The Last Guy from SCE Studios Japan pits your wits against insects, monsters and zombies. Travel the world rescuing innocents trapped by the nightmarish siege laid upon their cities. This challenging title has an old school feel that sets itself apart using real world high-resolution satellite imagery compliments of Google Earth.
While the concept isn’t completely new, the use of real world locations provides for some interesting levels. Each level is sharply presented in a top down view with the ability to zoom in close or pan out for an overview of the city. In total the game spans 15 cities, from Washington D.C. to Stockholm, Sweden. Ambitious players will be able to reach the unlockable bonus stages and extend the heroics.
As the hero your duty is to move around the city gathering frightened civilians hiding in buildings and lead them to safety. Every person you save adds more to the trail of people behind you. It can be a tough to get your Congo line to the escape zone as all levels have a time limit and rescue quota, if they are not met it’s game over. Touching monsters means death for the hero and if they get a near the evacuees, they scatter like roaches to nearby buildings. Timing, patience and a few tricks are required to truly master the game. When your line scatter the thermographic display comes in handy, which will reveal where the civilians are hiding. One drawback with this feature is you are not able to see the majority of the monsters on the screen.
Picking up only a few civilians at a time is not an option, most of the levels will require a long line of hundreds or thousands. Keeping that long line together is going to be difficult, especially on the later levels. To help keep things under control give the crew a whistle and assemble them close, away from would be predators. A burst of the dash enables you and your entire line to run past danger, but it drains stamina. Bigger lines result in more stamina so use this to your advantage. Additional points can be gathered by saving V.I.P.s in hiding. High scores are given for longer lines that you return to safety.
No old school inspired game would be anything without cool items and power ups. Some of these items include stamina recovery, monster freeze, and the ability to warp back near the safe zone. Using these items effectively is crucial for getting out of most of the cities before the time runs out. Along your path you will face all variety of monsterous foes from fire spiting zombies to centipedes, and some tricky types that can only be seen on your thermographic display. Knowing which monsters you are up against in battle, as well as their movements and abilities is key to getting out alive.
Overall, The Last Guy is a fun game that should net you plenty of chances to fulfill your dream of saving the world. The cities provide a fun backdrop and is a nice touch for the simple yet hard to master gameplay. The music in the game serves its purpose and compliments this extremely frantic and addictive game. The recent price drop is no better reason to pick up this game. So get out there and save the world, but watch out for the zombies!
PlayStation LifeStyle’s Final Score
Easy-to-pick-up controls Unique style |
 |
