The Pros

• Storytelling on a higher level than any game before it
• Perfect voice-acting and animation from all the characters
• The best looking game on the PlayStation 3
• Brilliant inventory management system
• Frantic gameplay that perfectly blends stealth mechanics and gunplay
• 4 vs. 4 multiplayer makes for even more intense moments than the campaign

The Cons

• Partner AI pathing isn’t perfect and at times can break immersion

Unlike Naughty Dog’s previous games, The Last of Us takes a turn down a very dark and at times disturbing road that we haven’t ever seen in video games before. Taking cues from the likes of other great forms of media such as The Road and The Walking Dead, Naughty Dog’s latest does an even better job than both by allowing players to actually take control of the characters themselves, immersing gamers in hopeless kill-or-be-killed situations.

In The Last of Us, Naughty Dog has borrowed a lot of the award-winning visual and storytelling techniques that they’ve used in their previous games. But while very similar to their fun Uncharted series, The Last of Us is everything that Uncharted is not. Uncharted is Naughty Dog’s colorful, feel-good, PG-13 action series. The Last of Us is Naughty Dog’s dark, and at many times depressing, more realistic hard R-rated drama grounded in a world that has gone to hell.

The story involves a strange fungus outbreak that spreads across the world in 2013, causing those who become infected to turn into zombie-like monsters and leaving doctors with no idea how to stop it. With no cure, the spread of the virus leads to the fall of civilization as we know it. Jumping forward twenty years after the events of the outbreak to the year 2033, the story follows survivors Joel and Ellie as the two try to make it across a visually stunning post-apocalyptic United States.

In typical Naughty Dog fashion, the trip across country during the various seasons makes for a wide range of different gameplay environments that really show off just how good the game looks — no matter rain, snow, or shine — everything looks beautiful. It’s hard to find anything in the game that looks like it’s been copied and pasted; every location you go to feels different, and every square inch seems to have an OCD-level of detail put into it that will have you taking your time and searching every corner to make sure you don’t miss a thing in order to read up on every note you find and try to get a better understanding of how this could all happen. Joel and Ellie’s journey is long with the campaign spanning around 16 hours of playtime, and you won’t forget a single second of it after you’re done.

But like other intelligent post-apocalyptic stories, the Last of Us isn’t so much about the specifics of how the virus spread or the science behind it, and rather than trying to explain all that, Naughty Dog has chosen to focus more on the characters themselves and how they don’t know, and quite frankly don’t really care because in their world, the only thing they care about is how they’re going to get their next meal and survive one more day.

Striking an uncanny resemblance to Uncharted‘s Nathan Drake, Joel is a grizzled survivor who has been beat down by the events of the outbreak and at times still haunted by his past. Like the world around him, he’s changed for the worse and now does whatever it takes in order to survive. Troy Baker did an amazing job as Booker Dewitt in BioShock: Infinite, and here he does even better. But while Joel may be the main character, the story is centered on Ellie, a young teenage girl who is voiced by Ashley Johnson and who steals the show while she accompanies Joel throughout most of the game as his partner. Johnson’s short role in The Avengers, might have been cut, but she clearly has a bright future in voice-acting games.

It’s not just the two main characters that help bring the game to life; the voice acting for all of the characters combined with the stunning realistic character models come together to make for without a doubt the most realistic looking characters of any game to date. During both cutscenes and gameplay, the interactions between characters make them feel like more than just characters in a game, and the emotion they feel along with the touching score by Gustavo Santaolalla will hit you hard and play with your own emotions. Just in the first twenty minutes alone you’ll experience a sequence of events more dramatic and better than anything ever seen in a game before and that accomplishes what most Hollywood movies can’t in two full hours. Even going back now and playing Uncharted makes Naughty Dog’s last masterpiece seem cartoonish-looking and dated in comparison.

But any talented CGI studio can make a great looking scene with realistic looking characters, and The Last of Us is at its best when it throws said characters into its lively atmosphere. The way Joel and other characters move organically throughout each environment, brushing their fingers up against walls and picking up or knocking over objects, makes for an experience that no game has ever been able to achieve before and makes everything you’re watching feel real.

