Lego Marvel Super Heroes Review

With Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes came a much higher bar for the Lego games.  It introduced voice acting (featuring the likes of Troy Baker as Batman and Clancy Brown reprising his role as Lex Luthor) as well as fully scripted cutscenes that replaced the pantomimed movie moments from previous installments.  The game also boasted an explorable Gotham, brim with familiar locations such as Wayne Tower, the Batcave, and Ace Chemicals.  Now Lego Marvel is here to showcase its impressive powerset, and as one guy's opinions of the Lego franchise go, it soars above the rest.

Lego Marvel takes a lot from Lego Batman 2; an open world, voice acting, an original story, and a myriad of beloved characters.  But Lego Marvel doesn't just execute these aspects; it cranks them up to max speed and sets out to fix previous problems that have plagued past games.  Exploring the Marvel version of New York is a smooth sailing experience with plenty of sights to behold.  Placing the mini-map on screen was a much needed addition and helps to easily navigate missions, gold bricks, and side-quests scattered about.  Both the flying and driving have been improved dramatically, though they can still be on the finicky side.  I believe the flying is more intuitive than it was in Lego Batman 2, with Superman handling like a giraffe riding a bottle-rocket, but I can see how some players may still be unsatisfied with the controls.  After a few hours, however, I was effortlessly zipping around New York as Iron Man, Thor, and Dr. Strange like it was forcefully irradiated into my genetic code.  Lego New York is also a lot more interesting to explore than Lego Gotham, not only offering eye candy easter-eggs, but letting you participate in many of these popular locales through the story and side missions.  Its one thing seeing the X Mansion on the map; its another thing entirely to be able to play as the X-Men and save the mansion from burning down while stopping the Juggernaut.

The story is also designed with fun in mind and I had a blast with it.  Don't forget, this is a Lego game we're talking about; if you're expecting Game of the Year performances or script that's going to knock your socks off, you're playing the game wrong.  Traveler's Tales knows that their primary audience is still children, but they also understand that parents will usually be the ones handling the second controller.  They do a great job of making the game accessible, funny, and enjoyable for both demographics, filling the story with cheesy dialogue and slap-stick humor that will put a stupid grin on your face.  Some may find the jokes and character banter groan worthy, but I tend to see it as part of the charm.  The main adventure itself also takes you through many of Marvel's beloved locales, taking on some of the top notch villains like Magento, Dr. Doom, and Loki as they band together to do...well...evil things.  Voice acting makes a return and you'll recognize many of your favorite characters being voiced by their animated series counter-part, which is always fun to hear.  If you're willing to sit back and enjoy the bad jokes, you're in for an enjoyable ride straight out of a Marvel mash-up comic.

One aspect, above all, really makes this game shine, and that's the characters.  And, oh man, are there characters!  I've logged in enough hours to unlock all but one, and I think I counted 132 character slots, plus the 8 DLC characters, plus a ton of different skins and costumes (some which even function entirely differently, like Phoenix v.s. Jean Grey, and Iron Man Mark I v.s. Iron Man Mark VII) and you have over 150 playable characters.  With 150 characters, you can expect to see the majority of your favorites (though there are a few missing that I'd like to see more than Howard the Duck or Gwen Stacy).  While some of the big-figs, such as Hulk, Juggernaut, and The Thing can feel a bit identical, most of the heroes have unique animations and move-sets.  All the characters also have the exact powers you'd expect them to have; Iron Man flies, shoots rockets, can charge up a Uni-beam, and fights with his repulsors.  Thor can zoom around the skies, summon lightning, throw his hammer, and use his powerful strikes to break down walls that only big heroes can bust open.  Everyone brings their own feel and it'll keep you playing for hours as you scour the map for new characters to unlock, curious to test out their might.

Mechanically, the game has a few issues.  Like all Lego titles before it, the AI is useless.  You teammates stand around taking punches, occasionally defending themselves, which only further exemplifies Lego Marvel as a couch coop title.  You might also find yourself getting stuck in some level geometry, wedged into an area you accidentally jumped into.  There are also some infinite death loops where you fall off an edge only to respawn in free fall and die again and again and again.  My game also frozen on me at some random points (usually during loading screens or boss fights), but this was only when I had been playing the game for over 2 hours or so.  But, again, this is a Lego title we're talking about; this is really nothing new, and while it certainly performs better than past games, its still a shame that these problems persist.

