What is The Last of Us? It surely have taken the world with storm by now, so it can't be for nothing, right?
I have grown up with Naughty Dog games. Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped were my favorite platformer on PSone, Crash Team Racing is to this day still my favorite kart racer. Then came Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, which is just #3 on my all-time best games list. I completed the whole trilogy (I missed Crash 1, 2 and Jak X) and since then I went on to the Uncharted franchise. Drake's Fortune is probably still my personal favorite, while Uncharted 3 took me months to complete, only because it didn't catch my attention, it couldn't make me stay in front of the tv.
Now came The Last of Us, something I weren't hyped about, a game I hadn't seen or read much about up until I got my review copy. I went in as fresh as I could and BOOM I were surprised right at the first second I got control of my character. The opening will probably be the most memorable I have ever been through in my more than 10 years of gaming. The attention to detail, not just in graphics, animations, response or scripting but also in narrative, story progress, character development, the use of sound effects, the subtle soundtrack and voice acting.
Rarely do I find gaming universes breathtaking or that interesting and The Last of Us also went downhill right after the opening, nothing were really interesting, it were kind of bland, grey and it was a place I didn't want to be in. But that also describes the post-apocalyptic world of The Last of Us, were most hope seems lost, and you do feel it's a hard every day people are living, a day of fear. Fear of infection, fear of the infected.
The infected are scary. Be it runners or Clickers or whatever. It's the clicking sounds, it's the grumbling from upstairs, the sudden sound effect when you are sneaking your way or entering a door - it's the creepy animation - it's the AI. They come running directly for you at the lowest of sounds, they scream, they want to get you. What are your options? Shoot it before it comes near you or run away? Most often you will find yourself run away and even more often you'll find yourself outplayed. They'll flank you, they'll come straight from behind and before you know it, one will have jumped on your neck biting you, leaving goosebumps on your arms. The Last of Us is about survival yes, and it's horrific.
When the AI works, it's brilliant, dare I say the best I've ever seen in a videogame. Humans co-operate and try to get you from different angles. You feel pressured when you are out-numbered. Of course you can gun down enemies and to my surprise it often worked. Ammunition would soon come to you, or you could craft shivs and crack open locked doors to rooms full of everything. You can even craft stuff you can use against enemies and you'll often have a lot of those in your backpack. That's the one problem of the Normal difficulty, so I highly recommend you, that you start on Hard to unlock Survival. You will surely feel it's about survival but it can also so easily be forgotten, that it indeed is about survival on this difficulty. The further you progress, the easier it gets, as you'll be more armed and having upgraded Joels steadiness and skills against the infected. Yes, for Clickers it takes one attack and you'll dead, until you upgrade and get a last chance. I love the upgrading system and it's totally up to you how you want to shape your character.
I also recommend turning off Listen Mode. I tried using it a few times to see what I would feel and it takes all the tension out of the game. It makes you more comfortable, it gives you an upper hand. You can see all the enemies, where they are going, you can see their flaws, running back and forth between the same positions. The infected will hide, run from one room to another in the dark like in a horror movie, yet keep doing the same run for no reason. AI is hilarious when it doesn't work but more often than not it's brilliant.
Besides the amount of ammunition on Normal, the one thing that's bothering me is, that it kind of reminded me of Uncharted numerous times throughout. Yes, you're looting, exploring and the in-game banter is beyond phenomenal, but there's also design choices which have been repeated. The constant need of a ladder, of getting Ellie up to higher ground always reminded me of Nathan Drake and Elena, Chloe or any of his partners. And no it's not a bad thing, just something which sticks out. The thing I had hoped for were, to have a feeling of the humans being like me, just trying to survive, but it never felt like it. It always felt like I were up against goons or enemies, and not just a survivor up against a survivor. It's always these sandboxes with you up against a group of people, and most often in my case it ended up with shooting galleries. I got a bit exhausted by this design but never to the same degree as in Uncharted 3. Here, you got choice, here you got an interesting AI and melee fights which you can really feel. You got stealth which at times could remind of the original Splinter Cell trilogy and shooting which is hard in the start as Polygon points out but is quickly sorted out by improving your aim by upgrading that particular skill.
There's no real bad points about The Last of Us. I'm trying hard to find any. The story is not something grand or extra-ordinary but it's the way the narrative is told, performed and progressed that makes it so emotional and catching. Even though you got three so different mechanics in stealth, shooting and melee, they feel cohesive and integrated and like they are seamlessly blended. The AI has flaws but it more often is brilliant. There's technical glitches like the entire background disappearing, there being pop in, bodies falling through walls etc. but the attention to detail is unreal in a console game.
If I really have to point out something, it's that all the blood pools of dead bodies look the same. But more seriously, when enemies don't notice your companion, it's striking and takes you out of the moment. It's a design choice and a clever one, as it would be more frustrating being caught because of your partner. It sucks when you stealth and your partner decides to go beserk, and I won't ever forget the moment I were in a very tight room with a Clicker. I throw a brick out the door, the Clicker instantly try to get out but there's one problem, Ellie is trying to get in through the same door. The result? Both of them keep walking into each other without noticing. And I want that Clicker out of my room, as far away as possible. It's nothing generally bad, just funny, something to remember.
Good points
+ Voices acting and performances.
+ Narrative and the way it progress.
+ Character development between Joel and Ellie.
+ Stealth, melee, shooting.
+ Companions won't be seen until you are detected, thus no frustrations.
+ Attention to detail.
+ Subtle soundtrack, use of sound effects.
+ Great placement of checkpoints.
+ You will want to explore the world, not just because of loot but because of the details, how each household tells a story.
+ Too many to list.
"Bad" points
- Companions can't be seen until you are detected.
- More forced shootouts than what I expected personally.
- Too many ressources on Normal.
- A little bit repetitive but mostly in the start, as it picks up.
The star of the game is Ellie though. Whole heartedly Ellie. You grow a relationship with her yourself, never really in the way that you want to protect her, but more in the way that she's someone you would like to have on your side through an adventure. She live a life of her own, she's there doing stuff while you look around for loot in-game. She's there to tell you a joke. To show awe of the world of today, of what she have never seen before.
And have I ever seen THIS before? Something like The Last of Us? No. Is it the best game ever? Nope. Best of the generation? I'm not yet sure. But it's something you should look forward to on a gameplay level as well as on a narrative level. Is it a masterpiece? Yes.
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This is text above is not some kind of review or anything, I just felt like writing down my impressions as they came hehe. Any questions and I'll answer.