This game. This game is really something else. The single player is fantastic and deserves a proper review but I neither have the time nor talent to flesh out how brilliant this game is. Instead, let's have a little skulk around Factions, the rather interesting multiplayer component for The Last of Us. Before we start off, let me just say that there are a lot of issues surrounding Factions, the most annoying of which is the huge connection problem that every Naughty Dog has had since Uncharted 2. Factions is undeniably fun, when you can connect to it. I know not everyone gets the "Error downloading config file" or "Error syncing levels" problem but if you Google it, you'll see it's a fairly big problem and there's been not a peep from SCEA or ND about what's actually going wrong and how to fix it and that irks me to no end because I love Factions and I would play it more but I cannot because of some crappy connection issues that have plagued me since Uncharted 2.
Now that that's out of the way, let's talk Factions. This game mode is a fascinating and rather unique blend of stealth-based third person shooter gameplay combined with a challenge-based mission structure that affects off-screen survivors that you have to keep alive for "weeks" which is just through 7 games of Supply Raid or Survivor. The main objective of the game is to keep your little band of rag-tag Fireflies or Hunters alive for 12 weeks and, man oh man, is that a challenge. Keeping them healthy and well-fed isn't too hard. You just have to scavenge a lot during matches to get "supplies" or "parts"(converted into supplies at the end of the match). The supplies ensure that your clan is healthy and continues to grow while parts are used during a match as currency to upgrade your weapons or buy armour. As well as supplies and parts, you can also scavenge for crafting items just like in the single-player portion of the game.
Along the way, you are given "missions" which are basically just a front for getting you to complete certain challenges within 3 matches (or "days" using the game's terminology) with the penalty being losing members of your clan by a certain percentage, usually 60% or 100% and with each level of the challenge you complete, you mitigate the damage done to your clan. Now, I have a serious problem with this mode because there are very few challenges and most of them involve either killing or executing enemies which is damned hard in the first place. But worse, these missions require killing or executing enemies with particular weapons and it's not possible to keep using your same favourite weapon because the challenge criteria goes up with each time you pick it regardless of success or failure. Furthermore, these missions never bring you a positive result, just a mitigation of a negative result. I understand that this is keeping in the survivalist aspect and overall theme of the game but it is utterly ridiculous that 100% of my clan can get wiped out because I fail to complete a challenge considering that the missions usually involve getting attacked or attacking a rival faction. Realistically, not everyone's going to die because if you were really a smart survivor which you would have to be in this post-apocalyptic world, you'd be smart enough to mitigate your losses by bringing only those necessary to complete the job and packing off back-up and less able survivors to a safer location. But, no, even if I'm attacking a Firefly camp, I'm attacking them full-on with all my forces in one mass attack even though they're probably entrenched and have defences at the ready.
Other than the really annoying mission structure that makes no sense whatsoever and basically threatens to kill all my clan and force me to start all over for not completing some silly challenges, this mode is otherwise extremely fun. The two game modes available in Factions are, as previously mentioned, Supply Raid and Survivor. Both are basically team deathmatch with the twist being you only have 4 players on each team and fairly large maps to skulk around to find and eliminate each other. Survivor is exactly the same except you don't respawn during the rounds so if you're killed, bad luck, sit it out until the next round. The objective is the same, eliminate the enemy team and win as many rounds as possible in that way. Both game modes are extremely fun but it is a little disappointing that the multiplayer aspect of the game only offers team deathmatch style modes and no objective based ones like collecting as many parts as possible or some sort of domination style match. Furthermore, it seems a little strange that there are no Infected whatsoever. I think they should have tried including a game mode where one team is survivors and one team is Infected but I'm not a game developer so I don't know if that would be possible or keeping in line with what the development team wanted to do with the game. Maybe add in NPC Infected that hound you as you try eliminating the other team? Adds some challenge to the whole thing and maybe give an opportunity for both teams to cooperate before wiping each other out.
In terms of actual gameplay, this game requires a lot of patience and the ability to stay stealthy for extended periods of time. Like the title suggests, for you to win, you must be swift, silent and deadly all at the same time. If you're too slow, the enemy will be breathing down your neck with armour, upgraded weapons and crafted items like Molotovs (the bane of my existence in this game) or nail bombs. So, you have to move fast enough to gather supplies and crafting items to ensure that the enemy doesn't have a sharp advantage over you. You must be silent because noise reveals your location on the radar and moving too fast will lead you to an inevitable death if the enemy is smart enough to use listen mode to echo-locate your position. Lastly, you must be deadly because there is no time to mince about and take your time stalking your enemy because they are stalking you all the same. Both parties are equally hunter and hunted. Teamwork is another key component of this unique game because you need to work together and stick together if you want to survive. At the same time, you must be ruthless, leaving teammates to die when they are bleeding out because the enemy is probably using them as bait, drawing you in to heal him then popping out and popping you both. Lone wolfing isn't out of the option but being separated and ambushed by an enemy that knows how to work together is the worst possible position you can find yourself in. But sticking too close to each other is a bad idea as well because a well placed Molotov can kill an entire team.
In short, this is one of the best games I've ever played and I recommend you to get it and jump on Factions (if you can).
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