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Blackadders review of The Last of Us & the Last of Us DLC

Cpt Blackadder

New Member

Unless you’ve lived under a rock of late, it’s hard not to notice the zombie phenomena taking over the film and gaming industry right now. It’s very hip and trendy to be a zombie these days it seems. So it’s of no suprize that the developer Naughty Dog, one of SONY’s finest, wanted to get in on the act. I know, I know, ND have gone to great lengths to say these are not zombies, they are in fact “ infected” but deformed humans mutated into a zombie like trance… they are zombies to you and I, and a central part to the plot of the game “ The Last of Us.”

ND, those wonderful developers who brought us the very fluffy and safe Uncharted series, blow away any thoughts of safe within the first ten minutes of the Last of Us. No one would have been upset if ND had indeed played it safe and given us Uncharted with zombies, but to say that the opening prologue of the Last of Us was as far removed from the Uncharted world as possible would be an understatement. The prologue is gut wrenching and frankly uncomfortable viewing, that serves notice from the word go, that The last of Us is a completely different beast, and has an identity all of its very own.

The story is, for reasons unknown, ( and that irked me ) an infection has started spreading across the globe, and you play the part of Joel who is doing nothing more than trying to survive with a gang of survivors in a city that is now under martial law. Joel gets entwined on a mission to transport a girl to another side of town, but, inevitably things go drastically wrong.

In fairness to ND the enemies do not always consists of the infected, they also include humans in the shape of the Police or other surviving tribes as well.

When you start playing The Last of us, it won’t take you long to realize that this is indeed a genre defining game certainly in terms of presentation of a character driven story. The graphics are stunning and beautiful, the audio rich, but the real star here is the script and the acting. The acting is delivered with such a wonderful sense of tension and atmosphere, and is all mixed together with some very emotional dialogue, that it all becomes very believable for a non-believable situation!

But, what the hype failed to mention is the average, sometime boring gameplay. You see, you’re playing a character, in a survival game. It’s a game where every bullet, and anything you can scavenge of any scrap, in your environment matters. Resources are scarce, and because of which, you have to make decisions about how you play the game. Do you waste all your ammo clearing an area, or try the much more difficult and time consuming stealth option thereby saving the resources you have? That’s all well and dandy to have this choice to make each and every time your presented with it, and a wonderful position to be put into, but unfortunately more and more, the AI of the game ultimately makes the choice for you and where the game falters.

You can spend 5 minutes getting into position, watching the enemy patterns, plotting your route to stealth your way through a section. Whilst you’re doing this your team mates run around in total view making as much noise as a herd of elephants! Because you see them do that you think you can do the same right? WRONG! So many times you’ll be trying to be stealthy, only for you to think it’s safe to do something because your buddy just did and, your back to having a gunfight.

Add to this some enemies called clickers, can hear you fart even when your crouched out of sight about 20 yards away, yet if you manage to strangle an enemy infected, just 2 feet away from a clicker they suddenly and mysteriously can’t hear the gurgling noises right next to them! The point is here, the AI is woefully inconsistent and troublesome to get right.


You can indeed stealth your way through every section of the game, and when there are situations where your playing a character on it's own, with no troublesome friendlies to bother you, it works really well. But when you get things wrong, there sometimes wasn’t much of a clear explanation as to why. So out of frustration of not having to repeat the exercise of spending 5 minutes getting into position all over again trying to use the stealth approach, you then start to lean more and more on just gunning your way through, then scavenge for supplies in peace when the battle is over.

Add to the inconsistent AI, is the fact there is very little variety to gameplay either. Puzzles consist of nothing more than finding a ladder or plank of wood and putting it in the right position, normally just a few feet from where it fell anyway. There’s no on rail sequences, some rudimentary boss fights, and the actual gameplay doesn’t really alter from what you do in the first 1 hour to the last. It’s basically one long slog of searching every nook and cranny for items to craft into weapons and find collectables, interspersed with attempted stealth that goes wrong and ends up in gun play fight sections.

The thing is though.. knowing all that, will you care or even really notice ?? NO, not really!

Whatever games you have played before, The Last of Us takes story telling in the medium of a game to such a high level here, it will undoubtedly be nothing like you've ever experienced before, not just this gen, but maybe even for most of the next gen too. Such is the power of the emotions you endure here, you'll be thinking long about the story even when your miles away from your console. Delicate issues of guilt, remorse, conflict, rights and wrongs, and all those emotions that make most people squirm to discuss, are met head and face on. There's no soft option here, no right or wrong, it just survive by any means, turn your moral compass off or die.

The reward for being in this tough world is the sense of satisfaction and relief when things go your way. But then there is also the sense of dread and fear when they don't. Ultimately as a gamer, your taken on so many highs and lows, by the games end, your exhausted, and exhilerated all at the same time. The word epic is used far too often these days, but the last of us, and the experience you'll have with it, has raised the bar of whats possible on a PS3 so high, anything you thought of as "epic" before is now lying in this games wake.


