The Last of Us Remastered | Review

The Last of Us Remastered is a PlayStation 4 remake of the PlayStation 3 game. It does very little new, primarily improving the framerate and resolution. It is, however, the best way to play the game. The question now is, do you want to play the game?

PROS:

-The graphics are outstanding. The way everything looks in The Last of Us Remastered is so stunningly realistic that it can be distracting. That sounds like a negative, but it shows how amazingly lifelike games can look, even on a console at 1080p.

-The sound design is immersive. You can hear characters react to their surroundings, ambient noises like birds are plentiful, and while the music isn't dramatic or even very noticeable, it fits the mood of the game.

-The story is good. The development of Ellie getting to be familiar and eventually comfortable with Joel is nice, and sometimes even fun to see. Joel getting to like Ellie is also enjoyable, though it can be annoying at times.

CONS:

-The controls are unintuitive. I found very few of the buttons intuitive to use. X is jump but only when the game allows it. R3 shows you a hint but only when it allows it. The D-Pad changes weapons but in a very clunky way. Circle is crouch even though L1 is sprint. Small annoyances got in the way of my enjoyment of this game.

-The story is drawn out. The entire goal of the game is to get Ellie to a place where people can create a vaccine for the zombie (infected) virus because she's immune to it. This involves going to a place, to find a clue as to where you're actually supposed to go, only to find out it's been abandoned, and you need to find a different place. The game refuses to end, and it uses a cheap tactic to do so.

-The Joel and Ellie dynamic is underutilized. I thought I might have to distribute ammo between each of the characters, switch between which character I'm playing as, strategically place Ellie and Joel in different places, or maybe even have a two player mode. Instead of any of this, Ellie follows Joel around and "attempts" to shoot enemies. And that's only once she has a gun.

-Joel's thoughts never reflected mine. Joel initially didn't like Ellie, and I thought the game wanted me to sympathize with him, but I didn't. I immediately liked Ellie, and when Joel was being unnecessarily rude it made me dislike the person I was playing as. It felt less like an interactive game and more like a movie.

-The gameplay is confusing. I felt like the game wanted me to take a stealthy approach for some missions, but it never felt fully viable. It didn't help that most of the time when stealth was a theoretical option, it was to get around zombies that detect noise, meaning you have to slowly crouch around the area. There were also multiple missions where you pretty clearly have to fight several enemies, which was always a pain. I think some form of auto-aim would have helped, since ammo is so scarce and controllers are terrible for aiming.

 OVERALL OPINION:

I didn't enjoy this game. The controls were confusing, the gameplay was all over the place, and the story was overly harsh and repetitive. The graphics make for a pretty picture, but the gameplay is where it counts for me. Many people DID enjoy this game, but I couldn't get into it.

You can buy The Last of Us here:

PlayStation 4: Amazon | PlayStation Store
PlayStation 3: Amazon | PlayStation Store