Naughty Dog manages to deliver a breathtaking and insanely fun experience that you won't forget anytime soon.
To be honest, I wasn't even going to buy The Last of Us. I wasn't as hyped as most people were and decided to just borrow it from a friend at some stage. Today, I'm glad I didn't stick to that plan. From story to gameplay to immersion, The Last of Us is a truly amazing game that should be played by everyone who owns a PS3.
The Last of Us is set several years after the outbreak of a fungal infection that drives the host mad. Basically, it's an interesting twist on the usual zombie apocalypse scenario. Similar to Naughty Dog's Uncharted series, the use of mocap gives the characters a greater sense of realism. Most of the main characters introduced during the game are interesting in one way or another, and the development of the relationship between Joel and Ellie is great and interesting to watch. The story itself is fantastic and it's one of those where even though you've spent hours and hours playing, you just want more.
The game's technical side is just as impressive. The Last of Us offers some gorgeous visuals. The locations you explore, from the dark, crumbling buildings to the lush, overgrown city ruins, look beautiful. Even the backgrounds look amazing as you stare at them from a distance. The soundtrack composed by Gustavo Sanaolalla is just as great and fits in really well with the rest of the game.
It is the gameplay, however, that make's the lengthy story of The Last of Us a true joy to play. Early on, it is explained that encounters can be dealt with in two different ways. You can chose to go in guns blazing and attempt to take out all your foes, or chose a stealthy approach and sneak past them. There is a few times where the game forces you to take a specific approach, but for the most part, the choice is yours. In some cases, it'll be easier to just take out whoever is standing in your way, while other times, alerting the enemies to your presence might cause you to get overrun.
This is where sound, one of the games core mechanics, comes into play. By holding down R2, you enter Listen Mode which allows you to see enemies through walls, providing that they are moving or making some kind of noise. The use of this is extremely important as you can chose your approach to a specific encounter based on the number of enemies and their movement patterns. The ability to pick up and throw bottles and bricks in order to make a noise that will attract nearby enemies is also very useful.
The game also features a crafting system, where you can use materials you've collected on your journey to craft various items like health packs, makeshift weapons, and smoke bombs. All crafting and healing happens in real time so it is vital to hide yourself if using these mechanics during combat. You can also find supplements to boost your character and spare parts to upgrade your weapons along the way.
On the normal difficulty setting, the game takes somewhere between 14 and 16 hours to complete and can be moderately difficult at times but shouldn't cause too many problems. However, it is the harder difficulty levels that make you truly feel the fear of living in this kind of post apocalyptic world. Not only does the scarcity of ammo, crafting supplies and upgrade materials increase as the difficulty is set higher, the games Survivor Mode disables the listening mechanic, forcing you to look around corners and pay close attention to your surroundings in order to locate your enemies and stay undetected. The lack of ammo also makes you want to stealth kill as many enemies as possible before being seen, and melee combat becomes a much better choice in most encounters since you never know when you'll need those last few bullets. Even bricks that would usually be thrown to create a distraction become viable melee weapons.
The Last of Us also features an online multiplayer mode, which I personally think is quite fun. Games are played in teams of 4, and the goal is not only to eliminate your opposition but also to collect as many resources as possible. As you do this, the group of survivors you lead, which can be populated by your actual friends through Facebook connection, grows from match to match, and you need more and more supplies after every game to make sure they do not get sick or even die.
Just like all games, The Last of Us is not perfect. One section in particular almost made me stop playing. There is a room filled with infected that I spent over 45 minutes trying to pass but kept failing. Now this was my fault since I was trying to take out all the enemies instead of just sneaking past them which got me through the room in less than 5 minutes. But the main problem is that this comes right after a room where you are forced to take out all infected enemies, so if you're not in the proper mindset it can cause quite some frustration. There were also a few instances where an optional conversation icon popped up for a second, but then disappeared because I walked slightly too far ahead. These flaws are pretty minor though and are not solely the games fault.
I can easily call The Last of Us one of the greatest games of this generation, and it is without a doubt my personal favorite on the PS3. The story, visuals and audio are great, the characters are lovable and the gameplay is insanely fun, especially on the higher difficulty settings. Even the multiplayer is above average, considering that pretty much everything has some sort of multiplayer mode these days. Naughty Dog has truly managed to craft a masterpiece at the end of the PS3's life cycle.
