The survival genre has been facing a hard time with recent traditionally survival series moving their titles towards becoming more action focused; and while I am familiar with Naughty Dog’s success in creating successful titles and I was already impressed by what was presented of their latest title The Last of Us during E3; I didn’t really believe this title would be any different than any of the recent games claiming to belong to the survival genre when they actually are action games with an every so slight survival theme.
Well… I have two things to say: 1- The survival genre has found another way to survive with the help of Naughty Dog. 2- Yes, I judged the game too soon.
Ok, so to clarify a few things. It was my first time getting my hands on the highly anticipated survival title. I was as highly skeptical of the game as the game was anticipated… So I was basically pretty damn skeptical! The version of the game I tried is what I believe to be an early build so naturally not anywhere close to refined. I got my hands on trying the game at the Middle East Film and Comicon and I didn’t really get much time on it just isn’t polite to hog games on display.
Right, back to the game… Well here is the basic overview of what I could see from the game: It takes a heavy focus on salvaging and finding equipment and rewards players who search every nook and cranny as Ammo and tools are fairly rare and finding them is akin to finding water in a desert. The game doesn’t quiet try to horrify or scare you as much as it tries to drive you to desperation, pressuring the player to focus on saving ammunition by trying to find alternative ways to kill baddies without using your pistol… Saving that for emergencies.
Generally the controls where intuitive and highly reminiscent of Uncharted. The game follows a generally linear progression leading you generally to where you should be going to get the story to progress but still allows for some exploration and completing objectives in different ways using different approaches (again much like the Uncharted series). For the players that like that sort of thing it is a definite plus, but for those who want more freedom the game can be a little forceful. Personally It is the first time for me to actually find this style of gameplay engaging and I can honestly say that I am looking forward to purchasing the game. The only issue that i really found with the game was the fact that the game had a significant amount of graphical glitches, but I need to remind the readers that this was very probably an early build so no need to freak out. I am fairly confident the full version of the game will smoothen out those rough edges!
