[Please note this is my attempt at a professonal review there will be spoilers to the story FEEDBACK OF MY REVIEW IS WELCOME]

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the last of us Review
PLEASE NOTE THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS

Contents
Story
Characters
My Rating

Story
(This outlines the WHOLE story to skip ahead to my thoughts of the story go to the my thoughts section)
Please note I have tried to keep this small but involve the major plot points for discussing after

At the beginning of the game you play as Sarah Joel’s (the main protagonist) daughter before the ‘Cordyceps’ infection spreads turning people into mushroom zombies
You get to watch the chaos unfold in Texas until Sarah and Joel are stopped by an armed guard on quarantine watch who is ordered to shoot them both resulting in Sarah’s death, 20 years later and now you play as Joel in Boston’s quarantine zone this is where your introduced to Tess, Joel’s friend. Who informs him that Robert (a contact both know) have stolen there supplies of guns after running him down they are hired by the leader of the fireflies (resistance) marline to escort a V.I.P called Ellie to a group of fireflies in the capitol building, after you reach the capitol building finding naught but dead fireflies Tess reveals that she has been bitten by a runner infecting her with the cordyceps fungus and orders you to flee from the military who are about to storm the building you run into bill an old acquaintance of Joel’s who owes him a favour after some work Joel gets a car and drives to Pittsburgh (but aiming to get to Joel’s brother (tommy’s) fireflies group which all they know is in Wyoming) here we are shown (in full force) a group of surviving humans called Hunters who are both cannibalistic and highly hostile to ‘tourists’ after dodging from the hunters main weapon a military turret on a working SUV Joel and Ellie meet up with Sam and Henry who takes them to their safe house and informs them of a plan to get out of the city, during this plan the SUV returns Henry taking Sam leaving Joel on his own before Ellie joins him running onto the bridge, the SUV about to get at them Ellie jumps into the water below Joel following suit to save her (since she cannot swim) he is knocked out by a rock in the water he collided with due to high currents.

Joel awakens on a beach and is angry at both Sam and henry who found them for leaving them in the first place after the situation being calmed down they agree to go togeaver again finding an entrance to a sewer line that was once someone’s home and base but is now filled with heavily infected people after reaching the other side of the infected sewers (which nearly overwhelms them) they come across an abandoned town that hunters have now taken over and guard it with a sniper, after Joel reaches the sniper rifle he guards Sam, Henry and Ellie from the hunters and finally destroying the SUV that has hunted them from Pittsburgh at first before the swarms of infected from the sewer earlier brake out and swarm the small town (due to all the noise) making them flee the building and into the nearby landmark a radio tower, after spending the night Ellie goes to grab Sam to wake him up, Sam however was infected during the swarm earlier henry shoots his brother and starts to question himself and starts blaming Joel pointing his gun at him before commiting suicide unable to live with the guilt of killing his brother, after a cut Joel and Ellie are now heading up a path to a hydroelectric dam when about to cut though it they are stopped by armed men, the fireflies once tommy lets them in he talks about how he is making his own safe house in the dam using the electricity made by the hydroelectric dam to power their lives and keep the infected out via electric fences however they are attacked by a group of hunters after the fight they discuss about handing Ellie to tommy to finish Joel’s job find out Ellie had ran away and Joel and tommy chase after her after catching up and Joel has a change of heart and decides to finish his mission, after riding in the direction tommy had told them on horseback they arrive at the university of eastern Colorado here they find animals freely roaming the campus, after exploring the campus they find an audio recording saying the animals were infected test animals to find a cure (it is shown and assumed the fungus doesn’t affect animals in the same manner as humans) they also find a recording stating the fireflies fled to a hospital in salt lake city, shortly after Joel and Ellie are ambushed by a group of hunters after the fight Joel is ambushed and falls and impales himself onto a pipe spearing though his abdomen, after this it cuts to winter where Ellie is seen hunting after Ellie kills a dear she comes across David and James and she offers up a trade meat for medicine to which they comply when Ellie heads back to take care of Joel she hears people in the distance a group of humans who were tailing Ellie under David’s orders and after fleeing (to keep Joel safe) she is captured revealing David has an interest in her which spares her for the moment becoming a meal for the hunters (David’s group), Joel (after some time now waking up injured) looks for Ellie coming across hunters as he kills his way through looking for Ellie, who currently is attacked by David and frees herself decapitating him, shortly after this Joel finds Ellie and they continue on their way Ellie shaken by what has happened afterwards close to their goal they head though a large subway tunnel swarming with heavily infected people, while running though the subway Ellie is swept by a strong current knocking her footing Joel goes after her after dragging her out of the water he attempts CPR but is knocked out by a firefly soldier, shortly later Joel awakes in a hospital bed confronted by Marlene telling him that Ellie is being prepped for a surgery explaining the Cordyceps fungus had mutated in her brain making her immune and that the only way to extract it will most likely cost Ellie her life but knowing of Joel’s connection to Ellies, Marlene orders Joel to be escorted out and killed if he tries something, as Joel is forcibly being escorted he comes across his bag after putting his bag on, he skilfully restrains his escort and interrogates him to know where Ellie, Joel goes on a rampage to get to Ellie killing any and all in his way, after bursting into the surgery room Joel scares away the surgeons and picks up the knocked out Ellie heading down into the car park under the hospital to get into one of the fireflies working cars Marlene confronts Joel asking him to give Ellie back but Joel argues that Marlene has no right to choose what Ellie dose and proceeds to shoot her taking Ellie away, after a drive Ellie asks Joel if what he said happened at the hospital truly happened (in which they gave her up saying they couldn’t find out why she was immune) to which he assures her it was true before ending on Ellie’s doubting face

