My first encounter with the game was a little underwhelming to say the least. I played Last of Us on the PS3 last summer for a few hours and couldn’t really get into the game. I found the pacing too slow and quickly stopped playing the game. I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. I even remember walking from electronics store to electronics store being told by the cashiers that all their copies of the title were sold out. Naturally, I just downloaded it from the Playstation Store and it say on my hard drive not being played.
I finally decided to give The Last of Us another shot and stick with the game the whole way through as there is not much to play on the PS4 these days. So, have I changed my mind on the game? Keep reading!
The Last of Us bares little resemblance to Naughty Dogs other famed series, Uncharted. Uncharted is an Indiana Jones style action game, while The Last of Us is a truly dark tale of survival in a post apocalyptic world ravaged by disease, desperation, suffering and human selfishness.
Last of Us tells the tale of Joel and Ellie who are survivors of a fungal outbreak called Cordyceps (transmitted by bite) that turns infected humans into cannibalistic monsters. The game starts at the beginning of the outbreak. Joel is an everyman. He’s just like the rest of us; he loves his family and is struggling to make ends meet. During the initial days of the outbreak, Joel and his daughter, Sarah, attempt to flee their home, but Sarah is shot and killed by a government soldier and dies in Joel arms. It’s a dark and abrupt start to a game full of moments like this.
After this tragic scene, the game fast forwards twenty years into the future. No cure has been found for the fungus and most of mankind now lives in militarized quarantine zones. In light of the government’s failure to stop the outbreak, a rebel group known as the Fireflies have established their own independent settlements and are engaging the military in a guerrilla war. The Fireflies appear to be the only group effectively working on a cure and offering an alternative lifestyle to living in the quarantine zones.
Joel is working as a smuggler inside a quarantine zone in Boston and he's tapped to escort a girl named Ellie who has been infected but appears to be immune from the fungus' symptoms to a Firefly camp located outside the wire. Ellie represents man kinds last hope at finding a cure for infection.
It is important to note that the first few hours of Last of Us start out a bit slow. The game slowly comes together over the whole course of the game, but it's the two hour mark that the game’s story really takes off.
Desperation is a theme that’s found throughout The Last of Us level design. Where Uncharted threw you in levels full of ammunition and weapons, Last of Us does the complete opposite. Ammo and weapons are few and far between and stealth is the encouraged path for most of the game. You’ll spend a lot of time exploring levels and looking for ammo, collectable items or hidden treasures like letters from people who may or may not have survived the outbreak.
A big chunk of the games' weapons come from your crafting your own based on what you find lying around in the environment. I almost felt like MacGuyver in some parts of the game crafting health kits, bombs and grenades during the heat of the battle.The weapon crafting is all done in real time so I always made sure that I had my weapons crafted in the lulls between battles. The one thing you’ll learn about Last of Us combat is that every second counts.
Rarely before have I ever played a game where I felt an emotional attachment towards the characters. Both Joel and Ellie are likeable characters, but at the same time flawed just as humans should be. Ellie represents the opposite of Joel’s deceased daughter who has known nothing but the outbreak her whole existence. The more intense moments are balanced perfectly by Ellie’s innocence when she makes small talk with Joel, asking inquisitive questions about what the world was like before the infection spread.
The levels have been designed in such a way that while the story is linear, the approach you take is not. There are many pathways to explore and flank enemies from and even holding the R1 button lets you see through walls and figure out the best way to attack a group of enemies.
One of the best parts of The Last of Us is the pacing and variation of enemies you’ll be fighting.
The enemies you’ll fight come in different shapes and sizes. The most common infected enemies come in two types: runners and clickers. Both are fairly singular in their combat approach, but runners are much easier to take out. Clickers have no sight and detect enemies based on sound and make an awful clicking sound. Clickers are truly the most frightening enemies in the game and can only be killed with explosives, shivs or bullets.
When you’re not fighting the infected, your usually fighting other humans such as common criminals who are exploiting the chaos for their own selfish gain. The common criminals have a much more cautious fighting style than the infected, utilizing cover and using weapons against you.
Last of Us single player clocks in around 12-17 hours depending on your difficulty setting. The remastered version also features single player DLC called Left Behind that was released on the PS3. Left Behind adds an additional 2-3 hours of gameplay and fills in a few gaps in the game's story.
My only big gripe with the gameplay is that the AI can sometimes take you out of the experience. Sometimes friendly AI would walk past enemies without them reacting or noticing at all. There are also a few times where I noticed my characters clipping through walls and objects, but these were few and far between.
Last of Us is a gorgeous game. The Remastered version runs at a smooth 60 frames per second, which is double the rate the PS3 version was running at. The environments look completely believable as you can see nature trying to reclaim land that was been altered by man. Trees and plants grow out of buildings and wetlands now occupy much of the City streets. The characters themselves look terrific and the infected humans look truly frightening.
As if the single player and DLC wasn’t enough of a package, Last of Us also features a pretty good online component. Comprising of several game modes. Last of Us online component is extremely enjoyable. A lot of the great same gameplay features from the single player carry over to the multiplayer like the ability to craft weapons and the ability to listen through walls.
I honestly don’t know what else I can say after playing The Last of Us. It’s easily the best game I have played in the past few years and a game that every Playstation 4 owner should own if they haven’t played the PS3 version.
- Siddharth Masand
Follow @jokeman23
The Good:
- Some of the best storytelling seen in any game to date
- Visually stunning
- Single Player DLC from PS3 is included on disc
- Checkpoints are generously spread throughout the game
The Bad:
- AI can sometimes take you out of the experience
- Few glitches and bugs
