Had to change platforms for this exclusive, however the game is far more than a bridge to new territories.
In a time when hype and commotion can ruin games before they even release, that's all I'm going to say about the game. Go play it.
Recently I been at sort of a standstill with games because they stopped maturing with me. This game among a few elite titles in the last couple years have done just that. Playing 14 year old wizards was cool when I was 14; the 14 year old in The Last of Us kills zombies and swears. It has a lot more depth than that but basically the girl mirrors Bane in a way that this is the only life she's known. Ultra-cool kids in any script typically piss me off but I can make sense of this one. She didn't have any "kid" material, there was no school, no boys, children were rare in a world where only the strongest survive.
This game was the real f***ing deal. It took some of the best elements of the genre and I started to notice similarities from other successful series.*
I even ignored graphics for a while simply because I believed they were "good enough" and while that might be true in ways this proved that there is no reason to be content. The last time I was this blown away was from the first Gears of War in 2006. Again, similarities show. I felt the same "WOW" factor exploring the landscapes, viewing the contrast in beauty between a crushed civilization and the nature that grows wildly amongst it's ruins.
To be fair the "few elite" titles I've recently played that had similar effects on me were Bioshock Infinite and Mass Effect 3. Mass Effect had 3 games, 3 blockbusters, it's hard for anything to touch that game but The Last of Us is close. The only reason it edges out Bioshock Infinite for me is that.. It hits closer to home. Despite Zombies being fictitious, most of the conflicts in this game were very real.
I play games for an experience, or that's why I started anyways. The gameplay is great but.. Nothing, it's great. I just would rather talk about other things. It's a survival game. You'll have low supplies and ammunition. The controls aren't "fill in your favorite game", you can't just do a running jump around the corner and knife a guy 10 yards away. I just realized that sometimes when I complained about a game and their controls it was only because I haven't played that game enough and was too busy comparing it to some other games I probably played way too much.
If you didn't understand this game then I have a few ideas. 1. You're the most carefree person in the world, lol 2. Not yet at that intellectual level, nothing to feel bad about.
I'm not trying to insult anyone here, it is a mature game. This actually leads away from violence and profanity but mature topics and sensitive issues will be present. If anyone is unwilling to immerse themselves into it then you may never fully enjoy one of these AAA titles. That's all. S***, I may have beat Final Fantasy 7 when I was about 16 and hardly understood what the hell was going on. 16 so I assume I had a fully functional brain. Or maybe not, it was all about Halo for the most part. Yet I knew I was playing an amazing game. I took it to the web and read what a bunch of "super-genius'" wrote to explain the whole game to me - it was awesome.
I feel like this one was for me. 10/10
-MP
*It's what Silent Hill should be today. The clickers were essentially the nurses, blind but drawn to sound (take a look at the movement similarities). Joel is practically wearing James Sunderland's jacket (typical Silent Hill garb), not just that but also his pocket flashlight. I don't do spoilers but based on this games story, the brutality of Joel, his trouble dealing with the past and confronting truth - These are all signs to a perfect Silent Hill awakening. Even how the menu/interface looks to the sound it makes scrolling through... I wish we could break barriers and something could merge here but the only thing I really want to point out is that this was more of a Survivor-Horror game than just an Action game. A genre that "died" for years until Dead Space came along in my opinion. If you want more examples of this, check out Resident Evil. That went the opposite way, from Survival Horror to Action...