Displaying items by tag: Adventure

The Last of Us : 1 & 2

The Last of Us is an action -adventure and survival-horror game, developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Until today, there are 2 parts. The first part, which was released exclusively for the PlayStation 3 on June 14, 2013, received a remastered version for the PS4 in July 2014. The 2nd part was released in June 2020 exclusively for the PS4.

The plot takes place in 2033, two decades after more than half of the world's population was infected by a mutant cordyceps fungus. The two main characters, Joel a black-market dealer in the Boston quarantine zone whose daughter got shot by a military soldier, and 14-year-old Elli, who is currently traveling together with the leader of the Fireflies, a rebel group that is fighting back against control of the remaining military movement FEDRA. Joel is supposed to take the young girl to a Fireflies hideout. They somehow could not make it, therefore they had to travel across the USA in search of the remaining fireflies. This may sound easier than it is, because on their way, they come across of a lot of different people.  The FEDRA lurking in many areas or infected, who have already turned into runners, stalker clickers or bloaters depending on their age. They also encounter Hunter, marauding cannibal groups that are surviving beyond the quarantine zones and shoot at anyone they do not know.

On the journey, Joel discovers that Elli does not transform despite the bite of an infected one. She has developed immunity, and the Fireflies want to make a cure with the help of Elli. Joel eventually manages to take Elli to a hospital in Salt Lake City run by the Fireflies. Here, the  immunity should be studied and, if possible, a cure should be developed. When Joel finds out that Elli will die in the necessary operation, he decided to save Elli, destroying the chance of a cure for the infection

The 2nd part begins about 4 years later. Joel and the grown-up Elli lead a carefree life in a community in Jackson. However, it should not be long before they are caught by their past. The WLF called Wolfs are in the Jackson area because they are looking for Joel and Elli. Her leader, Abby, used to be a firefly, and also the daughter of the doctor who was supposed to operate on Elli four years ago. However, he was shot by Joel as he rescued Elli from the hands of the Fireflies. The Fireflies disperse, and Abby and her companions run over to the WLF's. The Wolfs are following a hint that Joel should be in Jackson. Abby managed to catch Joel and kill him with a golf club in front of Elli's eyes.

Elli now has only one thing left in mind: find Abby and then avenge Joel's death. After many back and forth and the help of Dina and Tommy, Elli should finally have the opportunity to do this, but decides to keep Abby alive when she finds out what really happened in this hospital four years ago. This is where the 2nd part ends

The Last of Us is in itself a very entertaining game. The change between areas is very well done. There are moments when you can just get through areas and enjoy the sensational surroundings. Then you suddenly hear people talking, and then you have to go through an area that is besieged by one of the many groups of people like FEDRA, Wolf's or the religiously inspired Seraphites. Here you always have the opportunity to sneak up on the opponents, and put one after the other out of action, or to shoot your way free. Then you come over and over again to areas where the infected are. You will hear the sounds of the infected everywhere, witch can be breath-taking, and can give you anxiHere, too, one can often act tactically, depending in what stage the infected is.

You travel on foot, on a horse or even ride small motorboats. You don't just play with one person, you switch between different people. In the first part you play Joel, sometimes as Elli. And in the second part, for example, you play a part of the story from Elli's point of view, and then the same part from Abby's point of view.

All in all, the Last of Us series are very well made games, as the numerous good reviews show. For example, the second part has been nominated 13 times for the Bafta Games Awards, including Best Game. The community is already looking forward to a possible third part, which regarding the story would not be impossible.

Ubisoft released the adventure game Immortals Fenyx Rising at the beginning of December, just in time for the PS5 launch. Originally, the title was supposed to be released under the name Gods & Monsters.

I bought the game as one of the first games for the PS5 and have played through it in the meantime (Platinum trophy included).

If you take a look at the game at first glance, you might think that the tried-and-true (and by now somewhat worn-out) Ubisoft formula is being applied here as well. Those who have played some of Ubisoft's game series (e.g. Assassin's Creed, Watch Dogs, Division, etc...) probably know what I'm talking about. I'm not saying that these games are bad, quite the opposite, but the flow is often very similar. A huge open world that needs to be explored. To unlock certain areas, you climb a tower, hack a computer, and so on... and a part of the map becomes visible, where certain chests, side quests or simple sights are shown. Some of these side activities are important to progress in the game or to strengthen your character, others are just for completeness and to get certain achievements/trophies. One thing in advance: of course Immortals Fenyx Rising also makes use of this formula, but while playing I increasingly had the feeling that much more passion was put into these side activities, apart from climbing huge statues to uncover a larger area on the map.

I won't go into the main story here, I'm mainly interested in the general gameplay and the activities outside the story. To go a little more into these side activities, I will now explain the different tasks.

Starting with the chests, there are hundreds of chests. However, they differ in 3 variants. There are the "simple" chests, which are marked on the map and which you can simply open when you have found them.

Then there are chests that can only be opened after you have defeated a group of enemies.
Last but not least, there are chests that only become accessible after you have solved a smaller or sometimes somewhat larger puzzle.

Next to the chests there are so-called Fiesko activities. These puzzles are not particularly difficult, it is only a picture from four individual blocks to assemble. Here it is only important how you move the blocks so that you get the picture together.

Then there are Lyra challenges. In each area there is a large lyre (a kind of harp). On this lyre you can activate one of 4 strings with your bow and arrow to play a melody. In the areas distributed are then several small Lyra's, which always play a certain melody. You have to play these melodies on the big lyre to get a reward.

Another challenge are constellation activities. In my opinion, these are the most challenging open-world activities in the game. There, you have to recreate a certain constellation with the help of several spheres. The constellation is shown on a board and on the floor in front of it there is a square grid of holes into which you have to put the spheres in order to recreate the constellation. The difficulty is to find the spheres in the immediate vicinity. Some spheres are relatively easy to get, others are a bit trickier to reach.

Then there are smaller sprint challenges, where you have to reach a checkpoint in a certain time, and bow challenges, where you have to complete a certain path of rings with your guided arrow. The bow challenges are also a lot of fun and require some skill.
As a final feature, there are also smaller dungeons, the so-called Vaults of Tartarus. These are instanced areas that you have to go through, either by solving the puzzles in the dungeon, or by defeating waves of enemies in an arena. And there is a lot of variety in these dungeons as well. I don't recall one dungeon being like another in terms of puzzles. And there are many dungeons on the world map... some of which are also coupled with the main story.

All in all, these open-world activities offer quite a bit of variety, but the special thing in my eyes is that none of the puzzles resemble each other too much. There are always new approaches to solving the puzzles, and the abilities that you can gradually unlock play an important role. Sure, at some point you'll figure out the solution quickly, but the way to get there is always different.

With this review, I simply want to highlight a game that, in my opinion, rightly got its very good ratings and which, for a long time, offers a lot of variety and is very entertaining.
In many reviews, Immortals is also compared to genre giants like Zelda. And I personally think that Immortals definitely has what it takes to be a good Zelda representative in the Playstation universe.

I can recommend this game to every Zelda adventure-like fan, and also to fans of action-adventures in general. Even though it doesn't have the scope of a Breath of the Wild, you'll still have 40+ hours of activity if you want to complete every single activity.