moseleymoles on The Last of Us – let’s post more gaming reviews
Not being either 17 or a professional games reviewer, it takes rather longer for us middle-aged gamers to post our thoughts on today’s consoles/pc games than on the latest Steven Wilson album. Not so much a Night In as six months of snatched half-hours in my case. Yet games importance in modern culture – easily the equal of Hollywood and perhaps more important than music if you are under forty – should see them feature on The Afterword more. I guess I am saying that those of us who do game should try and post our reviews more regularly, even if we are only now catching up with GTA V. Admins – any chance of a separate category in Nights In. Happy to suggest what the categories should be.
If it took Bingo Little some time to play Bloodborne, it’s taken me far longer to play through what was universally agreed to be 2014’s Game of the Year – The Last of Us.
This is not a game based on a franchise or a sequel. I think that there’s less wider interest in posting a review of Fifa 2016: a slightly better rendered Messi and some tweaks to the gameplay and transfer systems. A new Call of Duty likewise offers generally little in the way of surprise.
TLOU takes one of the founding genres of gaming: survival horror. The world has been devastated by a plague that turns the infected into several different types of zombies – your standard rushers who run towards you, clickers who home in on sound, and bio-bomb throwing bloaters. You start the game in a heavily militarised quarantine zone playing Joel – a grizzled survivor, black-market hustler and all round grumpy middle-aged man. In the course of a botched weapons deal he is persuaded to escort a teenage girl, Ellie, across open country to a rebel group, the Fireflies.
Now to write much more about the plot would start the spoilers, and narrative twists and suspenses are very much part of the game’s impact. In a Call of Duty you know that whatever the situation, killing all the people who are shooting at you and blowing things up or stopping someone blowing things up will generally be the answer. The Last of Us, despite you spending almost all of the game with a backpack full of weapons (many improvised with gaffer tape, scissors and sugar), at least creates situations where this doesn’t turn out always to be the case.
The game-play is fluid and runs beautifully on the PS4, with a real sense of the limitations of the physical world. Walls must be scaled with ladders that need finding, and as one character can’t swim you have to find ways around or over deep water.
The restricted ammo combat, with the importance of collecting every dropped cog and ammo clip, comes straight from the daddy of all survival horrors, Resident Evil. I remember getting as far as -ooh – the dogs in the corridor on the original PS2 game before my ammo ran out every time. It’s not so crushingly difficult, but it makes you weigh up your options each time you can hear or see the undead. It also borrows the ‘stealth-em-up’ from Metal Gear, with using cover and creeping past enemies as important as going in with both barrels.
So what makes it so special?
It looks constantly amazing – sunsets, ruined buildings, wildlife (one brief but brilliant section has you stalking a deer in the snow). The standard visual tropes of survival horror – burnt-out cars, abandoned homes, notes from survivors, barbed wire-surrounded enclaves and desperate hiding holes in the ruins – have never looked better. The lighting, from overhead bulbs and flickering fires to sunlit corridors, is a constant thing of wonder.
The sound design is – I would say – the best every in a game I’ve played. The music is sparse, melancholy and has more in common with that of The Revenant than something like Call of Duty. The aforementioned clickers, the crunch of glass or twig underfoot, whispered words from bandits – the need to constantly listen as watch is one of this game’s real innovations and pleasures.
The game’s depiction of a society twenty years after the apocalypse is adult, layered and complex. It doesn’t shy away from the grimmest sides of human nature – and assaults on Joel and Ellie by other humans are far more visceral and troubling than the zombie attacks. Comparisons with Cormac McCarthy’s The Road are spot-on and it most definitely an 18. Particularly, a layer of characters that populate the journey: from Joel’s smuggler buddy to his estranged brother and finally the rebel leader Marlene are vividly realised. Crucially, characters do not always reveal their motives on first encounter and are open to argument, moods and changes of heart – giving these encounters far more life than the usual scripted cut scene characters of a COD. Many reviews have picked out how refreshing it is to see female characters not defined by victimhood or sex (their two chief roles in too many games).
Ultimately this is a game that stands out through its script – and the extra-ordinary care taken to draw its two central characters Joel and Ellie. Both are introduced with some fairly stock character traits – Joel the grizzled loner survivor, taciturn and suspicious of all, Ellie the teenage ‘not doing that’ brat all attitude and pout. Their journey – paced like a film, with a real sense of the passage of time – allows them to develop as characters you care about, and who reveal unexpected resources, emotions and reactions. From Hollywood TLOU borrows the ‘coming of age’ movie brilliantly with Ellie inevitably losing her innocence and wonder as experience forces her to grow up all to quickly. One more sharp script trick is of course the generation gap: Joel is constantly harking back to society before the apocalypse, for Ellie this is all she knows.
