“Bro! It’s me, Darren! Look, I’m in the game! Isn’t this the sickest shit you’ve ever seen?”
It’s a sight that surprised us when we saw it for the first time. Low on ammo, surrounded by threats left and right, and all of sudden, faced with our annoying friend who wouldn’t shut up about The Last of Us when it originally came out. “They called me, flew me out, put me in mo-cap gear, and boom! Here I am! Remember when I told you this was going to be the most important game of the decade and that the zombies were a metaphor for capitalism? They said I was right!”
Somehow, the exclusive The Last of Us: Part II demo Nerfwire got our hands on looks even more graphically impressive than the original, which makes our annoying friend and Crate & Barrel shift manager Darren seem even more close to life than when he made the company LAN party into a sermon on the mount about how all games should try to emulate the unique story structure of a game that is, at its core, about zombies.
“Well, let’s go adventure together, bro! Isn’t this sick? Wait, what are you doing?”
After confirming with the Naughty Dog employee overlooking our demo that this wasn’t one of those deals where if Darren dies in the game he dies for real, we saved the game and spent a good few minutes exploring the game’s very in-depth combat options on Darren.
Just like in the first game, the player has both stealth and non-stealth approaches to how you take down enemies. Sneaking behind an enemy and pressing the square button will initiate a stealth kill, slowly squeezing the life from Darren’s neck as you stare into his eyes. If you’re spotted, the same button can be used for melee attacks, but as the game’s only living enemy, Darren is quite resistant to punches. The most effective way to take him down is with a quick gunshot to the head—we have to give it up to the Naughty Dog producers for making Darren’s screams for help sound so real.
Make sure not to miss, because if he isn’t killed in one shot, he’ll start to swear at you and may even retaliate with some pathetic flailing. Darren isn’t much of a fighter, and his tolerance for pain is very low, so if you abandon him mid-combat, it’s not too difficult to break line of sight and re-enter stealth while the man screams uncontrollably. His ability to detect you is much lower than that of the zombies.
Darren always called The Last of Us the most important game of the decade, but we can only guarantee that it was the most important game in our relationship with Darren, who hasn’t been seen in several weeks.
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