Stealthy Mushroom Gods

First proper post, a review! How original...

So without further ado, I wanted to get the blog up and running, and what better way to do this than a review of sorts.

First of all, my reviewing style should be explained. It's pretty standard procedure to be honest, a list of opinions that you're bound to think irrelevant and a few facts thrown in to spice the stew followed by a score. The score isn't all important, and the main body of text is where you'll really get a feel for what I think about whatever it is I am reviewing, however, people like scores so I may as well pander to them in order to generate at least a view more page views hey?


So recently I have been playing The Last of Us, Naughty Dog's smash hit of June earlier this year, and to tell you the truth, before going into this, I was a little worried. Hearing about Bioshock Infinite which came out a month or two before TLoU, and then the subsequent backlash, made me fear the same would happen again. But, I waited a couple of months, no real strong negativity emerged so I thought I was safe. 



So lets start at the beginning, that is apparently a good place to start things after all. You play as Joel, a hardened man who has seen too much and that gives him the ability to survive in this post-apocalyptic world. A world where the state is trying desperately to maintain order through force as opposed to 'The Fireflies', a resistance movement committed to fighting for the freedom and rights of the public. You and your companion Tess are tasked with escorting Ellie, a girl in her mid-teens, across the country for The Fireflies for reasons that become apparent as the game progresses. All of this is handled in a heavily narrative driven third person cover shooter/ stealth-em-up, with a nifty inventory system and stunning visuals, oh, and I should mention that you will be fighting mushroom-y people who are pretty much like zombies but aren't zombies because they have mushrooms on their heads.  

The Last of Us has often been talked about for it's opening scene. I should take this section as an opportunity to point out that whilst some minor spoilers will be included due to you know, talking about the game, nothing vitally important to the plot will be revealed, suffice to say, knowing the game has a beginning isn't going to offend anyone and if it does, just get out.


Anyway, yes, that opening scene, it really is perfect in setting the tone and tempo for the rest of the game. Not only does it build up from a slow start to an emotionally charged and fast paced finale, it prepares the gamer for a story that will not hold back. This game is rated 18 for a reason, if not for the violence but for the complex and hard hitting story.All in all the introduction to the game does it's job perfectly in shedding light on what is to come whilst getting us to learn about, and begin to care for the characters involved.

What the introduction doesn't prepare us for however, is the following three to four hours. The way I see this section of the game is that it is Naughty Dog trying to teach us a lesson. Normally there would be nothing wrong with this, it is normal for a game to try and teach you it's mechanics within the opening levels, (think games such as System Shock 2 where there is a simulation tutorial mission, although things have progressed since then). However, the way Naughty Dog is teaching this lesson is, rather than giving us the knowledge slowly, it throws it at you all at once so you become used to how the game will be, and relieved when it is not as full on as these first hours.

What I am trying to say in an extremely convoluted way is that the first hours of The Last of Us are some of the slowest, most frustrating and damn well tedious in the game. Backlash warnings were ringing in my head. I am not adverse to a slow paced game, but after the final scenes of the introduction, it felt like a break was needed true, but not one as extensive as we see here.

The background to the story  is explained to the player through dialogue of the main characters, Joel and Tess, and brief exchanges between the citizens. This wouldn't be too bad if not confronted by two separate flaws. One, there is no break up between exposition, and so some of the genuinely interesting backstory may be dismissed by some just trying to progress as quickly as possible to the action. Two, the backstory is framed by some of the most tedious puzzling going, ladder puzzles whereby you must find a ladder, or a plank, and bridge gaps or climb to ledges with them.

Finally when you do get to the first proper confrontation since the opening minutes, you are faced with a stealth section. You are challenged to sneak through a dark ruined building infested with 'the infected', zombie-like enemies that will try to kill you mercilessly upon seeing, or in some cases hearing, you. After being eaten, ripped apart, chewed on, cut, took out on a date by and probably both married and divorced by the amount of time you will be seeing them, by the infected, things start to get a teensy bit frustrating. The game repeatedly tells you, try stealth, running your way through won't help, throw a glass bottle to distract them, (remember, this is still a Naughty Dog certified lesson). Me being the swot of the class tried this again and again to a fault until I decided to just go for it and leg it to the nearest exit, shooting a good amount of the infected along the way too. I died. However I had made progress. So I tried this method again and lo and behold on the third try I made it, however I couldn't get past the feeling that I had cheated the system. This section was a lesson telling us to expect puzzles, expect a slow and drawn out narrative, and expect not being able to take on all the enemies you face, however, as the player moves from the classroom to the field, things begin to drastically get more interesting.   

These first few hours seem a minor blemish upon completing the game but it feels necessary to highlight the flaws with many stating that TLoU is nothing short of perfection. It is a very good game, no doubt, but it has it's annoying aspects as all games do. However, let's now focus on what TLoU does right. 

Story and atmosphere.

At it's heart, TLoU is a story about survival both emotionally and physically. You will find yourself relating to these characters in a way that not many games allow you to. Many games suffer from the fact that you feel that it is perhaps unreasonable to cut through hordes of enemies with a machine gun and thus it is hard to relate to someone who would do that. However, as TLoU puts it's characters in situations whereby every kill is a matter of survival, by stealth killing a mercenary you will have saved Joel and the others from a grisly death, you cannot help but feel that you would probably do the same thing and so you relate to the character's circumstances. You care about these characters in a way that is hard to replicate in other forms of media because you are in direct control of their actions. 