I hope I’ve persuaded you without giving away its secrets. Its start – like Saving Private Ryan – is astonishing, it’s ending will leave you with a whole parcel of mixed emotions as again, it doesn’t let you off with a neat ‘saving the world’ ending. Play The Resistance: Fall of Man games on the ps3 for a far more conventional and less complex take on the zombie apocalypse – blowing things up really does save the world (spoiler!). Play The Last of Us to see how games can be about scripts, characters and storytelling.
Marvellous review Mosely. And despite being a rather passive gamer, completely agree with your sentiment that the world of gaming should be paid more attention here. Many of the aspects of a good game – character. plotting, graphics, music – are things we are all familiar with from other media.
One problem for an outsider coming to the world of games, as mentioned on the Bloodborne thread, is that one is going to get very little idea what it’s all really about from watching a Tube clip. One has to play one’s self or watch someone playing. But putting the best games on the AW radar is a very good start.
Ooops! I saw TLOU going cheap and bought it recently for my son for his 13th birthday. But your mention of Cormac McCarthy makes me think that maybe I should keep it for myself.
What a swiz, eh? Your dad nabbing your birthday presents!
I would think twice about letting a 13-year old play it. I wouldn’t let my 12-year old play. It’s not amoral (like GTA), it’s profoundly moral. But there is not only a lot of very graphic violence that you have to enact on others, there are plot-lines that are disturbing – if you have read/seen The Road then think of the worst scene, it’s like that. There’s also lots of good in people, but the dark places are very dark.
Excellent review. I’ve heard nothing but good things about this game, and will get round to playing it eventually. Once I’m freed from the gnarled grip of Bloodborne.
Totally agree about getting more game reviews up on here.
I am neither for nor against getting more game reviews on here but just somewhat surprised that there are at least 2 people on a site full of old gits that are interested in gaming. Or am I in a minority in having no interest whatsoever?
It’s a racing certainty that the vast majority on here have zero interest in games. But it’s equally certain that if we all just post about majority interests, this place will end up as an adjunct to the Mojo messageboards.
One of the things which drew me to The Word, above other music magazines, was that it was knowledgeable about the past but with an eye always on the future. Both Mark Ellen and David Hepworth (beneath his curmudgeonly exterior) were really hot on this stuff, hence their early adoption of the iPhone and endless articles about how young people were now consuming culture (who remembers the Heppo article on “DVD snacking”?).
I’d like to think that this site can maintain that healthy balance. There will never be a shortage of threads on which people can discuss which of the Beatles was, in fact, the best drummer. Weighed against that, I think it’s really important we keep seeing minority interest posts, where people talk about stuff that interests/excites them that may not be for everyone.
The very best posts on here tend to be where the author is truly passionate about the subject, and have put finger to keyboard as much as an outlet of their own natural enthusiasm as because they think there’s a large audience waiting for them.
Obviously, you’re not speaking in opposition to any of the above – this just seemed like a convenient place to say it all.
Hi Bingo, I agree entirely and it was in fact The Word that introduced me to the delights of the iPod. I may have got there anyway but those early monthly randomisers they used to print piqued my interest and the rest as they say is history.
The reason I posted the question was because I was quite surprised to see a gaming review on here. My son is a gamer and quite a few guys at work but all in a much younger age group. I find the graphics of some new games very good indeed but I have no medium on which to play them. I am sure if I did I would quickly become addicted.
After all the amount of time I spend doing Word Chums on my Kingle has already raised comments from the missus.
I used to make the things and now teach game graphics and concept art so I’m interested.
Here’s an Amazon review from an old git (just like me): “Got this when it first came out on playstation 3 but wasn’t that impressed with it but now I know I should have stuck with it,got it again for playstation 4 and after first hour playing I was hooked big time brilliant story and voice acting brilliant graphics just a brilliant game I’ve been playing games since the commodore 64 and pong in pubs but this is the one I’ve been waiting fore. Only problem with game is its to addictive up till 4 o’clock in morning on one session you just don’t want to turn it off.if you have playstation 4 get this game it stands head and shoulders above all other games as soon as I finished I started to play it again from the beginning never done this with any game before.I am a 60 year old gamer.”
Chalk me up as someone who is interested in games reviews.
Count me in as one of the gamers. Great review moles.
I started playing this at the end of 2014 and had to give up on it soon after – life reasons, not because of the game – but I will definitely return to it once I’ve finished my current obsession with getting Leeds United to the top in Pro Evolution Soccer, and finally finishing GTA V (second time through after doing 90% before my enforced break).
Do you always play Pro Evo, or are you on of the people who has swung back from FIFA?
I used to play PES a hell of a lot (at one point I was in the top 100 players in the world), but found myself forced to move to FIFA after several years of dud releases. I gather its got a lot better now, and there’s some chat that it’s once again the best footie game out there – interested to hear any views you have, particularly as I’ve never fully got on with FIFA.
