Naughty Dog have a powerful track record in the PS3 with the Uncharted series, but The Last of Us is a brand new IP with a very different tone and world than the swash-buckling adventures of Nathan Drake. The zombie apocalypse setting is a very familiar one by now thanks to a raft of games and other media which have anchored themselves in it, but with The Last of Us, Naughty Dog have managed to put a fresh spin on it, added their own style and deft hand to the mix and created an experience that is one of the most powerful to be had in gaming.

The Last of Us opens with a simple prologue which perfectly sets the events and context of the world the player is about to experience. It is the night of the mass outbreak of a deadly fungal infection which twists humans into blood-thirsty monsters, and as usual a single scratch or bite will infect another person. After the emotionally wrought and powerful prologue a gap of 20 years is skipped and we are placed in the role of Joel, a survival veteran who is living in a quarantine zone and working as a smuggler with his partner, Tess. A series of events transpire resulting in Joel and Tess been tasked with smuggling a girl named Ellie out of the remnants of Boston and into the hands of a group named the Fireflies, who aim to forge a better world out of the ruins of the old one.

There is no real grand scheme or overarching tale in The Last of Us. Instead, the real narrative strength of this experience comes from the daily hardship of survival in this world and what these characters have to do to survive, and their dependence on each other. Such a narrative heavily leans on its characters driving the experience, but The Last of Us easily meets this hurdle by having some of the best drawn, interesting and well developed characters in this generation of games. Joel is a damaged man with a past, but he genuinely develops over the course of the story in a way that is both natural and satisfying. Ellie may be a child but she is also one of the finest characters out there, and it is amazing that so soon after Telltales The Walking Dead another game has managed to meet the standard set by Clementine, albeit in a very different manner. Ellie is hardened, brisk and capable yet also lovable, and her interactions with Joel come off completely naturally and in a way that is just the life of this games narrative. Its is very much a story that taps into fatherly sentiment, but mixed in with the deadly serious and dark tone of this setting it is a thrilling mix.

The Last of Us also manages to craft a completely authentic and believable world. Everything feels lived in, something that few games manage to accomplish. I love Dead Space, but its hard to imagine anyone actually living comfortably in the confines of the Ishimura, or people living in the guard quarters depicted in Space Marine. By contrast, every space in The Last of Us feels real, dense with the amount of details in the environments. It also takes lessons from the Half-Life school of storytelling, allowing clues or items in the environs to tell little stories and fill in gaps of what happened to the people in that area or place. You also meet other survivors throughout the journey through the ruins of the United States, and these are all well depicted and fit nicely into the story.

Visually, The Lat of Us is up there with the best that the PS3 has to offer in terms of beauty and sheer fidelity. I already mentioned the amount of detail given to the environments, from liquor stores, game arcades and abandoned homes to rural winter landscapes, but there is a lot more to love here from a visual perspective. The character animations are natural, organic and add a lot of character to the experience, even from something as simple as Joel climbing a stairs or ladder. There is a great use of light, and a variety to the chapter settings that manages to keep things fresh and mixed throughout the single player. The infected look fantastic, and are genuinely frightening to take on at times, and the level of gritty violence that is indulged in is just brutal, but in the best possible way. There are some instances of rough pop-in and other roughness, but these minor issues fail to take away from the overall visual splendour in The Last of Us.

The music is also incredible, with a sound track that does an exceptional job at capturing the somber tone of this world, but also perfectly places and inserts tracks of hope to match the positive scenes. The music is nothing short of beautiful, and strengthens every aspect of the narrative experience without overwhelming anything, and I would like to particularly mention the credits theme as an exceptional piece of work that brings the game to a perfect tonal close. Voice acting is also fantastic, with both Joel and Ellie being powerfully delivered characters, especially in the dialogue that happens during gameplay, and all the side characters are done well. The infected are greatly empowered by the voice work for them, particularly the Clickers, who have been added to my mental list of most chilling game enemies to face.

