For more on The Last of Us, check out our full The Last of Us review. Or, for more of the best Playstation 3 games for an 11 year old, why not try our Family Game Finder
The Last of Us is a third person action game for the Playstation 3, set during a zombie outbreak. Flung into the middle of this situation are two very different people - Joel, a smuggler, and Ellie, a young child. Tasked with escorting Ellie safely to a group of rebels known as the fireflies, it's up to you to work with Ellie, to survive against all odds.
With your time divided almost equally between combat and exploration, The Last of Us is a lot more complex than other games in the same genre. With no marker telling you where to go, and no map, you're often left to explore huge, multi-storey buildings on your own, with very little in the way of hints. If the game think you're stuck, it will occasionally prompt you, but it's not really all that reliable. With a lot of difficult exploration to do, and plenty of problems to solve with very little in the way of prompts, newer players may well find themselves struggling, as we did on several occasions.
The combat, meanwhile, is also on the complicated side. With several enemies that can kill you in a single hit, no matter how much health you have, a rather awkward healing mechanism, and very limited ammo, it's very easy to find yourself overwhelmed in the combat as the zombies swarm. In all, this is a game that's recommended for older, more experienced players only.
As a horror game, The Last of Us is full of extreme violence, gore and swearing from almost the very beginning. The language, particularly, comes thick and fast, with words as strong as "motherf***er", and "sh**" - and that's just from the 14 year old girl. Violence, meanwhile, is graphic and explicit with gushes of blood flying out of beheaded zombies, chunks of gut being exposed when shot with a shotgun, and heads or limbs regularly being removed. At one section, either the player character, or an enemy gets their neck jammed onto a shard of glass in a window. Sexual innuendo, meanwhile, is limited to things that may only raise a few awkward questions, like when Ellie finds an adult magazine, and asks why all the pages are stuck together.
Age Ratings
Format Reviewed: Playstation 3