The only real complaint that can be made is that AI partner pathing isn’t perfect. While the AI is smarter than anything we’ve seen in other games, sometimes while hiding and having to move to new cover to avoid being detecting, your partners may run right in front of an enemy, sometimes without the enemy even knowing, which can at times break the immersion of the stealth-based gameplay. It’s something that Naughty Dog clearly did to avoid gameplay becoming annoying in the case of AI partners constantly being seen by enemy AI, blowing your cover, and ruining the experience even more. It’s not a huge deal, but hopefully something Naughty Dog can perfect in their next game.

Other than said pathing problem, the AI on both sides is amazingly intelligent. Human enemies act just like real humans, discussing strategies in real time based on the situation and cautiously taking cover and flanking Joel. Enemies are so smart that the sound of Joel’s gun clicking when out of bullets will alert them that he’s out of ammo and result in them charging and trying to grab Joel. When out of ammo and beat down or grabbed themselves, they’ll beg for their own lives. And while human enemies will covertly try to flank you, the infected will charge straight at you with no regard for their own well-being, making for even more frantic moments that make you question whether you should try to kill enemies or just sneak by them as to not alert others.

To make the gameplay even more intense, ammo is scarce, and Joel isn’t the best aim, so scavenging is key to survival. One of the best features is the inventory and item management system, which encourages players to search every drawer and loot every dead body in order to scavenge more parts that can be used to upgrade weapons or craft new items. The inventory system is quite simply brilliant. Throughout the entire game, Joel is able to quickly at any time take his backpack off and rummage through it, switching out guns and using parts he’s found to make health kits, Molotov cocktails, nail bombs, and other items all on the fly without the game ever stopping.

Fighting groups of enemies in abandoned suburban neighborhoods and being chased into multi-level homes where you’re having to search for new parts and ammo, all while trying to avoid those searching for you and at the same time setting up traps from the items you find and make, is an experience unlike anything else. Seeing just how different everything can go down based on how you take on each encounter and where you choose to go will make you want to go back and play over and over again.

That same hectic, yet tactical, experience translates perfect into the game’s multiplayer. While the campaign alone is easily worth the game’s price tag, the multiplayer adds even more value that will have you playing it for months after you’re finally tired of playing the campaign. While there are only two basic modes — a respawning Team Deathmatch and a single life Elimination mode — the gameplay is insanely addicting. The player customization and multiplayer maps have the same level of detail put into them as the campaign and by putting players together on two teams of four, the game only gets crazier and even more unpredictable.

There’s even a unique Mafia Wars-like metagame that’s an interesting take on how players level up in multiplayer by gaining survivors. It’s pretty funny when you choose the Facebook link option that actually connects the faces of people you know (who don’t have the game themselves) to members of your group of survivors and see updates about them out hunting or getting sick. Even when they get everything right, Naughty Dog never seems to be satisfied with what they make and are always trying to introduce new interesting online features that we’ve never seen done before.

The Verdict

Like Uncharted, Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us doesn’t really do anything new, but what it does do, it does better than anybody else. Naughty Dog has once again been able to top not only the rest of the industry, but themselves, and as a result have created yet another masterpiece that’s in a league of its own. The team at Naughty Dog has saved their best for last with The Last of Us being the PlayStation 3′s black swan song that will be used for many years to come as an example of how to pull everything together to make for a perfect viewing experience.

Like others have said, The Last of Us can be described as the Citizen Kane of games that will change how we view games forever. There’s no reason why any current PlayStation 3 owner shouldn’t get it, and it’s a great reason for anybody who doesn’t own the system to pick a used one up just to play it before the PlayStation 4. The Last of Us deserves each and every one of its five stars, if not even more. 5 out of 5 stars (Masterpiece).

The super debut of Man of Steel pushed surprise reigning champ The Purge way down into fifth place. Grabbing the runner-up spot was the opening of another movie on our list of most anticipated, ensemble comedy This is The End. Starring many of this generation’s popular comedians as themselves during an apocalypse, This is The End nearly doubled up on third-place Now You See Me, the caper flick that continues to be summer’s surprise hit in its third weekend. Fourth place went to action blockbuster sequel Fast & Furious 6, which recently drifted across the $200 million mark and is speeding toward the next box office milestone.

