I’ll always buy Naughty Dog games, they having convinced me of their undying commitment to our love via the Uncharted series, but I don’t tend to slaver with excitement before they actually come out. Thus I wasn’t suffering from the can’t-waits in the days leading up the The Last of Us, their fungus-fueled post-apocalyptic proxical-parent TPD (third person depressor). I just waited until Friday and bought the game. Didn’t even unwrap it until the next afternoon.
You’ve probably seen boatloads of perfect scores from full reviews already, along with the odd 7.5 outliers that’ve caused such internet furor. Here’s what I have to say, after several hours, an assortment of hideous deaths, and more clicking feral mushroom-zombies than you can throw a bottle to distract.
And I Heard, as it Were, the Noise of Thunder
There’s this mushroom, you see, called the Cordyceps. You might have watched it in gory HD on that Planet Earth show. Some species of Cordyceps release spores that infect insects, penetrating their little buggy brains and making them do stuff. Like any well-evolved characteristic, a Cordyceps infection is designed to propogate the species: the fungus takes control of an infected bug, makes it wander away from its friends, climb to just the right altitude, orientation, and relative humidity, then clamp down and refuse to move from the spot even when tempted with pie.
Eventually the insect dies, because the Cordyceps infestation has been growing in its brain. “Grow” means get bigger, and almost anybody will die when a giant-ass mushroom erupts from their skull. It’s horrific and gruesome and probably quite excruciating, because why would the Cordyceps bother turning off the pain sensors when it already controls its subject like a marionette?
Fortunately, this mushroom only infects bugs, because holy shit can you imagine if such a thing worked on people?
Enter The Last of Us.
Multitudes are Marching to the Big Kettle Drum
It opens peacefully enough, tweenage Sarah giving a birthday gift to her distracted but caring single father Joel. A nice scene, ruined by what they don’t know. They don’t realize that a new strain of Cordyceps unilateralis has already begun its work, that this night will be the worst night ever, that it is the beginning of humanity’s end. One of the Horsemen has been unleashed, and you’re going to bear witness to the grisly harvest it will reap.
Did you happen to see Zack Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead? The beginning of that film, all the way through the opening credits, clearly inspired the prelude to The Last of Us. Swapping between Joel and Sarah sets up the controls (standard third person fare), and also the enormity of panic and chaos as society crumbles within hours of the global outbreak. Along with Joel’s brother Tommy they try to quit town, only to discover about eleven bazillion others already had that idea. The Cordyceps infection spreads fast, and in the early stages, when the mushroom is still planting its feelers in a host’s brain, victims are moody but otherwise indistinguishable from healthy people. Temper gives way to murderous aggression. Normal-seeming individuals suddenly fall savagely on their neighbors, pummeling and biting.
Panic breaks out. The National Guard is deployed. Bullets are fired.
Some are Born and Some are Dyin’
Twenty years later Joel makes his living in one of the martial law quarantine zones, smuggling in guns and drugs. Survivors aren’t immune or anything, and the Cordyceps infection is still very much a threat. Outside walled enclaves, the rest of the world goes back to nature, pocked by great unearthly blooms of this killer fungus, haunted by millions of infected – some so far gone by now that the mushroom has burst through their heads, keeping them alive as little more than blind, shambling, ambulatory fungoids you’d do well to avoid like the plague they are.
Life, such as it is, goes on, and Joel gets roped into shepherding Ellie across the continent. A 14 year old with a secret, this charmingly potty-mouthed kid is the emotional heart of a story as hideous and tragic as the Uncharted games were self-assuredly goofy. The pair’s journey through the ruins of America brings with it more humanity than you tend to see in games, enhanced by Naughty Dog’s now near-perfect mastery of performance capture and facial mapping technologies. This is one of those “it looks as real as a movie” games, expressions and subtleties that empower a script driven by actual human communication.
They say The Last of Us will make you cry, and I haven’t done that yet, but more than once I’ve known awful things are coming, I’ve seen the writing on the wall and wished it away; I’ve felt my heart pounding as I crept through subway tunnels so thick with infectious spores the air itself is sullenly green; I’ve been frozen by terror, crouched in the absolute darkness of a partially-collapsed office building, surrounded by plague victims that are little more than shelf mushrooms from the neck up. These things naturally lost their sight when the fungal bloom crashed through their eyes and skull, but they’re the deadliest thing I’ve yet encountered, echolocating new hosts and racing toward every errant sound and footstep. They still have their teeth.
