The Last Of Us

This will be as spoiler free as I possibly can make it.

So if you've heard anything about video games lately, you've probably heard this game come up. Like Red Dead Redemption or The Walking Dead, it's from another neglected genre in games and it's turned out remarkably well, eating up 10s all over the place.

It's probably no surprise then (as I'm not one of THOSE people that can't let people have fun if I'm not) that I'd toss a 10 its way if I used numbers. What is surprise is that I'm not usually a fan of this genre, so the 10 would mean a lot more.

The one thing that doesn't get discussed a lot about this game is that it is survival horror. Even dropping the difficulty to easy does nothing to change that. Therefore, kinda like the disclaimers that should have been tossed up for RDR or TWD, if you have a passionate hatred of this genre or just can't handle it, you can skip this one.

If you think for even a moment though that it might be interesting or that you could handle it, I'd encourage not doing so though.

Allow me to explain, I love games based around survival, where you must gauge your supplies for each encounter. However, I'm remarkably bad with horror games (I had to take breaks in the first Gears of War game. I come back to them when I quit being afraid, but I never beat a game with enough horror elements in it within a day). My brother is even worse with both parts of the genre. However we both saw things through to the end and loved chatting about the game with each other. Hell, he wants his own copy after playing it through to the end (See this, game industry?! Sometimes you CAN get more money by letting people play for free).

And it wasn't just the story that got us through it all.

It's hard to explain without spoiling anything why the trip of Joel and Ellie across the US is such a gripping one. I guess one part of it is that the game feels amazingly well done, where every encounter is rewarding in its own way. Perhaps another part is due to how all the little things help make everyone you see feel so real (the dialogue, body language, animations... everything will draw you right in). Another part of the formula might simply be that you grow to care about the protagonists, while at the same time remembering what could be the key words of this game "We are not good people."

This is a game you will feel guilt in, as enemy dialogue fleshes out those who you previously felt were soulless monsters, or struggle to with your feelings about the duo's actions in certain situations. While this will never stab at your heart like The Walking Dead did, you're not going to get through this game unscathed. However, it will never break you.

In fact, that seems to be the core theme of it all: surviving. This doesn't mean scraping by or staying alive, but making choices that will serve you in the long term, both in gameplay and out.

Upgrades are something you'll agonize over as you wonder if you should drop points into hearing or health, or save up for some more special tricks. Similarly, when you reach a workbench, you'll need to weigh your options and your strengths when customizing weapons, as well as pick what you want to keep in your backpack versus what you'll put in the holster for quick access to. And as you explore, you'll be forced to choose between sticking around to raid supplies for various items you could throw together, or saving your health and ammo for another day.

As for combat, it's both surprisingly polished and satisfyingly rough to keep you from ever feeling in control. For most of the beginning of the game, I had around 8 rounds of ammo (this seems to change depending on your approach. You're still not going to have tons of rounds if you have a shoot out every level, but you get a couple here and there for your trouble) so I resorted to stealth and careful aim when I needed to. Even when I found more ammo, I had to learn how to shoot in the game, where shots can be remarkably accurate if you risk both sticking out of cover and standing still to aim.

The entire game is something of a risk/reward puzzle that you have to figure out. Sharp objects can be turned into shivs that aid with stealth, resource gathering, and possibly with surviving attacks from infected if you upgrade right, as well into shrapnel bombs that work well for just about any situation, but that's a resource you'll have to manage constantly.

The game manages to somehow breath new life into the zombie genre in a myriad of ways, where humans ending up being just as scary as the infected somehow manages to be the least of these changes. The ghastly creations it ends up making with the fungal theme it runs with also help, ranging from blind but horrifying Clickers who make the worst sounds ever to find you with echolocation to spore filled rooms you must navigate practically blind. The game then takes you across the country, making certain that somewhere along the way is an environment that looks scarily like the one you're in on a daily basis. Sure, you'll run into some of your favorite tropes and cliches, and once you hit the final chapter you already know how things will end, but The Last of Us never really runs out of steam.

The game has plenty of character, which would be enough to recommend it. It has a rather good story, which would also be enough. It has amazing characters that feel so very real, which would definitely be enough. The gameplay is great, which is more than enough at that point. The whole thing looks pretty too, which isn't enough but is great icing on top of it all.

This is a must buy for just about any gamer. If you're hesitant because of the genre, I'd recommend a rental. If you lack a PS3, seriously look for a price drop or sale (the console has plenty of other titles, and if you pick up Playstation Plus, you're sure to have a great library running sooner than you think). This is indeed a fitting end to the generation and hopefully a sign of things to come if the game industry learns from it.