The upcoming weekend adds two more new major releases and challengers: Apocalyptic adaptation World War Z, which is on our list of the year’s most anticipated movies, and Pixar prequel Monsters University.

Here are the numbers for the top five over the weekend via BOM:

1. Man of Steel — Weekend Gross: $116.6 million — Total Gross: $128.7 million (new)
2. This is The End — Weekend Gross: $20.7 million — Total Gross: $33.0 million (new)
3. Now You See Me — Weekend Gross: $11.0 million — Total Gross: $80.7 million (#3 last week)
4. Fast & Furious 6 — Weekend Gross: $9.6 million — Total Gross: $219.7 million (#2 last week)
5. The Purge — Weekend Gross: $8.3 million — Total Gross: $52.0 million (#1 last week)

You can discuss this with more MediaStinger fans on Facebook, you can follow us on Twitter at @MediaStinger, and you can follow writer Vinnie Leduc on Twitter at @MovieVVhore.

Who knows what’s going on with the next Doom, Quake, or Unreal… but thankfully, the publisher now behind Doom and Quake, Bethesda Softworks, is bringing back the original FPS to help make the wait for the other big three sci-fi shooters a little easier for fans.

Only announced one month ago, we got a sneak peak at the gameplay which looks amazing and even got to play the game ourselves. While not as good looking as The Evil Within that we saw demoed right before it (also on id tech 5), Wolfenstein: The New Order looks slightly cartoonish but still beautiful with sleek visuals and a color palette that really pops. There are even some pretty interesting concepts such as a laser gun that can cut through metal and must be used in order to solve puzzles and open up new pathways in levels. And most impressive of all is the amount of guns that can be obtained and dual-wielded to kick a whole hell of a lot of Nazi ass.

Unfortunately, those weapons won’t get to be truly utilized in big chaotic multiplayer battles online, because for whatever reason, the twitch shooter that seems perfect for multiplayer, will be singleplayer only this time around.

Check out the official description and a first look at gameplay for the next Wolfenstein that will be releasing on both current and next-gen consoles in late 2013:

Taking place in 1960, Wolfenstein: The New Order depicts an alternate timeline — one in which the Nazis won World War II and took over the world… and only B.J. Blazkowicz can stand up to them.

Besides undercutting Microsoft with a $399 starting price, Sony had another surprise at their press conference, and that was Ready At Dawn’s new PlayStation 4 exclusive, The Order. Turns out that the talented team behind the handheld God of War PSP games is now switching to the big leagues and developing for Sony’s next-gen console.

Due to the game just being announced and only having a CGI trailer with no actual gameplay shown, it’s hard to speculate on how good the game is going to be… but just by judging from the beautiful trailer’s unique sci-fi Victorian era theme with real werewolves thrown into the mix, The Order seems very promising. Check out the official description and trailer below:

The Order: 1886™ introduces players to a unique vision of Victorian-Era London where Man uses advanced technology to battle a powerful and ancient foe. As a member of an elite order of knights, join a centuries-old war that will determine the course of history forever.

Like previous tech demos from Quantum such as Kara, their latest project showcases how they’re once again taking visuals in video games to the next level, now by using the processing power of the PlayStation 4.

Back in February at the PlayStation 4 unveiling, we got to see a model of an old man’s head teasing what could be possible with the PS4. And now we know exactly what that model was for: The Dark Sorcerer, a visually-stunning short that strays from the usual drama we get from Quantic Dream and instead uses the tech demo to have a little fun with a hilarious surprise twist from the characters.

After the demo that was shown to us, which you can see below, QD showed us the trailer in real-time on the ps4 by moving the camera around and turning on and off various textures and lighting effects. But it wasn’t just them simply proving that the demo was in fact on a PS4, and what they showed us makes you have an even greater respect for the direction they’re trying to take video game graphics and cinematography.

