“The Last of Us” touches down June 14th and is already shaping up to be a phenomenal experience— in typical Naughty Dog fashion. Being the first IP the developer has worked on in the past few years outside of the wonderfully received “Uncharted” franchise, “The Last of Us” has quite a lot riding on it’s plate.
The game is set in a near derelict version of America ravaged by a plague of fungal origin, which has wiped out most of society over the past twenty years while turning humans into deformed savages. “The Last of Us” centers around two survivors of this post apocalyptic setting, “Joel” an older battle scarred gent who promised a friend he’d take care of the other main character “Ellie” a teenage youth only old enough to know the world as it’s been since the plague took over. Not a great deal of information has been released to the public regarding the game’s overall plot (as doing so would be counterproductive), but what has been dispensed recently revolves around a Joel trying to take Ellie as far away from some sort of corrupted regime as possible, while getting entangled with not only the infected humans, but insidious non-infected human smugglers as well.
Sony had a playable demo on hand at PAX East 2013 for eager gamers to sink their teeth into, and based off what was shown “The Last of Us” could very well be the catalyst for another successful franchise for not just Sony, but Naughty Dog as well. The graphics were solid while not as impressive as what was shown at E3 2012 (this could be due to an old build or the fact that the screens used at PAX just weren’t set up for optimal image quality) but the game still looked extremely solid. In direct comparison to “Uncharted” I would have to say the gameplay moved at a slower paced, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing— especially, since Uncharted is more action centric, while The Last of Us is clearly more grounded in “survival horror”. Players take control of Joel, while Ellie functions as an AI support character similarly to Elizabeth from the recently released “BioShock Infinite”. As Joel you’re allowed to combine items littered around the terrain to form melee weapons that can be used to combat either the infected, or non-infected enemies. Ellie follows you around constantly offering distractions in combat heavy sections, and aid while solving puzzles by being able to reach areas Joel can’t, thanks to her small size.
Originally intended for release next month, “The Last of Us” was delayed until June 14th in to order allow Naughty Dog the chance to make further refinements. Given that the title is being primarily made by most of the staff who worked on the ridiculously amazing “Uncharted 2: Among Thieves” (while the rest of the original team went off to make “Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception) you can pretty much guarantee that “The Last of Us” will be something truly special. No other developer has made the PlayStation 3 as relevant as it is today in the way Naughty Dog has. It truly brings chills to mind when fantasizing of what these developers will be able to accomplish with the PlayStation 4 once it rolls around—- but what ever it is they do, I know I will be there to gladly partake in any journey they offer.
