When it comes to Sony’s first party developers I’m very wary of games from Naughty Dog. I’ve always felt like their releases are highly overrated, and always miss the mark. This has been true since the first Crash Bandicoot all the way up to the Uncharted series. I just don’t like their games in general. When I heard that they were making a survival horror title for the PS3 I was very skeptical. I let the hype get to me, and I was genuinely excited for it. The Last of Us launched to critical acclaim and huge sales. It also shattered my expectations and became one of my favorite titles of that generation. I recently revisited this title, specifically for the Halloween season, to see how well it holds up. Let’s take a look.
Story is a huge part of the Last of Us, and so bear with me, because I’m going to analyze the heck out of it. The game begins in the year 2013 (which is the same year the game was released). Joel Miller is a single dad to one teenage daughter, and is struggling to make ends meet. The game starts off on his birthday. His daughter Sarah wakes up to an empty house, and finds her dad return in a panicked state having run from some unknown source. It’s the beginning of the zombie apocalypse, and Joel is focused around protecting his daughter and escaping from the city. The two (along with Joel’s brother Tommy) load up in the car to escape but Sarah meets a tragic end at the hands of the military. A grief stricken Joel survives, but will never be the same.
Fast forward twenty years later. The world has largely been destroyed. Joel lives in a military zone of what used to be the city of Boston. He survives as a smuggler with his love interest named Tess. The two head out to retrieve a cache of weapons, and meet a resistance member with a teenage girl. This particular lady is immune to the cordyceps (mind controlling fungus. The entire source of the zombie apocalypse) and Joel is tasked with delivering her across the ruined country to those that can develop a cure.
Let’s get some things out of the way. Yes, the plot development is predictable. Joel and Ellie start out the adventure with a healthy amount of dislike for one another, but it’s fairly easy to guess where their relationship lands. While you can largely guess what happens it’s the journey there that’s most enjoyable. With that in mind the plot is absolutely incredible. There are few video games that made me feel like the Last of Us did, and still does. It’s an emotional tale with plenty of twists and turns. Despite the fact that you play as Joel I feel like you see the relationship between he and Ellie develop from her perspective. It’s just incredible storytelling, and if I’m being completely honest, I don’t think any other video game has ever made me so attached the characters within it.
Story can only take a game so far though. It’s the gameplay that counts, right? Thankfully the Last of Us delivers. The game is a 3D third person shooter with heavy horror elements. You’re fighting against zombies, after all. The survival horror elements rear their had immediately in that you’ll constantly need to pay attention to your ammunition reserves. While you can melee attack foes, and be quite successful at it, running out of bullets can often be the kiss of death.
With that said there’s a big emphasis on stealth. You can hold the R1 button to listen, and this shows you enemies within a specific range even through obstacles. You can sneak up on the generic runner zombies, as well as human hunters, and off them with a stealth kill. When it comes to the more advanced zombie archetypes you must craft shivs in order to take them out in this manner. Again supplies are a constant concern. You must craft these with items you have found. If you don’t have a shiv, nor the ingredients required to make one, sneaking past these guys is sometimes the best option. There is a ton of planning you must do in this game, and that’s one of it’s strongest cards.
You have two basic types of foes here; undead and alive. The Last of Us is so amazing because of how different combat is between the two types. While both are sensitive to sounds and will target you immediately when you get their attention the methodology behind their attacks is different. Basic zombies (or runners as they’re called) will smack you around, clickers will attempt to grab you (and can kill you quickly upon doing so), and bloaters will explode and throw scent bombs at you. If you get the attention of one the others will come running in short order. Where things get interesting here is with the stalker. This enemy is the only one that hides from you. You’ll occasionally see them peak around the corner. They’re also good at getting the jump on you. It’s very unnerving and quite different from fighting runners and clickers.
The first thing that sets the Last of Us apart from other games of this kind is its AI. Zombies are obviously mindless. They aren’t the highlight. These shambling undead creatures respond to any noise your character makes, or when they simply catch sight of them. It’s the human characters you really have to worry about. They keep track of when you reload, and strike at the appropriate time. They also try to flank you. Thankfully the AI shouts out their strategies to others so you can figure out what they’re going for fairly easily. Still when outnumbered it can be difficult. That’s why stealth is usually the best foot to put forward. Sometimes I grew tired of this and just went in guns blazing. I love that the Last of Us offers so many options to approach each battle.
I absolutely love the survival aspects of this game. There’s a heavy emphasis on gathering supplies and crafting. Normally I hate this, but in the Last of Us it just makes sense. You find things like cloth, scissors, alcohol, etc. These can be used to craft everything from health kits to shivs and even molotov cocktails. Resource management is a huge part of the gameplay here and I’m all for it. Sometimes you’re low on ammunition for the various guns you find and must sneak past foes, and other times you’re overloaded and just want to kick butt. Enemies often drop ammunition (and it can be found in random places as well) so really either tactic is perfectly viable. I myself used a combination of the two and I think that’s the best experience.
One of the best aspects of the game is in the weapon customization mechanics. You find various scrap laying around and can use this to upgrade your guns. Each firearm has different attributes that you can improve. These include power, capacity, firing rate, etc. Just for this aspect alone I found myself investigating every single shelf, table or all other things in each environment. The Last of Us ain’t exactly easy. You really feel the effect of each upgrade and it truly feels like you’re seeking them out just to survive the next encounter. I can’t stress how well Naughty Dog did at making you truly feel like the world has ended, and that you have impossible odds against you at every goal.
Melee combat is also a thing here. You can go toe to toe with a zombie or human with just your fists but it’s not ideal. In these cases you’re sure to catch a few stray punches or swipes. Thankfully you’ll find a wide array of weapons to lay a beat down with. These include things like two by fours or baseball bats. These too are upgradeable using the crafting mechanics. Like in real life melee weapons break so like ammunition you have to conserve their usage. Also it’s too easy to get swarmed even when you’re armed with an upgraded melee weapon. Again,
Right from the very beginning I was absolutely impressed with the graphics in the Last of Us. At the time I had never seen a game that could be mistaken for real life quite like this one. It genuinely looks like a next gen title even before those were a thing. The draw distance is absolutely insane, as is the attention to detail. Character animations look like something straight out of a movie. All this on the old PlayStation 3. The post apocalyptic world rendered here is simply the best I’ve ever seen in any video game ever. What’s more is that the framerate holds at a steady 30 frames per second. This game shouldn’t work on PS3, but somehow it does. The soundtrack is mostly ambient noises, but it works, and everything sounds great. The voice acting however is straight up movie caliber. Truly amazing.
