It’s twenty years after the zombie (oh, my bad ‘infected’) apocalypse, and the world has gotten back into a sort of rhythm. (Albeit a predictably dark, tormented, dog eat dog rhythm). Joel and his partner Tess make a living as smugglers in the Boston quarantine zone, which is under martial law, until the fateful day they accept a job escorting a teenage girl from one pocket of the resistance to another. This girl is Ellie, and her relationship with Joel defines this game. Ellie is a beautifully realized character, and with the usual Naughty Dog flair is by turns hilarious or heartbreakingly real. As the player you can’t help but become attached to her, and I derived a very malicious sort of satisfaction from bashing in the heads of anyone who laid hands on her. The Last of Us serves as a kind of coming of age story for her, as you watch her transition from snarky teenager to strong young woman without ever crossing the line into annoying. Hats off to the artist behind this, because that is no easy trick.
Joel, however, stumbles awkwardly back and forth across the line from audience surrogate to actual character. Either would have been fine, but in playing I found that right around the time I got used to seeing Joel as a vehicle of my virtual self he would reveal some horrible dark dead he’d done in the past or spout an awkwardly heartwarming bit of dialogue, which would occasionally shatter the immersion for me as I had to scratch my head over Joel. Towards the end though, the story gets Joel’s ducks in a row and he becomes realized as the hero in a redemption tale in which his moral greyness makes for a truly beautiful ending. (In fact, I believe this goes on my list of best game conclusions of all time.)
The story doesn’t do anything ground-breaking but that’s not to the game’s detriment. Phenomenal characters and writing can often carry a story much farther than an original idea, and the well-worn path lent the tale an almost relatable bent. (Despite the flesh eating monsters) *SPOILERS FOLLOWING* However, not every post-apocalyptic zombie game needs cannibals, and this trend is becoming frustrating as it starts to pop up more and more in all forms of media. The near moral wrongness of killing one particular group of badies was rather refreshing and exciting… that is until the game played the ‘they’re bad because they eat people card’, which is a complete turn off. ***SPOILERS OVER***
While the characters are truly what shine here, gameplay and combat were surprisingly tight. The emphasis on stealth and survival horror tradition worked to the game’s benefit, helping shed a more believable light on Joel’s routing of dozens and dozens of enemies. You receive a dearth of weaponry, but it’s almost always smarter to save it for a pinch and rely more on sneaking and assassination to move through areas as ammunition can become scarce and switching weapons is no easy feat during combat. Crafting plays a heavy gameplay role, and the system is refreshingly intuitive and easy, with supplies just scarce enough to make things occasionally tenuous but not too punishing.
Battles are open to individual play styles, and any number of solutions can get you through a given area, especially later in the game. You could lay trap bombs, go out guns blazing, sneak around and knife enemies from behind or throw things to distract opponents and then slink past. However, it’s worth noting the game did have a tendency to throw unrealistic groups of enemies at you.
This was bad in a few ways, firstly because it undermined the very tittle “The Last of Us”. It’s hard to believe humanity is on the brink of extinction when wave after wave of gun wielding goons comes crashing after you, with no care for casualties. In fact, the human enemies you defeat in the game are equal in number to, if not greater than, the number of zombies you kill. The second reason is that in a game that came a hair’s breadth from seeming plausible, little things like such incredibly unrealistic odds of survival tip the scale away increment by increment from gaming perfection. This veritable glut of enemies is another trend in modern gaming that’s becoming tiresome. Putting the joy of gratuitous violence aside, games like this one could have benefited from fewer, more difficult enemies that took more ingenuity and less brute force to conquer.
On a more technical side, the game tended to have a bit of a climbable object detection problem which could leave you in the lurch with a trail of hungry undead behind you and nowhere to hide, because the game won’t realize there’s a ladder in front of you until you’ve mashed the button seven times.
One last little qualm is the levels. They often tended to outstay their welcome, stretching too long without changing environments and pulling the exact same gimmick reliably as clockwork. “Well, good thing we cleaned all these zombies out. Oh no! Another band of hunters has arrived and started shooting for little to no discernible reason.” The game’s most enjoyable levels were the ones only visited for short periods of time, like the small town mountain resort, or the handful of wilderness levels.
Speaking of levels, this game was beautiful, hands down. Every character model was beautifully rendered and detailed, the lighting and water effects were breathtaking. It very much bore the hallmark design aesthetic of the Uncharted series, and that is in no way a bad thing. I’ve never seen ruined cities look quite as appealing as they did in the Last of Us. The audio design was also a standout, voice acting was top notch, and the conversations between groups of hostile humans were surprisingly… human, and realistically made them morally easier or harder to murder in cold blood depending upon the person. (But one way or another, they uselessly end up murdered, because that’s kind of what Joel does.) Zombies and hunters had unique sets of sounds to signify their arrival, and different ‘infected’ types had their own range of noises to indicate which class they were. All of this tied itself into a nice bundle of immersion and gameplay that engaged all of the senses.
So, in the end the Last of Us lived up to its hype. While flawed in places, the game also managed to be beautiful and heartrending. Considering Naughty Dog tends towards trilogies, I’m sure there’ll be a sequel before too long. With the first game’s kinks ironed out, The Last of Us 2 could be something totally unforgettable. Meanwhile, this game is something that should not be missed.
