Last Of Us Review: I Swear

(Spoilers)

I'm gonna get straight into it: starting with My Big 4. Graphics / Art style is phenomenal in my opinion. There are times when I'm watching a cutscene and totally forget what is happening and just am amazed that the fidelity and sheer art on display. On my display, I should say. Incredible graphics, timeless art style, I love it.

The story is top notch. Again, like Final Fantasy Tactics, not as much of an action-packed thrill ride as I prefer, but nonetheless well paced, dramatic, and thoroughly emotional. The huge gut punch at the beginning of the game comes out of nowhere and is completely unexpected. From that point on, you can put together how Joel Miller will live the remainder of his life. Only out for himself, once he is settled, he can then take care of who he is with (if he feels like it). Joel never once put Tess's or Marlene's needs ahead of his own, Henry and Sam taught Joel that he had room in his life for other people, and until he met Ellie and took responsibility of her, Joel was the same selfish survivor he has been since Sarah. Tommy then taught Joel he really wanted Ellie in his life, and Ellie changed him. She didn't revert Joel back to his pre-end of the world self, but he was returned to the more caring, fatherly protector. Tess teaches Joel to trust, Marlene teaches Joel to care (not in the way you're probably thinking though), and Ellie teaches Joel that people are what is important. The way Joel is though, especially after what happened to Sarah, made him the worst possible person to make the choice at the end of the game. Joel, the way his is and the way he thinks, would NEVER willingly give over Ellie to be killed to save anyone. Not all of mankind, not his mother, not himself, not anyone. Joel was the wrong person to make that decision for everyone else, and yet perfectly understandable from his perspective and might I say, even the correct choice to make for Ellie. Good stuff.

Constant twists and turns and long and lingering tedium, mixed with a slight anxiety of being heard by clickers or seen by bandits at any moment gives the entire game a unique feeling in terms of mood. That unique feeling is coupled with moments of complete insanity. Fist fights and gun fights in this game are so intense! The game steers you towards sneaking past or avoiding them, but they are so fun, I for one can't stay away for long.

Gameplay is superb. Plain and simple. The controls are simple and intuitive, there is plenty of feedback visually, sonically, and through the controller used to play the game believe it or not. I'm not used to that last one and that part was interesting. Very Tomb Raider-y or Uncharted-y style of gameplay, the Last of Us is more about slow constant movements followed by super intense fight sequences more than agility and mobility like most 3rd person games like this are, which is unfamiliar but very cool. Nothing felt off during the game other than the turning speed when using firearms was a little slow. That slowness aided in precision shooting though, so I don't want to complain too loudly about that. The bloaters are too tough and are bullet sponges.... That's really all the nitpicks, everything is good. Very fun to play, however the difficulty is real, so be ready to try different strategies. Very tough game, but it feels great to beat 3 infected down in a row with just the knuckles. Best fist fights I've seen in a game in quite a while.

That just leaves soundtrack and audio design. Very quickly, the soundtrack is on the bad side of "ok" and the audio design is simply wonderful. Review over. Just kidding. Every song except the song playing during the credits is good open-mic level or bad professional musician level of writing and playing. Every song is professionally recorded, I can say that, so every song you hear is the best version possible of those songs. The problem is the songs aren't that great. Sound design of the game itself on the other hand is pretty freaking great. At no point in the game was I taken out of the moment by a terrible sounding effect. Footsteps sound great all the way up to punching fools in the face sounds great and is at such a high level of quality that couldn't stop playing this title for weeks just so I could hear it. That doesn't happen much anymore for me, so that's high praise coming from me. To sum up, the intense nature of the story beats and the downright brutal fight sequences didn't match with the "alone in my room with my acoustic" vibe of the songs here. The in-game sounds are world class though.

Now, about the Left Behind expansion. I can sum everything up in 1 sentence: "More of the same, Ellie is gay." Those are the two things you didn't know. Two things you did know already, Ellie got bitten and Ellie saved Joel during the winter. We know that already at this point in the story and the whole DLC was just sorta dull. Didn't need to be there, nobody gives a crap that Ellie is gay or Riley for that matter, and we knew Joel survived because in the main game he survived. Not great, could have been better, then again you could have left that out entirely. Or.... left it .... behind.... Ok, review over now, for real.