The Last Of Us was brought to us by the guys at Naughty Dog who are famous for the phenomenal Uncharted series of games. And if you want to go old school, they are the studio who created Crash Bandicoot.
Story & Presentation
The Last Of Us is the greatest story I have ever experienced in a video game. I do not want to spoil this game at all as it is one that has to be played to appreciate. The story centers around a man called Joel who is responsible for a teenage girl called Ellie. He needs to escort her through the wasteland that is now the USA for a chance to save humanity. On their journey they will have to watch out for these mutated people and perhaps worst of all they need to watch out for other humans, many of whom now behave in a horrible and brutal way in order to survive. I have tried my best to make the story sound as interesting as possible without giving anything away.
The Last Of Us has some of the best voice acting you will hear in a video game. This along with the amazing writing is what sucks you into this game. In many ways it is like experiencing a great movie or even a really amazing book.
The writing, voice acting and sound design of the game are amazing. And these are all brought to life with the amazing graphics. I have played many games that have shown a post apocalyptic USA, but The Last Of Us looks beautiful at the same time as looking absolutely horrific. The art design of this game is just phenomenal. I do not see how any person in the world could have anything negative to say about the presentation in The Last Of Us.
Gameplay
The only people who I know who have been disappointed with the game play of The Last Of US are people who went into the game expecting it to be just like Uncharted. This game does not play like Uncharted and if you go into it with those kind of expectations then you will be disappointed.
The Last Of Us is all about making sure that you and more importantly Ellie survives. You do this by sneaking around the levels trying to take down either bad people or these mutated people as silently as possible. These monsters are attracted to sound so you need to sneak up to them if you want to kill them, or maybe throw a bottle to make them go elsewhere. But truth be told on many occasions you are better of just trying to sneak past.
The game just has you on edge the whole time. Trying to sneak past an area that is infested only to make a noise and have them come running after you is exciting, fun and terrifying all rolled into one experience. Joel has the ability to listen very carefully and in doing so you can see where people and mutants are. This ability will save your butt over and over again.
The Last Of Us has quite a decent selection of fire arms for you to pick up, but you will have to collect various items like bandages, water and other things in order to craft items and make some weapons stronger as well. This adds a great element to the game where sometimes even though you want to sneak past what looks like an abandoned house you also want to go inside in case there are some items you can use.
As well as being a story driven masterpiece, The Last Of Us also has a really fun multi player mode as well. Granted the main aspect of the game is the story, but the multi played is pretty well made. As well as this the game will be supported in 2014 with some story DLC.
Final Thoughts
If there is a game to prove that video games are art then it is The Last Of Us. This game is just as captivating as any movie or book. This is the best exclusive on the Playstation 3 and I would go as far to say that it is the best game Naughty Dog have ever made.
