Joel and Ellie will confront enemies in all of the various locations they visit, and these battles represent the other side of what makes The Last of Us shine. Joel and Ellie's endless chatter is one of The Last of Us' highlights.The Last of Us is undoubtedly pretty to look at, but that beauty is often overshadowed by imminent peril. The Last of Us demands exploration, not only to scour for needed supplies, but to satisfy your curiosity. The game took me so long to beat because I was obsessed with seeing every inch of it. 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. Abandoned villages and metropolises alike are eerie, silent, and crumbling. Forests, fields and wooded trails are overgrown, dense, and lush. Everything that happens is immediately more memorable, more powerful, and more poignant because your surroundings are so believable. Voice acting is not only consistently superb, but the game’s graphical beauty makes the events of The Last of Us overflow with realism. 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. It’s impossible not to become attached to her. You watch her learn, grow, and gain meaning. She’ll pick through records at a music store, become fascinated with wildlife she’s never seen before, and ask a million questions about the past. Ellie was born after the collapse, and as such, she’s full of questions and wonder, often communicated through the many contextual conversations she and Joel share. Her success means the player is successful, and her hardened exterior is the perfect complement to her complete ignorance of the world before it was destroyed. Joel and Ellie develop a sort of dysfunctional father-daughter relationship as their collective experiences bind them, and rooting for Ellie in particular is commonplace in The Last of Us. From there on out, the two are virtually inseparable, even if they are at first skeptical of one another, forced together by circumstances in a world where trust and faith are in extremely short supply. Joel makes a business arrangement early in the adventure to help transport Ellie across what remains of the United States, a wasteland marked with boundless wildlife alongside cities and towns ruthlessly reclaimed by nature. Indeed, calling him the main character is true only to an extent, because it’s his companion, a young girl named Ellie, who truly steals the show. Play As riveting as Joel is, he isn’t the only character of consequence in The Last of Us. Joel can be cold and ruthless, but those around him have the propensity to be far worse. In fact, one of the great ironies of The Last of Us is that you’ll be pulling for him no matter how dark things get, or how violent his actions are. It’s fascinating to think about how he’s evolved since the world crumbled around him, and even if he does what’s necessary to stay alive – including stealing and murdering – it’s hard to fault him for it. The Last of Us takes place in 2033, so the regular world Joel harkens back to on occasion is one you and I understand. In the time it took me to beat The Last of Us, I came to care about Joel, and I became invested in his story, and the stories of those he meets along the way. He has a sharpness to him, but a tenderness, too, which he occasionally displays to his partner, a woman named Tess. He retains shreds of his humanity as best he can, considering the extraordinary circumstances he finds himself in. Occasionally haunted by his past but living in his dystopian present, Joel is surprisingly easy to root for. Joel does what’s necessary to stay alive, and in the ruined United States he travels around, his survival often means someone else’s untimely death. He takes odd jobs, acquires food, clothing, and shelter, and repeats the process endlessly, a process that only gets more arduous and desperate as time goes on. Joel remembers the world before the pandemic.Players are cast in the role of Joel, a grizzled and tired survivor stuck in a cycle any person could imagine finding oneself in two decades after the collapse of society. The 17 hours I spent playing through the campaign are among the most memorable I’ve ever spent with a game. I lost myself in Naughty Dog’s vision of a pandemic-ridden United States, in the characters that populate this unfortunate wasteland, and in their individual stories. It’s PlayStation 3’s best exclusive, and the entire experience, from start to finish, is remarkable. It never slows down, it never lets up, and frankly, it never disappoints. The Last of Us seamlessly intertwines satisfying, choice-based gameplay with a stellar narrative.
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