THE LAST OF US
The Last of Us is a relentless game in everything it does, with all of its elements working together in perfect synergy to form a cohesive whole. Its honesty to its characters is amazing, and shines through in both its writing and its narrative developments; its world building is brutal and grim, portraying a sense of desperation and despair like few other games do; and its gameplay is tense and restless, reflecting the messy nature of its world, where everything is an ugly scramble for survival. But even a masterpiece such as this one falters in some areas- most noticeably, in its stealth sections. Now, don’t get me wrong, the actual stealth mechanics in The Last of Us, while nothing more than rudimentary, are solid, and work pretty well, making almost every encounter with enemies, especially those like the Clickers, an exhilarating and terrifying one. It’s the friendly AI that lets the game down in these scenarios, where Joel might be crouching in the shadows and holding his breath in terror while a pack of the Infected shambles past him, only to have Ellie or Tess or someone else from the game’s arsenal of companion characters to randomly start dashing around the environments haphazardly, while creating an absolute ruckus. It’s immersion-breaking, and in a game like The Last of Us, with otherwise immerses players in its plot and its world so thoroughly, such things stand out way more than they usually would.
