Finished The Last Of Us. Or as I like to call it, "Depressing Uncharted ".
A mediocre core game that manages to become a completely epic, engrossing, visually beautiful, and sometimes viscerally emotional experience.
It was weird how compelling it was to press forward despite how unfun much of the gameplay was.
There's a lot of mechanics that are supposed to make the game more realistic that instead make it more video-gamey. No, sorry that jump is bigger than six feet, you need to fetch a board to cross that gap. You can't just press forward and automatically cover varied terrain, you need to press circle to duck, X to hop, triangle to climb. Hey, the girl can't swim so go find the exact same pallet you've found 7 times before to drag her across the water. Hey, this is clearly the right direction so you better go back and check the other fork so you can get the supplies you'll need before you get wasted up ahead. Sorry, there's a couple of tables in this stairwell, you'll clearly have to go into that ambush - it's not like you could break a window and get out that way. Oh shit, you'll never sneak by these guys, why don't you go ahead and try and sprint to the next checkpoint so you respawn a little farther ahead? Did I mention combat sucks and is a chore?
That said, after you get a few hours in you kind of feel like you are surviving an apocalypse and you trudge forward. The story beats are predictable but engrossing. Each new area brings a sense of discovery. I'm a little ashamed that by the time your character becomes a straight up murderer and you don't really care.
So yeah, I'd totally recommend it but I also feel like I'm recommending self flagellation.