Naughty Dog gaming company has put out many titles that have become instant favorites of collections everywhere. The Uncharted series brought adventure and world traveling with a treasure hunting twist to RPG fan’s eyes. Jak and Daxter created the first outer bounds animation of out skirts pillaging. This weekend at PAXeast in Boston, Naughty Dog released a demo of the highly anticipated title “The Last of Us” that I can say with confidence will be a beautiful addition to their library of awesome.
With a line wrapped around the booth that had a 2 hour wait time, it was instantly clear that the excitement for this demo had reached the ears of convention goers. Fans patiently waited while 30 people at a time tested a 30 minute demo in hopes of grabbing some conception of the incredibly vague promotions that surrounded this game. As we entered the game play emporium, we were given warning of two things. One being that this game had nothing to do with zombies, that the individuals that are attacking you at an alarming rate and ripping your jugulars out are merely human being who had been infected by some sort of fungal viral infection. The second warning was that it was imperative to wear headphones, as audio plays a major factor on the game. With directions given and eager fingers we attacked the demo, and how glorious it was.
Think of all the creepiness you experienced as a child playing the Resident Evil titles in your room with the lights out. Then take in the incredible adventure and game play movement that you experienced being Nathan Drake in Uncharted. Combine the two in a play station test tube, throw that shit in the gaming centrifuge of epic and The Last of Us is what comes out.
Even in it’s beta stages with many kinks to work out it was amazing. It ran smoothly, was aesthetically astounding, and goose bump inflicting creepy.
This all being said, there has been an impeccably vague promoting of this game. Which from a promotional stand point is absolutely genius. From a fans view, infuriating. However, after speaking to on site community strategist, Eric Monacelli, Metal Machine found out a little inside about what was going on in the inner workings of The Last of Us.
When speaking to Eric, we discovered a little bit about the characters involved in the post apocalyptic game that we knew next to nothing about. Prior to PAXEast we had only seen two characters. The title character in which you play as, Joel and his young companion Ellie. However, playing the demo and speaking to Eric, we discovered that there is a third character, who has remained unnamed, that is in fact Joel’s smuggling assistant. You might find yourself questioning what they are smuggling in this hell ridden world of infected individuals, the answer is human beings, and Ellie is that human cargo. The demo that was aired takes place in pot apocalyptic and blown to oblivion Boston. Eric informed us that the goal is to travel from east coast to west coast transporting Ellie. On top of the additional character, we discover that Joel and his smuggling female partner have a business past and and understanding, yet they don’t really trust each other. As if the apocalypse doesn’t have enough tension.
Enough about the story, lets talk game play. With mainly open range to roam upon, it’s easy to get lost. This game triggers your experience in gaming to help you get to the correct locations. This game also focuses a lot on stealth. One enemy in particular is called a clicker.This thing sounds like a dying velociraptor and is going to haunt my nightmares for the next two weeks. It can’t see anything because it has fungus growing on it’s face. It sees by hearing your characters movement. Thus, you must create a sound influenced distraction to make your way around it. As a small gripe that needs to be expressed, it’s very hard to be sneaky when you have two AI party members getting in the way of your creep mode. Small glitch that I’m sure will be worked about by release. Over all, this game is going to be amazing. Read up on it to learn more, if you can find any information about it.