Horizon Zero Dawn (2017)

I've had a hankering for open worlds lately, having gone from the stunning but constricted rollercoaster FF7 Remake to the singularly picturesque Ghost of Tsushima, and was excited to get into HZD, which held the promise of exploration within a vibrant landscape. It certainly delivered on the visuals! The remaster pushes the detail to the extreme, with impressive draw distances and fabulous lighting that make sunny days pop and underground chasms feel foreboding. The machines are all very unique, dynamic and exciting to encounter and even just observe as they display distinctive behaviors. They are the focal point and standout fixture of the game, and by themselves worth picking up if you enjoy lots and lots of combat. The handful of quiet moments spent exploring the underground networks of ancient structures was edge of my seat engaging. The pace at which tidbits of the past are delivered, as audio recordings and text documents, was very well done.

However, unlike in RDR2 or GoT, I never got the chance to relax and take it all in. Every inch of this game is trying to kill you. While I did not complete every side quest, all those I did take involved combat, running from one machine clogged canyon to another, and often culminating in a big boss battle. This is not a bad thing, especially if you enjoy a combat heavy game. But, if peace and quiet is also something you look for in your open world, I did not find it in HZD. There is almost constant distant noise from various machines. Constantly I would think I was in the clear and could take a breather and look around, maybe take some aesthetic screen caps with the photo tool, only for one or more machines to burst my bubble and draw me into a dangerous fight or a narrow escape. Exciting, but a little too consistently so.

This game shines with ranged combat and the use of traps. I struggled with melee, and was left with the impression that unless you are overriding a machine, you're really not meant to be fighting up close. The exception is if you want to focus on stealth, which I used occasionally but not as often as in GoT for instance, where it was emphasized. I found the combat quite unforgiving even in normal difficulty. I probably did not have my armor maximized but Aloy can easily go down with just a couple or three unlucky hits, and I had to replay big fights quiet often. When I got better at dodging and learned a better weapon loadout, this generally got better. The focus mechanic is essential and learning how to fight each machine slightly differently is a highlight!

The story is COOL! I've excitedly recounted the whole thing to my partner. Some of the dialog in cutscenes did not really deliver, and the narrative is much more reliant on discovering ancient records, which is a strength of the game. Some of the voice work on NPCs in side quests feels out of place, like the characters are too chipper or almost whiny. Did not always do it for me.

I do not expect I will run to play Forbidden West very soon, but I can give Horizon Zero Dawn a :

7.5/10

Let me rate games in half stars please

This one probably would have remained on the wish list permanently if the sequel hadn’t come with the PS5. It’s not perfect but I’m glad I got around to it.

Good:

• I spent about 50 hours, and it turned out to be a good combination of main story/side quests/wandering around doing whatever. Ideal length for this kind of game imo

• Really great story and environmental worldbuilding

• Aloy is a great main character, for the first 2/3 of the game at least

• Movement and shooting mechanics are still strong, although bad melee combat holds it back

Bad:

• They made a beautiful open world then force you to spend more than half of your time in the dark where you can’t see anything. There’s a day-night cycle with unreasonably long and unskippable nights, and then there are a bunch “dungeons” which are also dark as hell. Really held back my enjoyment of the game, especially when story-important events are happening at night.

• Machine fights get pretty boring after a while. The game’s version of increased difficulty = longer fights rather than actually making the fights more interesting. I ended up dropping the difficulty for the DLC just to speed things up. Similarly the human enemy camps are not hard, just long and tedious.

• Face models and voice acting are hit and miss. The VA in particular is occasionally so horrendous that it totally takes you out of the game.

• Goddamn bag is always full

Overall a fun and memorable game, but not one that I felt motivated to 100% (finished at about 80%). Will get around to the sequel eventually.

