Review: The Last Of Us

The Last Of Us is one of the last big Playstation 3 exclusives, what did we think of it? Well here’s our review! (As spoiler free as possible)

The Last of Us Devloper: Naughty Dog Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Platforms: Playstation 3 Released: 6/14/2013 Verdict: The end of the PS3 era starts with a bang Score: 9 (Does not include Multi-player)

The Last of Us tells the story of Joel, a survivor in a post-viral-apocalypse America, and his journey with a young girl named Ellie a girl who is infected yet somehow unaffected by the disease and she may be the key to finding a cure. The two must travel across the country to find the science lab of the anti-government survivors The Fireflies who have been trying to cure the plague that has overrun the world. With humanity pushed back into just a few quarantined areas in major cites nature has taken started to retake many areas with lush greenery growing on and over many of the buildings. This wildly contrasts the dark, grittiness that has overcome humanity and the sometimes grotesque look of the Infected.

The graphics in the game are fantastic and the cut scenes are just amazing. The detail on the characters in them are the best I’ve seen in a game.

Look at the detail in the hair, the coat, the arrow, Naughty Dog put a ton of work into the small details and these details really pull you into the world and make you feel for the characters. The graphics during the game are still very good, but not quite as stunning as the cut scenes. My biggest complaint when it comes to graphics are the areas that are infested with the spores that cause the plague, these areas are just ugly and often very confusing.

Compare the above screen shot to the one below, the dark, spore areas are just not enjoyable as the majority of the game.

I won’t too much about the characters because it would be too spoiler filled and I don’t want to ruin things for anyone who hasn’t played it yet. I will just say that you WILL get emotionally connected to the characters in this game from the start. Joel and Ellie are great characters and the banter between them pulls you deeper into the world. Ellie will react to many things in the world and they are often amusing outbursts. You meet many other characters along the way and they all are very well developed, both good and bad, and that’s all I will say on that subject.

The game plays like a cross between Uncharted (no surprise there) and Resident Evil but it’s not quite as simple as that. The controls are pretty similar to Uncharted’s controls but Joel is a MUCH different character than Nathan Drake. Where Drake can get into a large scale fire fight and come out with barely a scratch, Joel and Ellie cannot often hold off groups even as small as 4 or 5 enemies in a full on fight. Given a chance the enemies will try and flank you and if you get surrounded your in serious trouble. The shooting mechanics aren’t great but it’s fitting in its own weird way. There are also stealth kills that can really help you get by many of the combat areas. However the enemies can sometimes be very easy to lose or confuse to give you time to reassess your situation. You can distract enemies by tossing glass bottles, stun them with a brick, or craft a smoke bomb to run and hide. You get 4 small guns (pistol, revolver, sawed-off shotgun, El Diablo (a scoped magnum)) and 5 big guns (hunting rifle, shotgun, assault rifle, flamethrower, and bow) and ammo is often scarce for the guns. There are also different melee weapons around, 2×4’s, pipes, and baseball bats will take out enemies in a few hits, and later in the game you come across an ax and machete which are one hit kills. All the melee weapons will break after a few hits however and you can’t just wildly swing the melee weapons because if you miss you are left very vulnerable. You can also craft health packs, Molotov cocktails, shivs, bombs, and smoke bombs and the crafting of items is super important. However crafting items and using health packs both happen in real time, so if enemies are around you may want to hold off on either of those things but sometimes you are in dire need of one of these items and you may not have a choice. The enemy AI varies wildly however sometimes spotting you from what seems like impossible distances and angles while other times not seeing you inches away, they also occasionally fail to notice your cohorts walking around even if they were to cross right in front of an enemy.

Overall The Last Of Us is Naughty Dog’s finest achievement in the Playstation 3 era, it has an amazing story that can over shadow the flaws in the game mechanics to be one of the best Playstation 3 games ever. If you own a Playstation 3 and haven’t bought this game yet go and do it!

Drootin is a writer, pod-caster, and the resident hater of things (especially Wii) on One-Quest.com. Drootin is a total sports nerd and sports gamer, spending the majority of his time either watching sports or listening to sports radio, often while playing some kind of sports game. He's also a HUGE pro wrestling fan and often tweets during RAW and Pay Per Views. You can Email Drootin or follow Drootin on Twitter @IAmDroot or Facebook

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