When The Last of Us was first announced back in 2011, I was highly skeptical of how it would turn out. From the initial footage it just looked like another zombie based game which was (and you could say still is) the fad at the time. But, the game had a good pedigree behind with developer Naughty Dog (Crash Bandicoot, Uncharted) and as more media came out it would seem that the story focused more on the human aspects of an undead apocalypse with action that looked very realistic. After finally completing it I can say that the studio has created one of the finest stories presented this generation, even if it the same can't be said of the gameplay.
The Last of Us, begins with our protagonist Joel and his daughter during the beginning of a fungal outbreak that turns it's victims uncontrollable monsters. After a tragic set of events we falsh forward 20 years and find Joel a much older and more curmudgeon smuggler living in a world post outbreak. The uninfected are quarantined off in shanty towns controlled by the government and rebels who call themselves "The Fireflies" offer a hope to thoes in the wasteland yearning for freedom.
After a deal goes bad, Joel finds himself charged with the care of the teenage Ellie, who it would seem is immune to the virus. Together they travel with the hopes of finding a Firefly controlled hospital and potentialy discovering a vaccine.
This relationship between the two characters is at the center of the story. Joel has seen the world crumble around him while Ellie was born into it. Joel is disillusioned with life while Ellie brings a hopeful and youthful optimism as this is all she has ever known. On their journey we see these two very real characters develop and grow as they witness the absolute collapse in humanity. The people they meet along the way run the gamut of hermit weapon-smiths, heavily armed militias and cultist cannibals. And the ending? Absolutely perfect.
One thing that has to be mentioned is the presentation. The Last of Us is the finest looking game of the seventh generation of consoles. The faces express so much emotion and are dirt smeared and haggard avoiding much of the "plasticy" fakeness of most human models. Locations of abandoned houses and metropolitan cities over come with decay and natural rebirth have you stopping to admire the scenery. The voice acting is absolutely spectacular from the entire cast and the music scored by Gustavo Santaolalla (The Motorcycle Diaries, Brokeback Mountain) provides beautifully muted acoustic guitar melodies that fit perfectly for the setting.
Despite all this, the core gameplay itself fails to meet the level set by the story and presentation. The Last of Us is a third-person shooter/action-stealth game. The flow is this: watch some great story moments between the characters, move to the next area and encounter a bunuch of baddies to sneak around, go to the next story section.
While these areas of sneaking and shooting are often tense, it is more due to the very slow movement controls of the characters and the often unreadable perception cones of the enemies. The enemies of the game consist of basic infected, who will run at you on sight, further infected, blind "clickers", who wander around only reacting to load sounds, and human foes who are often armed with long range weapons.
There is some fun to be had in sneaking up behind an enemy and delivering a stealth kill but more often than not, a baddie from across the level would spot me resulting in a one-hit kill and game over. And while these encounters usually take place in varied environments, calling for the smart use of cover, toward the end of the game I found myself just running past scenes as fast as I could to just get to the next story point. The gameplay is simply not "fun" resulting in too many deaths without any of the interesting traversal or puzzle solving of the studio's Uncharted series.
There is also a crafting and upgrade mechanic as well, having you finding scraps of rags and tools to boost the effectiveness of weapons or make traps, but the traps and bombs are too unwieldy to use as they usually attract all the enemies in a level on to your position and the weapons have barely perceivable benefits. While by no means the worst action-stealth gameplay, it definitely was not enjoyable.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
The Last of Us succeeds in having one of the most amazing stories of the entire generation. With the character development and believable world at the level of a Hollywood film. But the gameplay in-between the plot is simply too clunky and frustrating to be enjoyed. My recommendation is to set the game to "easy" and run past all the zombies you can to see the journey of Joel and Ellie. Despite all of it's flaws, it remains on the of greatest examples of story telling ever brought to video games.
8/10
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