The Last Of Us

Survival horror is dead, right? Resident Evil has gone off the rails and the last couple of Silent Hill games were barely better than the recent movies (which were, you know, bad). They are franchises which have lost their patience with the moody, spine-tingling scenarios they used to set up in favour of epic Hollywood set-pieces and Rambo-like shootouts. It's a trend that was arguably in part triggered by the Uncharted series, the Indiana Jones-like japes that The Last Of Us developers Naughty Dog wowed all PlayStation 3 fans with across this console generation.

Those expecting The Last Of Us to be like Uncharted are in for a shock. If anything, it's the closest we've come to a truly next-gen survival horror game since Resident Evil 4 shook up the real time Location system, and it's a triumph of smart game design.

But to call The Last Of Us solely a survival horror game is to tell only part of its story. Naughty Dog have proved themselves to be incredibly adept gaming and cultural magpies, mining all sorts of influences (both gaming and otherwise) to create a game that constantly surprises, horrifies and delights. There's a slice of Splinter Cell here, a scene ripped out of Cormac McCarthy's novel 'The Road' here, and indeed a fair helping of Uncharted's all-out-action too. There's more variety in an hour of The Last Of Us than some third-person adventures manage in their entire playtime.

Pulling all of these disparate parts together is a story that plays out like a post-apocalyptic road movie. A worldwide epidemic has turned the majority of the planet's population into fungal monstrosities, with spores floating in the air that first turn humans into raging animals and then, over time dull all their senses except for hearing and cause them to deform with large mushroom-like growths. The few who have managed to avoid infection live out their lives in high-walled police state cities, barely eating enough to survive. A mysterious freedom fighting force named the Fireflies aims to bring balance to the hardships of city life, but for many the relative safety behind the walls is far more preferable than the dangers beyond. Urban life as we know it is irreversibly changed; in the 20-odd years since the infection took hold, skyscrapers have crumbled, cars rust in piles on motorways and nature has reclaimed the land, growing over the concrete monoliths of civilisation past. Only wildlife and the roaming, screaming infected remain.

You take on the role of Joel, a middle-aged, gruff smuggler who is both feared and liked in equal measure. Though just as likeable, he's no Nathan Drake; Joel's past is touched by tragedy, and he has done questionable things in order to survive in this harsh new world. He's tasked with smuggling Ellie, a young girl born after the outbreak of infection, beyond the city walls for mysterious reasons. It quickly transpires that she is the most precious cargo Joel has ever cared for, and the pair embark on a journey that takes them across the dark heart of the deformed American wasteland.

The Last Of Us is survival horror in the truest sense. Joel and Ellie will constantly be scavenging, always on the verge of running out of ammunition, always looking for the means to incrementally improve their meagre arsenal. Every shot fired not only runs the risk of alerting deadly enemies but takes away resources that may be truly hard to come by in the future.

Such low supplies not only makes each encounter with the infected tense and frightening, but also truly challenging. There's no "one-approach-fits-all" to fights, and you'll have to think on your feet in order to survive. Sometimes it's a matter of patience, crouching quietly behind cover and listening with Joel's focus ability (think of it like a spider-sense for the ears, allowing you to hear - and see - enemy movements through walls) in order to get a grasp of the numbers you're facing and the places the infected are hiding. Perhaps you'll need to quietly strangle a few, or throw a bottle to cause a distraction to sneak past them all entirely. Other times there's no choice but to face them head on, but even then a well-designed arsenal of weaponry forces your approach to combat to be a thoughtful one.

This sense of variety is aided by the enemy and level design. From 28 Days Later style-runners that swarm Joel to the creepy, blind Clickers that use sound waves in order to hunt and shamble towards your position, to putrefying Bloaters with ranged spore attacks and armoured plating, each feels a vastly different foe. And when they combine forces to attack Joel all at once, it can be a chaotic battle to make it out alive. From tight, pitch-black corridors to wide open spaces, some with plenty of cover spots and some with next to none, some with the chance for attacks from on high, others where your best bet is to take a low-down path, your surroundings keep you on your toes as much as the monsters.

Human enemies will also attack Joel and Ellie from time to time, be they military forces on the lookout for the runaways or scavengers whose morality has been dashed with the struggle to keep on living. They're a truly devious challenge, often attacking in numbers and changing patrol routes regularly, with an uncanny ability to communicate your last known position and eventually surrounded you. Though you have a flashlight at your disposal, the shadows are often your best friend, and The Last Of Us' stealth sequences are right up their with the best moments the Splinter Cell games managed.

As well as a spot of bare-knuckle boxing (taking the best bits of Uncharted 3's interactive environments to use as on-the-fly bludgeoning spots), Joel has access to a number of bats, clubs and handguns, a shotgun and rifle, a bow and projectile consumable weapons including molotov cocktails and nailbombs, as well as shivs that can be used to sneak-kill enemies and unlock some doors in the game. Scavenging parts littered around levels will let Joel craft new projectiles, while weapon benches can be found to upgrade your guns. Supplements can also be found to improve your skills such as the range of your focus listening and maximum health. Though it's not full of space-age weaponry, each offensive item in the game serves a unique purpose in combat, making their varied use a necessity to survival. By comparison, in Uncharted I spent 90% of all three games just using the pistols. Do that here and you'll die a lot. Neat touches, like seeing a molotov smash on a runner enemy, only to attract Clickers that in turn burst into flames as they stand over the source of the splintering glass sound, is as satisfying a combat moment as I've had in any game. You'll also sometimes enlist companions who can cover your back out in the dangerous world.