The Last of Us
The Last of Us was the first game I beat in 2018, and the most modern game I have finished in a long while. Its a game I often see the highest of praise for. Before playing TLOU, I had never played what I would call a modern Naughty Dog game. Basically, I had not played the Uncharted games or this game. While all of these games had some appeal, TLOU was the most interesting to me, as I'd heard it was much more serious and feelsy.
The setup for The Last of Us is pretty standard. There is an infection going around, and the world has gone to shit. Your main characters, Joel and Ellie, have to survive in this shitty world. As an overarching plot (Granted, with much more nuance, but I'd rather avoid spoilers), it is very simple, but this gives room for detail in character story and growth, which is where I think TLOU's storytelling shines. Its not the "zombie" apocalypse that is interesting, its Joel, Ellie, and the characters you meet along the way. The writing and voice acting here are wonderful, some of the best I have ever seen in a video game, and the game's pace plays wonderfully between relaxed, beautiful scenery with lovely, light and soft dialogue between characters, and suddenly anxious, high tension, stressful moments.
TLOU's gameplay will likely feel familiar to anyone that has played, or even seen, Uncharted. Its hard not to compare the two, as they both seemingly use the same core engine for their games. However, TLOU does away with the over-the-top parkour platforming and crazy gun battles. Instead, TLOU offers a much more subtle, grounded approach to the engine, with a big emphasis on stealth and resource management. TLOU is a much slower moving and deliberate game. Luckily, the cinematic gameplay design of Uncharted translates perfectly here, trading bravado and 80s action for survivalist, often horror-driven moments.
Outside of combat, you'll be exploring a beautifully-connected linear world, looking for resources to both keep your stock high, and to allow you to craft some useful items, like knives to improve stealth combat, melee weapon augments, health kits, and molotovs. The crafting system here is very basic, which has the benefit of being user-friendly and not taking away from the pace of the game, but does leave something to be desired, as you'll likely have fully explored the crafting of the game long before its over. I also regularly found myself to be in full stock of craftables, as the max you can carry is low (Rightly, to avoid over-stocking and taking away any worry of survival), but thorough exploration rewarded more crafting items than I could use. While not a perfect system, I think it does its job well enough here.
On top of exploration, you'll also be solving puzzles throughout your adventure, either to help you move forward, or to open a path for Ellie, who often can't explore to the same lengths Joel can. While these puzzles are very simple, they do their job well, and allow more time for Joel and Ellie to chit chat. I would have personally liked a little more complexity here, but it makes sense in context to keep them brief, as puzzling, like gunning, isn't the main goal of the game. Sadly, in order to be sure a good pace is being kept, TLOU has a tendancy to give the player a very short amount of time to figure things out, before another character will chime in and begin giving you hints. While I think this approach feels more natural than Uncharted's Hint prompts, it has the downside of no longer being optional, so unless you are quick, the puzzles will often just be solved for you.
The Last of Us is a game that, when its good, is very very good. I love the feelsy stuff, the really cruel shit that makes you yell at the devs. I love fighting the infected, and trying to work out optimal ways to approach different packs. I love that you can stealth through a lot of the game, or you can rambo shit down. I was less excited about fighting regular humans so constantly, or about the fairly simple puzzles, and wish more time could have been given to infected encounters (More than 4 types of infected would have been cool), and messed up moments. That said, I don't think I would change a thing about The Last of Us. Its clear that everything here is intentional and serves a purpose, and I find myself nitpicking not due to disappointment, but moreso due to how much I enjoyed my favorite parts, and wishing I could have had more.
I'd give The Last of Us a... 8.8-9.2/10 range. Its real good, so good that I, for the first time in my life, played DLC to a game, and did so immediately after the credits rolled. I then went and bought the Uncharted Collection in hopes to find a bit more goodness like this.
Mini DLC review - Super good. Switches between a small group of really great encounters that introduce a new idea to combat, and a very relaxed time spent between Ellie and her friend that will definitely put a smile on your face. The Pun Book alone makes it worth the play, let alone the excellent encounters.
