The Last of Us Part I

With its excellent graphics that are still great even today, this game is PlayStation at its very best. Initially, Naughty Dog was planning on developing a sequel to Jak 3 after Uncharted 2: Among Thieves by splitting the development team into two, one team would work on Jak 4 while the other would work on Uncharted 3. However Jak 4 was quickly cancelled when fans reacted negatively to early concept art showing a realistic art style and Naughty Dog themselves felt they weren't confident about making a proper Jak game. The Naughty Dog team that was supposed to work on Jak 4 went on to develop this instead.

So the plot is: 20 years after a mutant fungus turned most of civilization into cannibalistic monsters and led to the death of his daughter (and on his birthday, no less), Joel does what he needs to survive and works as a smuggler. His latest job requires him to a take a teenager named Ellie who is immune to the fungus to a camp outside the quarantine zone. As they journey across the U.S., they realize that the mutants aren't the only threat.

It's a great story that explores the bond between a man who is suppose to protect a girl while they make their way across the country in a post-apocalyptic world. Eventually forming a father and daughter relationship. As you progress the game the bond between Joel and Ellie get stronger becoming more comfortable with one another and the chemistry between them is also heartwarming and entertaining; a more notable example is a hilarious quote said by Ellie after she finds an adult magazine to freak Joel out: “Oh. Why are these [pages] all stuck together?” Even though the game is linear, the levels are huge and fun to explore.

The game also cleverly uses stealth for situational purposes. The survivor enemies are more proactive and use firearms, encouraging stealth while infected enemies react more to sound and practically require stealth most of the time. Along with these stealth sections is Listen mode, which allows players to see through walls just by honing in on Joel's hearing. The stealth in this game, however, can be a bit awkward at times, because whenever you try to sneak up on enemies or bypass them by sneaking around them, another enemy will pop up out of nowhere, and spot you immediately. In fact the game can be rather slow for some people as it takes some time for the action to start and even then it can still be slow due to the heavy reliance on stealth. The game also has a bit of pacing issue when transitioning from one season to another since gripping scenes will end abruptly and not give them time to breathe.

The game even has a unique take on the post-apocalypse genre by using a fungus of a mutated strain of the Cordyceps as the main culprit instead of some mysterious disease. The spores infect insects and replaces the host tissue with its own and manipulates the host's brain to spread the fungus; this adds to the horror of the game, because something like this does exist and this could actually happen to humans in real life. The Infected are also not zombies but instead, still-living humans that were infected by the mutated fungus, unlike zombies, which are reanimated corpses.

Speaking of, there are six types of Infected each different depending on how long they've been infected:

• Runners are people who recently turned into Infected. They are defined by their intense speed, sluggish attacks, and tendency to attack people in hordes.
• Stalkers have been Infected from somewhere between two weeks to a year. Per their name, they stalk and hide from prey in the dark and attack at opportune moments. Some also latch onto walls and allow the Cordyceps to fester, keeping the host alive until prey walks by, at which point the Stalker breaks free and attacks.
• Clickers have been Infected for at least one year. The long time elapse has allowed the fungus to spread all over their bodies, blinding them and forcing them to use echolocation to find prey. However, the fungus has granted them enhanced strength and will insta-kill the player if they try to melee attack them.
• Bloaters have been Infected for several years. The fungus has led them to become slow and blind, yet incredibly strong and resilient with the fungal growth serving as armor plating. Bloaters can also tear fungus from their bodies to use as spore bombs and throw them at their enemies. However, this additional fungal growth makes them vulnerable to fire. Much like the Clickers, they will also insta-kill the player if they get close.

The AI is pretty smart for both allies and enemies as scavengers have reactions recorded for various situations. They are able to inform the others in their group if Joel is spotted or they find a body of one of their dead comrades, recognize the sound of an empty magazine, and take cover when fired at. They can even come up with strategies to surround and corner you. Also, enemies manage to invert stealth-based gameplay on you: enemies can hide, leave traps, sneak up behind you, take your gun, and attack you if you're not paying attention. Enemies can even grab you from behind and use you as a human shield, making you an easy target for their allies; Ellie also demonstrates this by taking cover on her own, distracting enemies when Joel is in a pinch, attacking an enemy if Joel is struggling with one close by, and when Joel gets hurt by an attack, she asks if he's okay. She'll also notify you if she sees an enemy out of your line of sight. She is also fully capable of taking out enemies on her own when one tries to sneak up on Joel, and will collect ammo for him and give it to him before/during/after a fight.

The game limits you in terms of ammo and supplies to make it closer to a survival game and encourages you to be more astute with the environment around you as you can find items for crafting, ammo, or pills for upgrades. To add to the survival aspect is a crafting system. With the right items, Joel can upgrade melee weapons, craft medical kits, molotovs, nail and smoke bombs, and shivs, which is the most valuable item as they're used to kill clickers and open certain doors. In select locations there are also workbenches where you can upgrade certain aspects of their guns by having the right number of parts and tools. There are also supplements, which allow you to upgrade any of Joel's 6 different skills: Maximum health, listen mode distance, crafting speed, healing speed, weapon sway and shiv master.

There are many optional conversations that are side conversations that the player can choose to either participate in or ignore. Listening to them can help the player see how the bond between the two characters have grown and can even get to know the characters more. Unlike other games where collectibles are added just to make the game longer, they're here added to expand the game's lore and shows you what do people in The Last Of Us universe do to survive.

The game has 5 difficulties and each can affect the game in many ways, with Easy mode making supplies easy to find and making the game closer to a cover shooter than a stealth game, which is great for those who want to enjoy the story, there's also Grounded mode (Hardest difficulty) where you heavily limit the supplies around you, remove your health and ammo hud and disable Listen mode, which makes it a true survival stealth game. Survival mode (2nd hardest difficulty) is locked in the PS3 version and requires you to beat the game to unlock it while Grounded mode (hardest difficulty) is a paid DLC, but if you bought the DLC you'll have grounded mode unlocked from the start, which is stupid.

There are moments where the framerate drops in certain areas. This was fixed in the PS4 version. The remastered version has photo mode and plays up to 4K and 60 FPS, with the option to switch to 30 FPS if you want.

As for the ending: While many consider Joel saving Ellie from the surgery might be a selfish move, it really shows that Joel was beginning to see the spirit his late daughter Sarah inside of her, and wants to save Ellie instead of developing a cure that even wasn't guaranteed to be the solution for the world. It leaves the player deciding that if he's done the right thing or not, that "If there ever was a chance, would you choose the world over your child?" Also at the end of the game, Marlene has Joel escorted out of the hospital but she has a single guard walk him out of the building without binding his hands or handcuffing him. You'd think she'd know to take more precautions with someone who has proven to be as tough and brutal as Joel has. This shows that she suffers from Bond Villain Stupidity.

Left Behind is a great DLC piece that show how Ellie got infected and how Ellie stitched up Joel. The Ellie and Riley story is a lot more charming and wholesome and is a great change of pace from the main game. Also, you can use the hunters and/or the infected to your advantage to some degree, by altering the infected that the hunters are near, making them fight each other.

There's an interesting and compelling multiplayer mode where you grow your own clan while playing normally, with cross play between the PS3 and PS4 versions. Unfortunately, in the multiplayer, some weapons and perks are locked behind an unnecessary paywall. This mode also has a steep learning curve. And, to add salt to the wound, the PS3 version's multiplayer servers were shutdown in 2019, and since a few trophies could only be obtained on multiplayer it is impossible to get the platinum trophy for this version.

So there you have it: my review of The Last of Us Part I.