Whenever a critically-hyped mainstream game receives nothing but unanimous praise from professional critics and ordinary gamers alike, I tend to become somewhat skeptical. It seems like more often than not, I tend to disagree with the masses; I've been burned too many times by games that just don't live up to their hype and end up disappointing me. On occasion, however, the masses are actually right and I'm left with no choice but to agree with them. Such is the case with The Last of Us, Naughty Dog's latest foray on the PS3 -- a post-apocalyptic survival game starring two characters, Joel and Ellie, trying to make it across the country with a cure to the fungal virus afflicting mankind.
I enjoyed The Last of Us. It's a pretty good game that understands how tension and survival mechanics are supposed to work in these types of games, and its story is genuinely interesting to see through to its conclusion. More appropriately, its characters are worth seeing through to the end. Joel and Ellie's journey is a very riveting one that kept me playing for long stretches at a time, not wanting to put it down. But for as good as The Last of Us is, it's also an imperfect game -- one that really irritated me at times, and which still isn't as good as it could have been.