My thoughts on the story
OHHH kay where to begin this story is large complex and yet it feels like what would happen in a catastrophic zombie apocalypse this story strongly shows in a brilliantly done cinematic Sarah’s death then immediately going from the crying and depressed Joel into the old and emotionless survivor and you can feel from the story alone the bond growing between Ellie and Joel but there are some things that would be a better connection if it was explored more also the story focused in the US so it isn’t known if US is infected or if the world is infected because it could have had them running to be shipped to a safe land but that’s just my ideas personally I couldn’t find any issues with the story :D



Characters
Joel- the main protagonist of the game Joel starts the game as a happy (and stressed in modern life) single father his whole outlook on life changed after his daughter Sarah died in his arms thanks to the outbreak it is reviled by tommy he does whatever is necessary to survive and has also said to Ellie he once had set up ambushes to kill people for his own gain like the hunters

Ellie- The V.I.P and Cargo, she is also the main story of the game as well a young 14 year old girl who is infected with the Cordyceps However she hasn’t turned into an infected (listed below) and is believed to be immune (and is proven to be a possible cure or way to slow the infection) her attitude changes after she encounters David but her bond to Joel she sees him as a father figure

Marlene- leader of the fireflies she hires Tess and Joel to escort Ellie to a firefly encampment it is shown she knew about them having to travel over the whole year to get to the main firefly base in Salt Lake City

Tess- Tess is introduced after the 20 year gap and is assumed to be Joel’s partner (in terms of business ship since Joel is emotionally closed) it is shown that she has feelings to Joel as when she is found out to be infected she found it heart breaking to tell Joel to run away from her so she could sacrifice herself to buy Joel and Ellie some time to flee from the military

Tommy- Joel’s brother it is shown that Joel did many things to ensure their survival that has scarred tommy, he is shown using a gun at the beginning of the game protecting Sarah and Joel and saving Joel’s life from the military man who guns them down 20 years later he is in charge of his own division of fireflies who life inside a hydroelectric dam that (at the end of the game) is a safe haven

Bill- a old acquaintance of Joel and Tess paranoid of any stranger and even people he knows he is extremely cautious he is quoted to say “it’s not the infected that scare me, it’s the ‘normal’ people” showing his distrust he also states “at least the infected at predictable” showing he tends to plan things out based on what he knows he has created bombs and traps throughout his town to keep hunters out while the infected don’t get to him since he keeps to himself and isn’t loud enough to attract attention he had a partner called frank who was found hanging from a suicide covered in bites

David- leader of a Hunter group he first meets Ellie while she is hunting for food for herself and Joel David attempts to persuade Ellie to join his group before forcefully kidnaping her, it is shown that Ellie is his “special” capture and stated by a random hunter that ellie is his “new pet” it is assumed he wished to use Ellie for breeding however after ellie bit him and showed him her infected bite he started to go insane attempting to kill ellie it is unknown however if he was infected by ellie

Sam and Henry- 2 surviving brothers whom meet Joel and ellie by sheer luck henry is highly protective of his brother to the point of where he orders him like a soldier in order to keep him safe when accidently split up in the sewers after seeing Sam and Joel were safe he gained a lot of respect for Joel however later on finding out Sam was infected he hesitates aiming at Joel at first before shooting his brother broken by grief he aims at Joel calming it’s his fault before shooting himself in the head out of grief

The Infected:
-Runner the first stage of the infected when the fungus starts taking over the brain reducing the host into a rage fuelled instinct driven feral human in the game these are easy to fight off one by one however can become an issue in a group

-Stalker Stalkers is the 2nd stage of infection the fungus has now adapted the brain using some sense of intelligence however the fungus is now starting to brake though the skull leaving them blind in one eye starting to use a form of echolocation they hide around corners

-Clicker – clickers are the 3rd and most recognised stage of the infection the mushroom by this point has broken though the skull entirely except the jaw for which they use for echolocation since they are completely blind, however the fungus has given the host body strength since it isn’t concerned about killing the host at this point, they are able to kill the player in one hit

-Bloater the 4th (and presumed final stage) this stage is coated with fungal armour making it far more resilient than any other stages this stage is able to throw spore balls, (however these don’t infect Joel or any other human so it is assumed these are meant to drain the body of strength) if a bloater gets its hands on Joel or ellie it rips there face apart due to their strength

My thoughts on characters
The characters shown each well written are all very good to watch and see how each other reacts if a character is annoying they are written that way if a character is hated it was written that way, it is very hard to find a flaw with characters however for Ellie over the whole time of the game she will say “jeeze Joel” whenever Joel kills someone and some of the characters are slightly cliché but the writing with them is near perfect for this genre of story

my rateing
My rateing for this game is 9/10 Game that must be played
it is a brilliant game for anyone who owns a ps3