Games of 2013: The Last of Us
Ian's video offers a different take on Naughty Dog's award-winner.
By now it's probably obvious that we approve of Naughty Dog's survival thriller The Last of Us, having lavished it with praise in our original review and then named it among our 10 Games of the Generation. But while most of our affection has been heaped on the single-player campaign, which tells the slow-burning story of Joel and Ellie's journey through a dying North America, there was another aspect to the game.
In his contribution to our Games of 2013 series, Ian Higton picks up on the little-mentioned Factions multiplayer mode, which he has played regularly ever since the game came out - often with subscribers to our YouTube channel in weekday evening live streams.
"It would have been so easy for Naughty Dog to tack on a by-the-numbers cover-based shoot-'em-up mode for the hell of it just to tick a box," he explains. "But instead they took a risk and did their own thing. It isn't even a zombies-based Horde mode, which is what I expected. Instead it's a tense battle between scrappy groups of survivors, who have to work together to pick off their opponents with weapons and bombs crafted from the materials found in each level. The DLC has been good, too."
Personally, I was only interested in the campaign, and once I finished it and gathered my thoughts, the game went back on the shelf. Ian reckons I should dig it out again. "You owe it to yourself to try out Factions," he says. "It's fabulous."
