1. Difficulty
It's often said that games are getting too easy these days, and I have to tend to agree; the focus tends to be on catering to the casual market of players, who want to blast through a game in 6-8 hours while only dying once or twice. So is not the case in The Last of Us, a title that offers a sufficient degree of difficulty across a beefy play-time. The maze-like environments you often find yourself traipsing across set the stage for some intense combat that will require your most fierce wits, yet the game never feels cheap when it claims your life; you simply start again, and attempt a different strategy. You're probably going to die fairly often in the game, but it doesn't reduce players to wanting to sling their controller out the window; rather, it is a feeling of determined exhilaration to continue playing and get to the end-game. It is a title you positively do not want to put down, and one that is sure to be in every Game of the Year discussion under the sun at the end of the year. Are you buying The Last of Us next week? Let us know in the comments below.