So I haven’t cried yet, but the cinematic work is so real, and the script is so good, that I could see a little choking up happening. I’ve certainly felt other emotions.
Everybody Won’t be Treated All the Same
The Last of Us has received top scores almost across the board, with a few exceptions. Of those, one that’s particularly interesting is Tom Chick’s review: the respected iconoclast says, basically, that The Last of Us shines in cinematic-ness but is not particularly innovative as a game.
I’ve gotten maybe six hours in – no idea where that is in game terms, Ellie and I are in Pittsburgh – and played enough to say that Chick’s remarks are not untrue. They are somewhat unfair, though.
As a game, The Last of Us is relatively easy to classify. It’s a third-person stealth survival/horror adventure with a balance of close combat and gunplay. The hand to hand fighting – which should be your mainstay since ammo is pretty scarce – has a surprising and cinematic brutality to it, as Joel smashes heads and stomps throats. This is a game where you’ll beat men to death with a brick and feel bad about it, not because of the murder but because their stupid skull broke your brick. Shooting errs on the side of realism, with heavy recoil, slow rate of fire, and agonizing reload times. It offers cover mechanics in the sense that there’s plenty of waist high stuff to lurk behind, but it’s not a cover game (cover stickiness like what you see in Gears of War wouldn’t work here). It has elements of crafting and scavenging, both fairly simple but also rewarding. It’s extremely hard, occasionally frustrating, and always tense. The escort mechanic is a major factor throughout, though Ellie is almost always invincible and her actions rarely trigger enemy attention the way yours do.
So why are Tom Chick’s comments unfair? Because though I agree there’s nothing wildly innovative about The Last of Us, it’s still a well-designed, well-conceived example of the style it represents. Though imperfect, it is better than good. Chick compares it to Bioshock Infinite, another game that had better-than-average writing and emotionalism. I’d argue the comparison is invalid, though. Bioshock Infinite is brilliantly written, yeah, but it’s a mediocre shooter. The kindest thing anyone could say is that its gameplay is “competent.” The Last of Us is also brilliantly written, but it’s way better than competent. It’s a quite good three-pee-ess.
And does every game need to be innovative? The script alone makes this worthwhile. The acting. Troy Baker (also the voice of Booker DeWitt in Bioshock Infinite, this time equipped with a slight Texas drawl) does a great job with Joel, though he’s got less substantial material to work with than Ashley Johnson, who is revelatory as the teenaged Ellie. Tertiary characters (there are no secondary ones, this is about Joel and Ellie and the game keeps it that way) are just as well developed; they’re the ones who wind up making you laugh and (maybe) cry.
“There has got to be enough… here…” one says, “that you feel some kind of obligation to me.”
Without Naughty Dog’s technology the line wouldn’t work in a game. You need facial expressions so subtle no artist could animate them, you need tiny hand movements and pleading eyes and a whole bunch of stuff you cannot do without a performance capture rig (and a hell of a writer/director team, here handled by Neil Druckman and Bruce Straley). Without these things the line is too ambiguous. It’s in the character’s face and tone what’s meant, not in the words. With the expression and the hands and the eyes and the tone you can read the necessary volumes into enough, and here, to understand the layers of human connection, the dimensional nuances of love and friendship and trust and frustration.
It’s Alpha’s and Omega’s Kingdom Come
That is what The Last of Us does so well, and that, I think, is why it’s getting – and deserving – all those perfect scores. Yeah, Chick and other, more reserved reviewers are right. As a game it has its flaws, and the gameplay isn’t as forward-leaping as its cinematic experience.
The game part of the game is about a 7 (the number’s actual meaning out of 10, not the IGN scale). Ellie has gotten in my way or knocked me off things in a most infuriating manner. Those infected funga-people who can’t see sometimes do perceive you even when you’re being absolutely still and silent. Instant kills are quite common if you make the tiniest mistake. That Ellie and any other hangers-on are usually indestructible and can make as much noise as they want during stealthy scenes is distracting. Most of the action or stealth moments are obvious set-pieces clearly decorated with available cover. You’ll have to repeat certain segments a dozen or more times before you get it right. Though wide, it’s linear. Some of the graphics clip. The system takes an inexplicably long time to perform manual saves.
My point, hopefully without coming off as indecisive, is that Chick’s complaints (and those of others) are validated by my own experience, and the compliments from him and many are similarly validated. Both Tom Chick and the perfect-scorers are right, essentially.
