(Yeah, yeah. Wall-o-text. Deal with it. Or make yourself a cocoa or something.)
So... you know that one highly anticipated game from a respected developer that has been receiving stellar reviews?
Well, turns out it's a fucking fantastic game.
Crazy world, huh?
So, the story? Loved it. Although it has to be said that it deals in a lot of cliche. For a start, it's the bloody zombie apocalypse. Again. Yes yes, it's a slightly different zombie apocalypse, which is more than most games can manage, but it comes down to the exact same thing in the end. You play a gruff and tough guy with a capacity for violence who is charged with the protection of a young girl. So we're not exactly breaking new ground here.
However, I'm of the opinion that a cliche is acceptable if it's well executed, and the execution in The Last of Us is damn near perfect. The characters are great. They're not necessarily likable or entirely sympathetic, but they're understandable and grounded and multi-layered and just... human and I ended up really feeling for them. Their dialogue is well written and the voice acting is great. (Between this and Bioshock Infinite, Troy Baker is proving quite the talent, although apparently he's been around for ages.) The plot also manages to play around with, if not outright subvert, some of its tropes, especially toward the end.
Speaking of the end (Noooo, come back! When I say "no spoilers", I mean it), it strikes a great balance between bleakness, if not outright nihilism, ambiguity and optimism. It also has the confidence to leave a great deal unsaid without feeling the need to shove it all in your face. It's the kind of thing I can straight-facedly refer to as mature without having to pile on the qualifiers.
The game also does a great many things right in the gameplay department. (At this point I should mention that I played on 'hard', so bear that in mind if your experiences differed.) At last a game that blends stealth with action in a way that makes the stealth feel necessary without making the action just feel like what happens when I screw up the stealth. Fucking finally!
It's also great to see a game that actually tries to make resources, and ammo in particular, a scarce commodity. Personally, I think they could and should have gone further in this regard (I'm hoping that the 'survivor' difficulty forces you to get by on less). Still, they did enough that I regretted every missed shot and felt like a rich man when I saved up a whole ten shotgun shells.
The combat takes the form of desperate, personal and scrappy brawls that happen to involve guns rather than outright firefights. Given the lack of ammo, I sometimes found myself going in with four pistol rounds and a stick and the day was more often saved with a well aimed brick or correctly position human shield rather then a heavy application of lead.
Oh, and the game has a nice 'soft cover' system, rather like the new Tomb Raider. I'm hoping this will be the new thing for third person games, because it really does work better than the old press-X-to-stick-to-wall approach.
Naturally, it's not all perfect. The controls occasionally let me down. A quick note to the legions of developers who are no doubt reading this and hanging on my every word: when I push the stick to the right and press the melee button, it means I want to attack the target on my right. It does not mean I wish to sidestep to the right while flailing at empty air.
A couple of the fights made little sense in the context of the plot and served no purpose but to prevent impatient players from getting bored. (The most egregious instance being during the part where you're following Ellie on horseback.) It was obvious that the developers were thinking, "Oh crap, nobody's fired a shot for like a whole half hour! Quick, throw in some bandits!"
The game never tutorializes this, but there seems to be this system where enemies that have been shot (as opposed to strangled, stabbed or bludgeoned) are more likely to drop ammo. It's potentially exploitable and I didn't much care for it. Also, mid-late in the game you can find a home-made flamethrower, which is kind of OP. Combined with the ammo drops, this could probably let you cheese through the rest of the game.
Lastly, at the end it falls into that familiar trap of trying to make things feel climactic by handing you an assault rifle and relatively plentiful ammo and suggesting that you go to town. To the game's credit, you don't have to, but I kind of resent the attempt.
Lastly, the environments are really well designed, both in terms of level design and aesthetic. The Last of Us takes the Odyssey to the West approach rather than Fallout, taking place in a lush and overgrown world rather than a wasteland. It combines well with the tone of the game. Humanity may well be collectively going down the shitter, but humanity isn't the world and the world doesn't really give a damn.
So, all-in-all, no, the game isn't perfect, but it's close enough for me not to care. If you have access to a PS3 and don't suffer from a crippling allergy to great things, then you really should check out The Last of Us.
