The Last Of Us PS3 Reviews review

[Colin]

I'm not far ahead of you after starting my replay last night. How are you feeling about it as a game now?

[Dogg Thang]

I'm enjoying it. The atmosphere is generally excellent, characters are good, production values are clearly incredibly high. And I have enjoyed quite a few of the gameplay sections too. I have found more of a groove with the combat and, aside from running out of scissor items, I have some good systems going. I'm playing very cautious so have a slow pace going on. And I'm glad the checkpoints are all very frequent. I think they have to be when some enemies can get you in one hit and it works fine.

I still find the disconnect to be the main thing holding me back from calling it great. It's like there are a few different games going on here and the divisions are too clear. It's not a fluid experience. There is the strong focus on narrative, like The Walking Dead, fairly typical survival horror sections and then the FPS sections, with just about all the staples we are already so familiar with. I do feel like I'm switching into a different game each time so I find the experience to be patchy. For me, I do wonder if I would have enjoyed it better had it been more focused on one thing so that it could be fully integrated into the experience and I might be less aware of the game design. Like I don't ever think about playing a game when immersed in the Walking Dead. Or when running around blasting guys in Gears of War. Or creeping around Silent Hill. This aims for all those things but I see the game design more clearly.

This may sound odd but I wonder if much of this would have escaped my notice had the opening been a little more gamey and, actually, a little weaker from a narrative viewpoint. What really kicked off my early issues was going from a strong Walking Dead-like intro into a very run of the mill FPS bit.

But I am enjoying it and my own negatives shouldn't be taken as any sort of damning criticism. The game has tons to offer and does a lot of things right. It's incredibly polished and, at this point, I am very invested in the game and want to see how it all plays out. I'm not finding the combat as frustrating and I'm taking it much slower and more carefully. This next section looks visually stunning too. Really amazing graphics. Kind of makes me feel the next gen is redundant!

[buster_broon]

Another here who loved it but the flaws just don't give it a 10

But on my second play through (just under 13 hours) it was much easier and had loads of shivs for those clickers still didn't find over 20 artifacts though so either missed an area or just wasn't looking hard enough

I only Played it through a second time just to see if I could handle the end differently

->Open Spoiler<-

not torch everyone in the room with my flamethrower and just do the minimum to rescue Ellie and walk out

But nevertheless still my game of the year

[Colin]

Well, just finished my replay. When I scored this game on release I gave it a ten, despite its issues. Having now just played it again after a long gap, I still think it's absolutely fantastic. Once again, without doubt, I'd have to score it the same. I don't really care if anyone wants to pick it apart and moan about part or all of it, I have to think of it just from my own preference, and for me it's superb. I'd go as far as to say that it's my personal favourite modern game of all time, flawed or not. Superb.

[speedlolita]

It might be my GOTY but I'm going to give this a 9. It isn't perfect and there are a few bits of the game that I felt were a little dumb.

Either way, loved it.

[Colin]

No game will ever be perfect.

[speedlolita]

Metroid Prime.



















Okay maybe you're right.

[nakamura]

No game has ever made me question the actions of each and every character. Last of Us deserves its ten.

[Strider]

I've never understood why people think 10/10 means a game is perfect.

[speedlolita]

Because 10/10 is 1. 100%. Perfection.

[megatron]

Could be rounded up to the nearest unit if the rating system doesn't allow decimal points?

[nakamura]

Why not rate everything out of 9 then?

[buster_broon]

But then near perfect games would score an 8

[nakamura]

I know. Imagine the outrage!

[Colin]

Because someone who knows better than you and your tastes will then come along and tell you that you can't possibly rate it a nine, as nine is the highest a game should get, but because the game glitched twice during their thirteen hour play through it can't be a nine as it isn't perfect. Then the cycle will just keep going until no number is acceptable and there is no choice available but to rate all games zero as it not otherwise acceptable to the pedantic. Therefore all games will be rated the same, the dross and the genius. I do wonder about some people at times.