The Last Of Us – First Look

The Last Of Us finally released this past Friday, and after playing for a while this weekend it’s time for the One-Quest First Look! The Last Of Us has been a hugely anticipated title since it was announced, I think at this point if Naughty Dog does something it’s immediately popular. For good reason though, their games are fun, beautiful, and interesting. The thing with The Last Of Us is, I think a lot of people were just expecting Uncharted game play with a zombie apocalypse feel, and boy were they wrong! Yes the control are generally pretty similar, but so are most 3rd person shooters. There are only so many different ways you can control inventory and shooting after all. The big difference is Joel isn’t Nathan Drake, sure he’s tougher than you or I, but he’s spent the last two decades living in utter hell. He’s not a crazy gun wielding adventurer who is a master at parkour. That’s part of what makes The Last Of Us so good, you’re not an action hero, you’re a guy that needs help climbing up high walls and you can’t be at a full sprint and hurdle over obstacles like it’s nothing. It’s the an incredibly realistic feel, right down to how inaccurate you are with guns.

It’s not just all about how the characters handle though either, in just the first few hours there’s been so much emotion and story, it’s almost hard to believe it’s a game. I remember when Uncharted one came out and people said it was like playing a movie, well this game is making that statement all the more true. Just little things like as you’re exploring ‘safe’ areas Ellie will be doing things that carry over to later sections. They’re just silly things that really have no significance to the story, but it’s still making it a very cohesive experience. And speaking of Ellie, she’s probably one of my top 5 video game characters ever, she’s not playable to my knowledge, but just the things that come out of this girls mouth are hilarious. And with such a dark and nerve racking game you need some humor. Otherwise every time you die, and oh will you die, you’ll just get more and more aggressive and start making bigger mistakes.

The biggest downfall I’ve found so far are some of the controls, as I mentioned earlier, characters do things more realistically, but I keep running into these situations where I get stuck trying to climb or jump over something and get caught by enemies. It’s not that I’m trying to do it to fast, just the game doesn’t seem to like the distance from the object I’m at, sometimes I have to be right on it, others I need a few steps back. It’s not a huge problem, but at times it can result in death and redoing that part. While at the same time your ‘helpers’ aren’t always helpful. I’ve had them randomly shoot at enemies that immediately drew their attention to me while I was trying to sneak, or stand in the way of me climbing something while running from enemies. This usually resulted in a death and restarting that area, which luckily the game saves a lot so usually you’re not losing a ton of progress.

Overall, with a few hours down, The Last Of Us has been pretty awesome and I’d highly recommend it to anyone with a PS3. Especially if you’re into survival horror or stealth games. Just don’t go in expecting another kind of game, this isn’t Resident Evil, Uncharted, or anything but itself. You’ll get a lot more enjoyment out of it that way! And remember to conserve your stuff, ammo, shivs, med kits, are super valuable and sometimes really hard to come by.

Keep an eye on One-Quest for a full review once the game is completed!

Chris talks a bunch on PodQuest each week. He's also been known to write about stuff from time to time. You can Email Chris or follow Chris on Twitter @Just_Cobb or Facebook

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