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| The Last of Us - Ellie & Joel - Wallpaper from Video Games Blogger |
Another first, my first game review! It's going to be a long one, so, this should be interesting... I guess I picked a pretty good game for my first review, considering the hype surrounding it pre-launch and it's current popularity.
These 'Platinum/100% Reviews' will be comprised of several parts. The general criteria will be: Single Player/Campaign, Multiplayer (Online, Offline, Cooperative, Competitive), Trophies and Final Thoughts. These categories are not set in stone, I will always review everything required for the platinum, but in some reviews certain categories may be missing.
Anyway, without further ado, The Last of Us review!
As always, there will be spoilers! You have been warned.
Singleplayer:
If at any point before reading this review you have done some research (and you probably have) you will have found out that what The Last of Us is famous for is singleplayer. The story is known as being incredibly realistic, enjoyable and emotional. While this is all true, like everything else it has some flaws, but we'll come to that after the positives.
Story:
First off, this game is beautiful in terms of graphics, it's actually surprising that the PS3 can run it, but I would love to see it in true 1080p running on a high end PC with AA and the works.
As soon as the game begins we are thrown in to a world on the brink of destruction due to a new epidemic that possesses human beings and turns them into infected killers, basically fungal zombies. As expected the majority of the people originally infected are inhabiting high density population areas such as capital cities, but like most other infections, containment was impossible.
This is generally where the statements such as "Oh look, another zombie game." end. After the opening scenes there is a significant time skip (over 20 years) and we are placed in control of the same character from the opening scene, Joel. Judging by the people Joel is keeping company with, he is clearly up to something illegal. The opening mission involves you chasing a former business associate who has decided to ditch you and steal all your loot, almost like a random group member in any MMO. As you can guess, he knows you're coming. You fight your way through some basic infected humans and thugs to get to him and meet someone you're not expecting, Marlene, Leader of the Fireflies.
In the aptly named "Zone" the government and it's armed guards are in place to keep infection out and keep the populace in order. The main threat to this society is the rebel faction known as the Fireflies who use "Look for the Light" as their phrase. Hopefully, I will not need to explain that. Marlene informs you that she was seeking your mutual benefactor for help, but now that's no longer possible and she wants your help instead, oh great.
After a short area with that demonstrates some basic controls and stealth gameplay, the other main character enters the picture. Ellie, or a copy of Ellen Page, the choice is yours. She's not the most lovable character ever, but as you can imagine, kids lives are hardly normal in the post-apocalyptic world. Now you are assigned to escorting Ellie out of the city, which of course does not go well. I won't go much further than that with plot, but I am fairly certain you can work out a lot of it without even playing it.
Weapons, Crafting, Enemies, Collectibles etc:
Simply put, too many collectibles and not enough craftable materials. In the lower difficulties you are provided with hundreds of components and very little to do with them. On my normal playthrough I had almost full supplies and crafting materials throughout the entire game, boring.
The collectibles number over 100, somewhere around 130 I believe and vary from Firefly Pendants to various notes from survivors and comic books for Ellie. Uncharted had a lot of collectibles too if I remember correctly, but they were no where near as tedious to collect, oh sure you can do it via chapter select, but if it glitches (which it normally does) you'll lose all of your collectibles and probably break something in front of you.
The lack of enemy diversity is slightly annoying, but at the same time it makes it much easier to learn tactics. The hunter and firefly skins don't vary very much and there are only three kinds of infected, one of which you rarely see. Also, if you are not paying complete attention, expect to have someone sneak up on you and hit you with a baseball bat a few times.
Weapons are one thing I won't actually complain about, the upgrades actually make a notable difference and the variety from a bow to a magnum and flamethrower is a welcome concept. The bow becomes your best friend in some of the stealth scenarios, and the flamethrower completely destroys the infected. I do wish the parts were easier to collect in the game, but they are not that hard to come by anyway.
Criticisms:
In general, the singleplayer is pretty solid, however it is not all sunshine and rainbows. The crafting system is fairly basic considering I now know that all I need to make a Nail Bomb is some scissors and a bag of compost, so +1 for anyone planning on blowing up a vault sometime soon. The mid-level infected (known as Clickers) are also overpowered considering the easiest way to take them down is two to three headshots, but they flail about so much you'll be lucky to consistently execute the strategy before going in to a blind rage and firing a shotgun shell through their torso.
Another flaw would be the fact that you need to replay the game through
at least three times if you don't glitch just to collect all of the weapon parts necessary and get all of the trophies relating to difficulty. The game is enjoyable the first time through, but after the second time it will take a lot of motivation to finish.
