The Last of Us Review

The Last of Us is an Playstation 3 exclusive game developed by Naughty Dog, creators of the Uncharted series, and all the original Crash Bandicoot titles. Naughty Dog are also the developers behind the PS2 hit series Jak and Daxter. The Last of Us, which is a noire game that relies on stealth, skill, and the art of deception, is based all across the U.S., starting in Texas, where we first meet the main character, Joel, and his younger brother, Tommy. From here-on, the story unfolds, unobtrusively through little tidbits on what is happening, and turning the residents of the city and surrounding suburb into killers and monsters. You start the game off playing as Sarah, awaking from bed to find that something seems a bit off, but nothing yet seems out-of-place. Sarah then searches for her father, Joel, and goes about the house looking for him. Like most games of this current generation, you can basically enter every single room in the house, and are rewarded for exploring with little hints as to what you will be expecting later on in the game. T his of course makes it also seem like one continuous tutorial for a good portion of the game, which is eerily similar to what one can expect from most current generation titles. Sarah finds her father as she walks through what appears to be a study, as he just came back in through the glass doors, practically out-of-breath from checking on the neighbors. They appear to have gone hysterically violent for some odd reason, as one of them breaks in, and Joel is forced to put a bullet into him to save himself and his daughter. From here, they both run out the front door, and meet up with Tommy, and peel off to escape from the outskirts of the city. This turns out to be a bad idea, as most of the entire state have decided on evacuating the same way, so they are forced to escape down a more dangerous route. All this time, you are playing spectator as Sarah, as she can turn about in the SUV, able to witness the carnage all around the vehicle, in a deceptively secure backseat. This idea makes the game that much more terrifying, being that you play a young scared child, who is watching all the terror unfold. Truthfully, the whole prologue is more an observation than actual game play, yet it is a real treat to watch the spectacle unfold. After turning around, Tommy, who is driving the jeep/SUV, heads down a side street, trying to find an alternate route, especially after seeing an “infected” person attack a bystander. Cutting through people, a car sideswipes the SUV, and knocks them over. From here-on-out, you control Joel, as you carry Sarah away from the infected, and escape through an alleyway. Joel cuts through a path into a clearing, but is halted by military personnel, that want him to turn back to the quarantine zone. He refuses, as the MP raises a gun and shoots, Joel turns away, as Tommy; who appears just in-the-nick-of-time, and incapacitates the MP. Joel looks down at his daughter and sees that Sarah is hit by the shot, killing her in a very dramatic, heart-wrenching scene.That is where the game officially begins. The Last of Us, which I expected to be a game full of running and gunning, but in-fact is more apt to be based on stealth, and in some cases nearly forces you to use stealth in order to get past particular sections. I was quite impressed by how the game presents itself, as a very original style of game play which I have yet to see much of outside of the realms of the Uncharted series. You can blatantly see where Nathan Drake’s adventure is an influence on the parkour-like game play. Even Joel bares a shocking resemblance to Nathan Drake, who has that very rugged, athletic look. Following the prologue, the game begins twenty-years-after the events of the first signs of outbreak, and Joel finds himself working as a smuggler with a possible lover/compatriot named Tess, moving illegal contraband throughout a Quarantine Zone in Boston Massachusetts. From here on, there is a bit more tutorial, particularly in climbing, moving objects to reach a difficult area, and shooting and melee. There are even parts of the game where you can make moral decision, like help a person trapped under rubble, or put them out of their misery by shooting them in the head. Despite the game having an M rating, which mostly comes from the colorful language used between all the characters, the blood itself is not obnoxious and overly gory…well for my standards, but that doesn’t mean the game isn’t brutish in its kills, which it most certainly is, and why it deserves the M rating. Also, it’s about the gore you don’t see, which makes the game even that much more disturbing for some. After getting down the basics, and chasing down another smuggler named Robert, who has their armaments; Tess and Joel meet up with a woman named Marlene, the leader of a resistance group known as the Fireflies, who are attempting to be rid of the virus that acts very much like protozoan to their host, turning them into mindless zombies. She asks to have Joel and Tess move a young girl named Ellie, who is fourteen, and looks to have a secret hidden away that could play out to be a serious plot point later on in the game. Marlene, who has stolen a cache of weaponry from Joel and Tess, apparently from a man who betrayed Tess, and previously shot earlier on in the scene, that she promises to give up the cache to them if they can safely move Ellie across to the capital building to meet up with another group of Fireflies. Accepting the task, mostly because they want to get their guns back, Joel and Tess take Ellie up to the Capital building, but find that the Fireflies have moved on, leaving them to ponder what to do with Ellie. Suddenly, a group of militants storm the capital building, surrounding the trio, and Tess is left to make the ultimate sacrifice, giving Joel and Ellie just enough time to escape, and head off, in-search to find the Fireflies, because Ellie reveals a major secret to Joel, which could change the fate of humanity, forever. Do they find the Fireflies? Is humanity changed forever? All