The end of 2013 has arrived, and video game critics, websites, and players everywhere are choosing their picks for Game of the Year.

I’ve not been able to play all of the great games that were released this year (there were quite a few), sadly, so I can’t fairly declare one the best of them all. I can, however, share my personal favorites, and wanted to open up a good ol’ geek discussion so you too can share your favorites!

Remember that video we saw a while back that turned the hit AMC series Breaking Bad into one of those LEGO video games that will never actually ever exist, but which you’d give almost anything to play? Well, here’s another one!

This time around it’s another video game getting the toy makeover, Naughty Dog’s Game of the Year contender, The Last of Us, which tells the story of a man trying to get a girl across the country in the midst of a plague that’s turned most humans into terrifying mutated creatures. The video is great, especially the fairly brilliant trophy unlock, and even comes complete with an added bonus M. Night Shyamalan twist at the end, so no skipping out early.

You can check out the video for LEGO The Last of Us below, and no worries if you’ve yet to play the real game, there are no spoilers here.

A special launch event for the PlayStation 4 is going on tonight, and surprises were promised. Usually this means you sit through filler for 50-something minutes and get a payoff at the end…sometimes worth it, sometimes not.

But this event made sure to at least begin with a bang, talking to the folks from Naughty Dog. First they showed off a brief teaser trailer for some upcoming DLC for their Game of the Year candidate The Last of Us. Next came the big surprise: an even teasery teaser for the next installment in the franchise they’re best known for, Uncharted 4.

Check out both teasers below.

The Last of Us: American Dreams
Trade Paperback
Written by Faith Erin Hicks and Neil Druckmann
Artwork by Faith Erin Hicks
Colors by Rachelle Rosenberg
Cover by Julian Totino Tedesco
Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: November 12, 2013
Cover Price: $16.99

So, The Last of Us: American Dreams, is based on a recent hit video game. This has been happening a lot lately. Like, a lot a lot.
It’s also co-written by Neil Druckmann, who is the writer for the aforementioned video game: The Last of Us. He is the creative director for the game and has written for a few other big budget video games. Now, the story lines of video games have come a long way since Doom, or even Quake. In 1998, when Half-Life was released, it was hailed as a landmark in storytelling in an FPS. Since then, the quality of the story has become more central to the quality of game. You know this, I know this, anyone that is even remotely into gaming knows this, and I don’t need to make this a recent history recap. Still, this smacks of a commercial cash-in, and one that serves only to sell a new action figure, or some such, and eke out a few more dollars from the beleaguered masses. Hooray.

But it isn’t. Not really, anyways. Faith Erin Hicks (Friends With Boys), has been gaining popularity for a bit now, and while I wouldn’t say this is the culmination of that, she isn’t Alan Dean Foster, or a similar warm body contracted for a product tie-in. What she and Drukmann have managed to create is a teenage-rebellion story enmeshed in the post-apocalyptic world of a zombie-infection outbreak.

We see a lot of red band trailers for movies, but rarely do we see a red band trailer for video games. But in this particular case, it’s completely understandable.

Everything we’ve seen from The Last of Us, the new game from Uncharted makers Naughty Dog, has been exceptionally cinematic, and so it makes perfect sense to release a movie-like red band trailer for the game. And better yet, the trailer is so good you could replace the game’s characters with real actors and it could easily pass as the trailer for an exciting new movie. A bold statement, perhaps, but still true. That’s why I said it.

Continue below now to check out the new red band trailer for The Last of Us, which is NSFW due to some naughty language and some brutal violence.