Yes it can be monotonous at times, but then in a turgid post-apocalyptic world, it’s about surviving, and stripping down the characters to their most basic form, where things are indeed very simple. Kill or die.

Technically The Last of Us is a thing to behold. It’s graphically next gen pinch me realistic! Add to the incredible detail put into every part of the game and the cut scenes, is the smoothness of the engine running this all with no breaks for loading whatsoever. It’s a nice little touch with big rewards as with no noticeable breaks you can play for hours on end not realizing how time is passing you by! Very few games can do that, but the Last of Us does with ease.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer, in a lot of ways, mirrors the same issues the Singleplayer game has in so much as, it’s technically wonderful, gripping and with such a refreshing change of pace. Run and gunners need not apply, this is all about stealth, softly softly slowly slowly.. to the point of very campy!

But! When you only give the players 2 games modes, both being a version of team death match and just 7 maps, in this day of age, do you really think that is acceptable? It is the BAREST of minimum requirements for an online game to the point of, as good as it is, why did they even bother? You will get some fun on it, but not for long.

Conclusion

Unless I’ve missed something when it comes to reviews, games don’t get full marks for the strength of the story they tell, and the experience alone? Am I wrong? If I am, then that would mean Binary Domain, Enslaved, Spec Ops the Line and Heavy Rain should have all got top marks too as they are character driven, triple A experiences to, but they didn’t did they? There’s other factors to take into consideration for grades and that is what you actually have to do in the journey from beginning to end, which when you put a lot of hours into it, needs to be just as entertaining as the story.

For me this is where The Last of Us falters somewhat, not a lot, but it does. Sure, I was HUGELY entertained by the experience, the story, the visuals, the acting and the detail. I’ll not forget those things for a long time and it should have ENMORMOUS praise for those aspects alone. But sadly I can’t say the same of the gameplay that got me there. It’s not at all bad, but then it’s not standout either in fact I have to say at times it was indeed flat out boring!

If the Last of Us could be compared to a film series, it would be like the film the Hobbit. The Hobbit is a triple A, huge big budget title, that if you haven’t had seen the previous 3 films in the trilogy, you’d be gobsmacked and in awe like never before. But to those of us who have seen the lord of the rings trilogy, the hobbit, as good as it was, was a bit well…. meh.

In short the Last of Us is a Triple A, genre defining story telling experience, wrapped up around a triple “meh” gameplay experience, and depending on your gaming expectations will determine just how effected you'll be at the end when the credits roll.

Rating 8.75/10

Gobsmacking, genre defining story telling at its finest, but average gameplay interaction to get you to your journeys end.
 

Cpt Blackadder

New Member

So, did you pack away your PS3 thinking there was nothing worthwhile left to play on it as your already on to your next gen console ?
Even if you did remember how incredible the story of the Last of Us was, and knew the DLC was coming, did you think it wouldn't matter as you wouldn't be missing anything much as it's only a DLC add on, and they have never really been that good, right ?

You did ?! Oh dear, oh dear indeed. You forget this is a Naughty Dog product we're dealing with here, the very FIRST story DLC they have ever completed and since when has Naughty Dog done anything half hearted ?

Get the PS3 back out, hook it back up, put £11.99 on to your PSN account, download, sit back, and for 2 and a half hours, loose yourself in an amazing piece of original story telling that draws you in, plays with your emotions in new ways, has stunning acting, superb writing, that by the end, will have you aching for more. Naughty Dog's have done it again, as oh cricky, if you have a pulse, you need to play this!

For " Left Behind " there are in fact 2 complete story threads, both that feature Ellie as the main protagonist. One of these threads is set in the middle of the main game, from where Joel gets injured, and it picks the story up from there in how Ellie cares for Joel. The second story thread is completely new and fixes on events before the main game in Boston with Ellie and her best friend Riley. Riley has become a Firefly and takes Ellie on a journey, which not only uncovers a wonderful plot line, ( that i'll get back to later ) but also stuns you with a discovery about Ellie herself.

Although these two threads don't ever cross, simply because of the time line, the ending of one will explain in some way the ending of the other. Either way there is a shocker of a revellation in one thread that will reverberate throughout the entire The Last of Us franchise as a whole.

Naughty Dog have not been afraid to broach sensitive subjects before and yet again they do it here with style and grace. What that is, you'll just have to play it to find out.

Gameplay wise, each thread has it's own theme. One thread has the normal combat, puzzles, and exploring, as you would expect. The other thread is practically pure 100% story. In fact of the 2 hour 30 minute complete play through, i estimate only 45 minutes of it was in combat situations. Hopefully that goes a long way to show just how much of a story driven DLC this actually is and part the reason, if you enjoyed the original game there is a whole lot more to add here, that any fan would miss out on if they didn't play it.

