As you may have noticed, I have some problems with zombie games and the associated survival genre. High-profile failures like “The Walking Dead” didn’t give me much courage to look for anything promising in this area. Nevertheless, I was convinced to give “The Last of Us” a chance – you can read here whether it was worth it.

My problem with this genre generally doesn’t relate to the zombies themselves. I have nothing against any monsters or mythical creatures, no matter what kind. However, with zombies it all too often seems to me that they chase after the wrong people – it doesn’t seem that the people they chase do have a brain to eat in the first place.

Accordingly, I can’t really enjoy the jump scares and tricky situations that arise; In most cases, people behave so stupidly that – in my opinion – they don’t deserve anything else. What should also be mentioned, however, is that in contrast to other examples, which (unfortunately) include my favorite franchise “Indiana Jones”, the stupidity here is not just blamed on women. No matter your gender, age or hair color: most of the time everyone just doesn’t deserve it any other way.

After this little digression, now something completely different: “The Last of Us”. While it still uses classic zombie apocalypse elements, the game does better where previous titles completely failed. We have a very beautiful and moving dynamic between the two protagonists, Ellie and Joel. The same surrogate father / surrogate daughter dynamic is set up as (for example) in “The Walking Dead”, but conflicts (even if sometimes very frustrating) are consistently relatable and do not seem forced. The harmony between the two slowly builds and the personality developments seem natural and well integrated into the rest of the story. All in all, this aspect alone really impressed me.

But the rest of the game didn’t disappoint either: the graphics of the remastered edition were obviously aged, but still beautiful – the PC port might have improved a few things, but I didn’t notice the age of the game at all while playing . This particularly applies to the very lively and natural facial expressions of the characters as well as the detailed faces themselves, which really impressed me – many current games can learn something from this.

The story itself was good. It wasn’t anything that you couldn’t have expected, but there were still a few surprises that you didn’t see coming – overall I really liked it. But this is also due to the emotions, which are built up in a believable and lasting way and really make you feel for the protagonists; As a result, many of the more classic elements that every zombie film and game brings are somewhat irrelevant, but still interesting.

I was impressed by the overall gaming experience. Although I don’t particularly like stealth games, I never found myself frustrated when I was discovered and hat to start over again. There were a variety of enemy types that had to be defeated sometimes with a direct attack, sometimes with treachery. The “boss fights” were a bit strange at times, especially in terms of the return of consumbale items, but were still fun. The quieter moments in between, which often left time for dialogue between Ellie and Joel, contributed a lot to the story and gave a nice insight into the personality development of each of the two as well as the relationship between them as surrogate father/daughter. I have absolutely no criticism to express here.

I generally only have a few negative points, two to be exact. For one thing, aiming the weapons was a disaster. I played the game on the PS4 and have to say that the half-finished auto-aim combined with the rather mediocre accuracy of the analog stick did not contribute to a satisfying shooting experience. Most of the time it was a pain to shoot, especially given the rather limited ammunition supplies. I never really had any problems, but every shot missed due to this suboptimally implemented aspect was a downer.

The second point was Sony’s game streaming, which before I highly praised. I don’t want to go too deeply into this, however I was so disappointed with the experience this time that I canceled my subscription. Before anyone asks: no, it wasn’t a bandwidth problem, the game ran smoothly. But there were some points around it that I didn’t like at all.

Overall, my conclusion is very positive. The game was a lot of fun and I don’t regret a second I spent with it. The selection of weapons and enemies, the beautiful levels, the design of the characters and even one or two unforeseen moments impressed and thrilled me overall. The second part is definitely on my list for the future and I’m really looking forward to diving into this world again!

What do you think of the game? Was it fun to watch, did you already play it yourself? Do you have any points or aspects that I forgot here? Join the discussion on Discord!