I am very glad for your post.

And yeah an openly explorable city would compensate a lot (kinda like Assassin's Creed, I hate them for the simplistic gameplay but love them for the geographical freedom).

the more I hear about the game the more I want it!! I hope they show some gameplay @ E3

Sounds great. I was worried it might be a proper zombie game, but ND are making all the right noises

I assume there will actually be some horror, but if the focus is on survival it sounds good. Games have the potential to do stories so much better than other mediums, but they haven't done that well very frequently, so I am very excited for this game

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-12-13-the-last-of-us-preview

I like the description of the relationship in that article. ""This is going to sound corny and it might not appeal to gamers, but I would say it's a love story," he says. "It's not a romantic love story, it's a love story about a father-daughter-like relationship."

Which automatically makes me think of Ico where I never got a romantic vibe off of them, but it was a kind of "older sister-younger brother" type love story of two people coming together. All of which makes me excited.

I liked the trailer music, so I think I'm going to enjoy the whole soundtrack. I like acoustic guitar with some vocals at times.

Near the end of RDR when that songs came on I got chills, the music sounds like it will be like that.

"an arpeggiated figure in a minor key over tribal percussion, building to a dissonant climax of fiercely-strummed chords. "

holy shit that sounds awesome..if I only had an idea wtf that is :P
but i rewatched the trailer JUST for the ending music a few times..my kinda theme

and I love what I'm hearing..I'm glad the monsters are not the focus. haters gonna hate but I love story driven game experiences, they rule

Joel is "a vicious survivor. When he meets this girl, she is his one chance at redemption," says Neil Druckmann, the game's creative director. "That kind of arc has always been intriguing."

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Like the Uncharted games, The Last of Us has a third-person perspective, in which you see the character on-screen, but it has a more realistic, cinematic look. "We're trying to move the medium of video games into an area elevated in the same manner of respect of film," Balestra says. "We want to redefine what our medium is even called. 'Video game' is not an accurate name anymore. It is not necessarily a game with rules and a winner and a loser. It's an experience."

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/story/2011-12-12/last-of-us-naughty-dog/51851164/1

Uh, then don't play it. SImple. There are tons of other button mashers  and more "skill" based games out there. Some of us like story driven games, which I still don't see how people consider them "movies" but whatever.

I mean Heavy Rain and Uncharted 2/3 are great because their story driven unlike shallow shooters or button mashing fighters (COD and marvel vs capcom 3 to name a few) and don't be so dramatic. Most HD games are going the multiplayer route anyways.

Can we not live in a world where people enjoy cinematic games? Is it so wrong to want story heavy games and to try to connect with your characters and their relationship with one another?

I don't see how a Wii or DS would fix this problem.  Very few games advance gameplay in truly important ways that haven't ever happened before.  It doesn't really shock me that games use movies as inspiration and even incorporate them.  Look at movies, they use music as do games, another art form.  You could even go so far as to think of games as the next step, a progression in artistic expression.  I don't see why it's that bad when you have stuff like Mario Galaxy at the other side of the spectrum, focusing mostly on just gameplay.    You can have great movie like elements without sacrificing gameplay.

woah just read the preview on Eurogamer, thanks Tor for posting it. I mean just wow. It will answer a lot of speculation that has been going around. May it be about the second team, Dead Island etc etc.