P4- The Last of Us Review

P4a) Genre

The genre of The Last of Us in my opinion would be an action/adventure game because you need to travel across a massive map trying to survive a zombie apocalypse meaning that you would have to pick up different parts, weapons, and ammo. Because it is a zombie survival game you would need to kill the different zombies as well as different humans who try and kill you.

P4b) Narrative/Storyline

At the start of the game you find out that there is a virus that is breaking through that is affecting people to go and kill living humans turning them into zombies. The main character Joel tries to him, his brother, and his daughter Sarah to safety but they need to go a different way when escaping the city, a member of the army approaches Joel and Sarah and reports back to his commander who then tells him to kill them but Sarah was shot but not killed instantly and when the man from the army goes to shoot again Joel’s brother shoots him. Due to the fact that Sarah was shot she later goes on to die about two minutes later making the game very emotional from the start. Later on Joel is on a mission with his friend Tess who is a smuggler to go and meet a rival who robbed them of their guns where they find out that he sold them to the leader of a rebel group called the Fireflies who approaches them after they shoot the person who told them who had the guns. She offers them a deal to smuggle a girl called Ellie to a hospital in Salt Lake City so that she has an operation because she was bitten by an infected and still hasn’t had any symptoms of turning. Overall the storyline and narrative of the game is very strong because it connects with the people who are playing the game.

P4c) Characters

Whilst playing the game you will control a number of different characters who are in this game the first would be Joel’s daughter Sarah where you need to go and find Joel you control Sarah for around 10 to 15 minutes before she is shot dead, after you control Sarah you then get to control her father Joel who you control for most of the game, until you get to the winter part of the game where you control Ellie as she needs to look after Joel due to the fact he is unwell.

P4d) Platforms

The Last of Us is only available on two platforms which are created by Sony them being the PlayStation 3, then the game was released later on the PlayStation 4 in a remastered version making the graphics better for the game. If you were to buy this game on the PlayStation 3 it would cost you, £19.95 on Amazon and if you were to buy it on the PlayStation 4 as the remastered version then it would cost you, £29.99.

M1

The target audience of this game would be people who enjoy playing action-adventure games, and people who like watching series and films with zombies in such as The Walking Dead. Because the PEGI rating is 18 it means that they are aiming this game at a more mature audience. If it is meant for a more mature audience, it would mean that they would need to be 18 or older to buy the game. If I was to choose the PEGI rating then I would decide to rate the game a 16+ due to the fact that even though it involves killing a lot of zombies (some in a gruesome way) it doesn’t involve things such as Sex, and Drugs.

I believe that the quality of the gameplay is very good because the game runs very smoothly and the characters are easy to control. Within the single player campaign and multiplayer you are able to create different items such as smoke bombs, Molotov’s, shiv’s, health packs, etc… when you are playing online you get the same things you are able to create in single player but you are able to upgrade your armour, and weapons meaning that people are able to be kitted out better than other people you can create and do these different things by finding and collecting parts during the single player campaign and online. The controls can be confusing for some people because the controls are different to other action-adventure games because you need to press L1 instead of holding L3 down to runs, you need to use the d-pad to change your weapon. This is something different by the developers because many people expect to control the characters as they would in other action-adventure games.

I personally would recommend this game to anyone that would enjoy playing a game storyline for a while for example it took me from boxing day to 14^th January to complete the game where as if I was to play a Call of Duty campaign it would take me half the time due to the fact the storyline isn’t as big, and they care more about the online.

Graphics 7/10- one of the positives for this game would be the graphics. The reason I have rated the graphics 7/10 is they are very good, as they show the different amount of detail available to see. As you are able to see the small spots of blood on the face. Gameplay 8/10- this is also another positive because the gameplay is very smooth but does take time to get used to some of the controls. The reason behind it being smooth is when you shoot some objects they will break, as well as this you are able to go into ‘stealth mode’ meaning that you are able to hold down a button and it will allow you to see what is in the distance. One disadvantage which lets down the game would be the whole multiplayer mode of the game because it isn’t as good as other games which are similar such as, the Uncharted online mode because you need be silent in order to not be killed more than 8/10 times. Accessibility 10/10- the reason this is 10/10 is you are able to access this game through a game disk or download it off the PlayStation Store which is Sony’s virtual store. Another reason why accessibility is 10/10 is you are able to change the language that you would want the characters to be speaking in as well as having the choice whether or not you want to have subtitles when the people are speaking. Life Span 7/10- this game was released three years ago on the PlayStation 3 in 2013 but was then later brought to the PlayStation 4 as a remastered version, and is continued to be played a lot by the people who have bought it whether they are playing the campaign again or the online mode. Overall Score 9/10