Rating B+ | The Last Of US： When games become similar to movies, the movies keep the same

It's rare for a TV Series to have a high rating of 9.3 on IMDB. The Last Of US makes it.

As a fan of the game, I approve of the TV series, which restores the game well.

But on the other hand, for a TV series, I am disappointed because I haven’t seen innovations beyond the games.

1.When the game become similar to the movie

During the Christmas holidays in 2014, I was alone. Fortunately, the PS4 version of The last of US was with me. It is a horror game which tells a fantastic story.

20 years after modern civilization has been destroyed, Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal heartbreaking journey as they both must traverse the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.

Zombies and doomsday are not new themes for a game, but The Last Of Us handles the details of the story and the emotions between the characters well. Also, the main or the sub plot have touched me very much especially the ending, I was still addicted to it after finishing the game, took hours to come back to reality.

In addition to the excellent story，this game is very cinematic in terms of graphics and action design.

In terms of graphics, animals running freely in the run-down city, zombies hiding in dark corners with terrifying roars, and traces of people's lives before the doomsay，can be seen everywhere. They all have a kind of desolate beauty.

In terms of action designs, sneaking, fighting, and shooting, you can find its imitation like that in "Bourne", and "007", coupled with this natural advantage of the game's sense of substitution. So the playing experience was exciting.

This is the top game of A+ rating.

It's perfect for a TV series, and I've been waiting for it ever since the news broke.

Now, it's finally reease.

2. When the movie become similar to the game

First of all, the image of the actors in the TV series is quite different from the characters in the game especially for Ellie, and Joel's daughter. Their personalities also change in TV dramas and games. Fans of the game will not get used to it at first, but believe me, keep watching, and you will get used to it in a short time.

In terms of restoring the game, it does a very good job. Especially the sensory experience and the screen.

In the second episode, I even got a sensory experience beyond Hollywood movies.

The director doesn't use any bird's-eye shots in the scene where Joel and Ellie leave the totalitarian government and enter the savage zombie world. The cameraman stands on the ground like a war correspondent, following and recording the movements of the protagonists from the perspective of ordinary people.

As for the processing of sound effects, whenever Joel and Ellie enter the pool, the secret room, and other places, the sound of water droplets, wind, feet on the fragile old stairs and wooden floors, especially the rattle of zombies, are all amplified. It is very scary and keeps the audience on edge.

The impressive scenes in the game are restored to the TV Series by the director.

In the first episode, the main story is almost the same as in the game.

On the night of the outbreak, there are Countless burned houses, frightened people, and crashed planes made it easy for me to substitute for the story in games, all appeared in TV series.

The TV series has higher requirements for realism than the game. These scenes need to look real. It requires high production costs, which is only possible for superhero movies that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The last of us did it, it's incredible, I don't know how.

3.The short of the TV series is that they could have done a better job of improving the story.

Game production needs more effort for game experience itself; TV series production needs to focus more on storytelling. Therefore, the strong storyline is the advantage of TV series.

Compare with the game, TV Series has added a lot of drama to Joel's daughter. Before the daughter send Joel the watch as a birthday gift, she goes to school and steals Joel's money to fix the watch.

These plots make the daughter completed, but it is not exquisite. Audiences do not have more empathy for her daughter, nor increase Joel's sense of grief. It doesn't help the story at all.

TV Series have added a lot of irony to reality, which is a good improvement.

The spread of COVID in the real world is similar to the zombie virus in the TV series. Lockdown, isolation, testing, people are doing the same thing. Compared with games, TV series have more descriptions of the epidemic. The concept of fungal infection and a discussion of infectious diseases by scientists have been added to the TV series, making the story more convincing.

Nowadays,TV series and movies based on games become more and more popular, unfortunately, there's not many good of them. Quite the opposite, most of them are mediocre or even a disaster: Resident Evil, Halo, Uncharted - all of them were in the shadow of originals because of how bad they were, compared to the games.

It's nice to have a well made TV series that will probably keep my attention for a while, but I'm very surprised this has a rating of 9.3 in IMDB. 9.3 is near perfection , is masterpiece level. This is just a good show, nothing more.

The game pays more attention to the experience for game, while the TV series pays more attention to storytelling. These two kinds of medias have their advantages.

As for The Last Of US, the TV series is too similar to the game. The director seems to put all his energy into recreating the game, ignoring the advantages that TV series is more suitable for storytelling. What is the point of making a TV series that looks like a game?

Rating B+