Last Of Us Spoiler Review

The Last of Us Review

By Josh LaPierre

(Spoiler Review)

Survival Horror is a dying genre littered with failed attempts from franchises like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, but luckily there are still games that breathe life into this dying genre. Naughty Dog brings Survival Horror back with it’s last game on the Playstation 3 entitled The Last of Us. The Last of Us takes place 20 years into the apocalypse after an outbreak of a mutated form of the Cordyceps fungus has infected the human race. The player takes control of Joel and is tasked with bringing a young 14 year old girl named Ellie across the infected United States. The journey that these two characters take over the course of one year, makes for one of the best games I have ever played.

To quote Youtuber Jeremy Jahns’ review of The Last of Us, “ 15 minutes into this game tears friends, TEARS!!!”. That statement is very true when it comes to this game’s story. The story starts off in a small town outside of Austin, Texas with Joel and his daughter Sarah. Joel and his brother Tommy fight their way through town to protect Sarah from the infected. After you are able to escape from the infected a cutscene is activated where Joel and Sarah are confronted by a soldier who opens fire on them trying to “contain” the outbreak. Luckily Tommy saves the day by killing the soldier before he kills Joel, but with this soldier’s previous actions Sarah had been shot and dies in Joel’s arms. Soon after her the credits roll with multiple news reports stating that there’s no cure and that the infection has spread. After registering what just happened and wiping a few stray tears away I knew that I was going to be hooked.

The game, to my surprise jumps 20 years into the post-pandemic world. The major areas in the game are a suburb outside of Austin, Boston, Bill’s Town (Lincoln), Pittsburgh, Jackson County, University of Eastern Colorado (fictional), a Lakeside Resort, Salt Lake City, St. Mary’s Hospital. Even with the names of real cities Naughty Dog made them into fictional renditions of the real city or area. Naughty Dog does a great job showing how the infection has affected the world. After the 20 year jump the game picks up in a section of Boston, Massachusetts that is controlled by martial law. The soldiers are, in my opinion scarier than the infected, you can hear some of the soldiers talking about killing the Fireflies and joy out of it. Garbage lines the streets of Boston along with trees

,grass, and vines are taking over the buildings. We also learn that Joel, 20 years into this pandemic is now a ruthless smuggler with Tess. Each area you visit during the cross country journey are based off actual places, but they are made a little bit fictitious for reasons unknown. Lincoln is the next town after Boston which is run by a smuggler/survivor named Bill. Lincoln, just like Boston is a town that is slowing falling apart. Bill has fortified the town with traps and spiked barricades. After leaving Bill’s fortified town of Lincoln, Joel and Ellie make it to Pittsburgh. This is where the game really picks up in character development and intense gameplay. There are also some really good small moments between Ellie and Joel. One of the times is when Ellie finally learning to whistle and Joel states “Great, another thing you can annoy me with”. This is also the first chapter where she tells jokes from her pun books. The city of Pittsburgh is overgrown with trees and grass. For intense moments, well they start right off in this level. Joel and Ellie get ambushed by the Hunters and then throughout the level they are stalked by them until the escape with two other survivors, two brothers named Henry and Sam. After both Henry and Sam die, more on that later, the game does a time skip to being right outside Jackson County, Wyoming. Not too much exciting happens except for meeting back up with Tommy. Joel and Ellie bond even more during this level which is done really well, more on that later though. After the events of Jackson County, Ellie and Joel go to the fictitious University of Eastern Colorado which is based off of Colorado State University. This is where Tommy told Joel and Ellie to go to find the Fireflies. When they get there they find out it’s abandoned and has infected roaming the university. Joel and Ellie get ambushed by other survivors shortly after learning that the Fireflies have gone to Salt Lake City. Sadly when fighting off some of the ambushers Joel gets impaled. Both and and Ellie and Joel are able to escape but Joel passes out due to lack of blood. The game then jumps to winter where Ellie is hunting for food for her and Joel who is still recovering from being impaled. Ellie runs into a character named David, who is voiced by the amazing voice actor Nolan North, which I had no idea it was him till the credits rolled. David helps Ellie fight off a group of infected and says she should join his group of families but we all know that Ellie is only loyal to Joel. He also lets her know that they know she was one of the survivors from the college. She escapes only to be captured and brought to the compound. The group led by David turns out to be cannibals. Yeah, this game gets really intense during this section. Ellie escapes again this time only with her knife and fights her way through the compound only to get corned by David, who tries to either rape or kill her or maybe even both. Luckily Joel regains consciousness to save Ellie, but it’s a little too late Ellie. She is now scarred by the things David has done. The game does yet another time jump to mid-spring where they are now finally in Salt Lake City, Utah with the St. Mary’s Hospital in sight. Joel and Ellie are now really close and Joel even views her as a second daughter. But their luck runs out yet again. This time Ellie almost drowns and both her and Joel are taken in by the Fireflies. Marlene (leader of the Fireflies) states that they are going to kill Ellie in order to create a vaccine to the Cordyceps fungal virus. Joel doesn’t want this so he fights his way through the Fireflies and is able to save Ellie last minute. The game ends with both Joel and Ellie outside Tommy’s fort, both heading to their new home.

