The Last of Us Part I (2022)

As a fairly new PlayStation owner, I have no comparison to TLOU on PS5 compared to the original launch on PS3. For all I know, this is a PS5 exclusive. Bearing that in mind, I was very excited to finally play this masterpiece, 10/10 blockbuster game that I have been hearing so much about for the last 11 years. And while the game is quite good, I feel like maaaaayyybe its a little bit over-hyped.

Infection spreads across millions, society collapses, people endure. We have heard iterations of this story before, and in TLOU, it just so happens you might have the cure the world is looking for. So the story goes, and takes you on a wild adventure across the USA through the dangers of infected humans, and just garbage humans living on the fringe scraps of what society has left behind. The story is actually very compelling and emotional, and there was not a moment of slack. I always knew that something was going to happen, however I never exactly knew WHAT the encounter would be. The game does a very good job of keeping you guessing. It also does a very good job of respecting your time. For example, in multiple instances the characters will say something like "well, we got some travelling to do" (they say it more interesting than this) and the game will skip past all the A to B walking/driving and take you ALMOST close enough to where you are going, but not quite, where you will pick up again.

Where the story severely lacks is in any background depth, mainly of Joel and his relationships. "Hey Bill, you owe be big time. You better do this super risky thing for me!" Bill says "yeah you're right Joel. I owe you big time." And NOTHING. Not another, single word is spoken about what Joel ever did for Bill, and this happens repeatedly. Tess - Everything we have been through. Ellie - Joel tell me about your past. Tommy - Its good to see you brother. I never thought we would talk again after last time. But there is ZERO follow up, just brooding, deep Joel and his thoughts.

Like most survival styles games, you have to pick up materials and ammo for some very light crafting. I feel this is a key mechanic in games like this, where you have to prioritize skill upgrades and weapons, but it felt like a time padding having to search every room after every encounter trying to find weapon parts and ammo. I get it, you want it to feel organic like some leftover rags are left behind in a house, or some random parts are in a shed, but it took a lot of time to walk around to grab things and it feels necessary.

Surprisingly for how organic the and hand crafted the world feels with the item collection and light puzzle aspects, the combat feels very scripted and rigid. The combat itself is fine, and the sneaking and gunplay is totally acceptable. The problem is, every encounter feels completely instanced and forced. You will find yourself in an area and encounter some enemies, human or infected, and suddenly everything is like a mini sneaking arena in a scripted area of cover and bricks/bottles laying around everywhere. And you do this, again and again, and again, sneak around and kill everything then loot. I think in most instances, there are ways to sneak through and not kill anything, but if you trigger an enemy, you are in for a firefight and likely have to restart the entire encounter.

The Last of Us is like an interactive movie, heavy on the interaction, with pretty decent screenplay. However, at the end of the day I can't help but feel that I could have watched a YouTube long play and had a very similar experience.

1. Absolutely no HORROR or SCARY suspenseful moments in this game.
2. It's basically a more grounded version of Uncharted with fast running enemies
3. Not optimized well for PC.
4. The storyline and characters are what make this game worth experiencing

I still pick Lee and Clementine over Ellie and Joel but I was more impressed by the "cinematic cutscenes" and arcs of the characters than the actual gameplay. A great technical achievement in cinematic storytelling while I didn't love it like everyone else I sure was entertained and had fun!

7.5/10

Roll Credits?: Yes

Surprised/Let Down/As Expected: Surprised

Favorite Mechanic or Narrative Moment: Typically shy away from AAA titles like this, but I was surprised at how enjoyable and well-paced the game was as a whole. No individual mechanic stands out, because it felt like the intention was for your scavenging, story, stealth, and regular combat scenarios to naturally bleed into each other. They all serve a purpose and play off the rest to make a cohesive whole.

The walk-and-talk segments in this game feel less obtrusive than other games from this era, because you're also occupied with looking for supplies at the same time. It rarely gives that feeling that you want them to just get on with it so you can get back to the action. All the non-combat moments actually feel good as a reprieve from the action as opposed to a forced break you can't wait to get through.

Least Favorite Thing: As with a lot of cinematic action games, I wasn't impressed with the responsiveness of its controls and occasional lack of clarity on how systems are interacting with each other. It wouldn't always be clear when you're able to grab someone or how priorities work for things like melee sequences. It works well for this type of game, but I tend to get distracted by things like this regardless.

The PC port also had some wonky settings to deal with, but ended up running well enough in the end.

