The Last of Us

“Oh, shit...” A sentiment echoed by Joel. The generator roars to life, and so do the infected. Frantic screams, growls, rushing footsteps and sinister clicks ring out through this underground tunnel. “Oh shit!” Panic mode: engaged. Run. Run fast. Get out. Forget the ammo, the supplies, anything other than running. Survive.

This is the world of The Last of Us. A desperate, cloying, violent, terrifying place. Twenty years ago, society collapsed with the out break of a fungal infection that turns your average human into a feral beast hell bent on killing. We see the outbreak of the not-zombies during a brief prologue that introduces us to main character Joel. This prologue lets you know very quickly what sort of game you are playing. Uncharted it is not. It also features one of the best uses of a late title card I have ever seen.

Then, the game fast forwards to find Joel living in one of the many quarantine zones set up throughout the country. Time has not been kind to him. He is haggard, distant, brutal. Survival has been his only concern for two decades and it shows. That is of course until Ellie shows up. The 14 year old girl Joel must escort cross country. What follows is a truly remarkable journey.

For the most part, The Last of Us evokes the very best of the zombie genre. You stumble upon random survivors, suicide notes, bandits, and a resistance slowly building. And, like the best of the genre, the zombies in The Last of Us are not the real threat. Humans are. Oh sure, the zombies are formidable opponents, but they are at least predictable. You encounter three common types of infected and one special type. Your bread and butter runners (think 28 Days Later) who overwhelm you with frantic numbers, stalkers which are just slightly smarter runners, and clickers. Clickers.... well, clickers are terrifying. These guys have been infected for a long time and it shows. The fungus has taken over their entire head, with fungal plates overtaking the majority of their cranium. As a result, they are blind. This is where the name comes into play. Clickers use echo location to hunt. Their hearing is incredible, which is bad news for Joel and Ellie. What's worse, if a clicker gets a hold of you, it's game over. Literally, they are a one hit kill unless you upgrade your shiv skills. Oh yeah, and don't try and take one on bare handed. It will end.... poorly for you. There is also one other type of infected. The oldest of the old, the bloaters. The fungus has completely taken them over. They are bullet sponges that throw around globs of spores. If you see one, do your best to avoid.

If these zombies are so horrific, how can the humans be the real threat you ask? Well, to put it simply, humans are smart. And armed. Those moments when you find yourself up against a group of 10 human enemies are some of the most tense in the game. One mistake and it's over. Gunshot to the head, axe to the neck, molotov cocktail to the...everywhere, or just plain unbridled, rage-filled beat downs. Humans are not fucking around. Worse still, they know how to hide, flank, distract, and generally outwit. What chance do a 50-something man and a 14 year old girl have?

That's where the gameplay comes in. You can tell this game was made by Naughty Dog, with the general feel of the combat, especially during gunfights. Hide behind cover, take potshots, don't get hit. Simple stuff. Where The Last of Us sets itself apart from the Uncharted series is the stealth element and limited resources. Though not a pure stealth game like your Splinter Cells and Metal Gears, evasion is usually your safest bet. Still, there is always the option to brute force your way through an encounter, though I don't recommend it, especially when playing on Hard difficulty, as I did. Given the post-apocalyptic setting of The Last of Us, supplies are low. Sure, you can craft a few items, but are always faced with a choice. Do you cook up a molotov, or do you make a first aid kit? They use the same ingredients after all. And sure Joel will have somewhere around 9 guns by the time the game ends, but half of those will be out of ammo at any given time. The remaining half will have maybe a bullet each.

So, given these limited supplies, how does this game manage to be any fun at all? Well, my ever under-equipped playthrough added gravity to every single moment of the game. There is something immensely satisfying, albeit draining, about surviving an assault and staggering away with an empty pistol, a bow with three arrows, a rifle with one bullet, health all but gone, no ingredients for crafting, desperately clutching a 2x4 and letting out a huge sigh of relief. We made it again. I'm sure this all sounds far too exhausting, but rest assured, you are not alone on your journey.