Speaking of glitches, this game is full of them. Some of the more notable ones include trophies not unlocking, collectibles, parts, stat upgrades, toolboxes and weapon upgrades resetting when you start New Game+. This is easily fixable by replaying the last level of the game and starting New Game+ again, but if you have not read about it prior to starting, you won't find your next playthrough as enjoyable or any easier.
One of the major problems I have with the actual story though is how the hell Joel survives the university incident... I am pretty sure some amateur stitching, bandages and penicillin is not enough to save you from a one inch hole through your stomach.
Also, replayability.... There is not much of that, at all... But I cannot take away credit for Naughty Dog producing an incredible story so it earns a
9/10.
Multiplayer:
This is where it gets interesting, and actually for a lot of people, unpleasant. If you have been reading my daily updates since I started this blog, you know where I stand on the multiplayer.
The multiplayer in The Last of Us is known as 'Factions'. When you first enter the mode you are instructed to chose your faction, a choice of two: Firefly or Hunter. The faction you choose is one you are stuck with for twelve ingame weeks, which advance as you complete your multiplayer matches with one match being equal to one day. The completion of the 'journey' is required for a gold trophy, one for each faction, so get ready to enjoy - or not - 160+ matches!
Surviving the twelve week journey is not as simple as just completing matches as you have to provide for a clan of virtual people, or your Facebook friends if you fancy seeing them all die when you screw up. The number of clan members you have influences various unlocks to alter your appearance, such as masks and helmets. The issues start to arise with the growth of your clan, as the more clan members you have, the better you have to perform in the matches to provide for them. This means that the higher tier unlocks like the skull mask are more of a rarity than the basic gear. The other variable that Naughty Dog decided to throw in is missions that occur at fixed points throughout your journey such as disease outbreaks or enemy attacks. Sometimes these attacks are welcome as they can trim your population by up to 60% meaning you can unlock new weapons and perks quicker, but if you fail a 100% population risk mission (of which there are five), you have to begin the entire journey again.
In Factions there are currently three game modes: Survivors, Supply Raid and Interrogation. Two of these modes are a variation of team deathmatch, but Interrogation is a bit more interesting. In Supply Raid each team starts with twenty reinforcements, or lives. The first player to reach 0 reinforcements and have no living players remaining loses. Survivors consists of four to seven rounds of team deathmatch, in each round the player only has one life so the objective is to eliminate the enemy team first. Interrogation involves hunting down enemy team members and interrogating them for the location of a lock box, the first team to open the opposing teams lock box wins. Unfortunately, most interrogation matches end in a tie game.
Your customisation takes the form of the classic loadout system allocating you set number of points with which to choose your weapons and perks, at max level you are allowed up to thirteen loadout points. The game also provides a few default loadouts with higher level gear, but you cannot customise them so you probably will not use them for long.
The crafting in multiplayer is much the same as single player, with items such as molotovs taking an extra item. All of the weapons present in single player are also present, as well as in-match purchases such as body armour or more powerful weapons like the military sniper.
Score is calculated by the number of parts the player acquires throughout the match. Parts are gathered by downing/executing enemies, crafting items, gifting other players items, reviving team mates and other miscellaneous things like stealth kills and headshots. The parts that you earn (even the ones you spend on weapons and armour) are converted into supplies which sustain your clan and unlock new perks/weapons.
Now, 160+ matches may not be a problem in a game like Battlefield 3 or Call of Duty, but with only three game modes, awful equipment balancing and a large number of problems, it becomes a big issue.
Pros:
One of the main pros of the multiplayer is that it is unique. The crafting system plays a huge part in how the game will play out and how well your team utilise their limited ammo and parts also makes a big difference. If you're expecting the multiplayer to be similar to Uncharted, it isn't.
TLOU is not as fast-paced as Uncharted and most of the time if you go in all guns blazing, you're going to get annihilated. This creates a tactical atmosphere where voice communication can really help you win. To allow for fairer matches, Naughty Dog has also implemented a system allowing you to choose games that do not allow parties which levels the playing field slightly for newer players. The metagame is not a bad addition either, it means that players have to focus more on things other than their K/D ratio and actually pay attention to their team mates.
Cons:
Sadly, this list is longer than the pros. Overall, multiplayer feels like it was a last minute decision and has been stapled to a game that does not actually need one. In terms of weapons, the semi-auto rifle will out snipe most hunting rifle players and molotovs still cover far too much area, even after a nerf that reduced their radius by 20%.