The Last of Us is melancholy more than sad, hideous more than horrifying, vicious more than violent. Naughty Dog knows what it’s doing with this stuff. Things like the sounds emitted by plague victims at various stages of infestation, the structure of resources keeping you forever without something you need, but well-enough prepared to go on, these are the hallmarks of confident, experienced developers. At this point my only real concern is that the game will end before I’m ready for it to. I would like to see a longer experience here. Not 200 hours or anything, but I don’t want to finish in a few days.
There may be something to the idea that gamers are Cordyceps mushrooms themselves, taking control of proxies and causing them to do things according to our whims. I doubt Naughty Dog intended this as a theme in The Last of Us, but it’s interesting that they didn’t go with the usual zombies. Mysticism has no place in it. It’s based, somewhat, in actual science, and that is part of its impact. Exposition is light-handed, leaving much to your imagination, and where appropriate Naughty Dog’s designers are happy to break out lavish color palettes and sun-dappled lighting. This isn’t a gray and brown apocalypse. At times it’s almost lurid, gorgeously so.
Though to be truthful, it’s not an apocalypse at all. The Last of Us is about the last of us, not the end of the world. The world, as you see quite plainly, is doing just fine. There is nothing unnatural going on. In fact, nature, and nature only, is what’s happening. The sadness implicit in the end of our people, and the mournful feeling that permeates the game, is unique so far in the medium. This doleful experience may or may not make me cry, but it has so far left me deeply affected, thoughtful, and still eager for more.
Email the author of this post at steerpike@tap-repeatedly.com.
Very thoughtful impressions. I haven’t played any of the new hot things this season but this one has me curious.
Now that I’m living in Pittsburgh, I wonder if Last of Us Pittsburgh resembles the real thing. That alone might make it worth a look; it’s always fun in a sick way to see one’s real city all post-apocalypse-like.
Steerpike I’m with you in my regard for Naughty Dog. It’s not a mad, consuming type of thing, but a solid respect for what they do. They’ve won my business as well. So, like you, I will play this game, but I don’t have to play it day one. I haven’t even played Uncharted 3.
That said, your impressions are making me all the more interested.
I won’t be playing this of course, but was intrigued to read your impressions Steerpike, sir. I still read here even if I don’t comment so much!
The Last of Us: great cinema, same old shooter?
You hit the nail on the head I think, and my impressions align very much with yours, Steerpike. I’m also in Pittsburgh, though it feels like I’ve been playing for a long time already (maybe because I’ve died a bunch in certain spots). My play time however is double yours; probably partly due to me constantly leaving games idle for chunks at a time, partly due to the havoc that a scavenging game wreaks on OCD.
The start of the game (after the fiery intro) seemed very slow to get on its feet but things basically picked up once Joel meets Ellie; everything before seems like a long, boring prologue. I like the crafting and scavenging elements, and the environments are designed well enough to force you in almost every situation to decide just how much combat you’ll engage in, and just how much you’ll risk for a few pieces of salvage.
A lot of people have compared The Last of Us to The Road; I sort of agree; although that book’s somber tone almost never lifted. I’ve actually been thinking at times whilst playing that this game’s story would actually translate better to a book than a film. It’s too plodding (not in a negative way) for the latter.
So far I’ve really enjoyed the interaction with the tertiary characters and the down time/scavenging periods in between tense action pieces. The major annoyance I’ve had from a gameplay perspective actually aligns with my problem in most end-of-humanity settings: that is there is too much emphasis on military/militia/bandit etc. presence. From a gameplay perspective, I’ve found the most frustrating bits to be battles/sneak-fests with hunters or other organized, armed groups. From a story perspective it’s tedious. At the end of the world, why are 99% of people suddenly dicks? I could see if like, 57% resorted to being total dicks, but there’s too much emphasis on this organized “hunters” thing. I mean, unless they’re all unrelated; but that doesn’t seem to be the case: they’re all well armed or driving around in hummers. I would much prefer to see random pockets of survivors with unique agendas, and not necessarily a shoot-first policy. But I digress.
The Last of Us is, so far, a very enjoyable experience. The farther I get in, the further I’d like to see this story go. I’d certainly welcome more original stories from Naughty Dog even if it meant putting Nathan Drake into early retirement. Maybe this one’s just a big, fancy interactive movie, but so what? Games don’t have an obligation to be anything, I like to say. “Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others.”
