The Last Guy is exactly why I love digitally downloadable games. Interesting games that otherwise wouldn't see the light of day at retail, still have the opportunity to grab everyone's attention for a fraction of the price. While most PSN, XBLA, and WiiWare games may not exactly be the most visually complex, they can sometimes provide just as much gameplay and thrills as full priced, retail-style titles. The Last Guy for the PlayStation 3, via the PlayStation Network, is proof of that.
The Last Guy pretends to take itself seriously. "Set some time in the 21st century, a mysterious purple ray hits Earth, turning anyone outside and touched by the light into a zombie. With zombies roaming the streets, unaffected people lucky enough to have been inside a building when the ray hit are anxiously holding their collective breath for someone to rescue them. As the Last Guy, the player is the survivors' last hope to survive this global crisis."
You play as, obviously, "The Last Guy". It's your job to visit each of the 14 cities (as well as a few hidden ones) to gather up the survivors and lead them to designated "escape zones" within the allotted time so United Rescue Force ships can shuttle them to safety. Along the lines of Pac-Man and Snake, the concept is extremely simple. In an overhead perspective, and using actual satellite imagery of real worldwide locations, you traverse the maze-like city blocks to rescue the surviving population taking refuge in buildings and structures, while avoiding the "zombies". As people are rescued, they queue up behind the hero in longer and longer lines, and follow him wherever he goes in hopes of being led to the U.R.F. safe zones.
With a few thousand citizens to save per area, as well as a handful of VIPs, you could imagine that the line of people can get rather long, and it quickly does. The longer the line, the more powerful The Last Guy becomes, and of course the more difficult it is to get them all the safety. Longer lines can also be used to circle a location which will instantly save all of the citizens within that area. The Last Guy has a few abilities (some of which rely on the energy/stamina bar) that come in handy for keeping control of the situation. He can dash, tell the line to bunch up, and use his all important thermographic vision to help specifically locate large masses of survivors hiding out in buildings. Again, the longer the line, the more the abilities can be utilized, so it's always a balancing act. To further assist you, there are a few power-ups scattered about the city, such as Energy, Return, Stop and Invisibility which help make the dangerous streets a little easier to navigate. On the other hand, nearly each and every new city introduces a dangerous new type of zombie just itching to negate your hard work, and scatter your line of survivors or eliminate The Last Guy.
There is a good amount of strategy involved in playing the game due to the time constraints, the need to save a specified number of people, and the positioning of the (sometimes randomly generated) power-ups. Playing it safe, with small lines of survivors mostly works, but you sacrifice speed, energy, points and the ability to quickly save large groups. There are some instances where a large line (1000+) is required to even access a certain area, so whether you like it or not, you need to learn the art of crowd control within the game. There are also maps which make it nearly impossible to navigate with more than a few hundred at a time, so you have no choice but to go that route.
The Last Guy's big visual draw is the interesting use of real-life, high resolution satellite maps of locations around the world such as Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, Washington D.C., Asakusa in Tokyo, Trafalger Square in London, Sydney Opera House in Sydney and Potsdam in Germany. Hop onto Google Maps, switch to satellite view, and zoom in a bit, and you'll get the picture. The maps have been cleaned up and animated as to add a little life to them. While playing, the locations can be panned, and zoomed in and out at will, though one thing's for sure, the bigger your HDTV, the better. At 50" @ 1080p, it's still not quite enough to really get a perfect view of the action on the bigger cities. If you're zoomed up too much, you may miss some sneaky wandering zombies outside your view, and if you zoom way out, it's difficult to see all of the pathways and details. Either way, making use of the different views is essential for surviving. The zombies appear tiny but fearsome, and at the sight of one nearby, your line of people will completely, and amusingly, panic, scream and generally freak out. The retro 8-bit soundtrack and imposing Japanese-accented voice samples adds to the intentional campiness and charm.
With 14+ cities, and multiple rankings per city to achieve, The Last Guy is no pushover. The latter levels particularly are also fairly tough and sometimes time consuming. Along with the unlockable cities, there is also a convenient online leaderboard system to see how you rank against your friends and the rest of the world. The addicting, classic arcade gameplay and pseudo-retro stylings make it different enough than nearly anything else out there. For $10, you'll definitely feel like you've got your money worth in one way or another. At the very least, grab the demo and try to not get hooked.
As an extra special bonus, if you haven't already, don't miss what is probably the best viral video for a game this year:
