The Last of Us Review

Single Player: 

The Last of Us is Naughty Dog's Action Adventure Survival game that follows Joel and Ellie as they travel across a post apocalyptic world. Along the way the encounter Hunters (aggressive territorial survivors), Infected, and other survivors along the way. Joel is charged with delivering Ellie to a group called the Fireflies. As you travel through the world and find notes of survivors and just look around the areas you really get a sense of how much has changed for the people that live in this world. One of my favorite things about the story is just seeing how Joel and Ellie develop their relationship throughout the story as they do their best to survive. Now let's go into depth about some of the key things I enjoyed about this game. 

What I liked:

- The Strategy

Being a survival game this game really does require a bit of stealth to get through it. Players that try to run and gun will very quickly and frequently be running low on ammo and crafting materials. This is where the stealth comes into play. Watching and learning the AI's routes will save you a lot of headache and allow you to save your supplies for those times when combat is a necessity. This is especially true in areas riddled with infected as Clickers and Bloaters are able to instantly kill you if they get their hands on you.

- Ellie

As I stated before I enjoyed watching the way Joel and Ellie develop their relationship and Ellie is by far my favorite character in this game. Her sarcastic nature provides a few laughs in throughout the game and she very good about sticking close to Joel and helping from time to time in combat. 

- The Crafting System

Crafting is by far the most useful thing in this game. The game provides a fair amount of materials for those that search areas pretty throughly and these items are very useful. From the Shiv that allows for quick takedown and the ability to take out Clickers from the grapple to Health packs and molotov cocktails crafting is pretty essential  to the game. 

- Listen mode

Listen mode is when Joel can focus his hearing to allow him to judge where his enemies are at in the surrounding area. This very useful for the stealth as it allows for you to learn enemy patrol routes without having to leave cover and allows you to see the enemy through walls. 

- The beautiful environment

Even with this being a post apocalyptic world Naughty Dog has made it look very beautiful. The look of nature overtaking some of the landscape over the surrounding destruction in the peaceful moments almost makes you forget the dangers that lie in wait for you. 

What I don't like:

-Friendly AI

Throughout the game Ellie and Joel will occasionally have someone travel with them for short time in order to reach a common goal. The AI in these parts while not hindering were fairly annoying. There were many times where while sneaking past a group of infected and checking listening mode to make sure the coast was clear that I would find one of the Ai members just running around near and past me like a chicken with it's head cut off. Luckily the enemies only pick up on Joel and not the other's or I feel that there would've been many instances in which I would've been caught due to the crazed nature of the companions. I never had this happen with Ellie thankfully so the mild distractions were always very short lived.

-Upgrades 

Throughout the game Joel is able to collect pills that he can use to upgrade different things such as health, crafting speed and listen mode distance. These upgrades with the exception of Shiv Master though didn't feel very needed sadly.

What I look forward to seeing:

- DLC

 

Naughty Dog has already announced with their season pass that the game will have one thing of Story content and two for the multiplayer. I'm looking forward to seeing the direction that Naughty Dog will take with the story add on. 

Multiplayer:

Normally I'm not one to get too into a primarily single player game's multiplayer. After playing Far Cry 3's and Tomb Raider's multiplayer I was ready to write The Last of Us' Multiplayer off as just another example of games' with tact on multiplayers. Naughty Dog however throughly surprised me with this though as I actually find The Last of Us' multiplayer to be a lot of fun. There are two factions to choose between, The Hunters and the Fireflies and you go through the standard death match gameplay while scavenging for supplies that in game are used to upgrade weapons and buy ammo and armor while out side outside of the game these are also converted into a sort of PDA looking thing that tracks your 'level' or what things you have available to you. Also during the matches the game's crafting comes in allowing you to make everything the game provides you with in the single player such as Nailbombs and Shivs. 

What I like: 

-Crafting System

The crafting actually translate very well into the multiplayer as you can find materials in supply crates scattered throughout the map, enemy corpses and in random locations around the map. This can help a player or team turn the match around through the creative use of the supplies available to them. 

-Small Teams

The small teams in this game really allow for great communication and teamwork. Because of how small the teams are it really requires you to stick close to teammates to avoid being flanked or rushed by the enemy team. This also is most of the fun of it in my opinion as it keeps people from trying to Lone Wolf the match and really requires good communication and awareness from all members of the team. 

Overall the Last of Us is an amazing game that has  a unique story and multiplayer. The characters and story of the game really allow for you to get invested and attached to them while the story provides many moments of suspense. This game is one of the highlights of the Playstation 3 and this generation of gaming and is definitely worth checking out.