Now Playing: The Last of Us

What can I say about The Last of Us that hasn’t already been said? Originally released in 2013, The Last of Us has since had two re-releases – a remastered edition in 2014, and the Part 1 edition in 2022, which was then ported to PC in 2023 to coincide with the release of the TV adaptation. There’s been so many reviews, so many forty-seven hour YouTube analysis videos that what more can I add to the discussion?

My opinion, I guess? But my opinion of The Last of Us isn’t really going to buck the general trend. I guess I wouldn’t say the game is a ‘masterpiece’ like some claim. But it is pretty f**king great. I was planning on playing this PC version prior to watching the TV show, but for whatever reason Sony decided to completely botch the port of one of their flagship titles. Good job.

As a result, I watched the TV show before finally picking up and playing the now (somewhat) patched PC version. So can I say that this version is now pretty much fixed? Mostly, I guess. I didn’t have any crashes, and only one bug – when Joel decided to phase through a wall. Performance was okay but I think that was my system brute forcing it and I still encountered some odd stuttering at times.

So – great game, shoddy port. Shame. Fortunately, The Last of Us is such a great game that I’m willing to live with a few rough edges. The story and the characters of TLOU are what make the game so fantastic. I was already fairly familiar with the story purely through video game cultural osmosis or whatever you want to call it before I watched the TV show and having now watched the show (twice – because it’s also really f**king good) I was even more familiar.

And yet, I still thoroughly enjoyed playing the game from beginning to end and genuinely found every story beat and emotional moment just as engaging despite knowing exactly what was coming. That’s a testament to the writing, the acting and the near perfect pacing. I say ‘near perfect’ because the one weak aspect of TLOU is the too frequent ‘carry a ladder/plank, push a pallet/dumpster or boost people up a ledge’ moments.

I must admit, I wasn’t expecting that much from the combat, but it’s actually pretty fun. There’s a real sense of danger to it thanks to the limited supplies. You always feel like you’re just about to run out during every encounter so you’re always trying to make every shot count. You’re always on the edge. The game balances your available resources so well meaning every encounter can be tense and exciting but never unfair.

They’re also surprisingly punishing, even on the default difficulty. If you f**k up you can get killed pretty damn easily. Of course, those moments when you do f**k up and have to improvise on the fly but somehow come out on top are all the more satisfying. There’s a realistic brutality to combat that makes every hit and shot feel impactful.

And I’m also surprised to say that some of the best encounters in the game aren’t against the infected, but the human enemies who actually utilise cover and know how to flank – they caught me napping on numerous occasions.

Between combat you’ll explore the environments and resupply, upgrade your gear and get ready for the next fight. There are also some really fun ‘chase’ sequences with the infected and I wish we had more moments like those in the TV adaptation – the infected don’t feature quite so heavily there.

Visually, this version looks nice enough but clearly there’s a limit to how far you can push a now 10 year old game. The music is great, but you already knew that.

Overall, The Last of Us Part 1 on PC is a shoddy port of a fantastic game but not shoddy enough for me not to recommend it if it’s the only way you can play it. Because you should play it. It’s a fantastic game with engaging gameplay (aside from the ladder stuff) a great story, great characters and I enjoyed it so much I played it through twice in a row. I don’t do that very often. There you go, now you don’t need to watch another seventeen hour YouTube video to tell you what you already know.

9/10