Though overall, the experience is a grand one.  The locations, the diverse roster, the free roam, the references, and the Stan Lee cameos all make for one solid title; certainly the biggest and best Marvel themed video game I've ever played.  If you hated the previous Lego games, this one certainly won't change your mind, but Marvel fans would be doing themselves a favor by picking this title up.  If you've ever wanted to hover around a city as Magneto or sling across buildings as Venom, now is your change.  Excelsior!

Review: Grand Theft Auto V

There's been a good hiatus since my last post, and that's mostly due to getting wrapped up in this extravagant world.  Grand Theft Auto V is truly gigantic, and I wish I had the endless amount of time and blog space to match the praise I have for Rockstar's new sandbox success.  Though its not without a few shortcomings, the overall package is an irreplaceable crime-spree experience.

Our story kicks off in the shoes of three very diverse characters.  There's Michael, the retired criminal who's traded his life of heists for an expensive house, a glass of whiskey by the pool, and a garage full of luxury cars.  Though it may sound like a wonderful retirement, Michael is plagued by an ungrateful, privileged family that can't stand him, as well as a nagging ache to get back into the game.  We also take control of Franklin, a kid from the hood who desires the luxury of big-league scores, but is continually dragged down into petty theft by useless friends.  And then, there's Trevor.  There is so much to say about Trevor; a crazed meth-head, a dreamer entrepreneur, a conspiracy theorist, a daytime philosopher, a loyal friend, and a dangerous enemy.  Most of GTA V's memorable moments come from Trevor's interactions and he's sure to go down in gaming history as a fan-favorite.  All three characters cross paths, their common enemies, goals, and colorful pasts intertwining their motives.  Each character gets an equal portion of the story, and seamlessly swapping between them ensures you never get bored.  Whenever you find yourself apathetic about a certain character's missions or want to see a new area of the map without taking a lengthy drive, simply switching to someone else and seeing what they have to offer will keep your television on for hours.

The game's several heists contain the shining points of the mission structure.  There is much more than just executing the big scores; GTA V has you decide your preferred route, choose your crew members, and collect any supplies you'll need to take the plan into action.  Picking a route usually comes down to low-profile and clever v.s. storming the gates, guns blazing, which lets players choose their preferred playstyle method.  Sifting through your crew also poses some tough choices.  Crew members with higher stats will require a higher cut of the payout, but their skills might be necessary as less experienced crew members could screw up by bringing ill-suited weapons and vehicles to losing an entire dufflebag worth of the loot.  Their attributes, however, will increase with each successful mission, while their desired cut stays the same, so there definitely incentive to taking some lowly thugs under your wing.  This also poses one of the games problems; there just aren't that many heists within the game.  Even if you want to take a crew member on missions to level up their stats, you'll probably only get to choose them a handful of times.  I had the most fun devising heist plans and its a shame that they come and go so quickly.

The heist setups keep the player involved and give a gratifying sense of careful preparation, that grounds these scores in a bit of reality.  You feel devoted to the mission as you acquire any getaway vehicles, chemicals, weapons, and machinery that your heist might require from the world around you.  When the mission finally takes off, Rockstar's clever implementation of character switching allows you to take part in every angle of the execution.  Michael might be in charge of leading a distraction crew through the front, while Franklin uses the stolen construction rigs and outfit to break down the back wall.  Trevor comes in with the chopper to airlift the goods, while Franklin brings around the getaway vehicle you picked out earlier.  Snapping in and out of characters is done in a fluid manner that's quick enough to avoid load screens and keeps you involved with every approach.

Outside of story missions the grand island of Los Santos is filled with plenty to occupy your time.  Hair salons, clothing stores, movie theaters, and auto-body shops offer short bursts of entertainment and customization while character specific side missions flesh out Michael, Trevor, and Franklin.  Some of my favorite missions involved racing fitness-nut Mary-Anne around the city and seeing how each character reacts to her psychotic personality (Franklin is truly afraid of her while Trevor thinks he's fallen in love).  The side missions are true to the GTA universe's sense of humor, giving you a break from the intensity of the story to participate in a silliness that further caricatures American pop-culture and the one-percenter lifestyle.

