The Last of Us stands above the rest for the survival horror game genre. It's everything you'd want and so much more!
When I picked up The Last of Us, I had heard great things about it. I was pretty stoked to play a survival horror that was on par with Resident Evil 4, but after playing it I realized that the game definitely surpassed RE4. This game manages to pull off the survival horror genre in an absolutely brilliant way. You'll quickly realize after playing it how it has earned so many perfect scores from so many gaming critics. The game is absolutely horrifying at times, almost crippling you with fear to progress, and at other times the game has very relaxing and heartfelt moments that show us deep into Joel and Ellie's character. This and other aspects make this a very strong contender for Game of the Year.
Story: 9.25/10
Set in a post-apocalyptic world, Joel and Ellie must travel across the country to the Research Facility of a group known as the Fireflies, to save humanity. As I don't wanna give away any spoilers for the story, I will say that it becomes apparent why Joel and Ellie are the only ones that can do this. As you fight through waves of not only zombies, but also humans out to kill you as well, your survival becomes all the more important. The game also does a great job of showing us how the world has changed in the twenty years since the zombie outbreak, such as ruined settings and the level of desperation and lack of trust between humans.
Score: 8.25/10
The main thing I noticed in the score is that there is a lot of acoustic 'twangy' guitar which at first sounds a little strange, but it definitely begins to grow on you and finds a respectable place in the game over time.
Character Development: 10/10
Probably the highest selling point of the story is the deep insight we see and feel from the characters. By the end of the game, we know Joel and Ellie on an extremely personal level, but other minor characters such as Marlene, Tess, Bill and David are given much personality and desire too. Seeing into all these game characters really helped me personally get more from the game than just shooting and killing things.
Graphics: 10/10
So many things in this game look so very beautiful, not only in the way that things are designed by the developers, but also the settings. Whether it's a wooded terrain area, a rundown city, or a blizzard in winter, Naughty Dog did a fantastic job of making everything here look state of the art and amazing.
Gameplay: 9/10
The gameplay here is top notch. There's always a certain fun to going around and blowing up zombies with guns and bombs, but the things that I found to be the gameplay's strongest and most unique aspect was the crafting. By getting everyday objects such as scissors, alcohol, explosives and others you chose how to use these common items to make things such as a shiv, bombs or even things to heal yourself. One big debate which really makes you have to plan carefully is the fact that using the alcohol and rags could make either a health kit or a Molotov cocktail, forcing you to focus on if you're going to need offensive power or things to help increase your health in the upcoming events. Not only this, but crafting new objects actually took a second for you to need to get out of harm's way to make them. Although it was inconvenient at times, it made the game feel so much more realistic.
Difficulty: 7/10
This game does provide a good challenge, especially since during the beginning of the game you aren't given a surplus of bullets. This requires you to do more stealth kills, which isn't always the easiest and sometimes it would take me two or three tries to make it through an area in places where there were many enemies. However, this doesn't make you want to give up and quit, but rather meet the challenge given as I did get better each time I retried.
Organization/ Clarity: 8/10
There were a few times, I questioned exactly where it was I was supposed to be going or what I was supposed to be doing, but after a minute a hint option would appear that would lead you in the right path clearing up my confusion.
Fun: 8.75/10
As I said before, there's always something just entertaining about shooting and blowing up zombies, but also times when I was so terrified I almost wanted to quit. Still, the game just has a great sense of fun behind it, not in the traditional way you may think of a fun game, but you'll definitely wanting to be seeing it through to the end.
Recommended For:
• Survival horror game fans.
• Zombie fans
• Anyone looking for a shorter game (less than 30 hours)
• Fans of games with good story and character development
There was a lot of inner debate about giving this game a 10 because although it was amazing, I consider a 10 game to be basically perfect. And although this game did have things like a rare glitch I came across and very minor inconsistencies, I realized that this game has set a new standard for the survival horror games, and in my opinion, it is the best one I've played to date so with that in mind I've decided that it is truly worthy of a 10.