Last of Us is an adventure that you will not soon forget. Naughty Dog has delivered once again.
The Last of Us is an amazing adventure from Naughty Dog. For those unaware, Naughty Dog was known for their 3 part adventure, Uncharted. With that in mind, that last of us is a very different game for them, one that paid off.
The story of this game is a fungus infects humans and turns them into zombies. No cure has been found, or successful. You play as Joel, who is attacked by his neighbors that were infected with this fungus/virus. Joel is forced to leave town with his daughter. Unfortunately things take a turn for the worse for Joel, and ends up living in a quarantined area 20 years later in the story. Things take even more of a turn when Joel is asked to escort a girl, Ellie, out of the quarantine area because she may be immune to the virus. And so begins your adventure to guide and protect Ellie.
This game features your stereotypical zombie and a new type of zombie. The main type of zombies you see are the runners. Your normal zombie that will run up to you and attack you. The second type of zombie is called the Clicker. This zombie doesn't see the player, but responds to sounds. If you are near a clicker and make sounds, they will come closer to you. These are tougher enemies because if they grab you, they instantly kill you. You are able to melee the normal zombies, but the clickers, are immune to punches.
Last of Us offers the players several ways to play. Each level with enemies you can choose to approach it the way you wish. You can choose to sneak around the zombie, and try not to alert them, you can take them out silently and not alert the enemies around you, or you can go guns blazing, but this will attract zombies nearby. Also remember that ammo and weapons are scarce, so you will need to take time to decide how to approach the enemies.
There is also a bit of RPG elements in this game. While heading to your objective, you can collect and scavenge for parts to make shivs, upgrade your weapons, and make medkits. You can also collect pills which, when you collect enough, you can upgrade your character with certain abilities. For example, you can increase your health, increase your crafting speed, and one special ability is when you are attacked by clickers you can use shivs to fend yourself from them. However, that requires to always have shives on hand. LAst of Us features a very easy way to craft whenever you want by pushing Select. Joel will open his backpack and that will become your UI to craft items you need. Through the world are upgrade benches. These will allow you to upgrade your weapons to hold more ammo, increase fire rate, or do more damage.
The game features amazing cutscenes with really well done voice acting. The actors do their best to evoke emotion into the players. During your adventure the characters will sometimes talk to each other about their lives, what they like or even try to joke with each other.
The graphics do an amazing job showing what this world looks like. Abandoned buildings are full of overgrowth from years of no use. Towns are falling apart, trash in the streets, cars, and things people left behind when they left. However, this game doesn't go higher than 720P, but this may have been the developers decision.
However, this game is not without flaws. The biggest issues is the enemy AI. Sometimes you can be right in front of a zombie and they won't notice you. Or your AI teammates can run past the enemy and the enemy will not notice them.
Another flaw with this game is that it doesn't really explain what happened in this world. There are notes scattered throughout the world, but they are messages from one person to another. The game never explains how the virus spread, how the towns became abandoned or even if there is safe place full of survivors. The combat does become redundant after a while with you killing the same enemies or doing the same approach in each level.
For those with a PS3, and looking for another amazing title to add to your collection, i would high recommend Last of Us.