Visually, Grand Theft Auto V looks good, not great, though it is certainly a leap above GTA IV.  You'll find better looking console games out there, however if you consider the scope of Los Santos and how the game manages to perform so fluidly with only minor texture pop-ins and no inter-level loading screens, its hard not to leave impressed.  The character models and animations are decent, but its the superb voice acting that helps bring the cast to life and make a lot of GTA V's ridiculous banter quite memorable.  This title is quite dialogue heavy, which makes me thankful all the characters are well voiced and entertaining through the entirety of the story.

The meat of the Grand Theft Auto experience comes from exploration and GTA V delivers on this front.  Picking your preferred mode of transportation is as easy as steeling it and Rockstar offers a large variety in the vehicles available.  My jaw fully unhinged after an experience with a truck towing a boat.  I was able to hijack the truck on the free way, drive it a few miles down to the beach, back the boat into the water, detach the trailer, and use the boat to speed away.  The level of interactivity you're convinced you have within the sandbox is the most gratifying I've witnessed in any other game in the genre.  Giving the player control over manipulating and participating in the world is on a level I was truly blindsided by.

GTA V does have a few more weak points aside from leaving the player yearning for more heist missions.  The economy of the game feels a bit detached.  I was incredibly impressed by the stock market aspect of the game and your players ability to control your investments and aide their outcome via missions, but its not as deep as I once pictured.  Outside of story elements, the stock market isn't as affected by the player's actions as I expected, which was a bit disappointing considering the work that must have gone into creating it.  Obtaining money also feels like a bit of a chore and outside from the stock market and story-based heists, gathering cash tends to come down to investing in properties and waiting for their weekly check to add to your bank account.  And the only real purpose of money is to buy more properties to help you get more money.  I was hoping for a more involved real estate system that helped me really make my mark on Los Santos.

But any negatives I may bring up are completely out-shadowed by the experience and scope that Grand Theft Auto V offers.  While it may not be perfect, the level of work that Rockstar put into crafting this game is noticeable and awe-inspiring.  To develop such a world that is truly the best the series has to offer shows that the creators are devoted to expanding the genre and pushing the envelope on what is possible to achieve on a disk.  GTA V is a solid title, through and through, and hopping into the shoes of whacky characters to explore a surreal world of fantasy crime is an adventure worth taking.

Review: Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMix

Its been 11 and a half years since Kingdom Hearts first dropped onto the Playstation 2.  I remember seeing the first footage back in the day and coming away completely confused.  Why exactly were Mickey, Goofy, Captain Hook, and other Disney characters being thrown into this adventure JRPG?  It seemed out of place and caused me to shrug off the experience after that initial glance.  That is, of course, until I found out that Squall, Cloud, and Sephiroth from the Final Fantasy series made an appearance, and I found myself anticipating giving it a thorough try.  I mean, what can sell a game better than Sephiroth?

After the Square-Enix-patented lengthy tutorial segment, it was safe to say I was hooked.  Traveling to different worlds, battling heartless, using melee attacks, magic, and summons; and on top of that there was a delicious coating of Disney charm to lighten the mood whenever necessary.  I have to admit, the Disney aspects were exactly what turned me off to the game at first.  Never in my craziest dreams had the words JRPG and Disney been in the same sentence.  But, it was those memorable characters and them acting exactly how you'd expect them to act that grounded the game in something a little more tangible (while the main plot scrambled my brain with constant reusing of words like "heart", "friendship", and "darkness").  Hearing Donald go bat-shit in his classic voice and Goofy's lovable dullness make for a much brighter adventure in the face of a tragic and convoluted story that can be downright exhausting to follow.

