The Last Of Us on Playstation 3 – The DVDfever Review

Standard Edition:

Joel Edition:

Ellie Edition:

I was a little sceptical when the premise for The Last Of Us was to set itself in one of those post-apocalyptic situations, here as a result of a pandemic, leaving the environment full of zombies running around and wanting to eat your brain… but then I played it. And it was wonderful.

Civilisation is going to hell in a handcart when the game begins and both you, Joel, and your daughter Sarah have to escape your home with the help of Uncle Tommy, who drives you away at speed. Fast forward 20 years on and the population has been decimated. On the plus side, not only is there no form of government to hassle us and pretend that we’re all in it together, but you have a girlfriend, too: Tess.

But there’s no time for jiggery pokery right away because food is scarce and you never know where your next meal is coming from. Weapons are also a priority if you want to surive, and a friend of yours can supply guns aplenty, but she’ll only give you some if you smuggle something secret out of the city. However, going out of the city is certain suicide, what with all the weird creatures out there.

The secret package? A 14-year-old girl called Ellie and you go off trying to get from A to B with her, with Tess following soon after.

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The Last Of Us Clip 1 – Stealth takedowns (720p HD)

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As shown in the gaming footage uploaded, The Last Of Us has outstanding visuals, not only for the locations you pass through, but also on the facial expressions as your characters move about, with action that plays out fluid and gorgeous. Even at the start when you’re in a car, I love the way you can turn Sarah round to view all around the car, causing her to turn as you move the joypad controls.

Audio-wise, mostly this is one for the ambient crowd, but with action and baddies filling out the directional DTS sound appropriately, this is an aural treat. Also, I could listen to the menu music all day. Soft and soothing, and sounding like many of the guitar greats as they sit strumming away on a hot summer’s day.

The path you take is fairly linear, but that’s not really an issue here because of the way it plays out. Also, it gets round ‘locked door’ syndrome, i.e. too many inaccessible items along the way, by making them all shops which are secured with gates, or similar inaccessible building areas. I was also a little worried at first, as it kept taking over with CGI – like the recent Tomb Raider did – and another issue with telling you which buttons to press for certain segments, like Resident Evil 6 but Naughty Dog have struck gold by managing not to make either aspect appear to dominate the proceedings, and makes it feel natural.

Unfortunately, the limitations of my review copy means I’m not allowed to put full walkthroughs of this game online – as well as none of the CGI sequences – but I rarely do walkthroughs of games without clearly defined levels anyway. By that, I mean that this game takes you straight through from start to finish. There’s a kind of junction for the start of a new section, but there’s no defined level numbers and names, and that would rather destroy the atmosphere of this sort of game anyway.

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The Last Of Us Clip 2 – Punch-ups (720p HD)

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Standard Edition:

Joel Edition:

Ellie Edition:

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The Last Of Us Clip 3 – 6 Clicker deaths in 6 seconds (720p HD)

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Other random things of note:

• Health Kits – These aren’t liberally scattered about, but there are enough as long as you take care in general when playing the game. Take time out for a few seconds to utilise one of these, by wrapping bandages round your hand.
  
• You can pick up planks and ladders to put across gaps and walls to gain access to previously inaccessible areas.
  
• Collect parts to upgrade your weapons. When you find a workbench, you can use that to help upgrade them.
  
• Molotov cocktails are good. make one of those as soon as you can, as when you throw them at a zombie, it attracts others who turn up, walk amongst the flames and then die.
  
• When the Clickers come after you, getting close enough to attack and kill, that’s some scary shit right there. Yes, there were some moments when I bought the farm on a regular basis, but you can elect to run to avoid trouble instead of sticking around to get bumped off.
  
• At times, your torch’s battery starts to flicker and die, but the game prompts you to shake your PS3 controller to charge it back up again.
  
• This game makes it fun to explore areas for items such as shivs and ammo, especially since the latter is in short supply and must be used sparingly. Also, I really enjoyed the fighting in this game. Most similar games just go for the same three moves, one after the other, and then back to the first after a short pause. The Last Of Us throws in little differences like pushing a bad guy away or smacking his head into a shipping container, depending on the environment. You can also use baddies as a human shield, with a view to making the others back off.
  
• The gameplay takes a little getting used to. For example, I had run out of bullets at one point so meant to throw a brick somewhere in the other direction to distract the bad guys so we could get around, but then I fumbled it and took out my empty gun, the chamber clicked and it all went tits up from there.
  
• There’s a great bond between Joel and the rest of the main characters. I realised this, especially between Joel and Ellie, when they had a brief exchange, including a bit of comical sarcasm, which did make me giggle like I was watching a great movie.

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The Last Of Us Clip 4 – You’ve got to kill a Clicker or two (720p HD)

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Overall, The Last Of Us puts right what Tomb Raider got so wrong.

I’ve been playing this for six hours so far and am still loving it. As I type, I’m controlling Joel, and I don’t know if you get to play as Ellie as well, but there’s only so many hours in the day. And I’ve got that work thing to go to, as well, otherwise the bank manager will, y’know, repossess my house.

Any downsides? Well, you can’t use The Last Of Us as an excuse to get out of work.

There’s lots of videos in this review, and you can also check out every level here on my Youtube playlist.

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The Last Of Us Clip 5 – Clicker explodes! (720p HD)

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Important info:

• Publisher: Sony
• Standard Price: £38.99 (PS3)
• Players: 1, network players: 2-8
• HDTV options: 720p
• PAL; Region 2
• Features: multiplayer missions
• Languages: English
• Subtitles: English

GRAPHICS SOUND GAMEPLAY ENJOYMENT	10 10 8 10
OVERALL	9.5

Directors: Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley
Writers: Neil Druckmann
Music: Gustavo Santaolalla

Cast:
Joel: Troy Baker
Ellie: Ashley Johnson
Sarah: Hana Hayes
Tommy: Jeffrey Pierce
Tess: Annie Wersching
Marlene: Merle Dandridge
Bill: W Earl Brown
Henry: Brandon Scott
Sam: Nadji Jeter
Robert: Robin Atkin Downes
Maria: Ashley Scott
James: Reuben Langdon
David: Nolan North

Standard Edition:

Joel Edition:

Ellie Edition: