It’s the game everyone’s talking about this month; the one
that heralded the end of E3 and, amidst shout matches about Playstation 4 vs.
Xbox One, managed to capture everyone’s attention. It roared on to the scene
amidst a sea of perfect 10 reviews from reputable gaming websites and did so
well in its opening weekend, it topped Man
of Steel. This is The Last of Us.
I almost wish I hadn’t heard so much buzz about the game
before it came out. It’s more difficult to be objective about reviewing a title
when you’ve been slapped in the face with the “it’s perfect” stick so many
times you’re expecting it to be mind-blowing. I popped the game into my PS3,
settled down into the dark, and was crying within half an hour.
The Last of Us,
first and foremost, is a game about mankind. Set aside the mechanics, graphics,
environments, and sound engineering. The world has gone to hell and these
people show all the signs of it. Adults
who remember how it used to be and have had the hope beaten out of them by a
world of danger the likes of which have never been seen. Kids who’ve been
disillusioned by the harshness of life and had the opportunity of having a
childhood stripped from them before they could even miss it. Those brief
moments in which the learned hardness of the new humanity slips away with the
glance at a watch, telling of an old story, or spotting of a new toy. And the
punitive situations that remind you why being tough is the only way to survive.
The Last of Us is impeccably
immersive. It’s on the level of Bioshock Infinite, if not more so due to better
pacing.
The immersion assault is headed by the characters and their
dialogue. Naughty Dog has had a knack for very human interpersonal interaction
since Uncharted and that trend
continues here. The stoic and intense Joel juxtaposed against the openly
emotional Ellie creates believable conversations between a frustrated master
and terrified pupil. The questioning of judgment between the two senior
survivors Joel and Tess show you right from the get go exactly what is at stake
and the state of the world twenty years after a fungal infection decimated the
population. And this is all without ever once beating the player over the head
with information, rather taking the more subtle approach of having characters
talk to one another and allowing the player to read between the lines and imply
what they will about these people. The most amazing thing about The Last of Us is not the game, as good
as it is; it’s the characters.
Another important factor to not breaking the immersion was
the blurred line between cutscene and gameplay. They flowed so well into one
another it was sometimes difficult to tell I was supposed to move after
transitioning from cutscene to gameplay. This seamlessness works to alleviate the
problem of becoming aware that you’re separate from the characters by not
giving you firm “play now” or “watch now” times though the use of interactive
cutscenes, very few quick time events, and revealing important plot details
through not only cutscenes, but actual gameplay as well.
If you’ve played Uncharted before, you’ll recognize the
combat system quickly. The game revolves around encounters in which you must
find a way from point A to point B by either sneaking by or killing a number of
enemies. This mechanic is fairly standard by now. Crouch behind a box, sneak up
behind the guy nobody is looking at, choke him to death, repeat until objective
is met. The interesting thing twist in The
Last of Us, however, is resource deprivation and increased vulnerability of
the player.
In Uncharted, you
feel like Superman. A very unlucky Superman who can’t seem to find a sturdy
metal object to save his life, but you feel empowered against enemies. Charge
them with guns blazing, hide and shoot from a distance, punch everyone to death
— it doesn’t really matter. Generally. Drake can get out of a situation with
the guns with tons of ammo or hiding and regenerating health until the next
baddie can be punched out. In The Last of
Us, Joel is as ill-equipped as he can possibly be, at times relying on the
player to find bottles to distract enemies with sounds, or a wooden board with
which to melee his opponents. This game takes place twenty years since anyone
professionally produced just about anything. It’s safe to say resources are
scarce. Bullets are few, enemies are great, and remaining hidden for as long as
possible is your best friend.
The player must attack each new encounter with wit first and
force later. Common questions are “How many bullets do I have?” “When can I
attack that guy?” and “Do I have enough resources to craft a med pack?” And no,
health does not regenerate. You must either find food or use med kits. The
helplessness evoked by scarce resources and dramatically increased danger with
encounters is only compounded by the zombies. Technically they’re not zombies,
they’re just infected with some kind of spore that turns you into a mindless
person looking only to eat other people.
...But basically, zombies.
These zombies are bad dudes, to put it bluntly. Remember Dead Rising? Dead Island? Hell, even Left 4 Dead? Even the bigger enemies
weren’t too big a deal as long as you were fast enough and had enough bullets.
In The Last of Us, there are only
three types of zombies—runners which run at you and have melee attacks that can
stop you for a few seconds, stalkers who are like runners with one hit kill
attacks, clickers which have no eyes and require absolute silence otherwise
their one hit kill attacks will have you cursing, and Bloaters who will also
one hit kill you but also rip off fungus from their body to throw at you.
Delicious. Notice how three of those will kill you instantly on contact? Well,
the only one who doesn’t can stop you in your tracks for just long enough to
allow others to catch up, and if just one of those is an instant kill zombie,
game over man. Luckily, the game allows you to restart encounters instead of
levels, encouraging you to experiment with your strategies by allowing you to
correct your mistakes quickly and without too much of a penalty.
Those small issues aside, this game is incredible. The
immersion is hammered home by the beautiful landscapes. I’ve always had disdain
for post-apocalyptic cities because they’re also so grey and drab and generally
the same color (looking at you, Fallout 3
and Fallout: New Vegas). The
Last of Us takes a different approach to this, having plants overgrow
structures to make it look like earth is reclaiming what mankind has built.
That visual is a kind of allegory for the whole story — mankind returning to
its primal roots when nature reminded it of its place and showed man its
hubris. Reading-far-too-much-into-landscape aside, I thought the visuals were
stunning. In the same way Mayan temples are overgrown now, so too are modern
buildings, streets, and cars. It’s a gorgeous sight and Naughty Dog really
pulled out all the stops for the details in this game.
The sound engineering is also quite subtle. The music all
follows the same sort of theme with alterations depending on the mood and
scenario, but it’s rare to hear it. Mostly, the sound is taken care of by the
environment and audio indicators to give you hints on what to do. For instance,
instead of having a bar on the screen that showed you how visible you are to an
enemy, instead a rumbling noise is heard and if it goes on long enough, you’ve
been spotted. It’s a great indicator that allows for less screen clutter while
still having intuitive information feedback. The weapon effects and encounter
noises all sounds as intense as it looks, allowing the visceral action of
combat to be that much more believable. Believability seems to be a common
theme running through every stage of development of this game.
Verdict: Is The Last of Us
perfect? Certainly not. Immersion was broken too often by both the companion
and enemy AI for it to be perfect. But was it incredible? Absolutely. The game
comes in strong with its true-to-life characters that you can relate to on a
deeper level than most games and really root for them to succeed. Pair that
with stunning visuals, sound engineering that gets out of your way, but really
lets you feel like you’re part of the fray, and a story that’ll be difficult to
top this year, and you have Naughty Dog’s latest title. It’s not often that a
game can live up to the hype, but The
Last of Us sincerely blew me away.
