Is it the game of the year? Yes. Is it the best game I've ever played? Yes. Has it changed my life? Yes. The Last Of Us has revolutionised gaming and will forever go down in history as the greatest game of the PS3 library and the current generation of gaming. This is one of those games that even months after finishing I'll still be feeling the repercussions of my actions. I simply just don't know where to start, there's just so much to talk about! As many of you will know, The Last Of Us was developed by Naughty Dog Studios, the ones who bought such classics as Crash Bandicoot and the Uncharted series. Those who have played an Uncharted game will know just how capable Naughty Dog are of making a blockbuster game and this time round there's no exceptions. Back when Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception came out in 2012 I thought it was impossible to further max out the Playstation's potential but low and behold it was done again! This is a game that takes you on an epic journey both mentally, physically and emotionally and by the end of it you'll be worn out from the remarkable experience.
The premise for a post apocalyptic world is an interesting one as there's a great deal of content to work with in terms of the present and the past. An interesting fact that I recently discovered was that Mark Richard Davies, the lead designer on Enslaved: Odyssey To The West, another take on the post apocalyptic premise, also helped the team at Naughty Dog develop The Last Of Us. Funnily enough I recently started playing Enslaved again and was curious about how much it reminded me of TLoU in terms of gameplay and art style. Tune in next week for my thoughts on Enslaved; it's a great game. The art style of the game is stunning with so many locales bursting with life and colour, it's great to see the post apocalyptic Earth overrun with plants and wild animals. It is certainly one of the most prettiest games I've ever laid my eyes on in terms of depth in the world, character animations and much more. Every area you explore from Pittsburg to Boston to Salt Lake City all feel real and really immerse you in the lives of both Joel and Ellie.
The story and characters in TLoU are the key to what makes the game to great and i'll endeavour to not spoil any major plot points at all, so here it goes! Twenty years after the 2013 sudden outbreak of the Cordyceps fungus the world is a ravaged place and the population is dwindling with the lack of food and water. The un-infected live in quarantine zones but even still it's unsafe due to the heavy military presence and the rebellious militia group the 'Fireflies'. Outside to safe zones are the infected; mutated beings who were once people but now mindless abominations that seek out prey. The story follows Joel and Ellie who are trekking across the American Wasteland in hope of find a cure to fungus and ultimately stopping the plague for good. This is where my description of the story ends as anything after would simply spoil the experience! Yes, I could keep talking but this is one of those games where every little detail, and every little conversation between characters counts and it's something that you should all experience for yourselves, you'll thank me in the long run.
The graphics themselves in TLoU are absolutely stunning! Uncharted 3 for recollection was utilising 98.6% of the PS3's capability with just under 50Gb of usage, TLoU surprisingly uses roughly the same amount of gigabytes but further maxes out the potential of the PS3 with close to 99.5% usage. I simply didn't think it was possible to further modify the in-house engine Naughty Dog was using but they did. Uncharted 2 & 3 saw a great deal of improvement over the first game with graphics and animation and TLoU they did relatively the same thing but with minor modifications to things like frame rate and rendering in order to add more content. But to be honest I can think of only one moment towards the end where the frame rate was a little slow and no moments at all where there was rendering issues. Sure characters may have been buggy once or twice but i barely even noticed it, I was so immersed in the game and what was going on that I didn't think twice about it. Now I don't believe graphics are everything to a game but my god to help in instances like this!
So we've established everything's solid, but what about the gameplay? Well that's remarkable too! The intuitive inventory management set-up and the ability to create and craft certain things really does add that extra level of complexity to the story. Couples with this and the excellent 3rd Person gameplay mechanics makes TLoU a very amazing experience. Everything for me was spot on; gameplay, story, even the music was beautifully orchestrated and added an additional layer of emotion to the journey of Joel and Ellie. It's the little things that I love the most like the character interactions between Joel and Ellie throughout the game, while small they serve to subtly drive the plot and stimulate the player with interesting plots at the same time. I just love it! Something that I'm currently working on is a Top 10 openings list for games and let me just say that TLoU rates high, very, very high! Even the ending for me was gob-smacking and I still can't get over it. Everyone with a PS3 go out and play this game now, or steal a PS3 from a friend! I'd just like to add that I will not be held responsible for any PS3's that go missing, you can blame Naughty Dog for making too good a game! Have fun and good luck!
Platforms: PS3
Score: 10 / 10
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