An incredibly well told story with an ending that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
A Review by Chris Camz of UnfashionablyLateReviews.blogspot.com
Whether it's because of my increasingly pessimistic view on life or the voices in the back of my head that hold media to unrealistic standards, videogame endings haven't seemed to scratch my itch for good storytelling recently. First it was Spec Ops, the ending of which I grilled pretty harshly in my review, and now The Last of Us has done the same thing. What does a guy have to do to get some satisfaction out of his escapist media? My life is already full of disappointment; I don't need any more, Naughty Dog.
Like Spec Ops, The Last of Us is an incredibly well told story with an ending that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. The Last of Us, however, takes everything that was done well in Spec Ops and takes it much further, and even peppers in some additional variety for a terrific platter of awesomeness. There are stealth portions, shooting portions, and puzzles all wrapped together to create an veritable enchilada of goodness and fun. It's almost like developer Naughty Dog had been perfecting just this sort of game for years prior to its release. Oh wait, they were, see Uncharted for details.
I have to give more credit than that to Naughty Dog, however, because Quantum leaps were taken between development of Uncharted and The Last of Us. The game is linear, rather than open world, which many developers seem to be falling in love with recently, and, unlike Uncharted, the world is much more worth exploring. Collectibles like comic books, firefly tags, and training manuals are strewn about the world and ready for your eager hands to pick them up. There are also plenty of ammo, tools, weapons, and ingredients, most of which can be combined and/or upgraded into stronger or more reliable versions. It really makes you want to check every locked room and back alley to give yourself an edge should the worst come to pass, which it often does.
The gameplay is more than average, but falls short of excellent. The game switches between stealth and shooting sections without a hitch, and very few fights can be considered unwinnable by any one method, which lets you choose which way you want to approach each individual encounter. If you are short on supplies, it might be a good idea to get from point A to point B by staying behind cover and strangling your enemies to avoid catching the attention of nearby foes. If you find yourself sitting on a plethora of med kits and ammo, by all means, shoot 'em down, but if that's not your style, the game never forces you into that role. The puzzles are always straightforward, and all center around holding a door, dropping a ladder, or floating Ellie across the water, but the game at least does a good job of hiding the solutions in different places, so it's not the same 2 or 3 puzzles over and over again. That's not to say the puzzles aren't easy, because they are, but I doubt people will buy the game expecting decent puzzles form the same developer that gave you a book in Uncharted that contained every, single answer to every puzzle in the entire game.
The real reason people will likely buy the game is for the story, which does not disappoint until the very end. The story focuses around Ellie, a girl that got infected with the zombie virus (and let's face it, whether it is stated or not, they are zombies) but does not lose her mind the way other people do when bitten, and Joel, her bodyguard. Joel's job was to take Ellie to a camp where a group of rebels can extract a cure from her blood, and use it to synthesize an immunization, to prevent any more people from becoming zombies. Here we find the first of many nagging inconsistencies that will inevitably damper the story's overall atmosphere. This group of rebels, known as the Fireflies, rose up against the government, which was taking the good old fashioned hack n' burn stance on the subject of disease control, because that has worked out well for them in the past. The question as to why we are trusting our one shot at a cure to them, rather than the government remains a mystery. It just seems kind of hard to imagine the military less able to create a cure than a group of rebels that are actively being destroyed by their armies.
Anyway, not surprisingly, the Fireflies are not at the meeting spot and presumably killed by the military, so Joel is forced to search them out with Ellie's help. Through this journey they endure numerous hardships like being stabbed through the gut, drowning on more than one occasion, and almost being eaten by a small tribe of cannibals, because deer are hard to catch, especially for an armed civilization of men with military-grade weapons. After all this, Joel and Ellie are finally found and "rescued" by the fireflies, which results in another of the horrible endings that leave me feeling frustrated and devalue all the work done up to that point.
SPOILERS! In the end, Joel and Ellie are brought to a Firefly-occupied hospital, where they are treated for their wounds and Ellie is prepped for surgery. Before the surgery can commence, however, Joel is told that the surgery will be fatal for Ellie, who Joel has begun to regard as a second chance at saving his deceased daughter Sarah. The similarities between the two are especially apparent, as well. Sarah and Ellie are both tomboys, with similar hairstyles, are both into music Joel hates, and Ellie is just a little bit older than Sarah was when she was gunned down by the Military outside of their town. Thus, it's no surprise Joel gets attached the way he does. Anyway, Joel goes all mission-impossible and kills a good deal of Fireflies in his effort to liberate Ellie from their cruel surgery which will save all of mankind and allow us to outlive the infection that has already claimed so many lives… hey wait a second. Didn't we just stroll across the entire United States just for this surgery? So why are we stopping it? Yea, Ellie dies, I'm bummed too, but is that any reason to give our entire species the finger? We have people literally eating other people and you refuse to let one girl die for the cause? God damn, Joel.
SPOILERS END HERE. So that's The Last of Us, a fantastic game with genuine atmosphere, solid gameplay, likeable characters, and an excellent story capped off by another ending that makes me yell at the TV. I still recommend The Last of Us wholeheartedly, but unfortunately, it will be remembered in my mind as a futile journey that ends exactly where it began, except with an extra Ellie living in the house. Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through, but I guess it's not easy replacing a daughter, especially in an apocalypse.
Gameplay…8
With a multitude of ways to survive each encounter, gameplay rarely gets stale
Story…9
Phenomenal story with lovable characters, just an unfortunate ending
Sound…7
It's all good, but it doesn't really help create atmosphere like it could have
Visual…10
The world looks very post-apocalyptic in the best sense of the phrase
Replayability…7
Not especially welcoming for a second go, but there is always more to find
Overall…8.2
A tremendous game, that will likely never get a sequel, which is the biggest crime of all