The government doesn't want you to know there's free puppies in the desert, you can just extract them.

Less stealth and more open ended, there's plenty of stuff to develop and experiment with, except they added real timers for said stuff because this is a mobile game apparently. I did do the total stealth airport mission in a box though so who needs any of the cool weapons and tools.

Who invented chapter 2 in this game? Do the same missions for no reason, we just wanted to pad the game out. You want Quiet back? Just do the same mission 7 times in a row, because that's fun.

Story is loosely connected through missions, with only certain ones leading to cutscenes and plot development. It picks up once you get to Africa though.

Over ten years since it was first released, I finally decided to play the first video game ever with a story. Hearing nothing but praise, and seeing it called one of the greatest games of all time, expectations were high going into it.

Taking place in a desolate world overrun by infected mushroom zombies, the main character gets wrapped up in the worlds longest escort quest across half of America, taking a girl who possibly holds the cure to the outbreak through several states. It's here where you see the state of the world 20 years after the outbreak started, and in typical fashion, it's every man for himself. Joel isn't afraid to reduce the already dwindling human population if it means he survives, and his selfishness is a very prominent theme, right up to the game's conclusion where he forsakes humanity for the life of a single girl that he came to view as his daughter.

Joel isn't a good person. Very few people in this game are. Yet together with Ellie, you can't help but take his side. Their dynamic throughout the game feels very organic, and you see them both change throughout the game. While Joel becomes softer towards the end of the game, we see Ellie become quiet and less jovial, coming to terms with the lives she was forced to take and the trauma she has gone through during their journey. A moment that stands out for me is when she hacks somebody to death with a machete after he attempted to assault her, it's a pretty impactful scene. Their back and forth dialogue isn't grating, but some lines do border on marvel tier writing, though a lot less cringe. I'm not going to detail every part of the story, but I agree that from a narrative standpoint, the game is pretty decent.

However, this is a PS3 game. And I say that in the most derogatory way possible. I don't think this standard of gameplay holds up very well at all playing it in 2024. It's not terrible, but it's not exactly satisfying either. The gunplay especially feels weak, no doubt deliberately due to the game's focus on survival elements and its attempts to incorporate stealth. It feels very formulaic, where you enter an area and enemies are patrolling, so you either kill them all with guns or use stealth to quietly take them out. The only time the stealth felt good was the chapter where you play as Ellie and have to escape through a snowstorm after being kidnapped. Why? Because she has a knife with infinite durability, and the snow actually provides cover. We can't forget the classic mechanics such as moving a ladder, pushing a crate and boosting your partner up so they can then pull you up too. Very much game mechanics from that era of gaming.

Also, you're trying to tell me Joel didn't bleed to death, get his wound infected or die from hypothermia after the university chapter? He's immune to death, they should be using him for the cure instead.

Overall, it's a pretty good game and I'd say it's worth playing for the journey, but it's far from one of the best games ever made looking back on it.