Those are good points, xtal. I’m still in Pittsburgh, not having made much progress last night – though I did have an epic I AM THE NIGHT sneakfest hour in some sort of enormous building that looked like either a library or office supply storage warehouse. Here and there you definitely see chinks in the game’s seams – three guys just parked on an outside staircase, clearly positioned there waiting to be triggered; odd patrol paths when there’s really no reason to patrol at all, that sort of thing. Last night I reflected that as tough as this game can be, it’s actually quite forgiving in many ways. Foes notice bodies, but they don’t call out when a friend has gone silent for a long time, they don’t notice leftover detritus like badly aimed arrows lodged in wooden bookshelves, and of course Joel’s ability to “listen” is practically superhuman. Though unrealistic I see these as signs of good design. Realism to a point is necessary in games, beyond that it can rapidly devolve into dull frustration.
I will say one thing that Metro: Last Light did better was pre-event scripts. You see villains in The Last of Us and the setup is pretty standard: they have a short conversation you listen in on, then they split up and go “on patrol,” endlessly, for no reason. In Metro it was much more common to stumble on a group of bandits just hanging out around a card table, totally unprepared for you. Because why would they heavily patrol an area they considered to be their secure turf? Still, the sign of a good game is that none of these issues really bother me in The Last of Us. The graphics and attention to detail are stunning, and the world-is-ending setpieces (like the huge impromptu evacuation pens, now abandoned, that the military set up to get people out of large cities in an orderly fashion) are delightful to admire and explore. As powerful as I know the PS3 is, I’m consistently amazed by the quality of visuals in this particular game. It’s pretty darn close to photorealistic.
The odd, discordant music is a lovely touch as well. Like you, I agree that The Road is an apt but somewhat off comparison. There’s plenty of humor in The Last of Us. Ellie is really quite funny. Her asides and relentless foul language are strangely delightful. They did a great job creating a teenager who’s more mature than most adults, yet still a young person.
And, of course – this is an important point – a young person who never knew the world before the Cordyceps plague. At 14, she was born six years into the aftermath. Her curiosity about the world of yesterday is interesting to watch. I just went through a sequence where she was quizzing Joel on coffee shops, nice hotels, and why models were so skinny before the plague despite the fact that there was lots of food back then. Joel, still uncomfortable around Ellie for reasons that have yet to be revealed, stumbles around his answers and consistently comes off like he’s keeping the truth about Santa Claus from her… which in turn encourages her to press harder.
The more I play The Last of Us, the more impressed I am by the smoothness of its controls and the ease with which it delivers a fun experience that could’ve very easily been infuriating. Playing on Hard, I die constantly. The checkpoint system is good but there’s still some retracing, and in most games you’d assume that would lead to frustration. Here it mostly does not, even in the handful of instances where I felt kinda cheated. I could level plenty of legitimate complaints at the game, but none have significantly impacted my positivity towards it.
Those reviewers who gave it lower scores simply have different priorities. Some people are going to be bothered by issues that I’m not bothered by, and vice versa. The Last of Us is not perfect by any stretch, it’s just really good. How good is entirely a matter of the type of gamer you are, what you like and dislike. If I were scoring it, I’d trend higher than Phil Kollar’s 7.5 and lower than the perfect 10s other outlets have given. Call it a 9. Issues that would normally knock it into the “7” range, the number I cited in the impressions above, are offset by the fact that though present they didn’t bother me as much as they could have.
@AJ: I’ve only been to Pittsburgh a couple of times, and then briefly, so I’m no expert, but offhand I’d say this rendition isn’t super accurate. I remember the city being a lot more bedrocky than this place is, and I also remember the river being omnipresent. These ruins look more like Atlanta to me, but I could be wrong.
Great impressions, Steerpike.
I totally agree with everything you’ve said. The game play is solid, but not revolutionary. There is nothing terribly ground-breaking about what happens and there are those occassional glitches you talked about, but it does enough things well that when you combine the decent game play with the great writing, fantastic graphics and overall feel of the game it all comes together.
There are definitely times when things break down a bit. The AI is good at things like flanking you and moving to your last known position, but does falter in many other ways. I don’t think I’ve ever played a game that was perfect in this regard and this game is better than most. Like you, I am much more forgiving about these types of flaws (largely because I don’t expect perfection) when so many other aspects of the game are solid. If I like the characters and am interested in the story – which I most definitely am here – I can forgive quite a few things in a game. Though there are some, say, like “Alpha Protocol”, that despite my inherent interest in the game, the game play was so bad and clunky that I had to quit after about 30 minutes in. “The Last of Us” is right in my wheelhouse. I love post-apocalyptic settings and stories. I like sassy women (Ellie) and tough, haunted caregiver loners (Joel).
