Exclusive to the PlayStation 3 and a masterpiece from Naughty Dog, The Last of Us is a fresh new take on the survival-horror genre that replaces zombies with a literally mind-blowing fungal infection taking over the world.
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The Last of Us is the latest in a long line of hugely-successful blockbusters from developer Naughty Dog, and a completely new intellectual property exclusive to the PlayStation 3. A large team of eighty people spent four years developing the game and the wait has been well worth it, giving PS3 owners one last gift before they move onto the PlayStation 4. The idea behind the title came from a BBC documentary showing the effects of the cordyceps fungus taking over the brain of an ant and producing growths from its head; the developer considered what would happen if such a fungus could infect a human, and the concept grew from there.
When The Last of Us was first revealed at the Spike Video Game Awards 2011, the gameplay trailer showed main characters Joel and Ellie taking on a group of survivors before being ambushed by crazed people covered in a fungal growth. The video displayed the familiar Naughty Dog style of third-person cover-based shooting and stealth mechanics that we’re all used to, along with our first look at the infected. Once I finally got my hands on the game with the rest of the 1001-Up.com team at the GAME UK Lock-in event, I was hooked.
Stealth is the most important approach to take, as ammo and supplies are limited.
The game opens with one of the most impressive and heart-breaking introductions I’ve ever seen in a video game – I wouldn’t blame any adult for shedding a tear or two at the end of it. We’re shown the first hours of the cordyceps outbreak during 2013 and are introduced to Joel, his daughter Sarah and brother Tommy as they attempt to escape the town. Once the intro is over, we’re taken forward twenty years to a much older Joel who has spent the last two decades working as a smuggler in the quarantine zone of Boston. Tess is introduced as his friend and colleague before they set off to find a gangster called Robert in an attempt to recover a stolen cache of weapons; but it turns out that they’ve been sold to a rebel group known as the Fireflies who are in a war against the authorities that govern the quarantine. Joel and Tess encounter the rebel leader Marlene, who offers a deal to return the weapons cache if they smuggle a girl called Ellie out of the zone to a group of Fireflies.
With the deal agreed, Joel and Tess set out with Ellie and their journey begins. It’s not long before the reason for smuggling Ellie is discovered: she is infected after being bitten but is immune, having being in this state for weeks when usually the infection takes over within days. The adults decide that this must be kept a secret because, even though this discovery has the potential to provide a cure to the infection, anybody found to be infected is killed instantly to prevent further disease within the quarantine zone.
Life in the quarantine zone of Boston is tough, those that become infect are euthanized.
The Last of Us plays just like any of the Uncharted games; it’s a third-person shooter with stealth mechanics as well as brutal close-quarter melee fighting. While the gameplay is very much like that of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, important survival elements are added to immerse players into the experience and also tie in with the setting of the story. Crafting is the biggest addition and scavenging for specific items such as scissor blades, tape, alcohol and other materials allows Joel to make weapons and essential items. Finding these requires time spent searching cupboards and draws and turns what could be a simple shooter into a slower paced survival-horror game. I found myself searching every inch of every area looking for items, and this greatly extended the play time but also gave me an opportunity to take in the atmosphere of the title. Some gamers may get fed up with this mechanic and therefore lose interest, but The Last of Us is unforgiving and almost impossible to complete without taking the time to find and craft items essential to survival.
Outside of scavenging and crafting, players will either be fighting other survivors to the death or hiding from infected using the simplified stealth mechanics. Unlike most games, cover can be taken behind any obstacle: simply crouch behind an object and if it’s tall enough you won’t be visible. Joel has an interesting ability called ‘listen mode’ which allows him to see enemies through walls if they’re making noise and crawl slowly to move unnoticed. Stealth is the best option when approaching an area of danger, whether that’s humans looking to kill you for your gear or infected wandering around aimlessly looking for prey. Sneaking up on people lets you grab them to use as a meat shield, strangle them (which can take a while) or use a shiv for a quick take-down. Joel’s backpack has limited space so using a weapon is an important decision as you can only hold three at a time – if you don’t have the items required to craft a new one then it could be some time before you find more tape and blades.
The crafting system plays a large part – without these supplies it’s near impossible to survive.