I moved away after Konami had their Tin Machine phase. Played Fifa 13 after missing footie gaming and found it all gloss and licensing at the expense of the reality of the simulation (your standard EA Sports gripes basically).
PES 2015 on the PS3 is *such* a return to form Bingo. Yes there’s the occasional scripting bias – that tackle will cause the ball to go out, you know the drill – and occasionally predictable opponent AI, but all the things that *mattered* on ISS & PES are present, correct and improved. You now have manual through balls, better keeper control and so on, so I think it would appeal to the dilettante who is after the arcade experience as well as the more committed tactician.
I even went so far as downloading some of the badge images to improve the immersion factor – I believe you can get real kit data files on Ebay for cheap. Don’t ask me about online, because I can’t face it and haven’t the time.
Whoops, I seem to have written one of those review thingies.
And you’ve sold it to me! Definitely getting this.
I don’t think you will regret it. There is a bit of a learning curve to some of it (well there was for me but then I’m an old git with an arthritic toe) but given your history I think you will enjoy the tweaks. That manual pass thing is great when it comes off….
I have zero interest in games. However, the two reviews we’ve had so far have been highly entertaining. Love ’em. Keep them coming. Please.
Have an Up for that comment, Tigger. That’s the spirit. And an Up for Bingo too for that comment about passionate minority interest threads.
For example, despite his eloquence, I thought that Cheshire’s ornithology thread would be a dead duck. So wrong! It led to a very lively discussion in which I learnt lots
Quite a few contributors here seem to be very interested in gorgeous birds.
Add me to the list of “No interest”, but it’s always interesting to read about others passions (especially if they’re well written)
But that’s No Active Interest, Rigid. Not No Interest.
I feel the same about Nude Mud Wrestling with Nubile Amazons. I have no intention to do it. But if Moose wants to lyrically elaborate on its many pleasures, I’ll be all ears.
Me and “Active” – two words which never appear in the same sentence.
Gaming is one of those things I “just don’t get” – but will happily (voyeuristically?) listen to others on the subject (I might learn something).
Now, about this Nude Mud Wrestling …
HURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
– and that’s as lyrical as I get.
Well I think everyone should just post about whatever they want. If no one’s interested you’ll soon realise and stop bothering.
It hasn’t stopped me so far, Diddley ; )
Apropos of which, what about my brilliant Peter Seller/Michael Caine reference yesterday eh? Fair set the table on a roar that did.
Fantastic review. I did write a mini review of The Last of Us some months ago on our monthly round up of what we have been reading,watching and listening to. It wasn’t 1% as good as the review above.
The Last of Us is one of the few games I’ve played through more than once (Spindizzy on the Amstrad CPC & Chaos Engine on the Amiga are others that spring to mind). I’ve only played this on the PS3 (still waiting for PS4 to come down a little more in price, what a tightwad!) but the OP is right the design of this game is perfect, just difficult enough to be a challenge but not too difficult that you’ll give up.
And the ending is just right, like a great movie I thought about for days.
More games please.
I only played this for the first time relatively recently. I had an Xbox 360 last time round, but this gen I’ve gone back to Playstation so I’ve been catching up on upgraded versions of the PS3 games I missed (expecting to finish Uncharted 2 tonight!)
It is simply brilliant, as the OP conveys in fine style. So immersive, so emotionally involving, so well structured. As alluded to above, the ending is spot on as well. The last ten or so seconds…just wow.
Oh, Uncharted 2, man that’s a great game.
I haven’t played games for years, although I lost quite a lot of my 30s to Doom and its successors. These reviews are terribly temping though. I never was that much of a fan of the ‘shoot everything’ school of gaming. There was a thing called, I think, Armed and Dangerous, where you mostly had to crawl around things rather than blast through them. Sounds like that’s more common now.
So if I was to dive in – and I’m no sure my wife would appreciate me giving even more time to sofa-based activities – is the PS4 the way to go?
PS4 and Xbox One both very good. On balance, the PS4 has a marginal edge for reasons I won’t go into, but there’s not much between them (although do bear in mind neither The Last of Us nor Bloodborne is on the Xbox).
Please report back if you take the plunge!
I think the consensus is that the PS4 is edging this round of the console wars. Certainly as regards multiplayer my daughter, who is all about online in games like Destiny and FIFA, shifted over completely from Xbox live to the PS4 and Playstation Network.
If you’re a Halo freak however….
And you should also @chiz check out all the Metal Gear Solid games for ‘sneak em ups’ where tranquillising and sneaking are as much a part of the game (in fact more of it) than run and gun. Next biggie for me is the Metal Gear Solid prologue Ground Zeroes, before the current full game.
