The Hype was well justified with another classic game from the masters at Naughty Dog!
You play as Joel, a man who was alive during the beginning of the outbreak and experiences major loss and sacrifice from the word go. 20 years on he is jaded man who does all that he needs to survive and nothing more. Through the course of his role as a smuggler in the new, diseased world he comes across the rebel group known as the Fireflies. He is tasked with smuggling a young girl, Ellie, out of quarantined Boston and to the Fireflies beyond the quarantine zone. Needless to say that the plan doesn't go the way it is supposed to and what ensues is a journey between the two characters that spans the better part of a year as the pair travel the country to reach the Fireflies. I don't want to give too much away as the real joy of this game is experiences the trials and tribulations of these two as you go along.
In essence, peeling back the story, this is a Survival Horror game. In terms of mechanics it doesn't really do anything that re-invents the genre, it just takes the best mechanics from the games that have come before it as well as adding some trademark Naughty Dog elements made known from the Uncharted franchise to make a near perfect Survival Horror experience. You take enemies head on, you stealth kill, you hide, you run and all the things you can think of to not only make it to the next divine cut scene and survive.
The only flaw I found in this game was the AI lacking in the more tense moments of the game. There are times where you are quietly moving to hide from the ever terrifying Clickers and then you hear Ellie or someone else coming along for the ride, moving loudly and bumping into enemies who are not batting an eyelid. We saw Bioshock Infinite this year cope perfectly having an AI companion that does not impede you so it is a little disappointing to see this problem pop up so often. But as you can imagine while annoying at the time, this hardly makes the experience a deal breaker.
I own both a 360 and a PS3 and have no qualms with saying that I play most of my games on 360, I own 40 360 games compared to my measly 3 games on PS3. My advice for all those who own a PS3, get this game right now. And for fan boys of Xbox, jump over to the other side for a week or two, this game will make it worth your while.
With all the issues people are bringing up about the next generation of consoles, this game proves there is still life in these consoles and that a PS4 should be a wise investment if Naughty Dog release games this good every couple of years.
All I ask now is that they never make another Last of Us game, this was as near to perfect as they are going to get and these two characters deserve peace, leave the game-verse fulfilled that this is a complete story that needs no continuation.