Now, the game is making a second appearance on the market as Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMix, which includes Kingdom Hearts Final Mix (never before released in the U.S.), Re:Chain of Memories, and 3 hours of cutscenes from 358/2 Days, all washed through a clean HD filter on one shiny disc.  Final Mix includes some new difficulty modes to choose from and fixed controls, closer resembling those of Kingdom Hearts 2 (using the Right Thumbstick to control the camera v.s the Shoulder buttons and moving Command prompts to the Triangle button).  Re:Chain of Memories is the PS2 overhaul of Chain of Memories for the Gameboy Advance, featuring a deck building based combat system and an additional campaign as Rikku.  Last, the cutscenes from 358/2 Days (originally for the Nintendo DS) have been revamped on a different engine and give the viewer a look into the life of Roxas and Organization XIII from the time spanning between the end of Kingdom Hearts and the beginning of Kingdom Hearts 2.  When its all said in done, its a pretty neat package for a series newcomer or nostalgic veteran, especially at the discounted price.  But do these franchise tidbits stand up to the test of time?

Well, mostly yes, but some parts, definitely not.  To start, the combat is still as fun as ever.  Its a chaotic button mashing fest filled with vivid, flashy lights and spectacular sound effects.  Rocket punching the X button can get you pretty far, but there are plenty of abilities and spells to give combat an added flair.  Taking on classic Disney villains and the numerous Heartless is riveting, cartoon fun and while some bosses can be done with your eyes closed, there are still a few that will build that rage inside of you.  The characters are also just as splendid as they were when we first met them.  Sora, Rikku, and Kairi are all likable and worth cheering for, while Donald and Goofy make for excellent companions, even if they're bound to their own end goals.  Most cameo appearances are brief, but offer you just enough insight to their motives and general tie-in to the story.  The music is enchanting and surprisingly memorable; even though I never replayed Kingdom Hearts after my first playthrough over a decade ago, I still find myself able to hum along with the various themes easily.

The things that haven't held up so well would be the targeting system and the story presentation. Targeting as Sora can be kind of a mess. First of all, if you aren't actually locked-on to an enemy, Sora will still choose the closest enemy to "follow". He'll keep an eye on them and his attacks will gravitate towards their direction, which is fine. The big problem is its very hard to break that auto-lock; turning the camera away or looking at a different enemy rarely changes who he's soft targeting unless the original enemy flies far enough away. The easiest way to target the monster you actually want to follow is to lock-on with R1, and use L2 to cycle through each baddie until you're set on the one you want, which can be very time consuming in the heat of battle and really disorientate your position as the camera bounces around the arena. This isn't a big issue, and I have definitely gotten used to it, but it still makes me wonder why they chose to give Sora precedence attacking an enemy he hasn't even locked onto yet, instead of just letting the player control his aim freely.

The second aspect that really shows its age is the story. The story's content is great and the universe is absolutely rich with wonder, but even after playing all the Kingdom Hearts games and knowing full well what happens, it can still be a drag to follow along with. The cheesy script rarely varies in its terminology and it always seems like the player is either 10 steps ahead of the characters (and waiting as the characters on screen struggle to slowly figure out what's going on and announce it out loud) or the player is completely left in the dust once they get into some other odd ball story elements that are skimmed over way too fast despite their pivotal relevance.  For instance, what the Kingdom Hearts actually is/does is never explained in full, though accessing it is the sole motivation for the entire cast of villains.  Players returning to the series may already know these things, but newcomers picking up the title for the first time will probably feel a bit lost in a story that really isn't that complicated.

But this game still shines the same way it did in 2002.  Even with all its flaws and tropes of the past barging their way into the current generation, its a trip down memory lane worth taking.  Diving into the many enchanting Disney worlds and spotting beloved Final Fantasy characters along the way is an excellent ride and there's just no questioning the Kingdom Hearts' series level of pure captivation.

Additional Note: For anyone interested, Game Trailers made a fantastic Kingdom Hearts Timeline video that goes through the entire story so far.  Its about an hour long, very detailed, and incredibly well done.  I highly recommend checking it out.

Review: Dragon's Crown

Prepare for the revival of a genre long-lost; Dragon's Crown brings the side scrolling hack 'n slash back from the depths of the 2D era.  With plenty of loot to collect and a diverse set of character classes to master, I'd be impressed if you find a more addicting time sink in the next few months.

