Endure and Survive
In the past Naughty Dog were known for developing the child friendly, colourful and wacky games starring the most famous marsupial who goes by the name of Crash Bandicoot as well as making a few other best – selling titles such as Jak and Daxter. However since the year 2007 Naughty Dog have been releasing games for a new audience, an audience that craves realistic settings and characters with complex storylines and detailed graphics.
After a few of these realistic games titled Uncharted Drake’s Fortune and Uncharted 2 Among Thieves, Naughty Dog decided to split into two teams with one half working on Uncharted 3 and the other half working on something else. This “something else” was announced to be titled The Last of Us.
The Last of Us is an action survival horror game that focuses on the relationship between the two main characters and what they have to do to survive in a world ravaged by a fungal infection called The Cordyceps. One main character and the main playable character in The Last of Us is a man at the top end of his 40’s called Joel. Joel has few moral lines left to cross as he has survived 20 years after the pandemic first started, this also marks 20 years since a traumatic event which still haunts him. He may not be the most likable character Naughty Dog have created but he is the most human with regrets, a personality and the ability to show his feeling and relationship develop with Ellie the other main character as he becomes a father figure.
The reason Joel becomes a father figure is because 14 year old Ellie is like a daughter to him even though she isn’t actually his daughter, she is actually the cure for the Cordyceps infection and Joel is tasked with taking her to a lab on the other side of a Post-Pandemic America. The main characters are shown bonding throughout their journey as they share their stories as well as Ellie’s just plain awful jokes. They learn to have each other’s backs even when things look bleak as they fight through a world full of destruction, pain and did I mention Zombie like Infected.
Yes, the Cordyceps actually takes over the host’s motor functions and entire brain thus turning the humans that it infects into The Infected. There are numerous kinds of Infected that are encountered throughout the game with Runners who act as your super aggressive, lighting fast Zombie with the psychical features of a human being. However as the infection gets worse the human features disappear and are slowly replaced with fungus which sprouts out of the head and covers the host’s eyes, this means they can’t see so they use a form of echolocation to find you with a sinister clicking sound that sends shivers down my spine every time. These carnivorous, clicking creatures go by the name of Clickers.
In the Last of Us the infected are the least of your worries because at the least they are predictable unlike what is left of humanity as the other humans you encounter through the game can be more ruthless and frightening than any Infected with humans that are willing to kill you for a good pair of shoes and one group of humans that hold one of the most gruesome and unthinkable diets – Let’s just say if you are asked to dress for dinner by their leader, you won’t be eating anything but they will.
The world doesn’t sound too good for our main characters but it looks amazing for gamers with some of the most photo realistic graphics to be seen on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 as the use of motion capture and game design and development come into their own with every detail discussed among the members of the Naughty Dog crew until it is the best it can be.
Speaking of the best it could be Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker present an outstanding performance as Ellie and Joel with each line spoken better than I could have imagined. Troy and Ashley didn’t just provide the voices for two of the most loved duos in gaming, they also provided the motion capture footage as well as they performed each scene with acting and dialogue at the same time with incredible effect. All of the other actors did this as well but Troy and Ashley just couldn’t of been any better in their roles.
Really the Last of Us is a PlayStation exclusive which has earned more than 200 awards, possesses one of the most realistic and talked about stories in gaming with not a moment where the writing quality fails or when the characters become boring. In my opinion the Last of Us is one of the best games I have ever played and is my most played game as I have played through the Story on all the difficulties and enjoyed the bonus of multiplayer mode which is an amazing extra to a game that couldn’t be better.
