When 'Uncharted 2: Among Thieves' shipped, Naughty Dog split the company into two teams. While Amy Hennig and Richard Lemarchand would head up the team that would make 'Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception', Bruce Straley and Neil Druckmann would head up the second team, assigned to do something the company hadn't done before: Make another IP in the same console generation. With an interesting viral ad campaign to keep us intrigued, Naughty Dog successfully kept quiet about the whole endeavor until the big reveal at the Spike VGA's in 2011.
'The Last of Us's unveil surprised everyone...
This game may on the offset confuse casuals at first glance as being another 'Uncharted', but this game is actually a whole new animal. It mixes limited action gunplay and melee brawling with a huge heaping helping of survival horror, making a new genre the company would like to call 'Survival Action'.
This is the story of two survivors, Joel and Ellie. Joel is a smuggler who works closely with his boss, Tess, while Ellie is just a regular kid, sheltered from the outside world, because it's not all civilized anymore. In the year, 2034, the world as we know it is obliterated by the effects of an infection breakout of a mysterious form of cordyceps fungus that's actually affecting humans in a horrific manner: Turning them into monsters, unable to control their own bodies as the fungus take over. While doing a specific payback mission on a now-ex-client, Joel and Tess are implored to smuggle Ellie across the U.S. at the request of Marlene, leader of the fireflies, one of two groups fighting against the militarized government that now abuse their countymen more than help them.
Since this is mostly a survival horror in general aspects, let me start by saying this: BEST. TANK. CONTROLS. EVER!!! The fluidity in the controls are silky smooth when it comes to traversal, it makes me giddy when I'm moving. The environments are so huge at times that you are encouraged to explore so much when looking for items. Of course you have to pull your gun out in order to fire, and you can't shoot from the hip, but you're not a professional, you're just a ruthless survivor. You start out with difficulty and realism when holding a weapon, but you have the option to improve on that gradually as the game goes on. The melee is brutal, whether with bare fists or close-range weapons. The location based actions cause punch lasers to keep the action fresh when up close. Stealth is also essential because items and ammo are SCARCE in this world, so CONSERVE WHAT YOU CAN!!! In order to help survive long enough, a real time inventory and crafting system come into play, allowing you to customize what items and weapons you have on you or even mixing items together to make more helpful stuff. Beware, the game doesn't pause while doing this, so find a place to hide during a battle in order to do this alive. There's also occasional tool tables you'll come across upon from time to time so that you can upgrade your available weapons if you want. If you're having a hard time detecting enemy presence, you can go into listen mode to have a sonar like visual on your baddies (that is, if you don't have a suround sound setup to help you detect enemies already).
The visuals are something else to behold, this game stresses out the PS3 to its limits and accomplishes the best graphics the system has to offer. It's not just the beautiful greenery that accompanies the outside world, or the detailed chaos in the ruins of what used to be our modern civilization, or even the the different variety in looks for people and your own characters, and even effects like blood staying around, but the intricate details demonstrating Naughty Dog's technological wizardry. You can see animating clouds when you're outdoors, or wonderful raindrops hitting windows, dust particles shown against light sources with SO MANY different types of lens flare effects, AND, for the first time ever, TRUE direction-base ambient occludent shadow effects, detached from the object--and NOT forming a slapped-sticker-based aura around it--as it should be in games.
While 'Uncharted' captured that adventure feel, courtesy of Greg Edmonson, the TLoU team turned to academy award winner, Gustavo Santaolalla (Brokeback Mountain, Babel), for a more aural and atmospheric tone to fit 'The Last of Us', and it fits like a glove. The music is absolutely epiphonizing and perfectly helps to wrack you in this beautiful wasteland. The sound effects are amazing too, from sudden yells to loud weapons to crashing objects, this game will scare the heck out of you.
I've cried before at video games for lots of reasons, but never before did I cry because I contemplated the realities of the world I live in. 'The Last of Us' did that to me TWICE, and one of those time was in the intro. This game's story was SO impactful to me, that it became relateable. It took me back to a lot of dark places because of how I used to live. Naughty Dog took a lot of risks with this story and it payed off in spades. It's extraordinary . The A.I. for enemies is fantastic, and partner A.I. is surprisingly just as good in most areas. The interaction between Joel and Ellie are some of THEE great gaming moments of the 7th Gen. and hammers the story home.
Factions is the serious online mode made to fit in with the rest of the game. It's basically deathmatch with the extra incentive to keep playing caused by keeping your clanspeople alive and populating by doing extra missions in addition. There are no extra features to the online really, so that's disappointing.
Extras are interesting, unlockables include galleries and skins and even render modes, but no extra weapons. New game plus is now the only way to keep items around when playing again, and each new game plus switches items around to keep things interesting.
I have beaten this game THREE TIMES NOW, and I keep discovering new things each time. This is one of the most memorable experiences I have ever had growing up as a gamer. This was made for guys like I, who wanted a sophisticatedly mature experience on the PS3, but never got that genuine satisfaction from other games in the field until now. If you are of legal age, then you must try 'The Last of Us' at least once in your life, it gives the industry a chance to mature as well.
