Horizon Zero Dawn (2017)

Great gameplay, great characters, great story, great world-building, incredible DLC expansion. I'm not going to go deep into the good since everyone has said them already, so I'll mention the cons that affected my enjoyment of the game.

-critical strike sometimes doesn't work. When an enemy is down, I'd go near it and won't see a "critical strike" option. Sometimes I had to hit the enemy a few times with normal attacks for the option to appear, and sometimes it never did. This can ruin a fight because I approached a deadly enemy thinking I can critical strike it, when I should have kept my distance to prepare for when it gets back up.

-enemies are sometimes too close to save point. there are even instances where I teleport to a save point and a nearby enemy immediately attacks me (which is just wonderful when I'm at low health)

-this is a BIG one. No option to customize bottom slot. I get that we have lots of gadgets, like potions and mount and rocks and whatnots, but to assign all of them to one button and make us have to scroll through them each time we use them is very annoying, even more so when time doesn't stop when doing it. So during battle if my bottom slot is assigned to rock, and I need to heal, I'll have to remember that Health potion is 2 slots to the right, and full health potion is 6 slots to the left. Now that I've fully healed and the bottom slot is on Full Health Potion, what if I needed a fire resist potion? Well, I better remember that it's 6 slots to the right or 7 slots to the left, because time is still going and I'm still being bombarded by attacks, so no time to only look at the tiny wheel on the bottom left corner of the screen. What makes it even worse is that when pressing left and right, my left thumb can't use the left joystick at the same time, so Aloy is standing there not moving while I'm scrolling through the slots trying to find the item I need. Fixing this is simple. Either let time stop when we're scrolling for items, or let us customize the gadget wheel. For example, we're not going to need our mount and rocks when fighting, so let us remove those two options. When fighting Fireclaws, we don't need resistance potions for shock, freeze, and corruption, so let us remove all of these. Let us reorder the slots however we want, so I can put Full Health Potion right next to Health Potion and make it easier for me to remember.

-my spear in the inventory tab only shows what overrides I've unlocked, not what types of machines can be overridden with these overrides. So I'd see the highest override I got is XI Override and not remember whether that meant I can override Thunderjaws or not. I had to attempt to override it in order to find out, which is just not ideal.

-just a nitpick but would be great if we can reset all spent skill points

-buy back from merchant should include everything, or important stuff like trade required items (dirty basket for example), instead of just the recent ones

-give us the option to view our inventory and modify items from the merchant's selling page (example: Skyrim). So after buying and opening mystery boxes, and finding out my capacity is full, I don't have to talk to merchant, sell them, go back to opening mystery boxes, when it's full again talk to merchant, and rinse and repeat. This is what I had to do after trading 40+ Slagshine Glass for Outlaw Light Boxes full of traps (not to mention the 70+ Desert Glass I also traded). Just let us view our inventory from the merchant's page and everything will be so much easier.

-time should stop when viewing/analyzing enemy's weak spots, or it should open up a new page, like how opening up your inventory during a fight stops the time

-doesn't show which machine is friendly (overridden) unless you hover over it. It's hard to keep track when multiple machines are fighting

-sometimes arrows don't fly to where I aim when I concentrate

All these cons are why I docked off a star.

Game #54/200 Despite being pretty into this game overall, I had mixed feelings upon starting it. I have been on somewhat of an open world marathon for the last year or so, and have played many of the best open world titles, including a few like Ghost of Tsushima and Spider-Man which far eclipse Horizon in my opinion. I can recognize in retrospect that Horizon suffers a bit from being a part of an "earlier" wave of open world games (coming out before RDR2, the two aforementioned games, BOTW, Hogwarts, etc.), but I am not sure my issues with the game were even primarily related to its contemporaneity. It's true, I did find some of the character models stiff during dialogue, but the overall visual appeal of the game is quite high. It's a beautiful looking world (somehow made even more beautiful in its sequel), and I may even stack up its landscapes favorably to Red Dead 2, which I'm playing now. The game's map size and number of tasks/collectables are very manageable. I'm bad at visually estimating things, but it feels like it's on the smaller end of side content while playing, and I did complete a good 70-80% of content in about 30 hours before tapping out. Upon inspecting HLTB, I'm finding that the average time for full game completion is in the 40-hours range, which puts it about equal to Hogwarts and Tsushima, both of which I would've estimated as being larger and longer games. In fact, Spider-Man, which seems equivalent to me, is estimated at about 15-20 hours lower than H:ZD. These metrics don't mean all that much anyway, and this digression is mostly fueled by my stat-loving brain, but I did find Horizon's map pretty fun to walk around and complete tasks in.

