The Last Of Us, Is It Worth Its Salt?

Let me start out by saying that The Last Of Us (a game about a zombie outbreak) is no perfect game, but the story, and how each part of the story is laid out makes this game close to being perfect. The game has it's faults, one of them being the game mechanics, where Joel sometimes feels like a stiff moving board walking about the screen. But the story is so engaging that, even this fault becomes more of an after thought, and starts feeling more like a mannerism of Joel's (and sometimes other characters) then a fault in the game. Which again speaks to how good this game really is. The next fault I have with the game is more of a personal one, which is the language. Now you can say "hey, the game does warn you about the strong language" but it's not that I particularly mind bad/strong language it's just sometimes they use it so overtly and so frequently that it feels a little too much or sometimes that it is something cool for a fourteen year old to do (which, in my opinion its not). But leave those two faults behind and what The Last Of Us offers you is something special. A game you can't walk away from once you've started.

Now developer Naughty Dog has a way of designing their games to always make you feel like you're apart of the story, and that you really have something at stake with their character's. I don't know many games that after you're done playing them for the day, your still thinking about them and the predicaments you left your character in. In fact the top five games that I can think of 3 of them belong to Naughty Dog's Uncharted series, one of them to The Last Of Us, and the last one belongs to Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain and am not listing those in any particular order. But it does speak volumes on how much they put in to their character development that I feel like a character's life hinges on me making the right decision. In the case of The Last Of Us, do I have enough material to get Joel and Ellie out alive. 

Most games in this past decade have been really big on automatically regenerating your playable character's health. Some say it is a way of rewarding players for taking risk, I on the other hand feel like there are ways of rewarding risk takers while penalizing foolish gameplay. I can get into a whole thing about how most games don't usually get it right on how to balance how quickly a character rejuvenating, especial in response to the NPC's/COM's player who don't usually have the same magically regeneration power as the playable character. But The Last Of Us does not take a automatic regeneration approach to their game. If you hurt your character Joel then your responsible for fixing him. For a survivor game (and to be honest any game no matter what genre) this is key in making every decision have weight to it. But The Last Of Us takes it one step farther by saying not only are your responsible for your character health but you have to find the items to heal him, and it won't be a quick fix, encouraging players to not heal themselves in dangers situation because it will take time to bandage yourself up. The Last of Us doesn't only take that approach with Joel's health, but it also does it with its weapons, requiring you to find your own bullets, make your own molotov, shiv and anything else you use. It makes every item you find in the game whether laying on the ground or on a corpse important. Add the engaging story that keeps diving home the point that humanity is on its last leg and you hold the hope for humanities future and you will start to see why this game is special and a must play.

We haven't even gotten to the graphics of the game or the sound. Both push the PS3 past anything we have ever seen. The lighting effect, and even the sound of a leaf  hitting the ground is spot on. There is no frame or sound that pulls you out of the game, The graphics and sound surrounding this game only serve to push you farther into the game. Hearing the sound of a clicker (which is a type of zombie) makes your heartbeat increase a uptake. There are times when you have to remind yourself its just a game, and that is just because Naughty Dog's design and sound team poured there hearts into this game. And they deserve due credit. So when you buy this game, which if own a PS3 you literally have to, take time to pay attention to the names rolling down the final credits. 

Below is a video of my first impressions of The Last Of Us, and I can truly say it pales in comparison to what this whole game has to offer.In the comment box feel free to let me know how you felt about the last of us. And if you would want a let's Play/Walkthrough/Tips for the game