Here is the whole translated article (!!!!beware of major spoilers!!!!):
*Page 1*
The Last of US
M! plays the post-apocalyptic thriller by Naughty Dog, shits in its pants and flees from infected mutants. But we also experience moments full of emotions, drama and melancholy.
Blood is running down a bottle of coke while a moaning guy collapses and slams onto a vending machine. He accidentally hits a glass bottle with his arm and it bursts hitting the ground. The echo can be perceived far away, we cringe and suddenly hear those sounds again: Click... Click. Click. Click. But it goes away, phew! Time for a breather, straighten things out, what was that all about? This guy in a worn-out hoodie attacked us just now, wanting to smash our head with an iron rod and he paid for that with his life. Yet we also had a high price to pay: It was our last bullet. We cast one eye at the minimalistic HUD showing us a manacing "0" beneath the small symbol of our revolver. Then it comes back again: Click... Click. Click. Click. It approaches. We sit in a sparsely lit hall somewhere in Los Angeles, holding the PS3 controller tightly in our hands and breaking a big sweat at the first worldwide hands-on preview for "The Last of Us".
________________________________________________________________________________________
*Page 2*
Great Technology, great Emotions
In the virtual basement rooms a few meters beneath a bar somewhere in Boston are the "Clicker" our worst enemies - mutants infected by a fungal virus named Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. After three days the virus takes over the brain, causes the skin to rot and turn grey, the infected are starting to look like zombies. Since they appear in groups and like to hunt us in a pack, Naughty Dog calls them "Runner". After one year the spores grow into the whole body, oozing out of the eyes, blinding the victims. Thus making them unable to see us, which is why we sometimes dare switching on the flashlight to plan the next steps. But they still locate us with a sonar system. Whenever we make a move, we create noises, which they will follow. If we're clever, we would fling objects like those coke bottles into the other corner of the room and escape. But it's far too late. The biest sneaks up behind us and just as it wants to ram its teeth into our neck...a shot is fired. And another one. Pus bursts out of the clicker's head and he goes down. Tess is running towards us and presses us close to her. Joel is confused, she srikes his head gently and sheds a tear. Tess is Joel's girlfriend or at least was, they don't know quite for certain themselves. Almost the whole population of the US fell victim to a spore epidemic and also shattered the lifes of Joel and Tess. Naughty Dog needs just a few moments to make it clear to us why this massively enhanced "Uncharted 3" engine is so important for this game. Not because of all the details, the plaster crumbling from ceilings or each individual stitch on Joel's backpack we're clearly able to make out in the sunlight, but because it allows for real emotions. When the camera is moving close to Tess, we can see her teary-eyed face. And when the camera turns around, we can see the wrinkles, scratches and many scars in Joel's face, which tell stories of countless battles and characterize him more and more during the game. But it also shows him casting a loving glance for a short moment before turning away. "We want the players to feel with the characters. They should mean something to them", says Creative Director Neil Druckmann repeatedly on that day.
"We could be dead by tomorrow"
"The Last of Us" is a fascinating game, because it's doing so many things differently than virtually any other game in this console generation. Of course there was also one or another emotional moment between Nathan and Elena in "Uncharted 3", like the one at the airport, when she looked sad and worried after him. But ultimately the action driven gameplay was always in the way and Drake was designed as the fearless explorer and Indiana Jones sunnyboy.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Captions (from left to right, top to bottom):
- (Picture showing Joel and Ellie hiding from a guy holding a shotgun): Final flourish for the PS3: Notice the sweat running down Joel's arm, his beard hair or the natural lighting. This screenshot was taken directly from the game.
- (Picture shows Joel aiming at Clickers and Runners): Don't confuse the many stages of the disease. The ones in the back are Runner, they're pretty fast but with less attack power. The mutated Clicker in the front kill us with only one hit or bite.
- (Picture showing Joel in close combat with one Clicker): Kiss me: The fungal virus already grows out of this infected lady, showing huge furuncles.
