Early impressions of The Last of Us

What I’m about to do is dangerous. Taking a skeptical approach with a game that the internet loves feels a bit like trash talking the kids at a little league baseball game. People tend not to take a liking to you. I don’t think The Last of Us is a bad game, to be clear, but Naughty Dog has built up such a reputation over the years that they’re going to have to live with the high expectations they’ve earned for themselves.

To be clear, I’m only about a third of the way through The Last of Us. My impressions are only a work in progress. When The Last of Us was announced with a cinematic trailer last year, I made a point of it to avoid all the screenshots, the gameplay videos, the story leaks, all of it. Everything was going to be fresh this time, unlike my experience with Uncharted 3 when I more-or-less had seen every major set piece and action sequence beforehand. So The Last of Us has remained mostly fresh.

Sort of. I’m not disappointed with it, I’m just… Meh. I’m underwhelmed. The game does nothing new, or at least, nothing noticeably new. You end up spending way too much running into corners just in case there’s a hidden artifact in one of the drawers or something, and the environments aren’t even that interesting. They’re pretty, but that’s about it.

And why am I carrying planks and ladders around like it’s so difficult to figure out that the ladder goes up against the wall with the yellow ledge? Come on now... Uncharted’s platforming was never exactly brain-busting, but at least it was a fun way to traverse the environments. I’m already bored of the point A to point B progression in The Last of Us. It’s just dull.

The combat is nothing special either, and that’s an optimistic way to phrase it as far as I’m concerned. I will say that I’m enjoying the struggle to maintain and conserve resources (I’m playing it on Hard). The best moments so far have made it feel like Naughty Dog really figured out how to translate the cinematic zombie experience into a playable adventure. It’s satisfying to sneak up on a runner, smash his head with a brick and then spray bullets (of which I only ever have like, five at a time) in a panic at the second zombie as it sprints toward me from across the room. If I’m fortunate, two of the bullets hit and I can run up and finish it off with a couple melee punches. It works.

But those segments where you’re sneaking around a dark room while the clickers stumble around like… Well, like NPCs? Those just aren’t doing it for me. It’s a bit pretentious to expect a video game to make you feel like you aren’t playing a game- I mean you’re holding a controller in your hands and staring at a screen. But the best games can really suck you into the experience, and those stalking segments with the clickers do the opposite for me.

We’ll see, I’m definitely going to give the game a chance and play it all the way through. That opening sequence in Texas was downright masterful, and I’ve heard that the story is fantastic, so the game has promise. I just can’t help but feel that it’s overhyped. When I read reviews stating that the Last of Us is a seminal experience that will transcend generations, or a masterpiece that people will be discussing at the water cooler for years, I start to wonder what it is that I’m missing. But again, I’ll wait until I’ve completed the game before settling on a final judgment.

**Update: Upon completing the game I can safely say that I enjoyed the experience a lot more than I thought I would. The story was intriguing and I loved the ending, and combat became more enjoyable as more options opened up.This isn't the Citizen Kane of gaming that so many people are calling it, but it's a really good adventure game with a satisfying, thought-provoking plot.