Are you going to watch The Last Of Us on TV, or wait to play Part 1 on PC?
Or both?
HBO's The Last Of Us TV adaptation is finally out on UK tellyboxes via Sky/Now TV today, and judging by early critic reviews, it's meant to be pretty all right! You know, as video game TV shows go. I've yet to sit down and watch it myself, but I'll probably be doing so this evening to see what's what.
A question I've been pondering in the run-up to The Last Of Us' TV debut, however, is this: if I watch the TV show now, will I really be bothered to actually sit down and play Part 1 when it finally comes to Steam at the beginning of March? 'Cause I sure don't have time (or the inclination) to do both. I think that might be too much The Last Of Us... But what about you, readers? Will you be tuning in, or waiting to play it on PC? Or both! Tell us in the comments below.
I've been mulling over this question ever since HBO released the very first teaser footage for The Last Of Us back in August. Even then, I was erring on the side of Team TV rather than Team Game, and I think that's likely where I'm going to stay now we're finally at the starting line for it all - especially when the TV show's nine-episode run will likely be finishing right around the time The Last Of Us Part 1 arrives on PC on March 3rd. Maybe it will make people super jazzed to play the shiny computer game version! For my part, though, I don't think I could face a Last Of Us double whammy like that, and I'm intrigued to see what effect the TV series might have on the success of Part 1's PC release.
I did like The Last Of Us when I originally played it on the PS3. I came to it a couple of years after the fact (2015, according to my giant spreadsheet of completed games, so two years after it first came out, and one year after the PS4 remaster), but I enjoyed its focus on stealth over shooting when it came to its survival horror elements, and all the debate and dilemmas posed by Ellie's apparent immunity to the world-ending cordyceps virus gave its story a good sense of momentum, too. Those trolley puzzles can absolutely do one, though.
It's well worth playing if you haven't done so already - but the fact that The TV Of Us seems to be a pretty straightforward retread of the game rather than its own thing does also put me in the mind of, well, Final Fantasy VII's Crisis Core, of all things. That is, if you haven't played it by now, you might as well just watch the TV show, save yourself a good eight, nine hours in the process, and skip straight to The Last Of Us Part 2 instead. Not that Part 2 is confirmed to be heading to PC just yet, of course. Personally, I'm still gearing myself up to play Part 2 on our PlayStation 5, as watching Matthew (RPS in peace) endure bits of it back in 2020 was pretty hard-going. I've got to an age now where I need good years-long breaks between harrowing things like The Last Of Us now, and Part 2 just looked too grim to play during an actual worldwide pandemic.
I am but one slightly time-starved person, though. What about you, dear readers? Have you watched the first episode already? If so, what did you think? Will you be playing Part I as well when it comes out in March? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.