Naughty Dog has come up with a great trick in order to tell it's story here. Obviously inspired by films, the game doesn't feel the need to tell every second of story as some games do, (often very badly). It will simply cut to a new scene, maybe a couple of weeks to a month down the line and the characters will pay reference to what may have happened in the time in-between scenes, and how they feel after the last scene, but they never over explain it. Instead, they simply leave the player understanding that time has moved on, and so have the characters, and new parts of the story are about to unfold. It allows the player to fill in the gaps where other games would try to hamfistedly fill them.

One small blemish on the story telling however are the conversations between characters whilst the player is in control of the game. In order to create a sense of reality and immersion, Joel and Ellie will discuss what is happening around them, and as you move further apart, you struggle to hear them. Whilst this is reflective of real life, often you will miss what they say simply because you stopped to pick up an item and this is frustrating when the story is THIS good. In the end I had to turn on my subtitles so I could see what was happening with the story and at the same time be able to improve my chances in the game by picking up valuable loot. A small annoyance admittedly, but still frustrating. 

The atmosphere in TLoU is a bastard. No better way of saying it. Naughty Dog have created this sense of doom and panic impeccably. Because you know that many of the enemies will kill you in one or two hits, when entering a claustrophobic building or dark sewer, never do you just feel like running through it as you would in most games, you are forced to sneak about. Often I found myself playing certain levels for far longer than I should have, as I was sneaking and being careful when in reality, there wasn't any enemies around, and this is a good thing. It forces you then to take in the incredible amount of detail and hard work put in to craft this beautiful world, you will have more than likely seen it already but the 'drowned street' section of the game is just stunning to look at. This brings me on nicely to the next section, cue segway!

Hey there good looking.

This world is beautiful! Not in a way that you are analysing the frames per second or are admiring the shader quality, it is just beautiful in the way a Picasso or Monet piece is, you cannot help but admire it. From the vibrant overgrown cities, to the dank, dark sewers, everything fits, it feels real and again, just as you would gasp at a beautiful vista, or feel uncomfortable or threatened in a dripping cave or sewer, the characters do so too. The detail put into the character design is also pretty sweet. When Joel has to swim, he stays wet, if he gets injured, you can notice blood trickle down his arm or stain his shirt, it is just little additions, that sound unimportant in the long run, but do a great deal to creating a believable and wonderfully immersive game. The best praise that I can give this game in it's visual department is that it genuinely feels next-gen, it feels like it would be at home on a PS4 and so I really wouldn't be surprised if Naughty Dog release a PS4 Game of The Year edition fixing a few minor glitches and polishing the visuals even further. 

I am a Stealth God.

This is what I said to myself as I played through TLoU. At it's heart, TLoU is a third person shooter, but it is a stealthy one. Due to your limited ammo, often taking down the enemy silently is the best way to progress, not that you can't run in all guns blazing, and in fact there are some levels whereby you're forced to do this, only things will get considerably harder later if you are wasteful with ammo. 

Naughty Dog have performed a miracle in doing one simple trick, removing the mini-map. The environments you're placed in are often small enough that as you progress through the level, you get to know your surroundings and react as the characters would to them, all the more allowing you to relate to them as I mentioned earlier. This does allow enemies to take you by surprise every now and then (thoughts of stumbling blindly into a garden full of clickers still embarrass and haunt me to this day), but again this only adds to the sense that what you are playing is as close to reality as it can be. Also, in later levels, you are given the opportunity to explore an area before enemies come to attack you (look for an abandoned house near the dam), and so you know all the in's and out's of the area and can feel as I did, like a Stealth God as you choke one guy, before sneaking into the bathroom, taking another out with an arrow and shoving an axe through the head of the final enemy, all of this without enemies noticing your sneaky presence. 

When you have to fight, the weapons are varied enough to keep things interesting, every gun, from the revolver to the hunting rifle feels different and so you begin to develop tactics as to what gun is better in different situations. Hand to hand combat also feels weighty with every blow connecting with sometimes brutal force, Naughty Dog really have treated us with the sound design as you bash someone's head in. 

Another aspect worthy of mention is the inventory system. You can scavenge each environment for bandages, sharp objects, alcohol, all of which you can use to craft various objects. However, wonderfully, often you need the same items for various crafting recipes, so you are forced into a decision between the safety and second chance of a med-pack, to the offence of a molotov cocktail for example. It's just another layer of survival brilliance added to the overall package.  

Scores on the door

9/10

Pros, excellent visuals,
Great combat,
Tense atmosphere and chilling storyline
Crafting mechanics,
You can live out your dream of being a post apocalyptic hitman

Cons, some very minor visual glitches,
Annoying in game conversations,
Those first few hours

All in all an excellent game and one I'm sure will be on many people's GOTY list, and fully deserving of all the praise it has received, all of this without mentioning the so far un-tried by me yet apparently surprisingly deep online mode. However the mis-steps with the opening few hours keep it just shy of a perfect score. 



Reviewed by: Zak Toms,
Played on: PS3
Played for: 30 hours aprox
Mode tested: Single player campaign
Reviewed on: 28/10/2013