Many collectables are found simply by walking around, climbing up mountains (which have very janky physics sometimes), and looking in your surroundings. The climbing is not too bad and is reminiscent of Uncharted, but simpler. There's a nice variety of quests too, and you have your normal open world side activities like bandit camps and skill challenges that all basically fit the bill. The combat is a relative weak point for me and the bandit camps really illustrated that best with their massive armies of not-fun-to-fight and sometimes extremely powerful human enemies. You have a variety of weapons and are constantly crafting ammo with resources you pick up -- no problems with any of this -- but the weapon types boil down to elemental stuff and trip wires/traps which never appealed much to me. I found myself just crafting like a madman and using whatever I had at my disposable. The robot dinos were all pretty fun to fight, except it took me a while to get the hang of weaknesses, and even when I did I found some of the dinos tanky. The shooting/aiming and melee combat all work fine though and the game is simply pretty fun to play. The progression was not my favorite, with a very standard EXP/skill point system (not the worst thing in the world, however...) and skills that almost all just marginally improve your character. I didn't find any of them too appealing and leveling up was never a big deal for me. I also thought the computer chip thing in your ear was underutilized. I think I used it exclusively for tracking footprints and picking up audio files, and almost nothing else. There could have been some more creative utilization of it as it is a pretty cool device.

What I really did not like, and this could just be a me problem, was the inventory management. I feel like I constantly had so much junk, including in my weapons inventory. You can buy the same weapons twice for some reason, and there are upgraded versions, and there are similar weapons, and you can apply modifications, and it's all just a chaotic mess. I would've loved if they just limited you to 4-5 weapons that are earned through story progression, you're taught how to use them and they're all very different, and you can apply permanent upgrades. All of this modification nonsense (there's a skill devoted to removing applied modifications to weapons...) seems extremely unappealing, micromanage-y, and excessive. But maybe folks out there like this sort of thing.

I am not the biggest sci-fi guy, but the story's intersection of historical speculative fiction, sci-fi, and fantasy all melded extremely well together. I'm not going to lie and say I fully followed the story (completely my fault, I'm bird brained when it comes to most stories in games), but I appreciated the story bits, their presentation, and how well the world seemed to come together. I wish I paid better attention because I think I could've gotten a lot out of it. The voice acting, however, had some lousy moments.

And that's mainly my takeaway of Horizon. It was a nice title that I had fun sinking time into, and it had a really impressively built and visually beautiful world, but for some reason it just left a slightly bad taste in my mouth.

Not sure when or why I became such a ruthless critic, and believe me when I say-- I wish I wasn't.

First 20-30 minutes of this game has had some pain for me, so far. Really hoping that I can stick with this though, I have been intrigued, wanting to play for a while and so far the vibes are there. It's possibly going to lose me for feeling like lots of other big-budget open worlds. We shall see.

Stuff I've liked:

• Looks incredible, still even on the baseline PS4 that I am playing it on. It's outdated now technically, but this is still quite a nice game on the technical side. Always interesting to see what highly trained and funded teams can produce.

• Music and atmosphere are working for me, also a big fan of these types of stories/plot setup. I'd even say that the TRUE post-post-apocalypse like we see here is still plenty fresh of a setting.

