Contextual Studies - Hockings Analysis

After reading Hockings analysis, it made me realise a few things about games and gave me a different perpective on how I perceive them, a different approach to looking at games and thinking about the structure and fabric of the game itself.The game Im going to talk about is The last of Us and I'm going to discuss whether the mechanics of the game compliments its story. *Spoilers*
The Last of Us is a post apocalyptic zombie infested America where you must escort this girl (who is immune to the virus) across America to get her to the labs where they can perform experiment towards a cure. The gameplay itself is a survival game, ammo and food are scarce so you can't always rely in shooting your way out of situations and a whole crafting system from spare parts fits into the narrative. In my opinion the mechanics of the game compliment the story since the scarce food and ammo is a realistic to a post apocalyptic America, you can also choose to sneak past zombies unnoticed throwing items like bottles and bricks etc across the room so the noise distracts them and by melee killing them. All of these, hypothetically of course, would seem like viable options in an apocalypse working well with the games narrative and current state the world is in. However, one mechanic which breaks complete immersion from the game to me is the zombie AI and targeting options which would revolve more around the sneaking option. In game the zombies only go into a frenzy and chase you if YOU and only YOU are noticed when you have 1, 2 and sometimes 3 people following you. The player can be crouching behind a car for example with the 1+ characters standing right next to you out in the open but the zombies won't notice them, it makes the whole idea of sneaking not a viable option if you want to enjoy the game for its realism. Asides from this I believe every other aspect of the games mechanics fit into the story well and compliment it even more from ammo searching to the crafting function.

http://clicknothing.typepad.com/click_nothing/2007/10/ludonarrative-d.html