As mentioned recently, the proportion of games that aren’t about shooting shit up is tiny. This is a shame, because there was a brief period when for every generic shooter there was a weirdass thing like Myst. Take your time, wander around, work things out. Now it’s mostly Oh Christ bang bang bang BOOM bang bang shit I’m dead/out of ammo/out of time and back to the checkpoint. Imagine if 95% of Hollywood’s output was Jason Statham movies. No, don’t! That’d be quite enjoyable, wouldn’t it. Bad analogy. But you know what I mean.
I just want a few more games with the imagination, wit and mindfuckery of Portal 2. A bit more choice. Who’s with me?
I think @archievalparaiso you can now look beyond the consoles for much of that. I have(mostly) kept a resolution to not have any games on tablet or phones, but had to make an exception for the brilliant Monument Valley. Guide a silent princess around perspective-bending levels modelled on MC Escher. Difficult to explain, superb to play.
I’m with you! Bring back Leisure Suit Larry!
Pass me some of that Spanish Fly, there’s a good chap.
Completely agree. Various Call Of Duty/Medal Of Honor games are on my games drive in an unfinished state – after a while I just can’t be bothered to grind though to the next chapter. I even gave up on the Tomb Raider reboot when it became obvious I was going to have to endure a ghastly “boss fight” against those dumb Samurai whatsits, and the last reboot of Far Cry had me so pissed off with the bloody eagles that attack you for no good reason, I abandoned that before I’d even committed myself to either of the main plot arcs.
Portal 2 however, I played through again and again and really enjoyed – even though the puzzles remain the same each time. Have you played the freebie mod called “Portal Stories – Mel”? It’s superb.
I think the (almost) absence of bosses and the explore/collect/fight cycle from TLOU makes it feel so different from so many other games.
Kids have 3/4 CODs and never been tempted. Just looks joyless. I can appreciate for the multiplayer teabaggers they are a platform, but the campaigns everyone agrees are almost now a by-product.
I loved Far Cry 3 on the PS3. I’ve got Far Cry 4 for the PS4 but haven’t go around to playing it yet. It sounds like I might be dissapointed.
In fact, I’ve also got The Last Of Us and Fallout 4.
My problem is that I bought the PS4 for the kids and it’s in the living room and I just never get around to going in there to play.
I still have a PS3 in my room, which I play on occassionally. I love gaming, but having grown up stuff to do makes it tricky for me to find the time.
Nail on the head. ‘Grown up stuff’ and those pesky kids make about an hour a week as much as I normally get. We bought the PS4 Xmas 2014 and since then I have managed to play through Wolfenstein and Last of Us. So expect a report on Metal Gear Solid sometime in 2017. Up to the minute, that’s the Afterword.
The inverted commas around “Grown up stuff” leave almost no choice but to construe this as a reference to masturbation.
I am so tempted to pull the next gen console trigger if just so I can play Fallout IV. I lost weeks to Fallout 3 and Las Vegas
But XboxOne or PS4 (there’s only one way to find out etc) . I’ve been 360 in recent times so if they have decided to make One backwards compatible…..
Zero interest here*, likewise yesterday’s comics thread.
But it would be a pretty dull old world if we couldn’t post about whatever the hell we wanted. Anyway, it looks like there’s more interest in gaming than there is in my penetrating insights into proposed hyperlink legislation.
*Angry Birds excepted, obviously.
The only thing that sucks about The Last Of Us is that there is no PC version.
Again, not actively interested but very happy to read the reviews. Gaming is sort of one of those things – like sport, I guess – which I seem to be missing a gene for. I enjoy the occasional go, and own an old Xbox 360, but it’s so far down the list of things I want to do that it inevitably ends up not happening.
But an interesting, well-written review of something from the actual 21st century is always welcome in my house. 🙂
Great review and good to see some interest from others on the site. I love TLOU – I finished it on the PS3 when it first came out and have since bought the ‘remastered’ version for the PS4. I’m currently going through it all again on the second hardest mode just to squeeze a bit more juice out if it. It’s my favourite video game ever.
It’s worth mentioning that the online multiplayer game is a helluvalotta fun too. It’s far less subtle than the single player and basically entails you creeping or running round various locations trying to petrol bomb, shoot or blow up as many of the opposing faction as possible.
Inter alia, the state of game reviewing is even worse out there than music reviews. All of the review sites are completely in hock to the publishers – Activision, EA, Bungie etc and desperate for exclusives. So they are terrified of pissing them off and thus the new COD, FIFA, Halo is routinely given the ‘best ever’ review. So say my kids.
Edge is about the only publication that seems to publish properly critical reviews, TLOU got one of their very rare 10/10’s.
Another reason for trying to cover games here (not that I’m promising more than 3/4 a year)