Stuff I have not liked:

• Absolutely no disrespect to the talented voice actors, but I am really having a lot of moments with Rost where I am thinking "we couldn't have gotten that line again? there wasn't a better take? really?" but it seems to just be a tone or direction thing, if I had to take a wild guess. Comes across real choppy and disjointed with the oDd in FlecTiO N . Most people, "in real life", do not speak like that. It sounds cheesy. Stilted. Like a guy in a voice acting booth.

• Hitting me over the head with lots of collectible audio logs at the start was a specific design choice, and I understand why they tried that. It annoyed me. It didn't feel like, "oh I am learning about this new world now, to get situated." it felt more like "oh great, I'm collecting f*****g audio logs in a game, already. Immediately. Great. That's so great, my favorite thing that I have definitely never done before." Broke my immersion right away somehow, even though I think audio log type collectibles are a fairly well accepted boilerplate aspect of open world games. An attempt was made to give me some freedom to find out about the world for myself right off the bat, but there could have been a better way to dip me in slowly.

• Tutorials are always a weak point for me. If you can't build your game where I get to find out the controls myself, I am gonna be annoyed. Obviously this is not an option for studio games. They have to have a concise tutorial or people will not play their game. They tried, and I appreciated the fact that it was simple and rather short. It just felt, again, stale and ham-fisted, old, annoying, immersion breaking. There was a better way to do this.

• Similar complaint to the tutorial, not sure if I am going to enjoy the process of harvesting lots of materials. I am not sure how important this really is in games-- it might be fine, if the player simply just "presses A" and sees a short animation, and then gets their stuff. I do worry that there is some disconnect though, or burnout with this, in open-craft-em-ups. PTSD from Assassins Creed Odyssey maybe.

Just finished my 100% completion of this game, all trophies including the Frozen Wilds DLC and the New Game+ playthrough on Ultra Hard difficulty. Took me a little over 95 hours and I've had a great time with this game

Visuals

Even after 95 hours, I was still touched by how beautiful the world looks in this game. It's incredible what the developers were able to achieve within the PS4's limitations (I played it on a PS5 but the game is a PS4 game). It's a lush, gorgeous, big open world in which you can explore and fight to your heart's content.

The characters look great as well which helps with immersion when it comes to dialogue scenes.

Story

The story is a bit of a slow burn as it takes quite a while for it to really take off and take shape, especially if (like me) you get distracted by interesting side quests and/or exploration and don't follow the main story consistently. But it is interesting enough to make you want to keep going, you slowly unfold the mystery of your origins and also why the world came to be as it is. Out of everything though this is probably its weak link, not bad by any means just not amazing.

Combat

We have a really engaging and fun combat system, focused especially on bows and arrows but there are many types and there are many other special weapons that are each useful in various circumstances. Each type of robot has strengths and weaknesses so learning how to exploit their weaknesses gradually turns you into a deadly huntress.

Trophies / Side Quests

Part of what made me complete this game 100% was that I really enjoyed it but another part was that the trophy design is very reasonable. There are no crazy difficult or mind-numbingly boring trophies. No really boring side quests either. Some of them are difficult, yes, but doable after some practice. Even replaying the game in New Game+ on Ultra Hard difficulty is not as bad as it sounds. By that time you are at maximum level in great equipment having finished the Frozen Wilds DLC and honestly, the DLC is more difficult than the main story on Ultra Hard. Second, you can laser focus on the main story which is not that long (I didn't time it but maybe took me 10 hrs) and this also gives a really nice focused recap/replay of the main story. Because in the first playthrough I was spending a TON of time doing side quests and exploring the world so the main story was just sprinkled in there in between.

Overall, this is a true gem and I am looking forward to tackling Horizon Forbidden West after I play something else for a while.

Started playing this with my husband and it's a decent enough game. The graphics are GORGEOUS. I'm not bothered by the technical stuff as much like pop-in and bugs because I play Switch games mostly, so I'm not as picky about my photo-realism. I did see a couple boars in town I couldn't kill, and it was annoying, but not show-stopping. I like the story but I find the over-exposition a little daunting. I know you can skip it though, at least.