------------------------------------------------------------------
________________________________________________________________________________________
*Page 3*
Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley, friends and colleagues, took two years to write the story for "The Last of Us". They spent whole nights at the Curry House, a restaurant in Los Angeles, and talked about the characters. The character development is a central topic, everything revolves around the relationship between Joel, Tess and Ellie. Joel was a smuggler and debt collector, he has done nasty things and has huge amount blood on his hands. In fact, for money alone he should have brought Ellie to a safe place, but he has doubts about his mission and sees this as his last chance to finally become a good man. First he abandons her, then his concerns bother him, he returns, picks her up and fosters her. However, Joel is not the one-dimensional character like Nathan Drake: He often doubts himself, talks to himself and it's exciting to see how Ellie is giving him the strength to carry on. She often takes hold of his hand, encourages him and behaves suave, although she's only 14 years old. Joel wants to bring her to San Francisco, one of the last not contaminated towns. Tess is a tough woman who learned to find her way in this brutal world. She has no problem killing a man or infected but she presses for a discussion with Joel. "Human emotions don't cease because the world ends", comments Troy Barker, who plays Joel. "Tess wants to know where she stands, but Joel is afraid of that. He's done many things he never ever wanted to tell her about. He feels obliged to his role as a protector and tries to fulfill it, but he's definitely not a hero type like Nathan Drake." And indeed it's more about the characters than action. If Joel wants to postpone a discussion until tomorrow, Tess replies with: "We could be dead by tomorrow. Don't you understand, Joel? You could have died right now." It's captivating because every moment in "The Last of Us" is substantial.
Dripping blood
This urge for authenticity is also noticeable in gameplay. In the first couple of minutes of our preview we sneaked through a strongly fortified quarantine zone located 100km away from Boston. We're spotted by a guarding soldier and he opens fire. Joel is struck by a bullet so his shirt becomes soaked in blood and he tries covering his wound with his left hand. We have to open the inventory as fast as we can and apply a bandage - Joel constantly loses energy doing so and the whole screen turns red. The game does not pause during that, it continues.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Captions (from left to right, top to bottom):
- (Picture shows Tess talking to Joel): Emotions, emotions, emotions: Jealousy, relationship problems and lack of trust are only three of the issues Tess and Joel are confronted with as a couple.
- (Picture shows Joel searching inside his backpack with the inventory on the right side): Inside the inventory screen you can combine several items. This way a racket can become even deadlier by being duct-taped with blades of scissors.
Additional info box:
Gentle notes of an Oscar winner
Sony hired the Oscar winning Gustavo Santaolalla ("Babel", "Brokeback Mountain") for composing the background music. During our hands-on preview it was fascinating to experience how the composer can build atmosphere by very few means. Towns have almost become extinct, so there is hardly any background noise. No traffic noise, no barking dogs or cooing pidgeons. When stepping on rotten wood it creaks and crackles quite loudly, thus revealing us. If we fire a shotgun it resonates in such an echo alarming even bandits that linger far away in the arse of the world. The panting of the infected is also echoing in large corridors and is only accompanied by light fiddling violins from time to time. Really great!
------------------------------------------------------------------
________________________________________________________________________________________
*Page 4*
Joel is fishing a muslin bandage out of his backpack. If we run out of them, we have to improvise: toilet paper? Used with a rubber band and several layers it can be tightened around a wound.
"We experimented with many different systems", remembers Straley. "In reality you'd have to cut free the area around the bullet and retrieve it with a pincette. But that would become a bloody mess on the one hand and take far too long on the other. Sometimes you just have to sacrifice authenticity for the sake of gameplay." At least for Naughty Dog's standards, since we just couldn't come up with a game that needs you to select alcohol from the inventory, clean up the wound with hold of the R1 button and hold it again for applying a bandage - except for perhaps "Metal Gear Solid 3". The animations depend on where you were hit, by the way. If Joel's leg is hit by a bullet, he will lean on a pillar or wall and patches himself up. Wounds are also interfere with our movement. In one situation Joel's knee is hit by a pipe swinging bandit, so he has to walk with a wimp for a couple of minutes. If his right, dominant arm is hit, he has less strength holding heavy weapons like shotguns, thus resulting in bad aiming. We just switch to a revolver then because it's lighter. It's essential for surviving to always carry around enough dressing material and we can fit three from each type in our backpack. Thus after escaping from the quarantine zone, we open and look into every cupboard, every drawer inside a Boston apartment. We search for useful material in every room.
Seek and you shall craft
"The Last of Us" isn't an open world game and plays in predefined areas, but those are pretty huge. One part in Boston lets us explore two row houses with eight rooms each. "We reward players taking risks", says Game Director Bruce. We come around a police station in Boston and save a cop in the last second. He tells us about the top floor having a gun locker packed with shotguns and lots of ammunition. "But there are those things, those infected ones. I certainly wouldn't go up there", he babbles and chickens out. If we go up there, we get our hands on some badly needed weapons but also risk our lifes.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Captions (from left to right, top to bottom):
- (Picture shows Joel fighting off Runner in close combat): See Joel Run: Runner always attack in a pack, whereas the Clicker locate us with their sonar system. Running away in this game is nothing to be ashamed of.
- (Picture shows Joel getting bit by a Clicker): Too slow: If a Clicker catches you, it's an instant death. There's no medicine or bandage against his bites.