The combat, what little there is, again works wonderfully well, but it was disappointing in some ways because there was no new enemy types to face. In fact it was only 30 minutes from the end that you got more than a pistol to fight with anyway. The combat isn't easy though, despite the overall lack of it, just expect a lot of story, not combat here.

As per the main game the visuals are stunning. Looking out over the rain soaked roof tops of Boston, or the snowy remains of a Colorado shopping mall, each has so much depth and detail it again begs the question, do you even need next gen consoles yet ? The detail is amazing. Ellie makes snow tracks and her foot falls don't just leave holes, each is imperfect. It's tiny details like this that added together make a stupendous whole!

Again, as per the main game, the audio is also fantastic yet very simplistic, and adds to the atmosphere of isloation in the lack of instruments. Just one simple strum of a guitar is all it takes at certain points to have your hair on end.


Conclusion

Story DLC add on's have never really impressed. A lot of them if not all, have had that feeling of, " the developer ran out of time to squeeze this in to the main game so added it later to make more money ". Not so here with " Left Behind ". Left Behind, just wouldn't have fitted into a coherant part of the story as a whole, it needed to be seperate.

But, what makes this DLC so special is, in just 2 and a half hours, a whole new world and time has been created that is as compelling to witness, if not more, than the whole of the original game. The franchise as a whole, COULD conceivably, be taken forward from the end of this DLC, NOT the end of the main game.

The reason is although there is closure here, there is not quite a finish, and there are questions that still could be answered. We all know Ellie got bitten in the main game, and it's just after that event, that the DLC finishes. There's still a whole load of new story that could be filled thereafter. Add to this the emotion of the story of the new thread is so powerful, you will simply ache to want to know, what happened next.

The crafting of the tale by the genious that is Neil Druckman, the creative director, is so intense and compelling, and the journey you are taken on so enthralling, which added to how new game play elements you need to play, binds you the gamer, ever more deeper into the story than perhaps even the main game did, is remarkable and only those that play this DLC will understand.

You can not be anything else but enveloped into the relationship between Ellie and Riley, two teenage girls, that when you sit back in the cold light of day and think about it, in the testosterone fueled gaming world of today, is an unique and remarkable achievement by Naughty Dog and utterly refreshing!

In short it's a 2 and a half hour, thought provoking, stunningly well acted and written, gaming masterpiece. One can only wish that there was more gaming developers like Naughty Dog, as this DLC, along with all their other work is quite simply, epic.

Rating 10/10

You'll be mad not to play this DLC if you enjoyed The Last of Us. One evening of play will do it, but sit back, enjoy the story, and marvel at the acting. Stand up and applaud. This is what DLC should be like.
 

Haze

Well-Known Member
Awesome stuff.

Might I suggest maybe making one thread with all of your reviews? Something like "Cpt Blackadder's Review Emporium" or whatever you want to call it? :)
 

Cpt Blackadder

New Member
LOl i don't mind fella. It's your site, if you want to then that's cool. i'm just pleased to be here, and hope these reviews are liked by the members here. :)

And i'm really pleased you like the review :) Thank you.

I'll get this out the way first, i don't mind if people don't agree with them. No matter what i would write others will not agree and that's perfectly fine. We're all different after all and it would be boring if we all thought the same wouldn't it :)

I've never seen a review that's been universally agreed with either, just i hope you like them :)
 

Haze

Well-Known Member
I liked your review. It's honest, direct and very detailed/informative. And it's really cool that you can/could handle people that disagree with your reviews.
 

Oberon

, , The Enforcer, ,
Excellent too from me.
But instead of one long thread from diff people containing reviews perhaps a review forum is better? (For Vita, PS3 and PS4 games) Trouble is Im not sure how many people would actually do reviews.Might not be worth it.
 

Cpt Blackadder

New Member
Cheers Oberon,

Glad you liked them :)

Well i'll put them up as i do them and post up some of the old ones from time to time, but if you want to put them in one thread / section that's fine by me :)
 

Oberon

, , The Enforcer, ,
I think keep the seperate,each as their own topic,that way each becomes its own discussion thread,rather than have them all in one long thread with posts from everyone inbetween.
Perhaps we may a review forum,if so we will move them ofcourse.

edit: If/when we get PS4 and Vita game reviews I think we can still put them all one forum,but just add something like: PS4 review etc.
Or maybe we can add prefixes for all 3 systems then poster can simply pick for which system the game is review is for.
 
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sammed92

New Member
Last of Us was ne of the best games I have ever played. Agreed it is based on overused zombie apocalypse cliche, but the story telling is one of the finest...
 

nickjt

New Member
I loved this game and thought it was absolutely incredible. I am a bit bummed as I didn't realize that there was any DLC coming so I sold my game and now I can't play it. I think I will wait until I have a bit more time and then buy it again.
 

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