This game is making it painfully evident how different my husband and my playing styles are. He wants to explore every nook and cranny and I just want to get thru the main story (and ride the horsies). Also I'm melee combat all the way but he prefers his stealth. Luckily I convinced him to let me knock the game down to Easy. I'm definitely the Leeroy Jenkins of this relationship.

Una historia interesante, un mundo rico y lleno de detalles. Una pena que el combate sea absolutamente detrimental al título. Las primeras horas son una delicia de conocer a los enemigos, comprender sus puntos débiles y utilizar las armas a tu favor. Sin embargo se convierte en un juego de "evita a las máquinas" constantemente, haciendo que pierda parte de la gracia el combate.

Esto se debe sobretodo a lo poco que me suelen gustar los juegos en tercera persona de disparos. Si fuera en primera persona probablemente lo disfrutaría más o si el combate estuviera más centrado en el cuerpo a cuerpo.

En el cómputo global, buen juego, disfrutable, pero ojala me hubiera gustado más. Quería que me gustase.

Horizon complete edition: steam release

Just finished it. 63 hours got me 94% completion in the main, 89% in the DLC and 74 out of 79 achievements. Honestly i didn't thought i'ld like it much since back when it launched i saw robo-dinosaurs and all i could imagine was a studio trying to appeal to the inner 14 year old of consumers, and seeing the reviews i thought "good for them that the target audience liked it, but i'm not gonna bother reading these since the game's probably not for me". Welp, i finally decided to give it a go and turns out i very much liked it. The story was decent but the gameplay and the sightseeing took the cake in this one, except for the DLC, the DLC's story was very close to "holy sh*t" territory.

I'm not gonna bother with an in-depth review since there are already thousands of those (and also, mostly, because it's 4:30AM). If you like sci-fi and open world games then i can recommend it to you.

This game was undoubtedly great from start to finish, and I'm glad to have stepped into Aloy's post-apocalyptic world for 90+ hours. I fell down the side quest rabbit hole right away, but they [mostly] didn't bore me like I expected. I replied to most conversations with my head or heart which seems to have had an affect at the end of the game, and I took the time to craft and upgrade my pouches as early as possible. Parts of it were tedious--like finding the goose skin--but overall not all that bad. There was no end of resources or machines to battle and pick apart, and most of the machines were pretty easy to dispatch once you learn their patterns and weak point--even the Thunderjaw and Storm Bird. The exception for me was the Rockbreaker; knew how, in theory, to beat it, but never could quite execute it. Mostly got lucky with them.

The outfits and modifications didn't seem to make a huge difference in my opinion [I stuck with stealthy], but the Ancient Armor is definitely worth nabbing. The final chapter was a breeze while wearing it. I found all the metal flowers, vessels, and vantages, but the first two really added nothing more to the story beyond a couple trophies and a bit of mediocre loot.

The world itself and the machine designs were gorgeous, and the story hit hard once it finally started to unravel, even if very similar in a Terminator sort of way. I explored every inch of the map and there was always something to find along the way. Aloy is an awesome protagonist to play as, especially as a female, and I'm greatly anticipating Horizon Forbidden West in February.

With Forbidden West releasing shortly I thought now was the perfect time to finally dive into Aloy's journey and for large parts really enjoyed it. The combat had depth and was refreshing, the machine encounters were a ton of fun, each unique with there own individual weak points to exploit and it all felt fluid and rarely a chore. The story was a real highlight for me, slowly uncovering the secrets of the world alongside an oblivious Aloy was engaging and made going into each new mission exciting. The few gripes I had were poor facial animations, the only dampener on otherwise amazing visuals, weak, repetitive side quests and boring human AI encounters. Horizon doesn't do much new for an open world experience but what I got overall was 40 hours well spent (including Frozen Wilds) and optimistic for what Aloy's next adventure brings.

Open world RPGs need to be really good for me to enjoy them, because I dislike the genre.

I loved Horizon: Zero Dawn.

Story is half the reason I play videogames, and Horizon's story is superb. The worldbuilding is fantastic too, and I've added it to my list of favourite fictional universes of all time, alongside the Mass Effect and Avatar: the Last Airbender universes.