this and more is answered in the game, and it is an enthralling tale to witness unfold, trumping many of Hollywood blockbusters in the process. Basically the Last of Us is a game that is about the codependent relationship between a middle-aged man who is dealing with the loss of his daughter, and a past that haunts him to the verge of losing his sanity, and a young girl who houses a secret that could be the fate-changing miracle for all of humanity, but it is much deeper than that, it excels as a grand story of survival, morality, and sacrifice. The story itself is nearly flawless, though I felt that writers could have explained a bit more about the plague itself, perhaps and origins point, but then again some things truly just come out of nowhere, without warning, or explanation, but I still felt it was a bit lazy on their part. Granted if you read every single piece of scrap paper and artifact/pendant you can find, it does explain a bit more, but I find reading on a television screen is not really the best way to explain your story. The game is also full of glitches, bugs, and feels more like the beta than the finished product. I am sure that game testers are getting lazier and lazier with each passing game, or they just don’t do their jobs well enough to catch the most obvious glitches. For example, there are times when I have found myself ghosting through walls, or seeing through the code of the world. I understand the game is quite large, and it is like a needle in a haystack for most games, being that none are ever perfect when they leave post production. Yet, I find the ones I have found are so obvious, that they could have been easily fixed without delay before it hit my home console. Granted, patches and updates will surely be out about the same day the game goes to the store, but for people who cannot constantly update their system, especially those without the luxury of Internet, surely they could have made a bit large effort to patch up the giant holes that are so obviously found by more than ninety-nine percent of the people who will play the game. Sure, I am a bit frugal about glitches, but I would feel in a day-and-age of high definition gaming, where it is nearly impossible to distinguish weather patterns from reality and virtual reality, there has to be a way to map out and eradicate most of the major bugs in any software release. Despite the bugs, glitches, and other discrepancies that are even smaller irks to mention, the game is stellar, one of the best games I have played this year, and although it is an exclusive game to Sony, it is one of the best games I have played on any console this year, and I have to say it is on par with some of the biggest game releases, including the likes of Bioshock: Infinite, and Dead Space 3, which had not been as critically acclaimed as it should have been. Nevertheless, I would like to just point out a few more issues before my final verdict: The graphics are amazing at times, and then they are dastardly trepid at others, almost yin-and-yang comparisons, which truly takes away from the experience at times, but it is more vanity than a technical error. The game is not running on fully 1080p, which to me is a drastic no-no for the end of a console cycle, the game should look nearly next gen, rather than earlier current gen. Overall, if you are a PS 3 owner, you are in for a treat if you decide to pick up The Last of Us, a game that is part survival horror, part stealth, and all heart. The game has g rand details, some of which could separate it from many other games of this current generation, becoming a staple in the aspect of details I expect to see further down the road with next-generation software. Most people laughed at me when I decided to go with the Playstation 3, over the Xbox 360 as my console of choice, and that is a fair argument to assume, but I have been astounded by the appeal of so many exclusive titles of Sony software, and know now that I had made the right decision. Sure the PS 3 isn’t perfect, but that’s technology for you: it never works perfect 100% of the time. You’re lucky if it works perfectly 75% of the time, but the games I have played on the PS 3 which have been amazing, and shows the powerhouse Sony has enveloped for nearly a decade. If I were to rate this game, I would do so by saying it was highly addictive, I did not want to stop playing, merely because once I was sucked in, the story enthralled me to the point of playing nearly eight hours straight, and I rarely do that, even with a long-awaited title. Also; I was extremely impressed by the showmanship of the story. It took me a bit to really get indulged, but one I was hooked, I could not believe the rate the story flowed. My suggestions for those who want to play the game, I would suggest turning on the subtitles, because even though I am a bit hard-of-hearing, personally I feel the voice actors speak a little bit low even for acceptably fair hearing to comprehend. Also, it was smart for them to build in the ability to skip the cut scenes, which this game has some long ones, not nearly as ridiculous as say Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, which has a cut scene that last nearly twenty minutes, but they are pretty damn long. I don’t have a proper rating system, but I would give the game a three-point-five out of five, or something like that, mostly because of the minor bugs, and the issues with the graphics, and the fact that there are only presets for the controller, I was upset I couldn’t configure the controls myself, but whatever, again a minor discrepancy as the controls are not horrid. Despite the flaws the game is one of the best, more original games I’ve played in a while, even if it shamelessly borrows from such influences as: The Grey, The Thing, The Walking Dead, Cormac McCarthy’s the Road, and even a bit of Red Dawn. The game is great, and I would recommend it to most fans of Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, the original Silent Hill series, and obviously Uncharted. 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