Playing Horizon Zero Dawn five years after its release, it's hard not to think about this game in comparison to Breath of the Wild. Released three days before Breath of the Wild, Horizon Zero Dawn was quickly overshadowed by one of the greatest games Nintendo ever made—and maybe one of the best games ever. But when explored side-by-side both do many of the same things: both throw players into a strange world that feels lost in time, archaic in some ways, yet full of futuristic technologies, both rely on a character who is mostly proficient with a bow and arrow, both explore the history of their lead characters before they are "awoken," and both take place in an overworld full of surprises, collectibles, and opportunities for the player to explore. But most interesting about this comparison is how Breath of the Wild shows how restraint and minimalism can tell a story beautifully and help create a captivating world, while Horizon Zero Dawn shows that too much can often be a bad thing.

A similar comparison could also be made to Horizon's sequel, Horizon Forbidden West, which was released in close proximity to yet another gigantic open-world game that took the world by storm: Elden Ring. Yet while I enjoyed my time with Horizon Zero Dawn, it was rare that I thought about how much I couldn't wait to play Forbidden West, but rather, how I couldn't wait to play Breath of the Wild 2, and how Breath of the Wild's simplicity elevated that game into something truly great.

Let me dissect this by exploring what I liked and didn't like about Horizon Zero Dawn. First, I love the exploration, the roaming around a world that allowed me to make my own choices, tell my own story, and do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. This is the most fun I've had exploring an open world since, well, Breath of the Wild. There is a lot to explore and do in Horizon Zero Dawn's world, yet it never feels too overwhelming or insurmountable. I've said it in countless reviews here, but I love an open-world game that gives me a map that shows all the various collectibles and where to find them. Give me something to collect and a map as to their locations, and I will absolutely be hunting all of those items down. I did find the world a bit too unmemorable at times, lacking many landmarks that I was excited to return to, but the simple joy of stalking around, killing monsters, hunting, and exploring the nooks and crannies of this world almost made this worthwhile.

I also find that the combat works quite well, and you can truly feel the growth of Aloy as a warrior throughout the game. Monsters that seemed too daunting at first would become nothing more than slight distractions in my path over the course of just a few hours. I also do find Aloy to be quite a solid character, and her journey was one that I was curious to see how it played out solely because I liked the character.

This gets me to my two biggest problems with Horizon Zero Dawn. The first is the story. Horizon Zero Dawn is about as much fun as I can have with a game where I do not care at all about the story. Granted, I do think Aloy's story and the larger questions about what happened to the world are genuinely interesting, but the more minor tribal stuff and the fighting between different areas of this world never latched onto me, and whenever these conflicts came up, I completely lost any interest. Secondly, the mechanics of this game just felt more difficult than they needed to be. I never felt like the game fully explained the different types of ammo and how to take down machines as well as it should have, leading me to mostly explore on my own and see what worked and what didn't. By the end of the game, I felt like I had never truly upgraded my weaponry and outfits in a way that Guerrilla expected me to, but hey, at least I beat the game with my probably-weaker-than-they-should-be weapons.

But whenever I questioned the power of my weapons and gear, or was bored by the smaller story aspects of Horizon Zero Dawn, I couldn't help but think again of Breath of the Wild, and how that game succeeded by being able to explore a gigantic world with elegance in its simplicity. I never felt like there were mechanics I was struggling to comprehend with that game, yet here, I often felt like I was missing something key that would make this game truly great for me.

While I grew to really enjoy Horizon Zero Dawn, the narrative and the various mechanics of the game held me back from truly embracing this game the way I hoped I would. Hopefully, the sequel will smooth out some of these rough edges for me, but now, as I watch the credits scrolling by, I'm again thinking about how much I can't wait to play Breath of the Wild 2, and not how I'm ready to dig into Forbidden West.

Дрочево. Убивающее всё дрочево.

Говорят, что в игре интересный основной сюжет, но я до него не дотерпел. Зато геймплеем наелся.