The characters were fine. They were likeable and believable, but I didn't have a deep affection for them like I've felt in other games. I was motivated to finish the game moreso because I wanted to uncover the mystery of Horizon's world, not so much because I was invested in seeing the main character find closure and complete her arc.

The gameplay is decent. Not terrible, but very similar to Monster Hunter, modern Assassin's Creed, Uncharted, Witcher, etc. and that type of gameplay isn't that interesting for me.

Overall, the story was 10/10, the characters were 8/10, and the gameplay was 6/10.

But the writing was 11/10. Character dialogue was lean and engaging. In particular, the cutscene with Herres, and the cutscene afterwards, have fantastic, tight dialogue that will stick with me for years.

One final thing: A lot of open world games have collectibles to find, like Breath of the Wild's korok seeds or Grand Theft Auto 3's hidden packages. In my experience, collectibles provide trivial in-game rewards and mostly just exist to pad out a game's playtime. But Horizon did something I really liked with their collectibles; each one is a data log, written by other characters in-universe, and they reveal interesting background lore. So the reward is lore, not extra ammo or cash, and I like that so much more. I actually wanted to find them all, and they were written really well. In particular, you can find the journal of a character named Bashar Mati that reveals his life story. If those journal entries had been published in the real world as a novella, it would be my favourite book of the year. Knowing that something so good is tucked away in a hidden corner of a videogame that hardly anyone will find, let alone read, blows my mind.

But then again, the entire game blew my mind. 10/10 experience, highly recommended.

Loving this game, but it feels like I haven't really gotten the hang of it since I keep getting my ass kicked in every fight on Normal (and always depleting my medicine bag). On Level 21, just entered what seems like the second big area and immediately got stomped by a bunch of new machines.

Think I'll hang around the opening area and figure out how to play better before I move on. What weapons to use (can't seem to use the Slings properly), roll/dodge timing etc.

The attention to detail, world and personality behind every minor character keeps blowing me off. Really want to figure the game out.

Horizon, I think, really hammered home for me the problem with Ubisoft-style open world games full of waypoints. I always feel compelled to grab everything on the map, but honestly, I'm never having that much fun with it.

Fighting robot dinos is a fucking great time, the combat in Horizon is top notch. I don't know if I've ever played a game with such a fun, smooth archery system. The movement feels fluid (though I'll admit, the yellow-tinted climbing handholds felt clunky when you could see how amazing a climber Aloy is, but she can't pull herself up a ledge unless it's a specifically designated 'climbing ledge'), the combat is fast-paced and fun, and the story isn't anything groundbreaking, but once you discover the cause of the Apocalypse, things definitely start getting a bit more interesting.

I've read articles about why Breath of the Wild handled open-world so well, while games like Far Cry and Assassin's Creed just feel like a bunch of waypoints to run to, and the contrast of all of Horizon's other great gameplay, versus the checklist of points of interest bits, really drove home how bored I got looking for another mechanical flower or 'ancient vessel' (aka coffee mug).

I put 110 hours into the game, and honestly, it would have annoyed me to no end to leave all those collectibles out, but I definitely didn't feel satisfied when I got them all. By the end of the game, I was so thankful for the weapons from the DLC that allowed me to kill things with such ease that I could breeze through, because I just wanted to get it over with. (Contrasted to a similar amount of time I spent in Breath of the Wild and pretty much loved every minute of it, and that was after having already played 75% of the game once through.)

In the end, Horizon was a game that at 50 or 60 hours, could well have been a 5-star game, but instead, gave me that nagging completionist feeling (for pretty much no real in-game reward) and dragged along and brought itself down. Yes, I know that I could ignore the side stuff, and I technically did it to myself, but then it would be a matter of choosing the unsatisfied feeling of getting all the collectibles or the unsatisfied feeling of not getting them.

