It has been mastered: now you can play one of the most well-known games ever in an improved version. Only if you have the necessary specifications though. Learn more in our review of The Last of Us Part I.
The new gold standard for experiencing the most moving video game narrative is The Last of Us Part I on desktop. We’ll examine the specific reasons for this in our The Last of Us Part I Review for PC.
However, despite The Last of Us (PlayStation 3) being hailed as one of the best games ever when released in 2013, the PC port has received harsh criticism. Numerous reports of crashes, subpar performance, and similar issues constantly occurred. Despite the current buzz around the game, none of those problems were present throughout our playtime, thus they won’t be included in the review. The only preface required for the reviewer’s performance is that we upgraded our drivers as advised and verified that our system requirements were sufficient to run the game. We used it with practically all of the highest graphic and textural settings without experiencing any problems or performance issues.
The specs that are advised for each performance type are listed below:
Gameplay – Main Story
There’s a lot to talk about with this game, so let’s get right to the point; the portion that makes your mouse hand and keyboard fingers tremble. At first, we thought about using a PS4 or even a PS3 controller, but we changed our minds because this review is focused on gameplay, and we wanted to try out the new control scheme that could be used for the first time in this game. We’ll tell you right now that we feel foolish for having even considered using a controller. We only play video games on consoles.
Consoles are our main gaming platform, going from the Nintendo Entertainment System to the Xbox Series X. Now, you might be wondering, “Why would you examine a PC port if you’re a console player?” Because playing new games shouldn’t be limited to what you already know. The absolute greatest way to miss out on some of the best experiences in gaming is to restrict your range of gaming experiences in any manner.
How did this console player fare on the old MnK, then? Even if our aim isn’t always perfect, this was the most enjoyable game-related shooting we’ve ever had. It always causes celebration when you peek out from cover and rapidly hover the circular scope above an enemy’s head to land a headshot that shows you the red lines to confirm the kill.
That gratifying sensation is timeless. We beg everyone who wants to play the game to use the keyboard and mouse so they may feel as nasty as Ellie and Joel portray themselves to be. We quickly mastered the use of the 2 and 3 keys for weapon transitioning and the scroll wheel for item swapping after only a few attempts; 90% of the game was already ingrained in our muscle memory at this point.
We all know that the primary gameplay is straightforward yet extremely rewarding. What we believe some people struggle to do is admit that The Last of Us’ gameplay isn’t very unique in terms of its concept alone. Yes, it’s satisfying. Although it’s not particularly inventive, shooting is satisfying and the stealth choices are thrilling. Why then do we consider this to be such a great video game even though it didn’t find its place in eSports and on English online bookmakers here, just like many action adventures (unlike e.g. FPSs)? It results from continuity.
The plot and gameplay are closely related. The gameplay picks up where the brilliantly created cutscenes left off with the plot, continuing it in an engaging way. Conversation between Joel and Ellie, as well as environmental narrative and, most crucially, conversation. The player is completely immersed during stealth portions, sequences of action, and boss fights since the key characters, non-player characters (NPCs), and main characters all have unique particular (written) and non-specific (random) conversations.
The only things that keep the player on the edges of their seats are adversaries that can kill them in one hit, the constant sense that you’re on the verge of running out of ammo, and having to make sure you pick up every weapon part, supplement, or a single supply you can. You’ll be caught unprepared and executed by a hidden infected if you try to unwind and “roam about the cabin” wherever you’re investigating. At least, that’s how it feels.
“Suspense” is perhaps the best term to describe this game because “horror” isn’t really the correct genre to put it in. Even though we’ve completed the game before, it’s been so long that we’ve forgotten certain encounters and foes, making this replay just as exciting as my initial attempt.
The new material included in the remake version is all really thrilling to play or watch. It just has so much extra added to the bundle with skins for Ellie, Joel, and their weapons, the unlocked character models, and gameplay modes like mirrored mode or limitless ammo that it becomes a reoccurring game rather than a one-time storytelling experience. The only explanation if you haven’t played the original game is that you haven’t unlocked the original game’s promotional art after mastering the remake version. Offering players something to earn makes this version more valuable overall.
Story – Main Story
The number of readers who jumped right to this part to read the reader comments on a tale that hasn’t changed in ten years is proof of how well-known it is. We’ll be the ones to fill you in on who you should credit for this masterpiece since we suspect many of you don’t know.
Both “The Last of Us” and the Uncharted series’ narratives were written by Neil Druckmann. If it doesn’t convince you of how awesome this person is, you can stop bothering to watch or read any more media. The fact that Druckmann has mastered contemporary storytelling and calls for insane credit and applause for what he’s produced in the last decade, or even the last two decades, doesn’t change the argument that he lost track of the medium he was using, namely video games, by the time The Last of Us Part II came around.
Looking back on The Last of Us against The Last of Us Part II, we can now understand what the characters actually made it an exciting journey worth falling in love with, which can even make some of you consider even more highly of the first game’s excellence. The Last of Us II lacked its sense of coherence while attempting to make something more complex and intricate. It’s an intriguing concept to have you play two sides that are opposite in a life-or-death struggle, but it alienates your audience for the first half of the game.
After discovering Abby’s history, people didn’t particularly find the idea of rehabilitating her appealing. Even for those of her who did, acting as Ellie would have prevented them from connecting with the role they were portraying. To get to Abby, Ellie kills a ton of people who are ostensibly innocent, only in order to save her life in the final battle. Naughty Dog and Druckmann failed to remember they were creating a video game whose narrative continuity, as we said in the gameplay component, is intended to be maintained while trying to impart a lesson about the never-ending cycle of violence.
