The Last of Us, and other video games that leave nothing to the imagination... [View all]

At the E3 video game expo in Los Angeles earlier this month, a crowd of gamers cheered on a camo-clad tough guy as he went room to room beating people to death and setting them on fire.

It was a typical third-person-shooter video game action, except that the realism was stunning. A nearsighted person without glasses could have mistaken it for a movie scene.

I wasn’t at the event in person. I just watched the game demo play on YouTube, with the “live” audience response mixed in. But they seemed to be thinking the same thing.

Just when it seemed a brawnier guy with a two-by-four would overpower our hero, a petite female sidekick stabbed the assailant in the back. The hero kicked his attacker to the ground and leveled a shotgun at his face. “No, no, NO!” the brawny guy shrieked, a split second before the hero unloaded. After the man’s jaw shattered in a spray of blood and bone—smash cut—the title THE LAST OF US, white-on-black, filled the screen. The crowd roared.

The video game industry is currently in a war that the movie industry fought and decided last decade. It’s a struggle between loud, assaultive, photorealistic game design that rewards wispy attention spans while demanding minimal problem-solving skills of its players and … games where shotguns to the face and chainsaws to the jugular are not so essential.

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/culture/2012/06/6026394/last-us-and-other-video-games-leave-absolutely-nothing-imagination