The Last of Us: Review & Recommend | PS3 Games

A quick disclaimer before we get into this review: I am not a Gamer. I don’t know that much about video games, so this is just from the viewpoint of someone who enjoys games. Please no gamer rage in the comments that I don’t know technical vocab, thank you.

The Last of Us was actually the first proper video game I played. If we discount the Sims, and all my DS games (what happened to my Nintendogs???) and Wii games, The Last of Us was the first video game I played. It was definitely the first game that I played that really had a narrative that wasn’t rated 7+. I’d heard about it, like a lot of people have, and pretty much all I knew was that it was a zombie game, and one of the characters was called Ellie. And that, my friends, was enough to make me want to play it. Not the zombies, the character had my name, and so I wanted to play it. I never thought about actually going out and buying myself a console though — I always thought they were prohibitively expensive, and I don’t want to buy a console just to play one game. But then the perfect storm happened. I was at my boyfriend’s house for his birthday (well, this was a couple of months before we got together, but still), and the trailer for The Last of Us II came out. I mentioned having wanted to play the first game, and he offered me his old PS3 to borrow so I could play it (two years later I still have the borrowed PS3). I said yes, of course, somehow fit the console into my backpack to take it back home, and ordered the game online.

I was honestly hooked from the first scenes. It’s very cinematic for a game — there’s a lot of cut scenes, and a very strong plot that offers little room for deviation or exploration. I think the linear nature of it actually helped me to settle in to gaming as a hobby, because I think if I’d started with something open world I’d have been a bit overwhelmed and given up. But The Last of Us tells you exactly where to go, and what to do. The cut scenes really help to develop the characters, and you do really feel like they are proper characters with complex personalities, unlike most video games, where character development falls by the wayside in favour of shooting more things. Not that there’s anything wrong with those type of games, I’ve played a fair few of them since!

The characters, as well as being well-developed, are actually interesting. Replaying the game has a lot of value as well, from a character perspective. Initially, I went in thinking of Joel and Ellie as the heroes, fighting to save society from the apocalypse and, on the first playthrough, that idea mostly held. But after seeing the ending of the game, and replaying it (I’ve done three full playthroughs, and I’m considering another in honour of Part II coming out later this week), you realise that Joel particularly is not that good of a person. All he’s really interested in at the end of the day is his own survival, and the survival of Ellie, who he does come to treat like a daughter. The other characters come and go, and Joel doesn’t seem to get too hung up on leaving people behind, alive or dead. I suppose, really, that’s in the nature of the world they’re living in. I’m not going to spoil the ending in case anyone hasn’t played it yet and wants to, but the ending really shows Joel’s selfish nature, and while the player is kinda cheering him on, you’re also very aware that he may well be making a very bad decision.

The ‘encounters’ are mixed between various types of zombie and human soldiers. The standard zombies are your typical mob kind of enemy. Not very dangerous, not too fast, and easy to take down. Then there are Clickers, the stage that happens after you’ve been infected for too long. Clickers are blind, but have great hearing. They’re easier to detect (they make a clicking sound!) and can be easier to creep past due to their blindness, but they are more dangerous, and harder to take down. The final type of zombie enemy is the Bloater. The Bloaters are kind of bosses, but they aren’t really comparable to other boss fights from different games. They are slow moving, but do a lot more damage, and take a lot more damage. The soldiers, by comparison, are faster moving, but they’re human, so they can be taken down quite easily, but they do use guns, unlike the standard zombie enemies, that go for melee attacks. It is possible to sneak through some encounters without fighting but, to be honest, I’m usually an all-guns-blazing style player. I might sneak up behind enemies and take them out quietly, but I have an eternal fear of being attacked from behind, so I tend to clear out areas before I move on… just in case.

As it’s almost a hybrid between a film and a game, The Last of Us is a great first game in my opinion. The controls are fairly straightforward, the enemies are varied but not too challenging (unless you’re on Survivor or Grounded difficulty, in which case… good luck), and the characters are really engaging. From what I’ve read of the second game, it really builds on the moralistic element of the first game, aiming to make the player feel bad for killing. It’s also reported to be more expansive, with more side areas to explore (and a rumour it might be open world, but I’m not sure it’ll have gone quite that far). I have to admit, the second game sounds like the violence has really been ramped up, so I’m not sure how I feel about playing it. Whether I do or not, the first game will always have a place in my heart as both the only Ellie I’m aware of in a video game, and as the first PlayStation game I ever played.