Massive flaws. 1.)It's impossible to fail. Literally. You can fight the biggest, baddest boss in the game, set the controller down without pausing and make a sandwich... Then, you can go to work. Then, you can come home and go to sleep. Then, you can wake up and catch a flight to the island paradise of Maui and spend a week there. Then you can come home and sleep off your jet-lag. If the game is still running, you will still be alive and completely fine. 2.) None of the original promises of the Fable series are fulfilled in this entry. If anything, it's a step back from 1 and 2 in meeting the goals that were originally set for the project. 3.) The menus are all replaced by a cumbersome 'sanctuary' that you teleport to and walk into different rooms, select certain objects and... interact with menus. It's just a nonsensical, immersion-breaking, extra layer between you and menus.
This game isn't the zero that Sony Ponies are giving it, and it's definitely not the 10 that Xbots are giving it. It's a slightly better FPS than Call of Duty. It just has the unenviable task of being the first big post-launch game for a new console system. Anyone giving it a ten is deluded, as is anyone giving it less than 5. Only broken games deserve a score that low, and it's not broken. I deduct points from it for being online-only, not impressing visually, not staying steady at 60fps and having a disappointing 792p resolution.
This game crushed my soul. It's got a dead, massive, empty world. The combat is painstakingly awkward. The graphics are so terrible that they make you want to gouge your eyes out, and inserting the expansion pack only gives you framerate stutter for some reason. The music isn't great, and it's usually not present any. There are almost no sounds except for your own headache-inducing footsteps for hours on end. And for all of your effort wandering around the bland world aimlessly, fighting banal monsters over and over again, your main character never stops looking like an embarrassing dweeb. Still, I might be insane, but the story was actually passable. If it could be remade with modern graphics, filled with sidequests, some way to let you know what to do next, and a good battle system, I see it being extremely enjoyable.
I wanted to wait until I finished this game before writing anything, and so I have. It took me from launch day until late December, but I have collected every animus fragment and finished the story. And It. Was. Glllllorious. A nearly perfect open world sandbox pirate game, with everything you liked about Assassin's Creed games, with the best character and best story so far.
This game is almost immediately evocative of works such as The Road, and the lesser-known Earth Abides, with strong hints of "I Am Legend". It plays like Uncharted, meets Fallout, meets the original Resident Evil. What I'm going to cover first is the centerpiece of the game, the characters. The highly detailed character graphics, intricate facial animations, and sincere voice acting set a new high standard for the video game medium all by themselves. These technical aspects, combined with excellent characters that simply ooze verisimilitude, form something truly special. The end of the game in particular made me think that the voice actors must have done a minimum of 1,000 takes to achieve the perfect subtlety they deliver their lines with. The controls and gunplay are realistic, but not as realistic as the brutal depiction of violence which is so realistic that it's not even fun in the "wee!" sense. This seems to be the entire theme of the game. It is the opposite of a bullet hell shooter but even more frantic. It is, in turns, nerve-wracking and heart-wrenching (if you have any semblance of a soul residing in the dying coals of your heart) the fresh take on "zombies" as presented by the Fungus-controlled Infected such as Clickers, delivers an apt sense of dread and tension. If you think that's a negative, you might want to stick to Zen Pinball 3D. In giving you pleasure while not being pleasant, The Last of Us elevates the medium to new heights; even making me pause and wonder if "game" is the correct word for it, despite the fact that you are given full control and are able to tackle any given situation with great freedom. From a design perspective, The Last of Us is a well-oiled machine. It makes great strides in eliminating the disconnect between gameplay and story, known as ludonarrative dissonance, almost universally present in any action game that tries to present an unique story. The rules work almost the same in a cutscene as they do when you have control of the characters. Joel cannot be shot in the eye 20 times during the course of playing and be totally fine, and then need a trip to the E.R. when he stubs his toe in a cutscene. Both my wife and I completed the story in about 18 hours. To give perspective, we don't rush through things, we explore and experiment quite a bit. I was obsessed with what the length of the game would be before I played it, and I now see that this was folly. I like to get a lot of playtime for my 60 dollars, but it would have been a huge disservice to us for Naughty Dog to artificially extend the playtime just for that reason (although you can argue that's what multiplayer is). The game is as long as the story, and any significant changes to what we ended up with would have ruined it. Do not wish for this to be a longer or shorter game. What value The Last of Us does not deliver in Skyrim-esque length, it delivers in sheer quality. Speaking of multiplayer, I haven't even redeemed my online code yet and there's a chance that I may never (honestly, the story isn't "Campaign Mode", "Story Mode", or "Singleplayer Mode, it's just the game), so all I can say is that I'm intrigued by the playmode where there are no respawns; as it has the potential to alter the ubiquitous "LEEEROOY JENKINS" enthusiasm plaguing most online multiplayer games. Nobody's going to want to do that if it means they have to wait until the next match. The multiplayer mode also includes elements from the actual game, such as crafting, and the current modes center around the concept of survival but do not feature non-human enemies from the game, such as Clickers, or those things that are more deadly than Clickers. And that, Dear Reader, is the best and most accurate spoiler-free review that you will read for The Last of Us. You need not read any other, especially not those that risibly pan the game just for attention. In fact, you shouldn't even be reading what I'm typing right now, because you should be buying or playing the game.