Казалось бы, у нас тут дрочильня в духе последних Ассассинов, но лучше: персонаж отзывчевее, диалоги поприличнее, вышек нет. И поначалу всё так и есть. Но я докачался до 18-го уровня и устал в это играть.

Потому что тут постоянно нужно что-то собирать, чтобы выжить. Чтобы увеличить, например, размер колчана нужно 3 вида ресурсов. Чтобы делать стрелы — нужно собирать дерево, чтобы лечиться — травы.

Стрелять поначалу интересно, робоживотные действительно требуют разного подхода: кого-то нужно бить огнём, другого стопорить электричеством, третьего — завалить врукопашку. Только это быстро надоедает, потому что бить нужно в уязвимые точки, иначе схватка превращается в унылое ковыряние. А после нужно собирать весь хлам. И не забыть пособирать еще лечилок, и поохотиться сходить, чтобы увеличить инвентарь под разные виды ресурсов, модификаторов и прочей херни. А инвентарь и прочие колчаны изначально очень маленькие, так что какое-то время всей этой херней заниматься придётся.

Но и ролевая система в игре скучная. Куча модификаторов, вроде +% к урону или сопротивлению и унылые перки в духе замедления времени при прицеливании или убийства со спины. Формально у оружия есть какие-то цифры, показатели урона, но новое можно только купить, а все торговцы, которых я видел предлагали одно и тоже оружие. Видимо, допиливать его надо только модификаторами. Скучно.

Даже на норме убивают быстро, но если быть примерно на одном уровне с врагами, то один хер что у тебя там с модификаторами на оружии. Ну, мне так показалось.

Большая часть игры это беготня и «уборка» ресурсов про запас. И сбор коллекционных предметов, зачистка лагерей, и всё такое. Просто количество этого всего поменьше, чем в Ассассинах, поэтому смотрится это всё не так пугающе. Но я уверен, что это ужасный сбор всего и вся, он для растягивания прохождения. Ну потому что тут в начале фаст-тревел за расходники, но у первого же торговца чуть дальше по основному сюжету — уровне на 12-м — можно купить неограниченный фаст-тревел.

Побочные задания в игре это дрисня вида «принеси-убей» с историями уровня Ассассинов, опять же, но диалоги приличней. Но интерес к ним на том же, нулевом, уровне.

Короче, игра-то нормальная, но вот лютое однообразие и адское дрочево с «уборкой» всего, что на пути попадается, отбили у меня весь интерес к истории. Может на ютюбе гляну.

The game was phenomenal. I loved the world they built in this. The tribal/machine was such an interesting concept to have. The main story kept me going and I wish there was more to Hades and figuring out what happened. Aloy's character was also the best. All other side characters I didn't care much for. Kinda felt like they were there in the end for space. Side quests didn't feel that great, felt like something was lacking to keep me invested in them instead of just doing them for exp etc.

Overall was a lot of fun, definitely cant wait for the next one and play the dlc for this game as well.

Okay, let's break it down:

Visuals: This game is beautiful. And yes, you already knew that, but it bears repeating. The landscapes are stunning, the animation is fluid (at least the gameplay, cutscenes can be a bit rough), the look of the world is distinct and diverse. Which brings us to...

Travel: Most "open world" games quickly go from exploring the world to teleporting between important points and travelling in real time as little as possible. HZD gives you a world that actually want to spend time in, both in the look and feel of it.

Mechanics: I'm never quite sure how to feel when a game offers a wide variety of weapons and play-styles, and I end up always using the same three unless specifically told otherwise. On the one hand, it can feel like the threw in a bunch of stuff that ultimately isn't that useful. On the other hand, it's entirely possible that I just tend to gravitate toward certain options and ignore other ones, while someone else will play completely differently. So it is worth noting that there are about a dozen different weapons in here, even if most of the time I used the same 3.

