You are the chosen one, a zombie straight from the Himalayas, here to save everyone's butts. The Last Guy: Japan Premium is a 314MB PSN title from Sony's Japan Studio. The story is simple: A purple ray hit the Earth, turning everyone who was outside into monsters or zombies. Everyone indoors was spared, and it's your job to move them from the buildings through the narrow streets of Tokyo's Asakusa (thank you Google Earth!), avoiding the monsters and the zombies and moving your group to the Escape Zone where an United Rescue Force airship will pick them up.
So here you go, our Last Guy review:
Loved
Gameplay: The game play is arcadey and is based on several very simple, yet fun mechanics. Players must rescue a certain number people in a certain amount of time. Given that the maps are not completely free-roaming and players cannot cut through anywhere they like, the game does offer a great deal of strategy of how to get from A to B in the least amount of time. What's more, players can increase the speed at which they move, but these speed bursts aren't unlimited. It's also possible to toggle between what could be best described as night vision (though, it's not night), but this allows players to see how many people are in a given building. The neat part is that while using this, it isn't possible to see the zombies and monsters. Toggling back and forth is a simple, yet at times challenging game play mechanic. Oh! There are a bunch of power-ups as well that can turn you invisible or give you more stamina.
The concept: Go around saving people from zombies and monsters? Yes, please! And doing it in real world locals? Brilliant. The level design is great, fresh and surprisingly realistic. (Well, these are real locales...) And we love the *idea* of being able to save people in different cities around the world. Very solid concept.
Music: Sony could've easily pulled out the irritating techno, but didn't. The Last Guy, granted, does feature club music — just not annoying club music.
Hated
Difficulty curve: In the first level, players are given five minutes to rescue 700 people. The next level gives players six minutes to save 800 people. This progressions are both logical and challenging. For the third (and final) level in The Last Guy: Japan Premium, players have seven minutes to save, are you ready, 1,500 people. That. Makes. No. Sense. It's like the developers thought they should spike the difficult curve for the third level because the Japan Premium only has three levels, and they didn't want people to finish the game too quickly. A cop out on the Japan Studio's part, really.
Pricing: The Last Guy: Japan Premium costs ¥500 (US$4.60). Granted, that's not a lot, but considering how The Last Guy: Japan Premium doesn't exactly feel so "premium", has only one map that gets slightly larger and seems like a demo, then it kinda leaves you with mixed feelings. Paying $yen;500 for one map divided into three levels? Eh... Sure, while I loved playing The Last Guy, I wanted more — and as Sony has announced, there will be more! In short, this Japanese version seems more like an experiment to see whether this would get good buzz (it has), and now I feel like a guinea pig (don't like paying for demos!). If Sony plans on charging ¥500 for each Google Earth map it stuff in The Last Guy, this game could get real expensive, real fast.
The Last Guy: Japan Premium has a lot going for it: game play, music and general cool. Very much looking forward to getting the full (and hopefully more robust) game, but not really looking forward to shelling out for it after putting down ¥500 for this version. There's a lot of possibilities for a truly great PSN game here, folks.
The Last Guy: Japan Premium was released July 31st on the Japanese PSN. The 314MB game was developed by Sony's Japan Studio, priced ¥500 and rated the ESRB equivalent of E for Everyone.
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