes to survive another second. Tomorrow's problems are tomorrow's problems.

 

[svalbard]

The visuals are absolutely stunning on this.

 

[Mr Cairo]

Nice little Easter Egg, go to Google and search for "The Last Of Us"

once you get the results you should see a red mushroom at the bottom of the screen ...... just click it a few times.

 

[The Crawling Chaos]

Nice little Easter Egg, go to Google and search for "The Last Of Us"

once you get the results you should see a red mushroom at the bottom of the screen ...... just click it a few times.

Cute. I pressed it way too many times in the hope that some kind of reward would pop up once I'd completed a perfect rectangular shape in the middle of the screen (looked like it would be the perfect format for a video), but... don't bother.

 

[Foxbat]

I haven’t seen this series but those who have may be interested in this BBC article. I had never heard of Cordyceps fungus and found it fascinating.

The Last of Us: Could a fungal pandemic turn us all into zombies?

The apocalyptic plot of hit TV series The Last of Us has coincided with a real-life threat from fungi.

www.bbc.co.uk