In the same fashion as the PS2's stunning side scroller Odin's Sphere and the overlooked, but brilliant Muramasa The Demon Blade (recently ported over to the Playstation Vita), Vanillaware brings yet another beat
'em up that boasts both a deep combat system and a gorgeously rendered graphics style.  The hand-drawn host of environments and heroes delivers fantasy themed valor that refuse to settle for mediocrity.  Animations are smooth, yet delivered fast and jerky in a most pleasant way.  Your movements and attacks are flawlessly chained together with a charming callback to the days of 16-bit sprites that will put the senses in awe.  Its a soothing combination of concise motions pasted over a nostalgic template of the arcade days; a stunningly crafted work of art that will keep you wrapped in its beauty.  The soundtrack, at first, doesn't seem like anything special, but after a few hours, you'll find yourself humming along to the simple tunes that never distract you from the gorgeous setting.

This particular fantasy style is likely to offend some with its over-the-top gender depictions.  The Fighter's triangle shaped torso and shoulder boulders are only exceeded in ridiculousness by the Sorcerer's ballooning breasts.  Even some NPC's and story characters are drawn to almost humorous proportions as their builds represent mere caricatures of human anatomy.  But, no matter how distracting and unnecessary it may be, it never once detracted from my enjoyment of the game (though I'm sure that won't be the case for everybody).  The problem with gender representation, for both males and females in video games, however, is a debate left for another time.  For now, let's consider the gameplay.

In Dragon's Crown, you choose from one of six unique characters; the Fighter, the Dwarf, the Wizard, the Sorcerer, the Elf, or the Amazon.  Each class has stats representing your brawler in the exact fashion you'd expect.  The Dwarf is durable and strong, but lacks dexterity.  The Wizard has devastating magical offense, but needs to keep a safe distance due to his glass cannon nature.  Along with their differences in basic numbers, whoever you choose brings their own play style to the table.  The Fighter has incredible aerial combat and can use a shield to block for allies and deliver stuns.  The Elf relies on the range of her bow to create an assault of arrows, but is limited to only so many arrows per dungeon.  The Sorcerer provides group support and even has a handy spell to create food from thin air, giving your party some emergency healing.  No matter whose finesse fits your fancy you'll have the unbreakable urge to go back and master each one for some diversity in your experience.

Customization is at the center of the fun through the engaging loot and skill system.  Leveling up your character or completing one of the many side quests will grant your character a skill point.  These can be used among two different skill pools; one contains abilities every character can learn (an extra dodge roll, more HP, and reduced cooldown between item uses) while the other pool is for skills specific to your character class (the Dwarf can upgrade his powerful Grand Smash ability or obtain explosives to carry, yet the Elf can learn to rapid shoot arrows or increase the damage to her kicking attacks).  Every skill can be upgraded, so long as you meet the level requirement, at the expense of more skill points.  Getting that next point could change your character's damage output completely, so the drive to keep leveling up and continue upgrading will ensure your TV stays on for hours longer than anticipated.

The other addicting feature, the loot system, is sure to keep you and your friends sliding back into your roles again and again.  Unlocking treasure chests and beating bosses within each level will net you a random treasure with a grade (starting with E all the way to S) and come the end of the level, you'll be presented with a cache of items.  These items, however, will have various question marks as placeholders for the stats.  You'll need to spend your valuable gold to appraise each item to learn what kind of attributes it carries.  That A ranked hand axe could have a higher damage rate than your current weapon and reduce damage taken by 12%, or it could deliver extra ice damage and perform better against undead foes.  Either way, if you want to find out, you'll need to sacrifice the gold.  The baskets of loot that come in after each level will keep your character growing, but don't discard those old weapons just yet.  Your character can also carry multiple "Bags" each containing a changeable weapon and armor set for your character to equip.  Since your gear degrades with each usage, these bags serve as loadouts of backup items ready to go when your primary set is need of repair.  And since you get large item, gold, and experience bonuses the more dungeons you conquer in succession without traveling back to town, you'll want to make sure you have plenty of options to get the job done.