Relationships are what this game does best. Every relationship feels natural. The relationship we see in this game is between Joel and his daughter Sarah. The father/daughter relationship feels natural in the sense that Joel teases her about the watch she gave him for his birthday, saying that I think it’s stuck. When he tucks her into bed he says “Goodnight, baby girl”. Joel also keeps the watch through the entirety of the game and can be seen touching it when he thinks of Sarah. Within just 20 minutes Naughty Dog developed one of the most realistic relationships in gaming making Sarah’s death all more tragic. Joel and his brother Tommy’s relationship is a little underdeveloped due to Tommy only being in two parts of the game. We first learn of Tommy within the first few lines of dialog with Joel discussing their contracting job. Tommy is protective of both Joel and Sarah and shoots the soldier who killed Sarah. Then it’s implied that Tommy and Joel having a falling out in Boston when Tommy joins the Fireflies. Then when you meet back up with him in Jackson County they are glad to see each other as if their fight never happened. They get into a second fight over Ellie and who should take her to the Fireflies. After the 20 year jump we find out Joel and his smuggling partner Tess. This was my second favorite relationship in the game. Joel and Tess have an implied relationship going on. The game never says that they are together but there are subtle signs, like only one bed in their apartment and Bill stating that Joel and Tess are inseparable. They constantly flirt with each other during. But sadly she isn’t around for too long because she gets infected protecting Ellie. She sacrifices herself to allow Joel and Ellie to escape the military. The best relationship this game did is Joel and Ellie. They start off not caring for each other. They view each other as just another job. But as the game progressed Ellie was the first to start caring for Joel. She viewed him as the father she never had. When the Jackson County level came to an end Joel had started to view Ellie as a second daughter. At the end of the game Joel choose to sacrifice the cure for the world just to keep his daughter alive.

Like I stated earlier the infection is based off the real life fungus Cordyceps, which only ants and a limited range insects in real life. The fungus has moved onto infecting humans and anyone who breaths in the spores or gets bitten will become infected. There are four types of infected that you will face. The first are Runners. They are newly infected people and they are the fastest, the loudest, and the weakest of the four. I find the Runners to be very generic looking with only having glowing eyes and red veins to differ them from the human enemies. Next we have the Stalkers, which have the sight and speed of the Runners and ferocity of the Clickers. This is where Naughty Dog was starting to get creative with their enemy design. The Stalkers have small sprouts of fungus growing from their head. These ones can be seen standing around making noises. Clickers are my favorite enemy that Naughty Dog created for this game. They have been infected for awhile so the fungus that had grown out of the Stalker had, has now grown into a plate like defence on their head. Unlike the Runners and Stalkers, you cannot kill them with fisticufs and strangelation. They can be killed with shivs when they are not altered to your presents, if they hear you….good luck. The last of the infected you face are the Bloaters. The Bloaters are my least favorite creatures from the game, and they are the hardest to kill. Like most games that deal with infected enemies, the Bloaters are your “fat” creatures. They have been infected the longest meaning they are heavily armoured due to fungal plates that have engulfed it’s body, making it have only three weak spots. So all that ammo you that you have been hoarding, kiss it goodbye. I will give the game props though because the Bloater has one of the creepiest screeches/roars I have ever heard in gaming.

The Hunters are the worst to come across. Like Bill stated to Joel early in the game, “You know, as bad as the infected are, at least they are predictable. It’s the normal people that scare me.” This line of dialog can sum up how I felt playing this game. When it can to infected, yeah some can kill you in one hit, but the Hunters were the ones who kept me on my toes. The Hunters are the survivors in Pittsburgh. You see them gun down random civilians just to see if they had food on them. They set up ambushes to kill anyone who enters the city. They will shout to their allies where you are hidden and will try and flank you. The Military is also hard to fight against but luckily they aren’t as bad as the Hunters. You only have to deal with them during the first few missions in Boston. Just like the Military you only have to fight the Fireflies for one level. The Fireflies fight a lot like the Military. They will take cover and will be very strategic in looking for you.

The gameplay for The Last of Us is a third person shooter. But theres more to it than that. The left analog stick moves the player while the right analog stick moves the camera. When it comes to playing the game you need to use booth analog sticks so it is almost like a first person game. The cool part is, is that there is a crafting system in the game that comes in handy a lot. Two of the best weapons in the game are the nail bombs and molotov cocktails. There are a few guns like a rifle, shotgun, bow, a flamethrower, and a selection of handguns. By the end of the game you can carry up to four of the guns via hot keys on the directional pad. There is a cover system but I wish Naughty Dog had fixed it with a patch, but you can’t take cover while standing, only when crouched can you take cover. The melee system is spot on. This is my favorite combat system. You can craft melee weapons such as baseball bats with nails in them. When in stealth mode you can sneak up on most enemies, excluding Clickers and Bloaters, and choke them out. There are a few puzzles style parts of the game but nothing like Uncharted.

The graphics to this game are jaw-droppingly gorgeous. There is cutscene after Joel and Ellie leave Bill’s town where the camera is looking in on their car and there is rain hitting the windshield and it looks like it is really raining. Naughty Dog has become pros with motion capture. All the movements and facial expressions look so real. The subtle details like mud clinging to the clothes and way the water moves is really realistic. Blood will trickle down a character’s face like it would in real life. The game doesn’t have epic cinematic moments like Uncharted, but the game doesn’t need those moments. The scene where you learn that Tess is infected, that cutscene has some of the best lighting in any game. The graphic engine is an updated version of what Naughty Dog used for Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. The graphics put the Playstation 3 to its limits. The game was ported to the Playstation 4 in mid 2014.

In the end Last of Us is one of the best games I have ever played. With believable character development makes for one of the best games I have ever played. With graphics that push the system to its limits and a story that will bring anyone to tears, it’s hard think of anything bad to say about the game except for that it ends. The game deserved all 200 awards because the game truly is amazing. I give the game 10/10.