Its crazy hearing just how detailed the characters in QD’s games are becoming, from strands of hair to now bone counts being in the hundreds. Zooming into the eyeball of the Sorcerer was where the level of detail becomes insane with even the slightest details that players will likely never see themselves such as the red lines in a character’s eyes and the water around the eyelids are all done with photo-realistic detail. It’s simply stunning and QD’s OCD for visuals really shows.

Even the way the picture as a whole looks has been given a great level of thought with QD explaining that they even slightly rounding the corners of the screen to give it the look of being shot by a rounded camera lens. Features like this might seem a little obsessive, but as QD explained, it’s something you might not ever look for, but you might subliminally use to deem what you’re looking at as fake CGI because your eyes are just used to how real movies look.

The real-time visuals that Quantic Dream are producing look just as good as CGI movie animation from 5 years ago and their tech just keeps getting better and better. One funny thing they mentioned that I couldn’t forget was that if you go back and look all all the previous tech demos, they’re constantly getting better, and The Dark Sorcerer is their first tech demo for the PS4, so if you really think about it, what you’re watching below is the worst you’re going to get from them on the PlayStation 4. Pretty crazy if you think about it and exciting to see what’s next.

After leaving everyone begging for more at last year’s show, this year we got all the Watch Dogs we could handle. Ubisoft had a stunning CGI trailer at their press conference, Sony showed off more of the game’s intense campaign at their press conference, and at the Ubisoft booth at E3 we got an up close and personal look at the devs just running around the open world city and having some multiplayer fun.

During the preview we saw behind closed doors, the team showed off just how fun it is to roam around the city, not completing any missions, and rather just people-watching in an effort to stop crimes or commit crimes yourself.

In the preview we finally got a better taste of the game’s open world environment. Like Batman, players can freely roam the city as Aiden Pearce, spying on people and using his “profiler” tech devices to get detailed information on them in order to be able to calculate their chances or committing a crime or being the victim of a crime themselves. It’s then up to the player as Aiden to decide whether or not he should interfere and help the victim.

With the city covered in these types of random occurrences, the game gets even crazier when the concept of drop-in/drop-out multiplayer is introduced with no indication that a real player has snuck into your game. While in the singleplayer as Pearce, other players may enter your game and try to grief you by hacking you.

Once a hack is set in progress it quickly becomes a game of a cat and mouse with the player as Aiden needing to find his hacker before the process is completed. In our demo, we got to see Aiden successfully defend himself from being hacked by going to the suggested location of his hacker and hacking into a security camera himself to profile a large crowd of people and reveal the hacker before time ran out. After successfully defending against the hacking, he was able to then turn the tables on the other Ubisoft player and try to hack them and get away.

Not only does Watch Dogs‘ story look amazingly unique, but even the multiplayer now looks brilliant. Watching developers play their own games at E3, you can tell which ones are really special because the developers thmeselves are not tired of what they’re showing and actually excited and having fun. That was the case with Watch Dogs, which is sure to be even more for for everyone who finally gets their hands on the next-gen version of the game on November 19, 2013.

Finally showing off some gameplay, the team at Sucker Punch has clearly been hard at work after Infamous 2 with their new spin off, Infamous: Second Son. I’ve always been more of a Prototype fan myself, but the latest in the Infamous series looks like it could easily become not just better than the Prototype franchise, but the best superhero game ever.

In the gameplay demo we got to see, we were shown how new protagonist Delsin Rowe plays in the visually stunning new open world environment powered by the PlayStation 4′s next-gen processing abilities. The gameplay looked just as good as the teaser shown back in February and it seemed like almost everything in the open world could be destroyed.

One of the best changes is that the generic and boring Cole MacGrath has been replaced with the hipster punk Rowe, whose animation nails the feeling of what it would be like for a carefree young adult to gains access to superpowers, and then use said superpowers to have fun kicking some ass. You can really tell how much Sucker Punch is trying to make a more memorable character just in the way Rowe walks, talks, and even how he acts when seamlessly taking down enemy after enemy like Nightcrawler from X-men.

