STACK #231 January 2024

GAMING FEATURE

visit jbhifi.com.au/stack

GET PICKY!

If you’ve played previously and loved the sections where you got to strum the old guitar, a new addition to this remastered package is sure to appeal. The ‘Guitar Free Play’ mode lets players master an array of unlockable instruments, complete with effects pedals to change up the sound.

PlayStation 5 users have been itching to continue the story of The Last of Us natively, and this month sees the release of The Last of Us Part II Remastered . It’s bringing much more than just a simple visual upgrade, too. Words Amy Flower C hief amongst the new additions that are set to add to our return The Last of us Part II experience AT LAST!

Return, with various mods, upgrades, optional challenges, resource management goals, unlockable items that can carry over between matches, and more mixing things up. Plus, the speedrun mode introduced in The Last of Us Part I on PS5 also returns. Of course, the PS5 brings a lot of power to the table over the original PS4 outing, and Naughty Dog have gone to great lengths to harness it for The Last of Us Part II Remastered . This ranges from the basics like improved loading times thanks to the unit’s SSD, to haptic feedback and utilising the adaptive trigger functionality in various ways. Naturally, graphics have seen an upgrade to native 4K (in ‘Fidelity’ mode, 1440p upscaled to 4K in ‘Performance’ mode). There’s also VRR support, enhanced draw distances and shadow rendering, dynamic lighting, bolstered texture resolution, and upped animation sampling rates, bringing more realism than ever to our screens. PlayStation have been making great strides in accessibility, with the original release of The Last of Us Part II a top example. Rather than resting on laurels, this remastered outing sees the introduction of descriptive audio, as well as the very

• The Last of Us Part II Remastered is out on Jan 19

is a new mode called ‘No Return’. In a bold departure for the franchise, this brings us a single-player roguelike survival mode, initially playing as Ellie or Abby, with more options unlockable as you progress, including Dina, Joel, Tommy, Jesse, Lev, Yara, Mel, and Manny. This new mode is set to challenge players in various ways, as they find their own path towards random encounters with the game’s now legendary adversaries. These all play out in familiar locations from the game, but with new and surprising twists to keep players on their toes. You’re playing for keeps, too – die and you’re well and truly dead. This means that you’ll be sent back to square one, without your acquired weapons and upgrades, ready to take on a whole new scenario. A successful run will involve several situations, between each of which you’ll enter your in

In all, No Return will deliver four types of encounters: ‘Assault’, which is you versus waves of enemies; ‘Capture’, where players must break into a safe guarded by enemies; ‘Holdout’, which sees the player

and an AI-controlled partner taking on swarming Infected; and, finally, ‘Hunted’, which is a game of survival against the clock. That’s just scratching the surface of No

GAME ON!

cool ‘speech to vibrations’, which uses the DualSense controller to represent each character’s speech and its rhythm. Elsewhere, The Last of Us Part II Remastered is set to take us behind the scenes of Naughty Dog’s franchise, with previously cut levels that are playable to commentary tracks for each of the main game’s cutscenes from Neil Druckmann, narrative lead Halley Gross, and actors Troy Baker, Ashley Johnson, and Laura Bailey. included - complete with developer commentary. We’ll also be treated

If you played The Last of Us Part II on PS4 and have a game saved to the cloud, you’ll be able to continue from exactly where you left off in this remaster.

game hideout in order to take stock and prepare

for your next battle. Make it all the way and the fight won’t be over though, for you’ll face any

of six different boss battles – and these won’t necessarily play out as they did in the main campaign.

34 JANUARY 2024

jbhifi.com.au