Before I start off with this article that has kept me insomniac and thinking for many sleepless nights, here’s to the ones who bought God of War: Ascension and got a ticket to The Last Of Us Playable Demo. Screw your quarantined life, insert the GOW disc and head for the jungle this Friday, in order to download your ‘The Last Of Us’ demo. Even though God of War didn’t live up to the trilogy, they did include a compensation charge, in the form of this demo access. So here’s to them yet again!
I can already smell June 14th, with big names like The Last Of Us and Man of Steel destroying the little peace of mind that I have. So here’s revealing five reasons why you ought to leave the couch and head over to ‘The Last Of Us’ preorder page.
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1. It’s Naughty Dog
This is probably your biggest insight in order to get your hands on The Last Of Us. Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin’s dream to do it big in California is the story of Naughty Dog. The developer company has reached marks, destroyed some and rewritten benchmarks for the world to follow. From the likes of The Way of The Warrior and Crash Bandicoot to giving the world such a lavish Uncharted series, Naughty Dog has never been anything short of extraordinary. The company has pledged its services to Sony Computer Entertainment since 2001 and quite frankly has been driving the brand consoles based on their creativity and execution skills.
Since The Last Of Us is coming right after the Uncharted series, I am looking straight into the Nate Drake legacy and deducing things out of it. Naughty Dog loves its gamers to drool on the graphics, as much as it is to totally submerge them into a convoluted plot. Rest assured, The Last Of Us won’t be a one-off and will excite at least a trilogy out of it. So, literally this isn’t The Last Of Us.
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2. A gripping new infection
These days, whenever someone says that he’s currently solving a deadly infection that can turn people into predators; I tend to turn my ears away. Zombies will double kill themselves… on the head… if they could see the amount of fiction that is being created upon their poor souls. The sick joke has turned even sicker. And this is where The Last of Us breaks the obvious.
A BBC video series called Planet Earth (watch it, it is unbelievably good) encouraged the creators to come up with this strange fungus that combines with the human flesh and turns them into half-monsters, half plants. The infection has various levels, each complementing a certain enemy kind that you will face in The Last Of Us. Some can only hear, so you need to be hush about your movement, even if you are facing them straight ahead. Some of them spit while some of them ram into you with supercharged Bane-like strength. That’s what has made The Last Of Us a perception changing theory already. Can’t wait to go all veggie hunter this season.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dr6mGRXS78]
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3. “I can only show you the door. You have to walk through it.” – Morpheus (The Matrix)
One of the reasons why I deem Uncharted as the reason why you should get a PlayStation 3 is because it changes everything about the way you have gamed so far. It is subversive, submerging and ambiguous. You make your own paths unlike other third person shooters like Max Payne and the likes. Naughty Dog gives you a free terrain, locked up with secrets, vantage points, enemies and tons of gasoline. One move can make or break your strategy. In Uncharted, enemies are treated to have more intelligence than a mere repeated chain of acts as expected out of the AI. Enemies will flush you out from every side, so you will have to shift covers and move while shooting, in order to survive a critical moment.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHwRaZdynpk]
After seeing what The Last Of Us has to offer, I feel excited to know that the developers have kept the shootouts the same as they were in Uncharted. You can shoot some; run into a cover, smash an enemy’s head in stealth and jump across or ledge to a ceiling to avoid attention. While Uncharted was an out and out shooter cum adventure game, The Last Of Us is heavily inclined towards the Horror genre along with the preexisting skills. Here, guns will only raise alarms, and it would be wise of you to hunt the terrain, find easier routes and escape the enemy’s scope without any attention. All of this, majorly in complete darkness or in thick bushes of Mother Nature. Something about The Last Of Us tells me that I’m going to die… a lot… (Dark Souls reference!) most of the times mercilessly and unaware.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZYkj0glnqs]
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4. The magic of Santaolalla’s music
Gustavo Santaolalla is a genius, when it comes to making everlasting music. And this Academy Award Winner composer has come down a long way, from composing the Motorcycle Diaries to The Last Of Us now. While the former is purely based on the Latin American folk music, that he himself was brought up on, The Last Of Us will be a Santaolalla trying to scare us with his enchanting music. This legend of the strings can be the real deal during the climaxes and anticlimaxes that one can expect out of a title like The Last Of Us.
Here’s the latest video viralled by Naughty Dog and PlayStation Blog about the forthcoming title, featuring the music of Gustavo Santaolalla.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ejdjcun2Jo4]
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5. Joel, Ellie and the human emotions attached to survivalism
This game is unlike any fast paced adventure or sci fi title. You are simply outnumbered, outgunned and outmatched. The fungus people are growing everyday and you are doing your level best to survive. Joel is a cold hard survivor who will not spare any living thing that might come his way. He concluded his ways to survive as pure ‘Luck’ and that it was about to run out. He has seen people die, convert, he has felt the agony, lost close ones and has learnt how to grow his heart back and do whatever it takes to end the infection from spreading. But first, he knows it is sheer important to watch his back and survive, at any cost. He is Ellie’s protector, and he knows that the little girl is the future of their survival.
Ellie is a fourteen year old girl who was born and raised in a quarantined part of the country. She has barely seen a two storey tall building. In her shoes, I predict I’m going to watch the beauty of the world before it all collapses. She has seen the soldiers kill the infected mercilessly in her town, so don’t expect her to wimp like a kid when it comes to confronting her demons. Circumstances made her a hunter. And she does swear a lot.
Playing Joel and Ellie, who are completely opposite to each other, yet bound to each other by the final wish to survive, would turn the tide into an uncharted ending. Pun intended. This coupled with brilliant graphics and visual elements that can really make the game go all the way to the top and upset all the GOTY nominees. But that’s what my senses are saying.
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With The Last Of Us, Naughty Dog has assured to the audience that they would also get the best of DLCs and Multiplayer Sessions. With so much going on around the most epic date of 2013, I can barely feel my heart pump blood. Are you experiencing what I am? Let us know in the comments box below.
Peace out.
