#revisiting the ps3's catalog

[leam1983]

The Last Guy

Japan Studio's first "big" PS3 tentpole sort of feels like the fever-dream of a game designer that's discovered the mapping potential of real-world satellite imagery. Like all fever dreams, it's also unbalanced as all fuck, with the first stage being nearly impossible to complete unless you memorize all survivor and power-up placements.

Save 99% of a locale's survivors? You've still failed the level. Try again.

That feels... needlessly harsh, especially considering how the thermography feature sometimes bugs out and doesn't show clumps of survivors waiting in alleys or in open courtyards.

As it stands, though, it's also typical of 2009 as a specific year in Game Design theory, as the early years of the PS3 and PS Vita gave us a ton of experimental entries like The Last Guy, LocoRoco, Patapon or Echochrome.