Got hooked instantly, i finished it in 2 days. Overall a great game, but gameplay's seriously lacking...
-Good story, characters with depth and development. pacing's just right.
-Good graphic and sound.
-Gritty and brutal like an apocalypse game should be.
-Good human AI.
Cons:
-Its not scary enough.
-Story's linear, there're no choices which effect storyline. It doesnt need to be emotional impact like Walking Dead series, but a little diversion'd be nice.
-Combats and puzzles 're repetitive.
-Crafting and rpg system left alot to be desired.
-Stealth system feel rushed, incomplete.
While the demo didnt make such a great impression on me. This game's premiere was awesome. You instantly feel like being in the game's world. The whole world's just collapsed before your eyes, and you'd feel it trust me, very emotional game indeed.
And this quality of story telling was kept consistently throughout the game, never a dull moment. The story while really good is completely linear. Fortunately character's development 's awesome, they felt really real, with genuine emotions, so you'd be able to understand their views and actions.
Graphically, this game's quite impressive, keep in mind that its on PS3, a machine was already 1 foot into the grave. The game has good details despite PS3's lack of texture memory, thanks to good art direction. Environment's rich though lack interaction. But you cant help to wonder how'd the game look like on a modern PC, no more poor viewing range, no more texture pop in and nonexistent antialiasing...
Sound department's great also. Apart from high quality voice acting, this game's really focused in sound design. Everything sound detail and realistic, music's subtle but sound good and suit the actions on screen. All these contributed to the game's realistic asmophere.
Gameplay is this game's weak part. It's by no mean terrible or unplayable but it got repetitive really fast. Basically you go from checkpoints to checkpoints, kill or sneak pass enemies on the way. There're no boss fights, no mini games, no side missions, no choices which effect storyline... There're total 4 kinds of enemies: Runners(just human with above average strength and very low IQ), Clickers(who's blind and slow but 1hit you if you get close), Bloader(tougher Clickers with range attack) and humans( good AI but nothing special). Puzzles in this game's very basic and repetitive too, even little Ellie realizes that. You have to move the right objects to the right place in order to get through, that's it!
On normal mode, the game's easy. Melee combat feel really good but overpowered expecially toward the end. Human's AI (infected 's dumb, they only rush to you) is good when they spotted you, like other ND's games, AI know how to cover, move and flank you. But when you're in stealth mode, they're all deaf. You can strangle their teammate right beside them without detection as long as they cant see you. Companion 's AI has up and down too. They're quite supportive, know how to cover you, help when you're being strangled or swarmed. But they may move out of cover and into enemies when you'r in stealth, most of the time enemies cant see them at all (lol), but sometime they do and its not good either. I myself prefer a more controlable companion, at least you should able tell them where to go, and some basic commands like in Brothers in Arm and such. Okay i know i know, Ellie's a little girl, you were supposed to protect her but its a game, a little more tactical approach'd be nice.
Crafting and RPG elements in a nonRPG game 're quite a trend now, it does help a linear game feel more involving. Though in Last of Us they're still quite limited, and you dont even need them at all.
When i said this game's not scary enough. i meaned when a game chose to realistic portray the end of the world like this one did, it should be damn scary. While this game wasnt shy from any kind of graphic violence and gore, compare to games like Walking Deads series (which's an advanture game) its quite an easy ride. In my opinions, cause of following reasons:
-The companion: Aside from the fact that you got a companion, Ellie 's not your everyday teenager, she got nerves of steel. Thats cool but not so realistic, she should show fear sometimes, or even reactions like covering in fear, run away etc...
-The storyline's too straight forward and linear... Walking Dead series showed what nonlinear storyline can do to horror genre.
-Lack of enemies variety and originality( clickers's nice), after a short while you'd be familiar with all of them. Everytime i get underwater in this game, it scares me. Cause it's dark, quiet and you have much less chance to survive an infected's attack. I scared of the thought of deformed infecteds (which have envolved to adapt to underwater enviroment) were lurking around at the same time hoping they'd show up, too bad there was none.
Overall, i enjoyed this game alot. Almost played it non stop, the game draw you in and doesnt let you go until it ends. But it'd take a long time for me to able to replay it again, its too linear in term of story and gameplay, that makes replayability's little to none.