In the first ten minutes I watched as Houston, Texas and the surrounding area succumbed to the outbreak of a fungal disease. Bedlam grows as a man, his brother and his daughter try to frantically escape. The Last of Us deftly connects the player emotionally to the characters and does not disappoint. While talking to another gamer, who i will now dub The Trophy Hunter, it was said that this “is a game that depicts two of the most memorable and believable character you will ever come across.” Joel loses what is most important to him within the first chapter establishing where he goes from there in the 20 years span between the first and second chapters. Naughty Dog, famous for the uncharted series, departs from the unrealistic punishment that Drake endures throughout those games. In The Last of Us jumping isn’t really an option and the movement is slower to be more like how a physically fit 50 year old would move.
Not often does a game come along that is as much fun to play. While playing sometimes I would purposely die just so that I could try something else to get past whatever enemies I came across. Completely avoiding combat is usually an option and the sneaking system allows the player if caught to escape from combat and after an amount of time get back into the shadows. Enemies also change their behavior once you are caught and will spread out and look, allowing for fluid cat and mouse tactics to actually work. TLOU also limits the number of supplies you can carry and bullets are very hard to come across. With a low inventory the game forces ingenuity on the part of the player. It is completely satisfying to grab and strangle a few enemies and when two are left grabbing one as a hostage and while they are being used as a shield shooting another. The Trophy Hunter used the words “masterful” and “top notch” when commenting on the dialogue and voice acting. There is never a moment in this game where I shudder at a lousy voice actor, New Vegas I’m looking at you. Another thing about TLOU is the level of detail put into found object like letters and notes. Everything is hand written, with the option to read it in normal text, but it makes me want to find more of them just to see because they provide more background into the world this is set in.
The Trophy Hunter also said that in multiplayer you cannot go all Rambo and survive. Multiplayer relies on teamwork and I personally have never been more frustrated when playing on a lousy team. Kills and item creation transfer to food items when a game is over and applied to something completely unique in multiplayer. At the start of multiplayer you can choose a faction and build up survivors. While waiting in lobby you will be updated with what your survivors are doing and if don’t get enough points in a round the survivor become first sick or hungry and can die. I was doing pretty bad for a while and was updated with one of my survivors thinking of eating the cat. Multiplayer is 4 on 4 combat and I would rcommend playing single player to get acclimated to the speed and style of the weapons. The only thing I found lacking with the game was that there was not an option for PvE with the diseased clickers.
The single player campaign is lengthy and takes a fair amount of time to accomplish. Luckily there is a new game plus option that can be used to completely level up the characters. The amount of items that can be collected in one playthrough will not be enough to do this and requires another play through. The game is linear without the ability to change anything but it is written and acted so well that a lack of role playing doesn’t diminish the gameplay. This game is a keeper for me, it is story driven and I had hopes for some dlc’s to add a PvE multiplayer but I’m not going to hold my breath. It would suggest that anyone who enjoyed the Uncharted series would enjoy this game.
