Personally, a movie would have been too short, too condensed. Even if you lined up all the cutscenes, it wouldn’t make sense as a story, just a lot of jumping around, and you would have two hours worth of footage with no context. In fact, I hold no hope for the movie adaptation that was recently announced. “I’m in the middle of it now, and it’s been super difficult because there’s so much that happens in The Last of Us – even just in the cinematics – that can’t fit in a film," said Druckmann, "let alone all the gameplay in-between and dialogue.”
This is unfortunate that it’s being transferred into a movie format, as it just couldn’t work. The Last of Us is more akin to a perfectly faithful book adaptation than a movie.
I understand what you’re saying, but I felt that The Last of Us did in fact use it’s full potential. I don’t think that it was supposed to be the most emotionally gripping story, but it was supposed to get it’s message across. To me, a lot of games don’t even have a message to communicate, or they have a weak one. The Last of Us works as art because of its message, not because of it’s cutscenes or gameplay. Everything else in the game was support for the message. and that’s how a narrative game like TLoU should be structured. There were no pointless quests, no random missions to make the game last longer. Everything fit, and worked well together. It was a very well-crafted cinematic experience, wherein I felt a connection to the characters. Maybe it’s because I relate to the feelings of loss and being alone, but to me, it was a very touching game, and it’s theme of moving on and surviving hit home. I wouldn’t say I felt a deep, emotional impact either, but I did feel like a part of the world.
To me, that is all that this genre of art needs to be, it needs to be able to communicate a message, it needs to connect to the player, and it needs to immerse you.
I never played Shadow of Colossus myself, but I would agree that it is a very well done piece of art. Heavy Rain was also very dramatic and enjoyable to play. I hold both games in high esteem, along with The Last of Us.