OK, that's fair.
I just played through the intro of the game, then watched the same scene in the show. Here's the major differences I was outlining:
Events of the opening of the game, with dialogue.
>!Sarah wakes up to Joel coming in late at night while arguing with Tommy about details of his construction job. Sarah gives him the watch for his birthday and falls asleep. Joel carries her up to bed. Sarah wanders through the house searching for Joel after getting a phone call from Tommy frantically asking for Joel. The line goes dead. Sarah enters Joels room where the news is playing, showing footage mentioning a pandemic. They clear the news crew because of a gas leak. An explosion, and the news goes off the air. Sarah starts looking more frantically for Joel. She picks up Joel's phone which has several texts from Tommy asking "WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU???" and "I'm on my way." There is a barking dog outside, that yelps and goes silent when Sarah walks by the door. Sarah enters their home office and Joel runs in frantically from outside.
Sarah: "There you are."Joel (Frantic): "Sarah. Are you okay?"Sarah (Tentatively): "Yeah."
Joel retrieves his pistol from the office drawer.
Joel: "Has anyone come in here?"Sarah: "No, who would come in here?"Joel: "Don't go near the doors, just... Just stand back there."Sarah: "Dad, You're kinda freaking me out. Whats going on?"Joel: "It's the Coopers. *Something ain't right with em. I think they're sick*." (This line show Joel still isn't fully aware of what is happening with the pandemic.)Sarah: "What kinda sick?"
Mr Cooper starts bashing on their sliding glass door, obviously turned.
Joel (Startled, looks at the door): "Jesus. Jimmy!"Sarah (Alarmed, full shot of her face where you can clearly see facial expressions of concern): "Dad?"Joel (Frantic): "Honey C'mere....c'mere..."
Joel readies the gun while pushing Sarah behind him. The gun is still pointed toward the ground, but in Jimmy's direction. Jimmy lets out a feral yell and runs through the glass, shattering it.
Joel: "Jimmy... just stay back!"
Joel now lifts the pistol to aim at Jimmy.
Joel: "Jimmy, I am warning you!"
Jimmy gets up and sprints at Joel, who fires only once Jimmy is directly in front of the barrel of his gun. Joel looks at the body and lowers the pistol. His body language shows shock at what just happened. Sarah recoils behind him.
Joel: "Go... Go!"
Joel backs away pushing Sarah back. Joel turns around to face Sarah. Notably, he doesn't look her in the eye, he looks at the floor denoting the stress of the situation. Full shots of both Sarah and Joel's faces can be seen here with full facial animation. Sarah is clearly scared, in shock.
Sarah (Incredulous): "you shot him..."
Joel looks at Sarah intently.
Joel: "Sarah."
Sarah: "*I saw him this morning...*" (Highlighting a major difference from the show)
Joel: "Listen to me. There is something bad going on. We have got to get out of here, do you understand me?"
Sarah (determined look): "Yeah."
Joel (Hears a car door outside): "Tommy. Come on. C'mon!"
Sarah: "Okay."
Sarah and Joel run towards the front door and exit. Tommy is there standing outside his truck.
Tommy: "Where the hell you been? *You have any idea what's goin' on out there?*"
Joel: "*I got some notion.*"
Tommy: "Holy Shit, you got blood all over you."
Joel helps Sarah into the back of the SUV (Not a pickup truck like the show).
Joel: "C'mon baby. Get in."Joel, to Tommy: "It ain't mine. Lets just get outta here."
Tommy: "they're saying half the people in the city have lost their minds."
Joel: "Can we please just go?"
Tommy: "Some sorta parasite or somethin'. You gonna tell me what happened?"
Joel: "Later."!<
There' more but I'll end the game dialogue here, as this is getting long. The truck dialogue also happens differently from how it does in the show. The only part of the truck escape that is 1:1 is the scene where they get to the highway and Tommy and Joel mention taking route 71.
Events of the show, skipping all the new/altered scenes with Sarah (amounts to 18:41 of runtime).:
>!Tommy calls Joel Asking to be picked up from Jail in the middle of the night because he got in a bar fight
Joel: "Hello?"Tommy: "Joel. It's me. I'm ok "
Joel (Quizically) "...yeah?"
Tommy: "...but I'm in jail."
Joel (Annoyed): "goddamnit..."
Tommy: "It wasn't my fault this time! Guy goes crazy, starts swingin' at a waitress. I stepped in, knocked him out, got.. look, it doesn't fuckin' matter you gotta bail me out."
Joel: "Now?!"
Tommy: "It's Friday! You don't get me out tonight, I'm in here all weekend! It's a fuckin' madhouse, Joel. I gotta get out"
Joel: "Which jail, Travis county?"
Tommy: "Yeah, that's it."
Joel: "goddamnit Tommy"
Tommy: "Sorry. Please."Joel: "Okay." (Hangs up) "Fuckin' idiot..." (Carries sarah to bed).
Sarah wakes up at 2:16AM to helicopters and explosions. She looks for Joel, not finding him in his room. She goes downstairs and turns on an emergency announcement on the TV. No information is mentioned about the pandemic. The neighbors Dog jumps on the window barking, which startles her. she goes out to check on the dog, who doesnt want to go back home. She goes outside to the neighbor's house and sees a trail of blood. She finds Jimmy bit on the floor by the old lady, who is biting Mrs. Adler's throat. The old lady runs after Sarah, who runs outside. Joel and Tommy screech to a halt outside the house and jump out of the truck, both armed. Tommy with a rifle, Joel with a pipe wrench.
Joel (Yelling) "Get in the truck! Right now! Move!"
He pushed Sarah toward the truck as the old lady stumbles out of the house. Joel watches her, wrench readied, moving slowly toward her. The old lady wakes up with a feral growl and starts sprinting towards joel. Tommy readies the rifle and yells "What are we doing Joel?!" Joel takes a tentative step back, then hits her with the wrench without another word. Sarah looks on in horror. Tommy moves in on her with the rifle aa Joel looks down over her for a long moment. He drops the wrench as they all look at each other. Joel approaches sarah and looks her in the eye, then hugs her as she says "you killed her." Sirens start blaring in the background.
Joel: "Baby I'm sorry."
Tommy: "Joel we gotta go."
Joel: "*Listen, it's not just the Adlers. But we're gonna be brave, and we're gonna get outta here..." (this shows he has seen other effects of the pandemic already, and knows what is going on, as I said in my last post.)
A transormer explodes.
Tommy: "Let's go, c'mon!"
They get in the truck.
!<
As you can see, they play out very different, with Joel having very different awareness of what is happening in the town between the two. Tommy and Joel are also already together in the TV show, when they are not in the game. I will agree that the scene in the show with the zombie happens much more quickly in the show, but Joel definitely doesn't show the same level of reluctance as he did in the game. In fact, he barely even acknowledges it in the show.