Additional info box:
Apocalypse the esthetic way
"We've seen it all: Apocalyptic shooters, countless zombie games and that typical doom and gloom scenario taking away the world's colorfulness and tinting it with a grey-brown mud", explains Game Director Bruce Straley. "That's not Naughty Dog, not our style." The team was inspired by a fotographic genre called "Ruin Porn". Photographers use special imaging techniques to provide decayed ruins an esthetical look. "Nature in this context is usually considered in a negative way, as a destructive force. But in a way nature is just getting everything back what it formerly possessed, thus we're turning the tables here. All those trees, plants and flowers growing wild are literally outshining Boston. I mean it's already a beautiful town, but nature is giving the whole scenery a very special touch."
------------------------------------------------------------------
________________________________________________________________________________________
*Page 5*
When climbing stairs there's creaking, so the Clicker will be hearing and searching for us. Ergo we should be prepared. We're searching for weapons inside the office: a ballpen? It has a pike making it a potential weapon. A lot better is a shelf inside the cafeteria, holding a steak knife and scissors. We open our inventory and separate the scissors into two parts. Oh, and there's some handy duct-tape lying around! We roll it around each scissor's edge and get a provisory handle. We can use the blades to ram them into the infecteds' necks or simply as a throwing weapon. Searching even further, we come accross a medicine cabinet. Inside there are some bandages and disinfectants. The latter consists mostly of alcohol - if we cram a bandage into the bottle and ignite it, we'll get a Molotov cocktail. Up to three of them fit into our backpack. So if we'd come across a bar, we should stuck up our supplies. But for now a disinfectant bottle is all we have as a fire accelerant.
Clicker, Runner, Listen Mode
As already explained we shouldn't take the creaking route upstairs and search for another way up. We climb up a bookshelf and crouch slowly and sneaky to the wall adjoined to the office, where the infected are wandering around. Keeping Joel steady without moving around, a so called "Listen Mode" gets activated. All enemies getting orange highlighted, even if they're behind a wall. That takes away a chunk of authenticity, but greatly helps us planning our next attack. The introduction showed us how to handle one single Clicker, now there's two of them. Doesn't sound that much more, but those beasts are frigging dangerous, because you can't counter their attacks and one of their bites kills. Pretty clear what to do: both have to be taken out by one Molotov cocktail. We grab a stone and throw it into a corner. Both Clicker are stumbling and trudging towards that corner. Now to quickly aim at the correct angle, throwing and "Boom!" the first infected bursts into flames. But the second one escapes and now clearly knows where we are - we run. We're panicking and sprint while holding down the analog stick and hear it panting behind us. We're jumping over obstacles like overthrown shelves or chairs lying on the floor by pressing the "X" button. Eventually we're faster than the Clicker, get a shotgun out of the gun locker and blow away its festering head.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Captions (from left to right, top to bottom):
- (Picture shows Joel talking to Ellie): Joel gets sicker and sicker during the game. His skin degenerates, becomes wrinkly and he ages rapidly. Can Ellie and Tess save him?
Additional info box:
In Profile: "24" star Annie Warsching alias Renee Walker plays Tess
Annie Wersching played a tough role as the FBI agent Renee Walker in the US series "24". How does she characterize Tess? "Tess is definitely not 'Everybody's Darling', but a cool analyzing female smuggler who places her own needs above others."
"It's my first videogame and it's a fascinating work. I can hardly believe how lifelike our faces appear on screen, the whole facial expressions and gestures. It's a movie but you yourself can decide how it moves on."
"The script is pretty tight and sometimes very dark in some places. Neil pushes his characters to the limits. There are many shocking moments in the game."
------------------------------------------------------------------
________________________________________________________________________________________
*Page 6*
Bill, the Old Fella
Our demo takes a one hour leap in time. Naughty Dog doesn't want to spoil what happened - we notice however that Tess is missing. She seems to carry a dark secret with her. In any event, she's been kidnapped by the US military and brought over to Pittsburgh. At least that's what Bill thinks, an old fellow and war veteran. Joel saved his life not only once and so he owes him. Joel and Ellie set off searching for her. Naughty Dog obviously wants to give those two most important characters in the game as much time as possible to spend together. To let them establish a real father-daughter relationship. We'll probably meet Tess again in Pitsburgh, which is 900 kilometers away from Boston, though. The whole US infrastructure is completely down, there are no airplanes, no trains. Joel needs a car and Bill is the one to build it. That was the plan. Before bandits stole all necessary parts, at least. Ok, those simple "One hand washes the other" tasks are apparently also part of "The Last of Us". But the job will become much harder than you would first think, because Bill is fishing out a map out his drawer and marks several command posts, traps and guards. We have to infiltrate the head quarter of a group of bandits named "The Hunter". Assistance will definitely be needed for that.