Let’s now discuss all the various manners Druckmann and Naughty Dog truly used to possess a firm understanding of this idea. Joel is portrayed in The Last of Us Part I as the exact opposite of the selfless hero who sacrifices all to safeguard his daughter or atone for her death. He’s an arrogant anti-hero deserving of harsh criticism if not outright hatred. In the event of the end of the world, he wouldn’t even return the affection of the many people who do love him. To protect a single person he considers precious and deserving of life, he’d place a bullet between anyone’s eyes.
Joel believes that way, even though it’s impossible for one person to be completely moral and judge who lives and who dies. While you might believe that he proves this by killing everyone in his path and judging their lives to be unworthy, we’d want to offer you another viewpoint. What about the one time he determines there’s a life that not anyone is permitted to take, as opposed to his course of snatching life that lasts the entire game? He really demonstrates how self-righteous he’s when he murders the brain surgeon who could be the only one who can save the planet. Joel decrees that Ellie will live, but everyone else will perish.
Among the most touching, profound, and purely human video game scenarios is the game’s conclusion. Ellie is actually posing a different query when she requests that Joel pledge to her that what he stated regarding the Fireflies is accurate. She requests that Joel be honest with her. She generally knows the answer to what she truly says. He’s unable to admit the truth even though she is presenting him with a challenge and their last chance to repair their relationship.
If Ellie’s behavior up to that point hasn’t convinced you that she learned so quickly, the game’s closing song, “The Path (A New Beginning)”, should at least convince you of the significance of that query. The hardest thing a writer can do is create a satisfying cliffhanger, but in this case, it felt like the end of that particular section of their story, even though it left the question of “what happened next” ambiguous.
Left Behind
The only downloadable content for “The Last of Us” is called Left Behind, and it’s a component of “The Last of Us Part I”. We’ve never before encountered this component of the software. Although we’re happy we finally got to play it, we were quite disappointed in what it turned out to be. It was in essence business as usual, if a little more slowly and with fewer enjoyable, during the portion of the DLC that covers the Wintertime hiatus of Joel being comatose.
We were quite bored throughout the flashback segment where Ellie and her best friend Riley play minigames and go about. It was a sweet concept to add a few extra minigames, but inclusions of that caliber belong in much simpler games. Too much refinement has gone into The Last of Us for it to be reduced to a minigame notion sampler. It isn’t worthwhile at all the $10 asking price for the PlayStation 3 version.
Watching the relationship between Joel and Ellie strengthen through their adventures and over time is what made The Last of Us so unique. We definitely didn’t feel exactly the same way about Ellie and Riley when Left Behind tried to make me. Sadly, we had little interest in Riley or their previous friendship. In fact, it was so uninspiring that we had to research to see whether Neil Druckmann also contributed to that section of the game because that wasn’t how we’d initially taken it.
It simply demonstrated Druckmann’s inability to write entirely about interactions between young people. People adore Ellie for her combination of adult mentality and juvenile hotheadedness. She’s a well-designed character, and it’s insulting to degrade her into a corny high school movie girl who gets involved in back-and-forth conflict with her best friend.
The game actually has some fascinating information throughout the gameplay segments that fill in the time when Joel is hurt in the Winter, which is a saving grace. After the Winter segment of the main game, players yearned to see more of Ellie living by herself.
In addition to that, the mall also has a little bit of its own legend. It’s possible to find notes and tape recorders that describe how, early in the outbreak, a military team crashed into the mall and was shot dead one by one, with some of them even turning against one another. Even though the tale may not even come near to what we were hoping for, there’s at least one interesting element.
Visuals
One of the most gorgeous games we’ve ever played through was made possible by the fact that we were able to set practically all of the graphic and texture settings to High. Years after society’s collapse, the environment continued to amaze as the earth underwent an astounding transformation. Now, in addition to being well-designed, they also have a stunning appearance. The visual designers that had to rebuild the looks of this game for a second time deserve an absurd amount of credit as writers, designers, and voice actors didn’t have to return to work on this remake as their job was already finished.
The visual settings aren’t only varied enough to help you play the game to the best of your ability, but even preferential aspects like film grain and motion blur are all fully programmable. The game’s unlocked FPS cap, which makes it run as smoothly as butter on systems that can support it, is undoubtedly its most notable feature (which also contained our decent processor and average graphics card).
Audio
Few video games, in our opinion, achieve anything more than being recognized for their game’s backdrop. The world in The Last of Us feels incredibly alive because of the audio design, which includes everything from the speech to the noises of the infected to the cracking of leaves or shuffling of snow underneath characters’ feet. Ironic considering the theme of the game is the end of the world as we recognize it, right? The player is intently tuned into character dialogue and aural cues, which place a high value on the audio layout, and it was more than met.
So, what else is there to say? One of the greatest soundtracks ever, for instance. Players actually applaud the reusing of the tracks with particular tweaks rather than deriding it as laziness because the tunes are so fantastic. The soundtrack is filled with so much misery, with only the tiniest glimmer of hope scattered here and there to point out to you that there is no stop. The universe and characters have dark undertones because of this, which is why the music has such a strong impact on the experience. The music that follows you through each chapter, usually in cutscenes, will make sure you never forget that society is dying and holding on, not recovering and moving forward.
Final Thoughts
The Last of Us: Part I falls short of perfection with a regrettable inclusion, but the initial version of The Last of Us is a game that deserves a perfect score of 10/10. The features it got right in the shape of supplementary unlocked content are what bumps it up to a 9.5 from a 9.
Here, especially on a PC, you have one of the best video game experiences you could wish for. The Last of Us’s new lovely art job and more comfortable gaming controls heighten the game’s tragic overtones. Please excuse us while we restart it on Grounded+.