The single biggest problem with the multiplayer though, is the matchmaking. You will have seen me complain about this almost every day because ND just cannot seem to get it right. Most of the time (even in the afternoon/evening) I am matched with players that are -6 hours to my timezone. The source code for this game seems to somehow think that Europe and the Philippines are close geolocations. Sure they are... if by geolocation you mean nearest planet.
The matchmaking problems do not end at being awful in terms of ping matching, they also suck in terms of weeks survived (basically rank). Below you will see a screenshot that I posted in a recent daily update and it displays exactly what I mean. What makes it worse, is that it is not an infrequent occurrence.
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| Naughty Dogs awesome matchmaking! It's so balanced! - The Last of Us Multiplayer |
Naughty Dog also decided to implement a lag compensation system, which allows player with higher ping to play at a better level than they would otherwise be able to. The issue is that it is completely over the top. Players who have high pings in this game can be almost indestructible, such as surviving three molotovs and taking on a shotgun user with their fists, and winning. It is not at all pretty.
The other system TLOU uses in multiplayer is a welfare system. If the losing team is a certain amount behind, they begin getting more fruitful tool boxes that give them insane amounts of supplies, and usually 2x4 sticks and upgrading materials. If the enemy team does not charge with you with many pointy sticks, expect about fifteen molotovs to be flying through the air soon afterwards.
One thing that multiple people have brought to my attention is the lack of infected in the multiplayer mode. Left 4 Dead 2 had a cool way of handling the infected, but even a basic survival wave system similar to nazi zombies or online co-op missions would have been a welcome addition.
The final problems that I will say have a significant effect are upgraded 2x4 sticks and the Gifter/Brawler perks.
Upgraded sticks will become your most feared object in this game, if someone gets close to you with one, it's too late... You're dead. The sticks inflict a 1-hit down and with Brawler II you can repair them during the match as well as get an extra hit (two instead of one), it's ridiculous and should be fixed.
Gifter is one of the best perks in the game, it's amazing for generating parts and giving your team enough explosives to sink a continent, but the fact that you mainly get molotovs and nail bombs when you give the gift makes it a
very dangerous perk. The sad thing is at higher levels everyone uses it, because if they do not, they cannot compete.
The multiplayer has potential, but it is far from living up to the hype that preceded it. Due to all of these problems and Naughty Dog's lack of transparency and information the multiplayer scrapes a
5/10.
Trophies:
The trophies in this game are not particularly difficult, they are just time consuming. Even if you are following a trophy guide, you will not see your first trophy until midway through the story. There are trophies for each difficulty which are stackable and apply to new game and new game+. The rest of the offline trophies are related to collectibles and optional conversations as well as upgrading Joel and his weapons to the maximum levels. There are currently only four multiplayer trophies in the list; two bronze and two gold.
The multiplayer trophies require you to win one game of survivors and one game of supply raid as well as building a clan size of forty. The two gold trophies are related to finishing the Hunter and Firefly journeys which are likely to be your last trophies before your platinum.
My overall advice is to use a guide for obtaining all of the collectibles, it would be impressive if you could accomplish it without a walkthrough though. New Game+ is actually still glitched so you can complete all of the difficulty trophies and possibly the upgrading trophies in just two playthroughs, one on Easy or whatever you fancy and one on Survivor+.
A final piece of advice with regards to the collectibles is, keep checking your status screen ingame. Sometimes a conversation will glitch or a collectible will not trigger and you will need to reload your checkpoint and collect it again. I actually missed a conversation and unless you have a fantastic memory, you will never know which one you have missed.
If you want that platinum as quick as possible, make sure to educate yourself on the possible glitches before you begin, it could save you a lot of time.
If you have a little patience and can keep finding motivation to listen to the same dialect multiple times, achieving the platinum in this game should be reasonably easy. The difficulty rating that I would personally give is a 6/10 and a
6/10 overall.
Final Thoughts:
The Last of Us is an utterly amazing looking game with a great story, but it is let down by numerous technical glitches which show no sign of being fixed and a lackluster multiplayer that leaves most players wanting. As a trophy hoarder, I cannot recommend this game but if you are looking for an enjoyable single player experience and some variation from the cookie cutter FPS-style multiplayer as well as seeing how well the PS3 can perform, give it a shot... but with a pinch of salt, or maybe a lake of it.
Singleplayer: 9/10
Multiplayer: 5/10
Trophies: 6/10
Overall Score: 7/10
You can purchase the various editions of The Last of Us from Amazon.com:
The Last of Us - Playstation 3
The Last of Us: Survival Edition - Playstation 3
The Last of Us: Post-Pandemic Edition
The Last of Us:
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