The patrolling thing is a bit weird. Why are they always patrolling? What exactly are they protecting? If they thought someone was in their city killing their people (which they do and there is, but only because they keep getting in the way – Don’t start none, won’t be none), why not just sort of take up a good position and watch? Or try to hunt them down. I think it is just the way of the “stealth” game. You need to have guards patrolling on semi-regular patterns to make the “stealth” part of the game work. While it works in, say, “Thief” or “Deus Ex” where there are legitimate reasons for guards to be “on patrol”, it does fall apart a bit here when you’re talking about ragtag bands of “hunters” in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. I think the “stealth” portion works better with the zombies.
I am still in Pittsburgh too. I am only playing it on “normal” and still die all the time. And I hate when that happens because the little death cut-scenes are so brutal and vicious. No me gusta seeing poor Joel (or Ellie) like that. I fear I rely too heavily on guns. My ammo situation is critically low and my horrible aiming skills have made me overly reliant on the shotgun (though I did finally kill a guy with a bow!). Other than a few exceptions, I don’t think I’ve ever really successfully stealthed my way through all villains. I’m lucky if I get 2 down silently before all hell breaks loose.
While I have never been to Pittsburgh, I have watched “She’s Out Of My League” several times, saw “Dark Knight Rises” and have general knowledge of the place. I would say the only Pittsburghesque thing I have noticed was the (a) bridge.
Excellent impressions Steerpike. I agree with you on all of your accounts.
I beat the game yesterday and I gotta say, I freaking loved it!!!! No other game this generation, aside from Journey, has been able to trigger as much of an emotional response as this one. Journey’s was different though. It was far more personal, almost religious, while The Last of Us was all based on the structured narrative that Naughty Dog put together. And I’ll be damned, but there is no other developer on this planet that is better than ND at delivering great dialogue and cutscenes that resonate with me.
The gameplay is solid enough, but that is not why this game is special. It is predictable and standard when it comes to mechanics. Encounters and firefights are standard 3rd person fare. It follows a structure of encounter, fight, and then sections of scavenging before the next encounter. You can almost feel them coming. But that doesn’t matter. Just when you begin to think the game is falling into a pattern it throws you an unexpected curveball. Countless times while playing, just when I thought it was getting slightly stale, the game had a set piece, or section, or pulled a 360 that would make my jaw drop and I was sucked right back in. And Ellie’s and Joel’s relation blossomed in such a natural, fantastic way, that I couldn’t help but be blown away and relate to the characters.
Little things, like the small exchanges they would have while you play the game, in real-time, really helped evolve the characters and by the end, I really did care for Ellie and my actions through Joel were my own towards her. I really did want to protect her, at all costs.
I found the game to be the perfect length (beat it in 16 hours) and it managed to surprise me many times. I won’t spoil anything, but the “Winter” section has been once of my best experiences this generation. Didn’t expect that.
Overall, despite it’s “gamey” flaws, it stands as one of my favorite games of the last 10 years. Can’t wait to see what Naughty Dog can do with the next generation of hardware! Almost scary!
I finished the game yesterday! It gets stronger and stronger, so much in ways you may not have expected; particularly after what I found was a rather dull first two hours in Boston. It really starts to get strong in the second half of Pittsburgh, and everything after that is absolutely outstanding.
I am still coming to terms with the great story and two very believable characters in Ellie and Joel.
And you know what, the “game” part was pretty good too. There’s certainly no “ludo-narrative” dissonance as observed in the Uncharted games either. The things you do fall completely in line with the world and characters. I expected (and hoped) to like The Last of Us, but it turns out I enjoyed and admire it a lot more than I thought possible.
Honestly I think people who criticize TLoU are doing it simply because they want to be different. I respect Chick’s career as a reviewer, but to say TLoU isn’t innovative as a game is to ignore the power of narrative. Which is remarkable, in that anyone who’s played games for any length of years knows full well that the lack of narrative is what’s kept games from being taken seriously.
I’ve been playing games longer than almost anyone alive, and I can say that TLoU is one of the best ever. I don’t need some guy criticizing it because he’s lost track of what really makes a game work.
And you’re right SP: that line from Tess was remarkable. I know many professional writers who wouldn’t be able to write with such clarity and subtlety.
I’m running into this game all over the place.
http://fictionwritersreview.com/blog/a-physical-link-into-the-world-of-the-fictional