The Last of Us is one of the most revered PlayStation exclusives of all time, along with some other efforts from Naughty Dog, like Crash Bandicoot & Uncharted, which are some of my favourite games of all time. when The Last of Us came out in 2013, & slightly more recently with the remake in 2022, which was essentially sold by the TV show that soon followed, it has been no secret how much people love this game.
so, i hope you can understand when i say that... The Last of Us disappointed me.
i don’t think it’s bad, but i played a few hours into the game with my dad, as we were originally thinking of beating it, but to be honest, i got bored. while the game, had some good ideas, mainly with combat, like the clickers, which are blind zombies that detect your position with their enhanced hearing. so, you have to crawl around them, & if you want to, you can mislead them by throwing a small, but loud object, like a glass bottle. also, you can only shoot them in the head. & they’re horrifying. i haven’t had a nightmare from those things. & no, we aren’t playing 2 truths & a lie.
now onto the negatives!
i found most of the dialogue annoying, mainly because of the severe overuse of profanity. i don’t mind hearing swear words in a game, film, or song, which i think i’ve made clear, but it just feels like Naughty Dog just learnt swearing, & want to use that knowledge in every instance they can. plus, the character interactions feel really bland, which is odd from the people who made Uncharted. & while the combat was fun to an extent, once again, it didn’t have the same spark as in Uncharted for me.
by the way, when i say Uncharted, i mean the first 2. i haven’t got to 3 yet. Golden Abyss is nice, though.
& the combat got quite tedious for me, along with the control glitches that came with respawning after repeated death, such as both the camera & character movement not working. i didn’t like that when there wasn’t combat, the game was empty & streamlined. it's a tedious, & almost-mindless, walking simulator. & while it would still be boring, it would give me something nice to say if the game looked interesting. don’t get me wrong, characters look good, but the game is a whole load of grey, which is the exact thing Naughty Dog were making fun of when they worked on the Uncharted trilogy. then again, Jak 2 happened in 2003, & Crash Bandicoot is colourful, but that was before the dark & dingy look came in for games. i don’t expect a game about an apocalypse to be full of upbeat & colourful themes, but make the areas have a standout look. i don’t know how to continue that.
so, to conclude, The Last of Us has some good in it, but i found it quite boring & below-average for Naughty Dog standards. love this game if you want, i’m not gonna tell you what to think, but i left The Last of Us feeling pretty disappointed.