So... you know that one highly anticipated game from a respected developer that has been receiving stellar reviews?
Well, turns out it's a fucking fantastic game.
Crazy world, huh?
So, the story? Loved it. Although it has to be said that it deals in a lot of cliche. For a start, it's the bloody zombie apocalypse. Again. Yes yes, it's a slightly different zombie apocalypse, which is more than most games can manage, but it comes down to the exact same thing in the end. You play a gruff and tough guy with a capacity for violence who is charged with the protection of a young girl. So we're not exactly breaking new ground here.
However, I'm of the opinion that a cliche is acceptable if it's well executed, and the execution in The Last of Us is damn near perfect. The characters are great. They're not necessarily likable or entirely sympathetic, but they're understandable and grounded and multi-layered and just... human and I ended up really feeling for them. Their dialogue is well written and the voice acting is great. (Between this and Bioshock Infinite, Troy Baker is proving quite the talent, although apparently he's been around for ages.) The plot also manages to play around with, if not outright subvert, some of its tropes, especially toward the end.
Speaking of the end (Noooo, come back! When I say "no spoilers", I mean it), it strikes a great balance between bleakness, if not outright nihilism, ambiguity and optimism. It also has the confidence to leave a great deal unsaid without feeling the need to shove it all in your face. It's the kind of thing I can straight-facedly refer to as mature without having to pile on the qualifiers.
The game also does a great many things right in the gameplay department. (At this point I should mention that I played on 'hard', so bear that in mind if your experiences differed.) At last a game that blends stealth with action in a way that makes the stealth feel necessary without making the action just feel like what happens when I screw up the stealth. Fucking finally!
It's also great to see a game that actually tries to make resources, and ammo in particular, a scarce commodity. Personally, I think they could and should have gone further in this regard (I'm hoping that the 'survivor' difficulty forces you to get by on less). Still, they did enough that I regretted every missed shot and felt like a rich man when I saved up a whole ten shotgun shells.
The combat takes the form of desperate, personal and scrappy brawls that happen to involve guns rather than outright firefights. Given the lack of ammo, I sometimes found myself going in with four pistol rounds and a stick and the day was more often saved with a well aimed brick or correctly position human shield rather then a heavy application of lead.
Oh, and the game has a nice 'soft cover' system, rather like the new Tomb Raider. I'm hoping this will be the new thing for third person games, because it really does work better than the old press-X-to-stick-to-wall approach.
Naturally, it's not all perfect. The controls occasionally let me down. A quick note to the legions of developers who are no doubt reading this and hanging on my every word: when I push the stick to the right and press the melee button, it means I want to attack the target on my right. It does not mean I wish to sidestep to the right while flailing at empty air.
A couple of the fights made little sense in the context of the plot and served no purpose but to prevent impatient players from getting bored. (The most egregious instance being during the part where you're following Ellie on horseback.) It was obvious that the developers were thinking, "Oh crap, nobody's fired a shot for like a whole half hour! Quick, throw in some bandits!"
The game never tutorializes this, but there seems to be this system where enemies that have been shot (as opposed to strangled, stabbed or bludgeoned) are more likely to drop ammo. It's potentially exploitable and I didn't much care for it. Also, mid-late in the game you can find a home-made flamethrower, which is kind of OP. Combined with the ammo drops, this could probably let you cheese through the rest of the game.
Lastly, at the end it falls into that familiar trap of trying to make things feel climactic by handing you an assault rifle and relatively plentiful ammo and suggesting that you go to town. To the game's credit, you don't have to, but I kind of resent the attempt.
Lastly, the environments are really well designed, both in terms of level design and aesthetic. The Last of Us takes the Odyssey to the West approach rather than Fallout, taking place in a lush and overgrown world rather than a wasteland. It combines well with the tone of the game. Humanity may well be collectively going down the shitter, but humanity isn't the world and the world doesn't really give a damn.
So, all-in-all, no, the game isn't perfect, but it's close enough for me not to care. If you have access to a PS3 and don't suffer from a crippling allergy to great things, then you really should check out The Last of Us.
