Anyone played The Last of Us?

[GuntherAMVs]

Hello, everyone!

For the last year, I've been working on a senior thesis at my university that explores parasocial relationships (relationships/empathy toward characters that do not exist) within the context of The Last of Us. Parasocial interaction/relationships have been heavily studied in reference to television or books, but not for video games, which is why I am very excited about this study.

I need people who have played this game to take a survey. The questions will be about things such as aggression, interaction, empathy, immersion, etc. It is entirely anonymous, so no information you enter into the form will be connected in any way to you personally. It's completely voluntary, of course, but it would really help me out if those who loved this game took 5 minutes to complete this survey

Here is the link to the survey on Google Forms: http://goo.gl/forms/mWSoVI7ar1

If you have any questions, please leave them here and I will respond as quickly as possible. Thank you very much for your time!

[Tigrin]

I loved The Last of Us. Admittedly it was a while ago that I played through the game, and I played it in pieces, so I can't remember too well everything I thought or felt while I was playing.... but I tried to answer your survey to the best of my ability.

Wasn't there an option not to kill any doctors or nurses in that one scene? Maybe I'm wrong. I remember being so blown away by what was going on that I didn't want to hurt anyone.

I'm kind of surprised that parasocial relationships with video games hasn't been studied? If anything I'd say video games are the most immersive form of entertainment, since you literally control a character... when you get shot in a game, you don't tend to say "They shot Joel!", you say "I got shot!". I've always found it difficult to separate myself and my personal values from the characters I play in video games; that's why I prefer to play healers, and avoid PvP.

Good luck with your thesis.

[GuntherAMVs]

Thank you so much for your help, Tigrin! It means a lot!

Spoiler :

In the doctor's scene, the surgeon must die, but the two nurses can be left alone. I thiiiink.. It's interesting to see how many people slaughter them all or even resent killing one of them. I actually saw one guy resist for so long, that when he walked Joel close to the surgeon, Joel literally just killed the guy himself.

And good points about parasocial relationships in games! It's one of the reasons I wanted to study it. It's not a passive experience, and that's an important distinction when it comes to this research. It's why I chose TLOU for this study, since it heavily encourages the player to bond with the people they control. I'm excited and hopeful to parse through the results and maybe, hopefully in the next year, get this published in a journal somewhere . Thanks again!

[MimS]

I have it but haven't started yet, if I happen to finish it in time, I'll answer

[GuntherAMVs]

Thank you MimS!

[SeNniN]

I know this is a old post, but I took the survey anyways. I just recently completed the game through playstation now on ps vita and yea it's a great game. The only other game I really liked was Alan Wake from last gen.

[MarkLyon]

This game is really good on its higher difficulty setting, and you'll have to play it very differently than if you play it on normal.

[purplepolecat]

I just finished my first playthrough this evening. Amazing game! I submitted my survey, I hope I'm not too late.

With regard to Joel's decisions during the final chapter of the game,

Spoiler :

I can completely see why he acted the way he did, but I strongly disagreed with his decisions. I think that Ellie would almost certainly have given informed consent to the procedure. His actions were 100% selfish. And 100% ironic, considering that he wouldn't have bonded with Ellie if he hadn't been sent on this mission.