Although we didn’t get to see much in the short demo of Second Son, we did get to see a some new abilities such as being able to instantly fly through pipes and pull off crazy maneuvers that require special camera transitions (with no delay) to set the shot up and make the scene look even more awesome. You can see an example how the camera transitions at the very end of the trailer below when Rowe is shown flying up in the air, just to give a close-up of his smile, before he rockets back down causing a wave of destruction on the enemy military units below.

Infamous: Second Son is set to launch Q1 of 2014 exclusively on PlayStation 4.

We got to see the multiplayer at this year’s E3 and have to say that from what we saw, we were surprised with how good it was for how little attention it was getting. With it being the third game in a pretty well-known series, it’s not a good sign that there isn’t much love for the franchise that’s once again trying something new with a Western developer to try and bring in even more fans to the dying franchise.

In the multiplayer demo we played at E3, we got to check out a unique Capture the Flag-style mode that involved two teams first fighting to kill a wild Akrid beast that spawns in the middle of the battlefield. After slaying the beast, and item dropped from it that we needed to return back to our base in order to score. It was your typical CTF format, but with the nice addition of having both teams fight for the first monster kill with other nice additions you’d come to expect from the Lost Planet series like the grapple hook that allows almost anything to be latched onto and scaled at any time during combat.

Lost Planet 3 definitely wasn’t one the best new games we saw at E3 with all the upcoming flashy next-gen titles stealing its thunder, but with the game so close to release, its definitely something to get you through the usual summer gaming drought before the wave of next-gen games hits in the fall. And with fans split on which of the two Lost Planet games was better, it will be interesting to see how this prequel that tries to bring the series back to its roots does. Lost Planet 3 is set for release on August 27, 2013 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

To make matters worse, the Wii U seems to already be in the same position as the Wii where the third-party support that was promised by Nintendo isn’t coming fast enough now over half a year after its launch. And this week at E3, Nintendo surprisingly didn’t even hold their traditional live press conference before the event like they usually do along with Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, and Sony.

Instead, Nintendo had a pre-taped broadcast right before E3 started to make sure that absolutely nothing could go wrong. And in a sign of true desperation, Nintendo will be only having a few third-party exclusives like Bayonetta 2 and is once again resorting to rehashing all of their most popular franchises to try to keep the dying console alive… for now.

This year we got the same usual announcements from Nintendo, i.e. nothing special: some new Mario games, a new Pikmen, a new Pokemon, a new Smash Bros, a new Donkey Kong, a new Sonic, and a new Zelda.

Quite honestly, there’s nothing wrong with Nintendo almost annually putting out new first-party titles to their most popular franchises as it’s something that’s great for the younger generation of gamers. However, as a hardcore gamer that grew up on Nintendo, it’s sad to see them almost not even try to do anything else but kids games and having to now resort to lame gimmicks.

I got a chance to play Mario Kart 8 at this year’s E3, and even with being disappointing by Nintendo overall, have to admit that I thought it looked really good. Visually, it’s what you would expect from a Mario Kart game in 2013 with some new underwater and flying mechanics that make gameplay feel a bit more like Diddy Kong Racing and the more recent Sonic racing games, but the motion controls and giant Wii U pad are just not on the same level as a compact and comfortable controller that you’ll find on the Xbox and PlayStation.

It’s also sad to now see other developers take Nintendo’s Wii U pad idea and use it in better games on next-gen consoles that don’t require extra purchases because you can use the more advanced and sleeker tablets you already own.

Bottom line, Nintendo simply cannot keep going down this road of relying on the same games year after year and hoping to get lucky with another Wii-like gimmick. If they’re going to continue down this stubborn road and can’t think of any new ideas in terms of tech, they might as well just become a publisher and get their titles on all the major real next-gen gaming systems. I know I for one would definitely buy Smash Bros and Mario Kart on the Xbox One or PlayStation 4, but there’s no chance that a couple of great children’s games are going to get me or most mature gamers to buy a piece of outdated technology for $299 when for just $100 more you can get a PlayStation 4.

During the Credits

Other than the Superman logo appearing in between the individual actors’ names, there are no extras during the credits of Man of Steel.

After the Credits

There is no stinger after the credits of Man of Steel.

Special thanks to Kyle Nolan for the stinger submission!