The Last Of Us is a Masterpiece (No Spoilers)

So where do I even begin with this game, I suppose I could start by saying if you own a PS3 and haven't bought this yet, go give Naughty Dog your money because they've earned it. This game was the reason why I bought my PS3, it's the only game I own for it, but you know what; it was worth it. Yes its that good.



























The Last of Us is a third personal survival / shooter / horror experience. Now I'm going to try to explain the premise of the story without actually spoiling anything. Joel and Ellie (above) are the stars of this game, you take the role of Joel, a down to earth, tough but fair trader of sorts, who for reasons I won't divulge ends up escorting the feisty young girl Ellie across post apocalyptic America. I'll get into characters a little more later.

First lets talk visuals, this game looks astounding it's quite possibly the best looking game on console. From the clouds in the sky all the way through the city-spaces down to the moss and mold on the ground, every inch of the world oozes detail, rays of sunlight refract off broken window panes, leaves sway in the breeze, water moves and reflects dynamically.
Simply gorgeous, if your not convinced take a look at these in-game screenshots.

Character and enemy models are no exception from this. Both Joel and Ellie's models are especially detailed and the enemy clickers are quite a sight to behold. The below image is an in-game shot of Joel's face, check out the detail.

Next I want to talk about the actual mechanics of the game and how it feels to play. Not surprisingly it plays rather like Uncharted except ten times more fluid and accurate, its clearly the games spiritual successor. The gameplay features advanced enemy AI, as well as optional stealth and scavenging, these three points combined create one of the best survival experiences in any game I've played too date. Being given the option to completely bypass entire sections of combat is extremely liberating for the player as well as rewarding the player with additional loot for exploring.

While on the subject of loot, I may as well explain how the system works.

Loot comes in one of eight varieties each with it's own purpose, scissors, rags, alcohol, sugar, explosives and binding tape are used for crafting items, where parts and pills are used for permanent upgrading.

For example, rags and alcohol can be used to create a Med-Kit, Sugar and Explosives for a smoke bomb, but all creations have components that overlap with each other. The Molotov cocktail requires the same parts as the Med-Kit, this aspect of the system combined with the entire crafting process being in real time forces the player too make tough decisions on the fly.

Weapon customisation can only be done at a crafting table using parts, aspects such as accuracy, recoil and damage can be upgraded, pills are used for permanent buffs to Joel himself such as extra HP and Abilities.

The enemies in The Last of Us come in a decent variety, from military soldiers to bandits, thugs and the infected. Humans come in different roles, some wield grenades, others rifles and shotguns, some with simply an axe or crowbar. Infected also come in a few varieties the most common being the runners and the clickers, the human enemies are challenging opponents as they communicate and have weaponry; but the infected are the real danger in this game, they have no concept of pain or fear and wont flinch or retreat in the face of a shotgun like the Human AI will.

They are usually vast in numbers and will easily overwhelm you especially the Clickers as they will one-shot you on any difficulty. Luckily the clickers are blind due to fungus sprouting from their face and rely on sound to navigate akin to a bat with sonar, they do this by creepily wandering around clicking to map their surrounding hence the name. 

The noise they make is truly horrifying and would always have me on edge when entering an infected zone, this brings me to another point that the audio in this game is top-notch.  

Runners causing Joel more trouble than he expected while a clicker edges ever closer.

This video gives a good insight into what the games all about, it is only five minutes long so i would recommend watching, if the video doesn't work there is a link URL below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-GcQsA9o5w

I know this post is quite long already but there is just so much to talk about with this game.

I want to touch on characters a little without spoiling anything lets just say you meet quite a few people on your journey across America; some bad some good. What The Last of Us does that most games fail to do is it really gets you invested in the characters, even ones you have only known for maybe half an hour or so. 

The way the game does this is through Joel and Ellie's interaction with these people it makes them feel less like some random NPC who's here to guide you through this area of the game, and more like a real, relate-able person who is struggling to survive and has real issues just like Joel and Ellie.

Speaking of Joel and Ellie, their relationship throughout the game starts out quite shaky but you get too see them slowly begin to grow on one another and the interaction between the two main characters always creates interesting dialogue as Ellie is often questioning Joel about the outside world and the way things used to be as she has never known a world before the Infected.

Above is a photo of the character Bill who you meet fairly early on in the game, he's my personal favourite of all the characters you meet purely because he's a bit unstable and shouldn't be messed with.

This is probably a good point to end on, one last thing too mention though is that this game isn't short by any means it took me around 24 hours to complete on hard and there is even a new game plus mode and  the survivor difficultly to tackle.
So in conclusion The Last of Us is a superb example of what video games can really achieve and is a must own for any gamer.