Of course, none of this would mean much if the gameplay was bad, but Naughty Dog crafted an incredible game in addition to all the visual and audio frills. The Last of Us is clearly made by the minds behind the Uncharted series, fitting into the same cinematic, relatively linear and exciting gameplay formula, but the difference in tone and detail makes a huge difference which results in a unique identity all of its own.

It is rare for a game to have gameplay that matches so authentically with its narrative elements, but The Last of Us manages to do this in a way that extremely few other games I have played have managed. This is a game filled with survivalist elements, and really provides a Survival-Horror experience at times which trumps easily trumps the likes of Resident Evil 6 or recent Silent Hill iterations. Do you use your sparse resources to clear the room of enemies, or attempt to sneak past the horrors within and preserve your resources for another encounter? The Last of Us manages to present these decisions in an off-the-cuff manner that is naturalistic and exciting for the player to be involved in. There is a great sense of player agency, a deep amount of violence that feeds directly into the characterisation of the characters and it all comes together fantastically thanks to the sound mechanics holding the game together.

You can craft new items like shivs or health packs, but this is done in-game without a pause. Enemies can be stealth killed or taken head on- its a risk management system that is extremely rewarding. The enemy AI is also fantastic most of the time, as human foes dive into cover and use team based tactics to flank and trap the player while the Infected will be smarter than just blindly charging at the player. The weapons available are the usual suspects, but when combined with the scarcity of ammo and non-regenerating health they become a deeper and more ingrained part of the game than most third person shooter experiences manage to achieve.

There is also a team based multiplayer mode which integrates itself into the structure of the game world rather than being shoe-horned into things for its own sake. While I played The Last of Us for its single-player offerings, what I played of the multiplayer felt not only totally fine but actually a fairly unique and characterful experience that could very much foster its own community and be worth investing a lot of time into with some friends thanks to its rewarding progression system and focus on stealth elements, managing to maintain a large part of what makes the singleplayer so damn satisfying.

I had no technical issues with The Last of Us beyond the minor pop-in which I already mentioned. The load times are quite long when you start up the game, but once things are in motion there is no loading between chapters and the whole thing feels like one of the most refined and crisp experiences on the platform, or indeed any platform. The structure of the game does force stealth as by far the most viable option in the early segments, but once you get some upgrades and equipment other options become viable. The Last of Us also maintains the strength of the major set pieces that Uncharted is known for, though it warps and adapts them to a more subtle level for its own world. For instance, the inclusion of horses was a deft and brilliant move, and it is the simple things like that which I felt raised this game to the true heights of brilliance in conjunction with everything else it has going for it. he combat and motion is fluid, tense, and is simple enough to slide into but deep enough for many playthroughs. This is a game that puts everything related to its gameplay first and foremost and uses story, graphics, and set pieces to build on that gameplay in a cohesive and fulfilling way.

I do not believe that any game is perfect, they all have problems as does everything that people make. However, I have rarely felt so wholly satisfied as I did after completing the thrilling finale of The Last of Us. The game is lengthy, taking me 12 hours on normal, but I didn't feel that I needed any more, The pacing was perfect, and the ending completely wraps up this self-contained story. All the elements of this experience come together in a way that compliment and build upon each other, and I feel that it is this which makes The Last of Us such a Strong product. It also feels that The Last of Us is cohesively whole, that it is not a game made by committee but rather a vision was set out at its inception, and that by the ending this vision was satisfied without compromise. It is this feeling of sheer character that makes The Last of Us one of the best games I have ever played. Naughty Dog went all out on this one, and crafted an incredible game at the very end of a generation, and for that they deserve all the praise that this game has received and more. I implore anyone who enjoys this medium with access to a PS3 to play The Last of Us, because it is fantastic.

Pros:

• Exceptional writing and narrative
• Gorgeous visuals and music
• Tense gripping gameplay
• Strong replay value with new game+
• Great stealth and survival horror elements
• Outstanding pacing from chapter to chapter

Cons:

• Small pop-in issues
• Friendly AI can break illusion

Wtf:

• Nolan Norths role is quite different from Drake....

Score:

• 10/10 - Legendary