The Firefly Militia
The US President declared martial law before he died. In those 20 years of the virus epidemic the military lost long ago all control over the country and protects only a few quarantine zones. Meat, milk products and field crops are contaminated, thus food has to be produced in special facilities. But too few of them exist so food coupons are used to distribute resources in a fairly manner. The quarantine zones are hermetically sealed from the outside world and are controlled by a general with a heavy hand. If a citizen shows even the slightest symptoms of an infection, he gets executed. The US-Airforce continues to bomb cities thinking they can wipe out the virus. Special forces are shifting through the districts, hunting down infected and bandits, but also causing accidents by frequently killing civilians. They're fighting back and join various groups. The "Firefly" is one of those militias, training civilians for battle and its base is stationed inside the venerable Massachussets State House. We need an urgent talk with Firefly's Chief, but the guards won't let us through and even start shooting at us. So we have to find another way in.
Dive, Craft and Sneak
This time we can't kill anybody, after all the Firefly are supposed to be helping us attacking the base of the Hunter. Sneaking is necessary and it's fascinating to see how well team play works with Ellie's AI.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Captions (from left to right, top to bottom):
- (Picture shows Joel and Ellie horseback riding): The journey of Ellie and Joel leads to various US landscapes - they also travel on horseback.
- (Picture shows artwork of an infected): Infected in the first stage don't have a burst head yet, but still are no beauty at all.
Additional info box:
A Child Becoming a Killer? Ellie's Development in Detail
For her 14 years Ellie has a quick tongue and is not afraid of any conflict with others. Joel still needs to teach her many thinks during the course of the game. He shows her how to attack with a knife, shooting a handgun, shotgun and even a sniper rifle later on. Ellie's AI is programmed for self-defense or assisting the player depending on the game's difficulty setting. If we're threatened in a certain area and Ellie is far away, she also uses her bow once in a while to shoot arrows into an enemy's chest.
------------------------------------------------------------------
________________________________________________________________________________________
*Page 7*
The government building is half-submerged in water, thus we're diving inward through a shaft and decide later on how to continue. We either move a desk as Joel, so that we can climb on it to reach a fallen over bookshelf and get into the upper floor. Or we're helping Ellie to climb on our shoulders to reach and climb up a wooden beam, so that she automatically can search for a way to help us up. Sometimes she finds a ladder that she can drop down to Joel. Sometimes she finds a hidden path or a rotten wooden wall in this colonial-styled half-timber house. But how can we take down the wall? We search around and find a cast-iron fireplace poker lying around between musty walls and tattered furniture. Splendid. The way into the mansion is clear.
Messiah Naughty Dog?
"Heavy Rain" creator and industry's visionary David Cage demanded from the gaming industry to "finally grow up" just a couple of days ago. And indeed, Naughty Dog says goodbye with "The Last of Us" from the light-fooded "Indiana Jones" charme, making up the "Uncharted" series and works more towards a genre similar to the Coen Brothers movies. The relationship between Ellie and Joel reminds of "True Grit", where a strong-willed girl is breathing new life into an ageing bounty hunter. She's his last chance to redeem himself and do a good deed just once in his life. It's an art to tell such kind of a story, without lapsing into Hollywood stereotypes. It will be pretty interesting to see what role Tess plays in the overall story. Naughty Dog hired Annie Wersching for her role. A really powerful woman playing the FBI agent Renee Walker, who managed to awaken strong emotions even when it comes to such an emotionally cold character like Jack "24" Bauer. Not only the story and characters are fascinating, but also the gameplay. Nathan Drake could pressure down his enemies in a hall of bullets, but this game does make every bullet count. It's a tough fight for survival and you can bet that we died a lot in Los Angeles. A whole lot...
What we like:
- great facial expressions, gestures and outstanding performance
- fights against the infected are pretty challenging
- bombed cities, untouched nature - the mix is just right
- we have to patch ourselves up, constantly need bandages and are forced to permanently search our surroundings
- sets a new reference in graphics for PS3
What has to be fixed:
- the action becomes pretty brutal (sometimes too much) and is gruesomely staged - Naughty Dog should tone down a bit of that
Conclusion:
It's a movie, a horror thriller, where you get to decide. Strong main protagonists ensure that the game does not getting mired in "Bang Boom Bang", that is so typical for the industry today.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Captions (from left to right, top to bottom):
- (Picture shows Joel and Ellie hiding beneath a window): Brutality as a tactical factor: A lot of blood splatters on walls and sills. If we don't pay attention, enemies will spot us much faster.
- (Picture shows Bill talking to Joel): "You come into my house, your brat nearly breaks my right arm. And now you want a car from me?" The first encounter with the mechanic Bill just doesn't go as planned.
------------------------------------------------------------------
