The Rest of the Last of Us

I'm about halfway through playing "The Last of Us," Naughty Dog's newest game.  Renowned for their Uncharted series, Naughty Dog is once again tackling an over-the-shoulder shooter featuring a male lead and his female sidekick sloughing through bad-guys.  In this case, Joel is the protagonist, and the head you inhabit throughout the game, and Ellie is his side-kick, a precocious fourteen year-old who holds the secret for combating the zombie apocalypse.

Just from that synopsis, the game doesn't sound all that original.  The plot certainly is nothing to write home about.  But the acting is incredible and the designers seemed genuinely interested in building real characters.  Joel, especially, is tired and broken.  But each of the side-characters with whom you often interact are fully-developed, often conflicted, people.  Expected emotional cues occur early in the game, and then diverge quickly into rarely trod territory.  So despite its mediocre plot (so far . . . there could be a twist I haven't anticipated) the characters feel real, and I have developed a genuine attachment to Joel and Ellie.

What is ruining the game for me, though, are the baddies.  First, from the trailers and the synopsis on the back of the game, we know already that the world is in the last gasp of ruin.  Anarchy prevails, zombies run wild, and decency is all but unknown.  So we should expect Mad Max-style confrontations, as well as 28 Days Later run-ins with deranged and hostile enemies.  And we get both.

But other than their skins, each enemy seems to behave the same way.  Some zombies hunt by echo-location only, and wander around maps with ears cocked.  Others group together in packs and rush you from corners.  There's the occasional solo--a big daddy who's nearly impossible to gun down (which, because of the limited ammunition practically requires that you just run in circles whacking it with bits of debris you find lying around). 

Your "human" opponents aren't much different.  Especially the "Lord of the Flies" baddies who wander tumbled urban landscapes.  Some you can just sneak past, despite the fact that it's broad daylight and they're staring right at you.  Others gang up and rush you from all directions.  The only exception are the cops and soldiers who sometimes lob a few bullets your direction, which only makes me suspect I'll soon encounter a zombie who lobs some sort of spit-bullet my direction. And there's the occasional solo baddie who's nearly impossible to gun down (see above).

But oh well.  Because really, the bad guys aren't there to be killed.  Unlike Uncharted and Uncharted Two, which were notorious for the massacre you inflict on untold hundreds of red, blue and yellow mercenaries (literally, they all wore different color clothes so you knew how to shift your tactics for them), The Last of Us depends on sneaking and not-killing as much as bludgeoning your way through a map.  In fact, it built itself on that premise.  You're given hardly any ammunition (though there does still seem to be a lot lying around in odd locations) and expected to think your way through and around confrontation.  More often than not, if you decide to go in guns blazing, you're bound to get shot dead in the first charge.

Beyond the obvious disadvantage this lends to your character, and the lazy enemy AI, the atmosphere is fantastic, lush, and, well . . . atmospheric.  At first, I was a little unsettled by how bright the world seemed.  But then I realized that despite the downfall of human civilization, the sun would still shine.  This lack of lens seems an apt metaphor for the game itself.  We see the end of the world unaided, with all the humanity, anarchy, and danger unmitigated by directorial or narrative sleight-of-hand.

So consider this an update rather than a review, because I suspect the ending is going to leave me raw and slack-jawed.  I'll let you know when I get there.