It should be said straight away that although The Last Guy is an awesome title for the game, it's pretty inaccurate. There are in reality tons of people left alive, though it is left to you alone to gather them up and get them to safety. But then a ship flies in and it's piloted by someone so you can't even say that you're The Last Guy to save humanity! But I digress.... we're here to talk about how the game plays after all.

The good news is while the name might not be accurate the following statement is... The Last Guy is awesome.

The video above gives you a good idea as to the gameplay but I'll admit the idea doesn't translate well by watching the clip. Some games just need to be played, and I think The Last Guy is one of them. It can probably best be summed up like so... You run past buildings rescuing people (or circle a building with your people line to rescue everyone instantly). Those people form a long line behind you that snakes through the city. Bonus stamina (more on that in a second) are earned for the length of your people, but that makes it much harder to manage and keep away from the zombies. Dropping them off in the escape zone credits you with the save. You need to save X number of people in the time limit for each stage. That's pretty much it.

In practice it feels like a truly old-school game. The game play mechanic is simple at it's core but it's wrapped up in a pretty unique and inventive package. I can't help but think that with generic CG environments to play on this game would be a lot less interesting. Luckily it doesn't rely on the satellite imagery, otherwise it would purely be a gimmick.

You've got some tricks up your sleeve to help get you through each stage, in both the form of power ups and using your stamina bar. Power-Ups are scattered throughout the levels and can stop time, make you invisible, restore stamina or even warp you back to the escape zone. Your stamina grows depending on your "people line" and can be used to either sprint or get all the people in the line to bunch up towards you. That's so while they may snake behind you you can get them out of harms way if something comes walking by. Longer lines mean more stamina but gets incredibly risky, and there's nothing more demoralizing than having a chain of 1000+ people only to have the line cut and have you be left with 50 after all that work. Thus the risk/reward element.

Graphically the game is hard to rate since it's really just HD satellite imagery. Looks good though. Since it is "real" it does lend the game an air of importance in saving the populace and it helps the suspension of disbelief since the areas feel like you're hovering about them. The game covers all sorts of territories, from the wharf in San Fransisco, downtown Sydney, Stockholm and the national mall in Washington DC.

While the music can get repetitive, for some reason it doesn't feel like it while you're playing. It's only an hour later does it get annoying cause you can't stop humming it.

What surprised me what how each zone needed a different sort of strategy to effectively save the populace. Each level adds a new "zombie" so you're very rarely relying on stuff you've already dealt with. For instance the streets of Los Angeles have you darting from small complex to complex, with the escape zone right in the middle. Here it's better to grab some groups and get them to safety, rather than take the long line approach. In Stockholm people are trapped in these huge buildings unable to get out, so you need to get a line of people long enough to wrap around the building to get everyone out at once.

I should clarify, the game uses zombie but they're not zombies like you and I think of them. I'm not sure if it's a translation thing or what but they're just monsters. Scary, but not coming to eat your brains.

At $10 it's hard to go wrong with The Last Guy, I downright love it. I know I've said this before on the podcast but alot of DLC games lately feel like the indie art films, and seem to appeal to the hardcore gamer set. Not in the huge big blockbuster way, but real fans of games... those of us who like to play all different sorts of games and have played so many we're looking for something new and interesting.

I dig Gears of War but games like Castle Crashers, Braid, Eden and The Last Guy seem to hold my interest more these days. I'm cool with that.

Comments (2)

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

Add Comment