Dragon's Crown isn't without its flaws however.  The levels are fairly short and there are really only nine of them.  Yes, levels will seem longer on higher difficulties because of the longer combat segments, and each level actually has two routes to explore, giving a total of 18 routes and 18 bosses.  That being said, its still a bit of a disappointment.  Considering how gorgeous and diverse the existing environments are, I would have loved to see what else Vanillaware could create.  This also becomes an issue with replayability.  Dragon's Crown will keep you busy for a long time with different characters to experiment with and plenty of loot to seek; however, seeing the same nine level themes over and over again can make grinding a bit dull.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some DLC in the future perhaps containing some new classes to try and more levels to dive into, but I'm not holding my breath.

But, what could be a boring experience due to the lack of levels only gets more exciting as the game goes on.  The meat of the game actually takes a while to unlock; online multiplayer isn't available until beating the first nine bosses and harder difficulties (which you'll need to play to reach the level cap) as well as the incredibly fun Chaos Dungeon don't make an appearance until you beat the game on Normal.  Multiplayer, either locally or online, is an absolute blast.  This is a party game at its finest; there is always a screen full of explosive effects to be enjoy, and while it takes time to fully master, the combat is extremely simple for almost anyone to pick up.  As stated before, running long chains of dungeons together will start a multiplier that affects your rewards, so nothing is more fun than getting a group of friends together to trudge through as much RPG action as you can. If you don't have anyone around for coop and aren't too keen on going online, AI's characters can be obtained to fill a space and join you on your adventure.  Though be wary, adding another player, human or not, will multiply the enemies' health, and AI's don't always do their part to make up for the extra difficulty.

I could point out other negative aspects of the game; sometimes you can lose your character in all the action, some online moments can be laggy when striking multiple enemies or picking up items, and the story isn't anything special with the narrator even becoming intrusively overbearing after repeating himself constantly.  But why have I cataloged over 30 hours into it already?  Why do I want to get off my computer and fire up my PS3 right now?  Why am I compelled to start a new class from Level 1 or grind out some more loot for my first character?  In the end, this game is an addiction.  Its easy to pick up and hard to put down.  Its simple enough to enjoy casually and deep enough to go bonkers over your stats and build.  Its a great game to play alone for twenty minutes or marathon for hours with your buddies.  No matter what you're seeking out of a gaming experience, mindless beat 'em ups or hero building RPGs are your ballgame, Dragon's Crown is a long-needed jump-start to this long abandoned genre that presents itself in style.

Review: The Last of Us

Joel and Ellie; an unlikely duo of wary travelers that share a common goal, but not exactly common motivation.  Meeting these two, and following them along their treacherous journey is sure to leave a hefty impact.  Prepare yourself for survival and strap in.

The Last of Us is wild concoction of genres, but the most straight forward description of it would be a third person shooter with stealth and survival horror elements.  Just don't expect to rely on your cover-shooting skills to trudge through this title in one piece.  Gunplay is incredibly frantic, dramatic, and chaotic.  If you find yourself using your firearms, you know full well that your most recent encounter has turned into a tooth and nail struggle for survival.  Guns go off with loud, startling pops and you can almost hear Joel's bat and lead pipe swings crushing bones with every blow.  Every firefight and fisticuffs feels brutal and desperate and it only takes one mistake to end up a corpse in a pool of blood.

Its not only in the fantastic sound design, but in the scavenger gameplay after each battle that showcases the gravity of this post apocalyptic world. Bullets are scarce, max ammo capacity is shallow, bricks and bottles break, melee weapons deteriorate after a few hits, and shivs, med packs, and Molotovs cost valuable resources.  An encounter usually leads to being drained of supplies, so its essential to explore every nook and cranny of the beautifully sculpted environments to scrounge up just enough tools to get you through the next area.

Because your cache can be spent so easily, stealth tends to be the sought after route.  Being sneaky, however, doesn't always go as planned, as the enemy AI scours the area ready to alert their companions to your presence.  More often than naught, you'll misjudge the enemy's vision range or knock over a glass bottle and find yourself struggling to fend off a wave of attackers.  But its because of this challenge that successfully taking everyone down or sneaking by them altogether feels very rewarding, especially when you look back and consider all of the ammunition you saved.