The PlayStation 3 is Sony’s most interesting home console ever, but what’s most interesting of all is trying to nail down the very best games on a console with hundreds of incredible games. Let’s give it a shot.
We desperately need Motorstorm back. Evolution is no more though and this makes me sad
Sly Thieves in Time
Stay the Party
Portal 2
Dj Hero
Demon’s Souls
God of war Ascension
2 of those games got railed through the “gaming media” during release.
Sly and god of war.
Both of which were fantastic games.
Yes it’s a decent list of popular games with a heavy hand on FPS and no Warhawk or Starhawk 2 of the best games (not sale wise) on ps3.
I would buy a Starhawk again even if it didn’t have a graphics upgrade hell I would even take a new one with micro transactions 😱🤯
I've noticed a recent nostalgia for the PS3 and I don't get it for me it's been my least favourite generation to date and I've been gaming since the NES I just feel like the ambition of the developers outweighed the capabilities of the consoles so I remember lots of games running in the lower end of 20fps range and I remember for the first time ever actually disliking the duelshock 3 and it's curved triggers
Sure there were some standouts and great games but that's the only gen I switched entirely to PC gaming
Maybe the recent nostalgia is because pretty much all of its games are trapped on that console. People want to play them on more modern hardware. hell... if XB can do it then so can Sony. there are competent emulators out there that can run on PS4/5 hardware but Sony just wont let them become official... why is that?
If we are talking least favorite generations (personally) then this one is certainly mine. i had more fun playing 8th, 7th and 6th gen stuff than 9th. And it isnt like i dont have access to do so... the heavy hitters just havent shown up anywhere close to those previous gens. The few here and there just doesnt cut it compared to the likes of constant good games that showed up in 6th, 7th and 8th gen. hell.... I'll even throw in 5th gen has been better than this one.
I tend to agree there's lots of amazing games locked to the PS3 like GTA IV or mgs 4 but then again my issue was never with the content the PS3 had but rather it's performance many other people have said the PS3 felt like it couldn't walk and chew bubblegum at the same time using PSN and downloading a game could take a few minutes to just start a download.
I typically don't worry all that much about performance I've never had a problem with games that run at 30 but games like crysis 2, Skyrim are good examples where the performance was so unstable you would never even touch the top of the frame cap and the hitching was worse than say Goldeneye on the n64
I think emulation is more than possible on the ps5 though it's just that Sony has no incentive to rush it's development it will likely be a ps6 feature if it ever happens at all.
But yeah the 9th gen has been so bad from a content perspective thats a given I see constant articles where people are frequently expressing their disappointment around the industry as a whole right now to much live service competition that sinks longstanding studios and consumes Devs time less ambition and games cost so much to make they have to play it safe.
The 5th gen was easily better than the 9th we had some all time greats crash, Spyro, Tony hawk, mgs, Mario,64, Goldeneye, Mario kart 64 the list goes on. The 5th gave us a new dimension and I remember being blown away by how much more open gaming had become the 4th gen with the mega drive and SNES was great and very easy to still revisit some of the greatest games of all time came out like earthbound, secret of mana, sonic , Mario world etc but saving our games was still not a standard function or a given so gaming was still evolving but it was very impressive to see some of the tricks Devs used like dithering to give us new experiences those earlier gens limitations bred innovation.
if XB can do it so can sony? I didn't know xbox had a cell processor in their older consoles, that's the reason why ps3 was so cool, but also the reason why games are hostage there and no, xbox did nothing similar even though their backward compatbility is good, they always had a similar architecture to their consoles.
Sorry Michael... I guess you missed the obvious part where i said there are already emulators out that do this. and that is what XB is doing... emulators for OG and 360 games. Its why the full slate is not BC on XBO/Series.
TNS: "Sony unveiled one of its new gaming hardware and concepts at CES 2025 and the gaming tech is a promising leap for immersion."
Sony is so far ahead of everyone else it's crazy. I just wish I could be around 70 years from now. Sony gaming is going to be out there.
Imagine sending a scent message in a online game? It gives new meaning to "I fart in your general direction" 😅
Lol 😂
But aside from that, it would be interesting to breathe the scents of the scene you are in like a beach/island, snowy mountain, smell grass from a grassland/marsh, etc.
Here is a list of some of the best combat game set in a post-apocalyptic world
I would think that Horizon ZD/FW franchise would be on the list for apocalyptic games, I mean it has combat also, or do they just mean gun combat.
It’s not exactly post apocalyptic but modded STALKER & TARKOV are truly are unrivaled when it comes to FPS combat
I hate to be a part of the mainstream but i totally agree, this is one of those rare games that lives up to the hype.
Lots of Glitches due to PS3 Stress.
I agree with this. I'd give this a 10/10 if it weren't for all the glitches. But a 9.8 or 9.9 is necessary since it isn't perfect. But it is still the best game I have every played.
I loved the ending of this game. perfection!
what? the multiplayer is awesome