The Last of Us es una historia de violencia, de pérdida y de personas rotas ante un mundo derrumbado. Serie y videojuego han contribuido al género "zombie" presentando una historia novedosa en lo que a brutalidad y desesperanza se refiere. Los seres humanos son capaces de cualquier cosa por sobrevivir y conservar lo que es suyo, incluso capaces de condenar a toda la humanidad.

Las mecánicas transmiten esa sensación de violencia incómoda e indefensión, es adictivo y desafiante sobrevivir con pocos recursos y en altas dificultades. La exploración es ciertamente mínima, pero los pequeños momentos de tranquilidad con Ellie o unas historias de supervivientes que por fin tienen algo de sabor nos endulzan un poco el escenario.

No podemos no hacer mención al horrible port que en 20 horas me ha cerrado 9 veces el juego, a veces en situaciones clave, o las texturas que parecen de plomo de lo que tardan en cargar. Como tampoco que me parece de vergüenza tener que ponerlas en medio con un 3080. Espero que los que vengan detrás puedan jugarlo como merece.

A pesar de este sinsabor en lo técnico, he esperado 10 años para jugar The Last of Us en PC y ha merecido la pena esperar, pese a conocer la historia vivirla ha sido increíble. Ojalá la Parte II salga pronto y en mejores condiciones.

I tried The Last of Us once years ago on the PS3. Though I liked the opening, I couldn't get sucked into the broader story and wasn't feeling the gameplay at all. This new version's changes don't reimagine the game at its core, but were enough to make it work for me. This time I could get immersed and enjoy an enhanced take on what the game does right, and not get bogged down by things that don't work for me.

The opening represents an early peak of one type of moment that this game does exceptionally well. The harsh world these characters live in can often totally blindside you, and it's not stopping right away to let you react or grieve or plan ahead. The patiently-told story of a pile-on of sudden unprocessed trauma leads to powerful character moments.

Pacing and structure here feel perfectly aligned with the brutal story and setting. Even when the actual plot becomes a series of detours and dead ends, it avoids the boredom of a game like Uncharted 3's middle act. It constantly keeps up interesting character development and unpredictable turns. It ends very well too, in a complicated conclusion that you may not expect. I also never felt overly weighed down by pain and misery—it's pretty well-balanced for such a dark game.

The visual update in this new version is a dramatic change. The ambiance and immersion in the environments is excellent. Great updates to lighting, texture detail, and weather effects. Facial animation and detail are some of the most believable and impactful in any game on the market. These improvements don't reinvent the wheel—after all, the game already worked its magic for loads of people back in 2013. But it brings great parts of the game like the character writing, voice acting, cutscene direction, and locations to the next level.

I generally don't enjoy Naughty Dog's action/stealth gameplay very much. This is another area where the new version does not overhaul anything major, but breaks down barriers to appreciating the good parts. With a giant list of customizations, I was able to tweak combat much more to my liking and enjoy the very solid enemy encounters. Unlike Uncharted, I'll actually fondly remember a lot of TLoU's encounter design, with even a boss fight later on that I loved. Novel concepts.

On paper, Naughty Dog gives their games a good balance between light exploration, more involved traversal, combat, storytelling, and puzzles. It keeps the level of intensity varied and keeps the game from feeling stagnant. The problem here is that they don't seem to know how to fill the sections based on puzzles and traversal in a game where you're not Nathan Drake anymore.

These parts are very boring and pervasive. Slowly dragging around dumpsters, ladders, crates, carts, planks, and more to get to something, over and over and over. (Sometimes even while swimming—yay!) Mashing buttons to move this or that out of the way. Helping someone up on to a ledge and waiting for them to open something. Slowly searching giant houses to pick up a ton of little resources. These parts are where the feeling of filler comes into play for me.

There's no real rework of this stuff here. The new version's solution to a lot of this is just to let you skip puzzles outright (wow), replace button mashing with simpler holds, automate resource pickups, etc. Just heavily streamline it all. And you know, I am kinda fine with that. They acknowledged the problems of this stuff being boring for many players, they acknowledge that they can't do much about it with the budget and direction they got, so you can just skip it now if you want. Still a dull aspect of the game, but at least this new version let me keep things moving more easily.

So to conclude, this is still the same game I couldn't get into back in its day. It's one that some of you may have already played several times and don't see the point of spending money on again. That is fair, but I am glad that I went for it. It's a package I can recommend generally to people who want to give this game a first or second try after not playing or not getting into the original. It really brings out what makes the original so good, while smoothing over annoyances and generally feeling better to interact with. I'm happy to finally be on board with this one.

[Left Behind DLC review]