Last of Us

Last of us : Survive an apocalypse on Earth in The Last of Us, a PlayStation 3-exclusive title by Naughty Dog. Here, you will find abandoned cities reclaimed by nature. Here is a population decimated by a modern plague. Here, there are only survivors killing each other for food, weapons, or whatever they can get their hands on. Here, you find no hope. Joel, a brutal survivor, and Ellie, a brave young teenage girl who is wise beyond her years, must work together if they hope to survive their journey across the US. The interplay between Joel and Ellie, as well as the other characters you meet on your adventure, is one of the great highlights in The Last of Us. Voice acting is not only consistently superb, but the game’s graphical beauty makes the events of The Last of Us overflow with realism. Everything that happens is immediately more memorable, more powerful, and more poignant because your surroundings are so believable. Forests, fields and wooded trails are overgrown, dense, and lush. Abandoned villages and metropolises alike are eerie, silent, and crumbling. Each environment is unique, thoughtfully created, and bursting with little details, including notes, letters, voice recorders and more that tell ancillary stories of survivors you rarely ever meet in person. The game took me so long to beat because I was obsessed with seeing every inch of it. The Last of Us demands exploration, not only to scour for needed supplies, but to satisfy your curiosity. The Last of Us’ online functionality exists within a mode called Factions. Once you begin, you choose one of two sides and then jump into one of two sub-modes: Supply Raid and Survivors. Both are atypical in their approach, especially Survivors, which presents players with a best-of-seven series in a four-on-four match where death is brutally permanent. Survivors forces meticulous play virtually ripped right out of the campaign, except instead of fighting AI-controlled partners, you’ll be dealing with even smarter humans. It’s a truly fun mode, one where every player on the map is overflowing with nerves and afraid to make a mistake. Supply Raid, on the other hand, is about whittling down your team by eroding their overall life count. It’s more generic than its counterpart, but the idea of having a shared number of lives forces you to strive for better play. It makes you not want to be the reason your team loses, it makes you not want to make silly blunders. Like Survivors, Supply Raid also allows you to craft items on the fly using components found on the map and feels a whole lot like the single-player game. By scaling back the modes and the player counts from the likes of Uncharted, Naughty Dog has removed the tall barrier between single player and multiplayer and has made the two feel interconnected, even ancillary.