Initial Thoughts - The Last of Us Remastered (Playstation 4)

I've never been a huge Playstation fan. I've always been a late adopter of Sony's home video consoles and the Playstation 4 is no exception. I finally took the plunge the summer of '17 and bought the exclusive gold version released just in time for Father's Day.

While on a business trip I found myself at a GameStop and I noticed they had a pretty good sale on pre-owned games. I don't normally take game suggestions from GameStop's employees, but I found myself needing one more game to complete the deal. Seeing how I missed a lot of great games on the PS3, I never got a chance to play the original The Last of Us game. I took the guy's suggestion and grabbed a copy of the remastered version, but only in the last day or so have I actually sat down to play it.

I did a good job steerling clear of this game, even when it was originally released for the PS3. I knew the game involved more stealth than action and I thought it had something to do with zombies or the undead, but that was it. I never watched any videos on YouTube of the game, including the game trailer. When I say I went into this game blind and with no experience I mean it.

First of all let me say how impressed I was with how beautiful this game is. At the beginning when you get to control the daughter, I didn't notice the game switch from the cinema scene to game play. The transition was smooth and seemless. Now, being a dad of two young daughters I was a little traumatized with the story and the outcome. If anything I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see how this story would continue to unfold.

I've only played a few hours thus far and I really don't know how long this game is. I'm really enjoying the story as well as soaking in all of the beautiful visuals. I'm enjoying the gameplay, but I can't help but feel this is more like an interactive story than your traditional video game. I guess I thought it took place in an open world environment so the linear gameplay wasn't expected. That's not a bad thing however, infact it works well for this game. The controls are pretty good and it has a nice tutorial of sorts to help you get down the various actions as you play.

As much as I thought I disliked sneaking around behind objects and going for a stealth kill, it seems as if this is how I'm able to survive and able to make it through the majority of the areas alive. I do like however how the game autosaves pretty frequently and if you do die, you don't have to replay much of the game from where you re-spawn.

I also didn't expect any humor in the game, so the scene in the truck as they drive away from the city was pretty amusing. I have enjoyed watching Joel and Ellie's relationship change over the short course of the game I've played. I do look forward to see where their relationship goes as I continue to play further into the game. So far this has been an excellent addition to my small PS4 library and I anxiously await to jump back in.