95| The Last of Us

Released: June 14^th, 2013

Definitive Version: PS4; Also on: PS3

No, The Last of Us isn't "the greatest video game of all-time". Far from it. However, it would be asinine to suggest that the game isn't high quality. Continuing Sony's philosophy of merging games and film, The Last of Us set new bars for games focused on a cinematic experience. The game is so cinematic infact that people often refer to the game as a "cinematic action game" due to how cinematic the game's highly cinematic cinematic moments are... The game plays like a typical linear stealth-action game. The objective often boils down to getting from point A to point B while sneaking past and taking out enemies. The enemies can be divided into two types. Smart enemies, typically humans, and dumb enemies, which are typically the undead. The player will spend much of their time navigating through various buildings and underground passage ways as they avoid being seen by enemies and strike them at just the right moment.

However, where the game really excels at is its pacing and narrative. These two things mix so well with one another that often you feel less like you are playing a game and more that you are playing a movie. This is acheived by just when and how the cutscenes are implemented, as well as the game's top notch writing giving life and depth to the characters. So why does this game take such low priority on the list? Much like other cinematic focused games, most notably the Bioshock franchise, the game's cinematics are taken priority to the point that the actual gameplay feels secondary. Now this doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing, but the problem with The Last of Us is that the gameplay just isn't particularly good. For starters it is highly generic. How many games use the stealth based combat approach in which the player hides by crouching a distance away from the enemy, and then when the enemy isn't looking, slowly crouch walk toward them in order to stab or snap their neck? To add to that, the actual stealth based gameplay is fairly shallow. It relies on the bare basics of crouch walking, the ability to throw objects to distract your enemies, and sneak attacks. Now this wouldn't be as big of a problem if it wasn't for my second complaint of the game. It is pretty repetitive. These stealth sections feel that they make up at least 50% of the game. The majority of the other 50% are the shooting segments which feel just as shallow.

That said, The Last of Us is not a bad game. It's a great one in fact. The game is highly engaging and will make anyone who plays it be very connected to the characters and the world around them. Unfortunately due to the lacking depth in gameplay I didn't appreciate this one as much as others.