Stealth is a challenge to be sure, but you'll find much satisfaction in saving the bullets.

Despite the game following Naughty Dog's standard Uncharted formula (enemy encounter, world traversal, enemy encounter, world traversal) the combat stays fresh as you fight three diverse groups of enemies throughout the story; Military soldiers, the infected, and other survivors. The strategy used for each varies drastically. The military are heavily armored and equipped with superior fire power, Looters are smart, cautious, and brutal, while infected are less intelligent but boast greater numbers and Echo Location to help them detect moving targets.  These Clickers will easily one-hit kill Joel, which can be frustrating at first, but its those blunt lessons in combat that teach you how to best clear out a room of enemies.

Each tool for survival has its own strengths for every scenario, leaving you with some tough decisions when it comes to allocating your resources.  Molotovs require the same ingredients as a med pack.  The spreading fire from a Molotov (when aimed well) can take out a pack of infected in one toss, but your health is still quite fragile to the many dangers.  Where a precious shiv can be used to one hit kill a Clicker, it can also be disposed to force open a locked door with potential loot inside. All weapon switching and item crafting is done in real time, leaving almost no breathing room when narrowly escaping an assault.  These situations will keep you wondering "What gear is best for my survival?" when determining how to advance through a regal world with no authority and no rules.

The visuals are simply gorgeous, and its no surprise with Naughty Dog behind the helm. The effects of the gore, particles, water, and weather are all breathtaking and the diversity in your surroundings prevents any exhaustion of one particular art style. Flora and fauna have overrun the populated cities and metros we know in our time, leading to some very desolate, eerie, yet captivating world traversal.  Character models and their animations are rock solid.  Controlling Joel has a comfortable feel as you sense the weight behind every motion.  Melee attacks and their interactions with your settings are smoothly executed and even watching enemies carefully stalk around the corners cautiously is a stunning detail. You might notice a little glitch here or there and some minor textures coming in a little too late, but these are unrecognizable blemishes on a beautiful work of art.  Combine that with some of the most memorable environments this generation of gaming has seen, and you easily have one of the most stunning looking games on consoles to date.

But the character driven story is where the meat of the game is.  Traveling with Joel and Ellie never gets old and every temporary companion is likable and not without purpose. Every performance is well acted, believable and genuine, while the motion capture really drives home some exceptional character interactions. While Joel and Ellie are the centerpiece, meeting memorable characters like Bill or David is sure to be the focal point of many conversations to come.  Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson definitely steal the show though as the development between Joel and Ellie stays heartfelt and incredibly paced. Each character transforms the more time they spend together, but never too fast. In fact, they both have enough stubborn tendencies that keep them from changing as quickly as you'd imagine they would.  This speaks volumes to the pacing Naughty Dog has instilled within the experience.  Every line of dialogue feels real and you can imagine putting yourself in every scenario and making the very same decisions as Joel.  The story unfolds through a very straight-forward narrative that has been done in apocalyptic and undead media for almost half a century, but the high polish and care with which its done, not to mention the incredibly tough questions the story brings up regarding humanity and survival gives this simple journey an overarching theme that has really never been done before.

Make no mistake, The Last of Us is a very draining experience.  Some might have trouble even classifying this game as "fun", at least not in the traditional fashion. Though I tend to find The Last of Us is addicting in the same sense as most survival horrors. There is something immensely satisfying to barely scraping by, using limited resources wisely, and really facing a true challenge. Its the same reason why Dark Souls fans feel so rewarded, despite the game being so punishing and emotionally gut-wrenching.  The gameplay has a way of transferring your mind into Joel's body; survival is your utmost concern.  Playing becomes less about escaping a stressful day at work with a nice relaxing video game, and more about "If I can just make it through this next hallway... if I can just scrounge up a little more ammo... if I can just protect Ellie a little longer..."

You'll weigh heavy decisions, both in combat and from the story, and you'll lose yourself in this amazing and dramatic adventure.  Any fan of a strong narrative would do themselves a favor by playing The Last of Us.  It's a game that will be talked about for decades and stand as a prime example of what it means to set a new standard for gaming experiences.