In terms of play-style, the game naturally rewards a more tactical approach, with a focus on stealth, precision, and taking advantage of enemy weaknesses. One of the main strengths of the game, at least for me, is that although you get more powerful weapons and upgrades, the combat challenge scales fairly well, so that unless you go back to lower level areas (and sometimes even then) you're never gonna be able to just casually run in and blow stuff up. Thus, while the combat can start to get a little repetitive (see above), the challenge keeps it from being stale. That being said, if you're more of a run-in-and-blow-stuff-up kind of player, this game may not be for you.

Task Diversity: One of the main criticisms I've heard of this game, and one that's a problem with many if not all open world games, is that the side quests are redundant and grindy. I don't think that's as true of HZD as it is of a game like Fallout 4, for example, where there are endlessly repeatable fetch quests and the same settlements are constantly under attack. There are no repeatable side quests in HZD, and while mechanically a lot of them can start to feel samey, relying in large part on the same underdeveloped "scan for clues" mechanic pioneered by the Arkham games, narratively they're all unique, and generally have interesting stories to tell and interesting characters to engage with. And (and this is a slight spoiler) there are side quests (one of which I just stumbled on out in the middle of nowhere) that actually affect the game later on down the line, at least narratively, without broadcasting that fact. All in all the side quests always felt worth doing.

Story: Another common issue with open world games is that they put player choice above narrative depth. Which is to say, while they're might be a lot of cool moments where you get to make choices that affect some part of the narrative, if you take a step back and look at the main story-line, it's actually pretty thin. This was a huge problem with Fallout 4, and even Dragon Age: Inquisition, which I love deeply and without reservations, has great character moments but a pretty standard "defeat the big bad" story.

HZD errs on the other side of this balance, and I can't really say it makes for a worse game. The player choice moments, revolving around how Aloy expresses her personality in dialogue, generally only affect the cutscene they take place in, as far as I can tell, with the occasional minor change regarding whether you kill someone, send them away, etc. and while this can feel unsatisfying, the strength of the narrative makes up for it. The developers don't let your choices anywhere near the main plot; they had a story to tell and they were going to tell it whether you like it or not. And it's a pretty good story, too. Maybe not as mind blowing as some people have said—if you've read/watched enough sci-fi you can see most of the twists coming (a point the game actually hangs a lampshade on in one of the many audio file collectibles)—but it is well-written, and emotionally affecting in ways I wasn't expecting at all. And the post-credits scene and DLC provide enough sequel bait that I'm actually interested in where they might be taking this, despite my own idea for how to make a sequel set decades or even centuries in the future with entirely different mechanics. But that's a subject for a different time.

Conclusion: HZD was arguably overhyped when it came out, but I think it's more that they hyped up the wrong parts of it, and I don't think the criticism I've seen of it is accurate. I spent 80 hours in this game and I don't regret a minute of it, which is a lot more than I can say for pretty much any other open world game I've played.

When I first saw the announcement gameplay/trailer for Horizon Zero Dawn, I pegged it as one of the greatest games of the current generation. It featured a strong, capable, red-headed warrior with some badass archery skills using a ropecaster to tie down machines and shoot the components off them. When I finally got a copy of my own, I found that the combat was everything I hoped it would be.

For about three hours. After I’d progressed sufficiently in the story to unlock the elemental sling, and then the blast sling (which I accessed easily for reasons I’ll discuss momentarily), I realised that I could defeat even the mightiest foes in a few seconds by freezing them, loading them up with timed bombs, and then watching them explode. I might need to repeat this once, maybe twice at the most, but after that combat lost most of the thrill. There was little pleasure in engaging with a giant foe, defeating them with barely a pause to look in their direction, looting them and then moving on. Even when I imposed a ban on myself from this meta (Most-Efficient-Tactic-Available), I found that I was still only using three or four weapons (and only a handful of the same skills) because everything else just made the fights drag on needlessly long.