Ellie is far more than just an object in this adventure. From a gameplay standpoint, she is at worst unobtrusive, and more often than not she is downright helpful. She will hurl bricks at enemies to distract or injure them, take pot shots from time to time, and even jump on a dude to shank him to death with her switchblade. Like the other characters you meet along the way, Ellie cannot die from soaking up damage, which is a welcome relief for what could have been a 12 hour escort mission in the worst way. Instead, allies can be grabbed, which will start a countdown to when they actually die. Mercifully, this timer is pretty long, and in my 13 or so hours with the game I never had an ally die. Me on the other hand? I died almost 90 times.

I realize that's a pretty big number right there. That's an average of 8 and half minutes between deaths, though realistically it was 45 minutes between deaths followed by a death every 10 seconds. This is a punishing game on the harder difficulty settings. Yet, I only ever felt frustrated one time. During the absolute last combat encounter in the game. I felt painfully under-equipped, and absolutely desperate for reasons that I won't go into. Because spoilers, that's why. Which speaks volumes about the game. I was able to die 90 times and almost never feel irritated. Every death felt like my fault, like I had made a mistake. And that was always the case. It was never actually an issue of running out of ammo, given the number of times I scraped by without ever firing a shot. Though, to be perfectly honest, the gameplay in The Last of Us may be fantastic, but it is hardly the star of the game. That would be the story.

Now, don't fret. I won't be spoiling anything. The story can't really be spoiled per se. It's about so much more than plot points. Where the game really shines is during the down time. When Ellie and Joel get a minute to just talk. Most of these instances are optional. Ellie will stop next to something and make a comment and as the player you can choose to hit the little button prompt that makes the conversation happen. They are short and well worth it as Joel explains to Ellie what the world was like before the outbreak. Oh, and one of the prompts lets you give Ellie a high five. If you don't do it you suck and I hate you. Not even joking.

More than anything The Last of Us is a character study. We learn to love Joel and Ellie. We root for them, we mourn for them, we care about them. Naughty Dog did one hell of a job making a character in Ellie who is easy to care about, to want to protect, without making her a helpless little innocent child. She curses like a sailor, she stabs dudes in the face, and she is scared shitless. And Joel... well he is a surly old asshole who will do anything to survive. To see them grow together is a true treat.

Immersion is a very important part of this game. If you don't invest fully, it won't grab you in equal parts. Luckily, the graphics and sound design are absolutely fantastic. The world of The Last of Us is equal parts beautiful and ghastly. We get to see the Orwellian horrors of quarantine zones in counterpoint to cities being taken back over by nature and wide open wilderness at times. Rain, sun, snow. It's all there and it all looks fantastic. Not to mention the character models. Expressive and believable are the two words that can sum them up. You don't even need to hear words to understand what is going on in some scenes. The expressions say it all. And of course Naughty Dog put all the little touches where they needed to be. The simplest example occurs any time you hide behind cover with Ellie. Joel, almost instinctively, reaches his arm up over Ellie, shielding her with his own body. Subtlety like that rarely exists in games, and it makes all the difference.

Graphics are all well and good, but how is the sound? The voice acting is universally wonderful. Special mention of course goes to Troy Baker playing Joel and Ashley Johnson as Ellie who carry the narrative. The side characters are easily on par, but the spotlight is focused elsewhere. One minor complaint I have is that the human enemies had maybe four distinct voices, which is a small break in immersion that could have been avoided, but isn't crippling by any means.

Then of course we have the musical score by Gustavo Santaolalla. Driven by a haunting acoustic guitar, the soundtrack to The Last of Us wants you to feel, not fear. Gustavo poured heart and soul into what could have otherwise been generic or typical of a post-apocalyptic setting. In fact, when I finished the game, after all the pain and suffering of those 13 plus hours, I couldn't help but just sit at the main menu, staring at the calming image of an open window with the main theme playing quietly in the background.

So, in case you hadn't figured it out, The Last of Us is a true masterpiece. Games like this don't seem to exist anymore. It may help that I went into the experience completely blind, having been out of the modern gaming scene for a while. My only exposure to The Last of Us was the ad on the side of the PS3 demo station at the local Best Buy. I had seen no trailers, knew almost nothing of the game other than what amounted to the cover art and the developers. Naughty Dog, take that shit as a compliment, because I am broke as hell after buying a PS3 just to play your game. And it was worth it. Worth every penny, worth every death, worth the shock and disbelief and sorrow. Play this game. Reconnect with the power that video games truly have but seem to be forgetting. Just be prepared for a painful ride.