REVIEW: The Last of Us (PS3/PS4)

Much like my favourite all-time video game (Shadow of the Colossus), The Last of Us is probably the swansong of it's parent system; in this case the PS3. Released in 2013, it was only a year later, and after receiving over two hundred awards, that it was 'remastered' onto the fledgling PS4 which at the time of writing is currently suffering a drought of new content. When it originally came out I wasn't in the mood for another third-person-shooter, or another "zombie game" and so passed it up vowing to pick it up later in a price drop. Eventually I got around to owning the game but that's where the PS3 version and me end our brief relationship, as shortly afterwards the remastered version was announced and so I traded it away without even loading the disc. It was only months later when I wanted to get the most from my next-gen system that I picked it up again at launch this time, for full price, on PS4 and this time immediately played it. While I don't regret the roundabout way that I eventually came to play The Last of Us, part of me now realises what an absolutely spectacular game I missed out on a year ago.

The Last of Us is a post-apocalyptic survival-horror action-adventure game, which is quite different to how I expected it to be; if you combined The Road, Twelve Monkeys and 28 Days Later you'd end up with something not too dissimilar to what you'll find here. Also, notice that strictly speaking none of those references have "zombies" in them. In this video game, the human race has been ravaged by a mutated strain of cordyceps fungus, a parasitic infection that eats away at your brain and soft tissue until it kills you and turns you into a crop of spore spreading mushrooms! Those affected by the fungus display aggressive violent behaviour and the spores can also be spread through bodily fluids like saliva. Playing as Joel, an unhinged survivor of the apocalypse, you're tasked with escorting a young girl called Ellie through the overrun former civilization of mankind in order to find the "Fireflies", a terrorist cell looking to synthesize a cure. Along the way you'll encounter your fair share of cordyceps afflicted monstrosities, but the majority of the time it's the human element that is the true source of horror and I felt like of all the influences it was The Road which was felt the strongest.

This game does a fantastic job of actually making you feel as if you're trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world, and I spent a good portion of the game simply exploring the environment and scraping together whatever resources I could get to help Ellie and I stay alive. There is a fair amount of shooting/fighting in The Last of Us if you want there to be, but the game often presents you with sandbox environments allowing you to choose sneaking as a viable alternative if you're not into gunplay. This is felt strongest in the survival-horror sections of the game, as you crawl about in the dark, desperate not to make any noise and draw the ire of the "clickers" (heavily mutated final-stage hosts of the cordyceps). When it was originally released on PS3, this game pushed the aging hardware to its limits, and while it looked spectacular it didn't always maintain a steady framerate or completely do the vision of the design team justice. In it's remastered state, The Last of Us on PS4 looks great, with high detail models and environments and all running at a silky smooth 1080p 60fps, finally delivering the experience as intended. While it's not as breathtaking as true next-gen titles like Infamous: Second Son, it still looks and sounds fantastic. On the subject of sound, the game's music is also brilliantly atmospheric and moody, fitting the scenes and feel of the game perfectly.

Really though, all these things I've mentioned so far are the icing on the fungal cordyceps cake, and the reason this game received over two hundred awards is almost completely down to it's story and characters. While I've been swept away by stories in video games before, The Last of Us is probably the best written and realised use of this medium yet, finally rivaling books or films in terms of complex characterisation and storytelling; and without removing 'player agency' from the equation. The two leads of Joel and Ellie are so rounded and enriched by deep exposition that you really get a feel for how they'll react and experience events in the plot. The game has also been praised for its treatment of homosexuality, especially in the additional content included with this remastered release, and it really feels like an adult video game not just a "dude-bro" adult-rated but essentially juvenile tale. By the end of the meandering narrative, which takes our protagonists right across apocalypse-ravaged America, you will have had your heart-strings tugged on, yanked on, and severed before reaching what is one of the most *perfect* conclusions to a narrative I've ever seen. In fact, the story in this video game is so good, they immediately optioned a movie adaptation.

Don't wait for the film version though, the reason that The Last of Us works so well is because of it's strengths in this medium; a video game. To remove the player agency from this experience will be to diminish the connection that you, the player, has with the protagonists and really this is something that must be experienced not watched. One of the best games on the PS3, now one of the best on the PS4, and one of the best video games full stop.