One of the main problems with the game was that it gave me access to almost all the resources I needed right from the very beginning. After a few hours, I’d shot enough wildlife to max out most of my resource and ammo pouches. I had hundreds of every component, so I could afford to use a few dozen grenades per fight because it wasn’t an issue to just craft more. By the time I’d got a quarter of the way through the story, I had the highest ranked outfits and weapons available, and spent the rest of the game gambling for slightly better modifications. By the time I was three quarters through, I had hit the level cap and wasn’t able to get any stronger.

Coming right off the back of playing Rise of the Tomb Raider, the juxtaposition was harsh. Where it felt like the developers of RotTR carefully crafted every enemy encounter, precisely how many resources you could access at any one time, and therefore intentionally restricted how many levels you could gain and how powerful you could become, HZD felt sloppy by comparison. The sheer abundance of resources was like the game shooting itself in the foot, because once I had maxed everything out, combat held little joy to me.

I turned my attention to the collectables next, and spent some time trying to get them all. After I found the merchants who would trade for them, I did a quick google and was upset to learn that if I’d bothered to spend several hours collecting rare and wonderful artifacts, the rewards were a handful of common resources that I already had dozens of.

So the only remaining attraction for me were the quests, and unfortunately most of those pissed me right off. No one acknowledged Aloy’s incredible feats, and seemed very self-important by talking down to her, giving her orders, and generally bossing her around. Everyone treated her like she was an errand girl rather than giving her the respect and awe she deserved for literally killing a thunderjaw right before their eyes in a matter of seconds. It drove me nuts!

And yet, despite its many flaws, HZD managed to pull itself back from the brink and earn itself a place among the most memorable gaming experiences I’ve ever had. How? The story.

As the mysteries of Zero Dawn unfolded, I was chilled by what happened to the Ancient Ones, and the choices they’d had to make to ensure the survival of the planet. I was stunned by the brilliance of their solution, and suddenly every unspoken problem I’d had with the world design suddenly made sense: the designs of the machines, the limited types of wildlife, the corruption mechanic… I could never have imagined that a game with such mediocre gameplay could tell a story so well, and I still can’t believe how much I enjoyed spending hours listening to audio logs as I slowly made my way through ancient buildings.

While Horizon Zero Dawn has a multitude of problems, all of them I can forgive for its incredible plot and masterful storytelling. If you haven’t played it yourself, I recommend skipping most of the exploration and keeping to the main quest lines, because it’s one hell of a story and one I suspect I’ll think about for years to come.

Intriguing narratives. Artfully crafted worlds. Clever gameplay. This is what I game for. This is what Horizon delivers.

Before we go into Horizon’s execution, let’s first of all set the stage by nailing down exactly what the game sets out to be. To be honest, I didn’t have a very clear understanding until I played it for the first time. Guerrilla Games’ latest AAA title is very different than what they have produced in the past, namely their gritty sci-fi shooter series, Killzone. Yes, in fact Horizon is a full-fledged open world action RPG, set in a colorful post-post-apocalyptic land populated with tribal clans and robotic beasts.

Being an open world action RPG, there are certain expectations which have become very refined over the years. When I delve into such a game I expect a large map filled with collectibles, side quests, and a living ecosystem. I expect accessible, versatile combat. And if it leans more heavily on its RPG influences I expect satisfying character development, inspiring world-building, and a colorful cast.

It’s from my experience, along with the way the game was marketed, that I believe these are the expectations they attempted to meet and truly exceed in. It’s also through this lens that I will try to fairly measure its success and shortcomings.

But before I get into the nitty-gritty can I just say…this game is AMAZING! It’s been quite a while since a game has managed to feel so adventurous to me like playing a really good RPG when I was a kid. Often times the most I can hope for in a game is for it to merely meet my reserved, realistic expectations but Horizon managed to transcend these pre-determined boundaries by terraforming the foundation according to its own unique vision rather than borrowing a used canvas from its contemporaries and touching it up.

Click here for the full review... https://thewellredmage.wordpress.com/2017/03/27/horizon-zero-dawn/