Yeah I understand what you mean, like the user above said he should have shown Ellie with a stressed out look on her face.

Hahaha, now he's gonna try and convince me how a plot in a mario game is more mature than The Last of Us...keep it comin, i need good laughs ;D

Shooting with gore and blood = mature. Go check how PEGI and ESRB are rating a game. TLOU is more mature than mario in every way shape and form.

Trying to prove that the gameplay in The Last of Us/Uncharted(s) is more mature and complex than gameplay found in Mario is comparing apples to oranges. And so is comparing storytelling between the two. I, for one, can enjoy both mature themed and family friendly games, but if some prefer one to another that's fine. But pretending that one is so much cooler than the other just seems silly to me. Even though games have become more mainstream, if you are playing either type of game around a person that doesn't belong to the video game community, they might just as easily say you're acting like a child (or a geek or antisocial, etc.) because to that person and many like them (of which are predominantly represented in the mainstream media) all video games are for children.

To me this type of bashing between different genres is divisive more than anything. In film, plots and set pieces used in games like The Last of Us/Uncharted wouldn't be taken seriously by a lot of critics either, and people here are trashing Mario because they can't take him seriously? How many times do you see a horror film or adventure score an Oscar over some high-brow drama? It's happened, but it's very few and far in between when it does. That doesn't make the material perceived to be less dense any less enjoyable. Heck, I'll take Freddy Kruger over Citizen Kane any day. That's what people buy after all (Avengers, Avatar). And Mario is the equivalent money maker in this industry, so why is that so bad?

I am glad that there are developers like Naughty Dog who want to push the medium further in storytelling, and I believe that video games are in their infancy in that regard. So hooray for some progress, but that doesn't mean every game has to be this heavy narrative with all types of buttons being pressed (sounds silly, but that's what's being argued about in some of these posts). Imagine if every movie in Hollywood was like No Country for Old Men (a personal favorite) or every book was like the Bible? I, myself, need some valleys in between my hills. Just like in other mediums, there's room for both immersive titles that put story at the forefront as well as twitch based games that are fun and easy to pick up.

Variety is the spice of life after all. Sorry if this comment was more of a response to the bickering in the boards than the actual OP.

So... if the ESRB says something is mature than its mature?  Lolipop Chainsaw is clearly a more mature experience than Journey.  I must ask, without a trace of sarcasm, are you a 12 year old boy?

Well there is a difference. Honestly I think The Last of Us will be more mature than alot of games, but not because of the "shooting with gore and blood" but because of how it will handle the relationships between characters in stressful times and how it will deal with the morality of taking another life in a time of crisis in order to survive.

Everyone knows about the rating system, that's just how it is. But there is a difference between "mature" because of the violent nature and "mature" because of the themes it involves/and or if it is mentally stimulating.


Would you call a bunch of 13 year old kids playing CoD mature? Because those games also involve "shooting with gore and blood".

There are 2 types of mature content. There's visually mature content (blood, violence, sex) and there's a mature story (that desnt necessarily need to have the things previously mentioned), deep, complex gameplay and intriguing characters. These 2 aren't exclusive to one another. But the point is, TLOU has both types, Mario has neither 

EVERYBODY JUST CALM THE FUCK DOWN UP IN HERE!

No.  When the ESRB rates a game, they're not describing the content as "mature".  Saying that The Last of Us has "mature" content because it's rated "mature" is like saying that Smash Bros has "teen" content or that Lego Batman has "everyone 10 plus content". 

The ESRB describes the intended audience, not the content.  When they say "mature" they mean that the game is suitable for audiences mature (as in old) enough to make their own choices regarding entertainment.  It has nothing to do with the or maturity of the content.  You could make a game about a man farting for 20 hours straight and saying fuck repeatedly and the ESRB would rate that as "mature".  Conversely, you could make that uses the idea of chasing a princess as a metaphor for the atomic bomb, and that game would be rated "e".

The Last of Us may have deep, complex gameplay and intriguing characters, but you didn't make that argument.  The argument you made was that the Last of Us was more mature because

a) It uses more buttons.

and

b) Look! He shot that dude!

@Mnementh

I totally agree with you.  I notice that when story debates occur within video game forums, people get defensive for our favorite pastime and don't want to admit that games are currently inferior to movies and books in that one aspect.  Like you, I am not saying that video games as a whole are inferior.  I actually enjoy them more than movies and books, myself.  But one cannot simply reference the state of emotions that arise from the immersive factor inherent in video games as a means of arguing its storytelling prowess.

Story is a narrative, an account of a sequence of events.  I don't disagree with the argument that immersion makes the story better (I wholeheartedly agree, actually).  But immersion isn't the story.  To argue so would be like saying, Gran Turismo has a great story because you felt like a racecar driver who was about to get a heart attack while taking sharp turns and winning a race the very last second of the final lap, or NBA 2k13 has a great story because of the excitement it stirred in you when you got that winning three-point land buzzer beater in the Championship game.  Just because video games have an ability to stir emotion and make the player that much more invested in it than in movies or books, does not mean that those events shape a superior story.  Immerision is a tool used to make the player more engrossed in the story, but if you took a lot of game stories at face value (stripped of the nostalgia from IMMERSION), my opinion is that many would actually be cliche at best and laughable at worst.

The argument i was making is that TLOU is more mature than mario - in almost every way.  I was responding to a guy that complained about mature content and adult themes in videogames.

And ESRB ratings have LOTS to do with game's visual content (which i used to prove my point), which they later use to assign the game to a specific audience/s

http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp#descriptors