Ammo is limited and rarely dropped by enemies or found in the environment. Tess and Ellie do throw boxes of ammo a few times, but only within chase scenes where stealth isn’t an option. This adds to the desperate feeling of survival and creates moments of highs and lows; at one point you’ll have more ammo than you need, and then hits a moment of crisis where you’re left with nothing after a lengthy shootout. It’s been a while since I last experienced this quality of survival gameplay, probably not since the early Resident Evil titles. Upgrading weapons and Joel’s abilities adds some further depth to the gameplay, as after picking up enough pills it’s possible to increase Joel’s health or the distance of listen mode. Collecting gun parts allows you to upgrade various aspects of your weapons including accuracy, clip size and reload speeds. A minor annoyance with the gun-play is that you can’t pick up the weapon of a downed enemy as they simply disappear. While this makes sense from a gameplay aspect to enforce the survival characteristics, it does remind you that you’re playing a game and this can detract from the immersion.
The infected come in several forms: runners and stalkers are the easiest to deal with as they are in the early stages of infection and can be killed easily with melee attacks. Clickers are are unable to see as the fungus has taken hold so much that they use echolocation instead to find their way around. The biggest and most dangerous enemy is the bloater, armed with a thick layer of fungus making them tough and hard to take down. Learning how to deal with each type is essential, and most of the time it is simply better to avoid them or take each one out silently. It’s always challenging to get past an area with infected enemies, but it’s better to not engage them at all to save using essential supplies. Another illogical aspect that breaks immersion is how AI-controlled followers act when Joel is in stealth mode; they simply run around in plain sight of the enemies when there isn’t room behind cover to join our protagonist, but they aren’t coded to be visible and therefore nothing happens. It’s almost as though Naughty Dog didn’t know what to do in these situations and took the easy option by making allies invisible to enemies.
The listen mode feature allows Joel to locate enemies if they are making sound.
To me The Last of Us represents the peak of graphical fidelity that the PlayStation 3 is capable of. Over years of producing games for the console, Naughty Dog have been constantly raising the bar for image quality and detail. In this title they have outdone themselves once again with the most realistic-looking environments and characters supported by motion capture performances from the actors, and this ensures players are immersed into a world which is easily comparable to real life.
All the environments are highly detailed with rubble, decaying buildings, wrecked vehicles and constant reminders of the world before the outbreak. I haven’t seen such detailed level design before; far corners of a level are typically uninteresting and neglected in other games but in The Last of Us it’s obvious that a lot of time has been spent on creating these spaces. If like me you tend to search every nook and cranny looking for items, then you’ll find it isn’t such a hard chore this time around.
Environments are highly detailed and rarely fail to impress.
Two-time Academy Award winner Gustavo Santaolalla composed the music for The Last of Us. Emotion is provided in an otherwise horrific game by an acoustic guitar-based soundtrack, that builds up to a faster pace during action or mellows during moments of drama. Titles such as this require a strong supporting soundtrack to help draw the player into its world, and The Last of Us excels at this.
Without turning on captions some dialogue can be missed when in a gunfight or if the player is some distance from the character who is talking. While this adds some realism, it can be annoying to those who don’t want to miss anything. The sound design is otherwise superb: gunshots ring out loudly, breaking the silence and making the decision to shoot the enemy more important than in other games. For the audiophiles among us, the title has a wealth of options to tweak the experience and also uncompressed audio tracks for the highest sound quality available.
Combat is brutal, and the melee attacks are graphic.
My first playthrough took me sixteen hours, which is the most time I’ve spent with a single-player game on a console in quite some time. The story is well paced and doesn’t feel stretched out or rushed, and the variety in levels maintains your interest. While most of the gameplay already exists in previous Naughty Dog games and other third-person titles, the addition of survival mechanics and crafting make this a deeper experience than expected. Once the story is complete, the gameplay is enjoyable enough to warrant another go; those who can’t enjoy a plot a second time may not make use of the ‘New game+’ feature that allows you to replay with all earned weapon and player upgrades.
I haven’t played the multiplayer component of The Last of Us and so this review is based entirely on the single-player experience. Similar to the Uncharted games, concept art can be unlocked as you play along with player models to change the look of the characters. I enjoyed the former the most and will probably never use the alternative models and unlockable visual effects, but they are there for those that want a bit extra after completing the story.
The Last of Us is one of the highest quality games the PlayStation 3 has ever seen and, while it’s an excellent exclusive for the console, it’s a shame that those that don’t own it won’t be able to share the experience. If you do have a PS3 and haven’t bought this game yet, then you should get it right now as you’ll not be disappointed. Some of the best moments come from the story and the events that unfold; I’ve kept this review spoiler-free as it’s better to begin the game knowing very little and to experience it for yourself.
The scope and ambition for The Last of Us is staggering. Games like don’t appear often so don’t make the mistake of missing it.
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