"It's a game so nice, they built it thrice", said Moto Moto.
It’s games like this why I’m glad I bought a PS3 back in the day, It’s also games like this why I have no money.
I can still remember my dad coming to my room and saying "Hey come check this out." He was on our Playstation 3 looking at trailers and he found the one for this game. I can still feel the excitement and goosebump inducing feeling I had so many years ago to this day from watching that trailer. When it ended my dad looked at me and said "That looks like it's gonna be an awesome game! Right!?" I nodded emphatically and smiled. We both knew that this game was gonna be great; and when we finally played it together we weren't disappointed. Not for a second.
I can hear a single note, word, or sound from this game and immediately start to feel the emotion and impact from this wild ride. My all time favorite game series and one of the best stories ever told. Hands down the best video game l've played in my life. And l've been playing video games for 35 years.
The Last of Us is an incredible game. It takes you on a heart-wrenching journey through a devastated infection-ridden United States, a roller coaster ride that throws everything at you until you turn the final corner and see a rainbow at the end of the road. The game accompanies this rich narrative with surprisingly deep and satisfying combat, beautiful visuals, and some of the best god*amn music I have ever heard. The Last of Us might not be a perfect game. But when it plays to its strengths, it comes pretty damn close.
In The Last of Us, you play Joel Miller, a hardened smuggler living in a post-apocalyptic America. The apocalypse: well, it’s a virus that turns the people it infects into zombies. Joel and his partner-in-crime Tess are made to smuggle a girl named Ellie out of Boston, in exchange for the weapons that were stolen from them and… it gets complicated from there. When I started playing The Last of Us, I wasn’t too enthralled. I thought the story was kinda cliche, and I just wasn’t gelling with the gameplay loop. I found the stealth parts frustrating at times, and the gunplay parts unbalanced. Compared to Uncharted , The Last of Us has a lot of downtime between its high-octane moments. Those idle moments were making me lose interest in the game. But as I trudged through the game’s opening hours and into the meat of the story, I found myself warming up to what was being attempted here. I understood the story being told. I connected with the characters and their world. When the end credits rolled after about 13 hours, I shed mild tears.
When Neil druckman made TLOU he was going for "simple story, complex characters" and had a minimalistic approach to writing the scenes, trying to present the minimum necessary to get across a feeling or a theme. That means the story is completely dependent on you empathizing with the main characters and the relationship they develop throughout the game. If It works for you, you'll love It! If It doesn’t, you'll Just forget about It. It’s a very unpretentious narrative thats not trying to 'woo' you too hard except for maybe the ending.
Throughout the game, you will be treated to plenty of conversations between Joel and Ellie. At the start, especially when you are not used to the voice acting and characters’ personalities, the banter between Joel, Ellie, and other characters who accompany them can be off-putting. I found dialogue such as “Stay focused! Yes ma’am” to be cringe at first. But as the game gets more serious, the writing shines brighter and brighter until each piece of dialogue hits just right. The emotional arguments between Joel and Ellie glue your attention to the screen. The light-hearted banter dispersed amongst the downtime makes you chuckle. The exceptionally written dialogue is what makes The Last of Us tick. It singlehandedly holds the game’s story together. Without such impactful and thoughtful writing, the game’s dark and serious story would be left feeling flat.
There are story moments in The Last of Us where the game hits near perfection. It is in such moments that The Last of Us is at its best. We are firsthand shown the hopelessness and brutality of the world Joel and Ellie inhabit. We understand the loss that the people in the world go through, and why their outlook on life is so bleak. We also see how easy it is to lose someone you love. This helps put into perspective the bond that grows between Joel and Ellie. They know how easy it will be to lose one another forever.
It’s a gorgeous game. The lush environments of this post-apocalyptic United States look splendid with overrun vegetation amidst collapsed infrastructure. Whether it’s crossing tiny streams of water, riding your horse parallel to a roaring river, walking through a rain-soaked city, or driving in the rain, each shot looks as mesmerising as the next. The graphic fidelity of the rain, foliage, and other environmental elements are by no means the best, but the game world as a whole looks pretty damn good. Facial animations hold up surprisingly well for a remaster of a 2013 game.
I consider myself easily frightened, so keep in mind this may not apply to everyone who plays this game. In my experience, The Last of Us can be scary at times. But this is not due to the infected’s visual hideousness. Rather it is the accompanying sound design that truly makes the zombies of The Last of Us a frightening foe. The blood-curdling screams of infected enemies make you shiver. Goosebumps instantaneously dot the length of your arms, as your eyes scan the game world for incoming enemies. The screams are made a dozen times more chilling when enemies let them out after being bludgeoned to death by the player. When infected run at you in a zig-zag manner, screaming to the end, there is a palpable sense of terror. The dimly lit environments of certain sections of the game make these encounters even more terrifying.
The music in this game is so beautiful. It sets the mood so well and evokes so much emotion that The Last of Us would be a hollow shell without it. Every strum of the guitar is perfect and every note is so melodious. I can listen to the main theme in 10 years and it would flood my brain with memories of this game. I struggle to put the power of this game’s music into words, but trust me; it is special.
I could just go on and on. I just really liked the little details in the environments and missable dialogue. I loved all the little collectibles and the picture they built of the world. I liked how Ellie grew to help Joel in combat and wasn't just a useless dead weight. I thought the game made great use of its medium by making me feel what the playable character felt. Joel's initial frustration with Ellie, but wishing she was with me in that terrifying basement. Ellie's fear and vulnerability when Joel was injured. Joel's unreserved drive to protect her at the end. It's narrative. It's has a really simple story structure that just focuses on the characters. It uses plenty of tension and opposite personalities to bounce them off each other and highlight their characters.
It’s a game where I’d recommend sticking it out. I know it seems like The Walking Dead or any old zombie story but the ending really, really clicks the characters into place and wrecks you in a way no other video game has. I am incredibly grateful to have experienced this masterpiece in game design and storytelling. The remastered version on PC holds up incredibly well in 2024, and if you haven’t played the game yet, I highly recommend that you do so. Joel and Ellie’s journey is a heart-touching tale of struggle, loss, and enduring hope. And The Last of Us is a special game because of it. It doesn’t do everything right, but what little things it gets wrong are just minor inconveniences in the face of everything it does so right. What The Last of Us gets right, it gets right to near perfection.
10/10