I still want to play Forbidden West (whenever it gets to PC), but ultimately, I just don't want to play any more 'go to tower, get waypoints, check off tasks' type open world game anymore. I don't want any more padding. I want a game to just barely leave me wanting more, instead of make me feel relieved I'm finally done.

(pretend it says 4,5 stars)

Intro

HZD is an open-world role-playing game taking place in a post-apocalyptic world filled with robot versions of animals.

The Amazing Part

First of all, credit goes to the start and end of the game. The cutscenes that show Aloy 'growing up' and 'finding her' actually made me emotional. Much of the story is told through voice recording and holograms and these also work very well.

HZD looks pretty amazing. There are definitely some low-res environmental textures but other than that it's one of the best-looking games i've ever played.

The worldbuilding is great. The backstory is a bit silly and illogical, but the 'project' that caused the world to look like this is quite clever. It's always neat to see the modern world as ruins. The newly created cultures work pretty well, though they're all just a little bit too exaggerated.

Combat mostly involves third-person shooting and stealth attacks, though you can place traps and fight in melee as well. There's a variety of robots, from cattle-like ones to predators to giant, more fantastical robots resembling huge birds or dinosaurs. Each robot has weak spots and many have parts that can be removed (in addition to their armor plating), which usually disables certain abilities. Some also have canisters that cause an explosion when hit by the right element.

While you can use brute force to take down robots, ammunition costs resources to it's better to exploit their various weaknesses. Especially early on you'll want to strike from hiding because you're fragile and poorly armed. I can't think of any other game where you feel as much of a hunter as this one. Maybe Hitman, but that's different. Along the way you'll gain new tools allowing you to tie enemies down or convert them to help you. It never gets boring.

The Not So Amazing Part

HZD does have some very notable flaws. All human settlements feel pretty lifeless. They just exist to dispense quests and facilitate trading. They don't feel like real places, more like sets a la The Truman Show.

The game also features overly aggressive respawning, with things re-appearing instantly if you move even 100 meters from them. I was hunting animals and there was a robot corpse nearby. Everytime i went after an animal the lootable components respawned, which really killed my suspension of disbelief.

The last of the lesser flaws is the overly scripted nature of climbing and some of the missions. You can only climb higher places via pre-determined spots indicated by white paint (chalk?) or yellow objects. Especially the first can be really hard to find during certains times of the day (or at all, really). Some missions also move your character, put up invisible/transparent walls or endlessly respawn enemies. This comes across as lazy design.

Why It's Not 5 Stars

HZD has a couple of major flaws. Some of these are common to open-world games, unfortunately.

For starters, the PC port is pretty bad. I had multiple crashes, graphical issues and the bug that causes Aloy to stray from her normal position on the screen made me queasy at times.

Being developed for consoles also means it has checkpoints instead of proper saves and an interface that uses wheels. This game really really needs quicksaves, it is too easy to lose progress. Because of all the crashes i became paranoid and tried to visit campfires as often as possible. The weapon wheel works decently well, but the potion/trap/lure/mount menu is bad. Combat is far too hectic to force players to awkwardly scroll through all the available options.

The first of the three really big problems is the inventory. It copies the godawful "upgrade holsters with rat anuses" thing from Assassin's Creed. There are so many of these (18?) and each can be upgraded 3 times. It's awful. And the fact that animal loot drops are very random means you can easily spend half an hour getting the parts to upgrade even one holster.

The game encourages constant item switching (ugh) but doesn't make it easy to distinguish items in the inventory. After 77 hours i still can't tell apart the various bows and most other weapons. The armours are even worse, they don't even have an icon to show the skill/resistance they boost. On top of that switching item mods has the worst possible interface. You can't easily see if you have a better mod, and slotting them requires you to hold F for some fucking reason. Oh, and there's no "mark as junk" option outside of stores. Not even a "sell junk" option either. So much time is wasted on inventory bullshit.

Finally, while combat is generally really fun it utterly collapses in melee. You only have two types of attacks, you constantly get knocked over, audio/visual cues for attacks are really inconsistent and the bullet-time effect (Focus) always zooms - even in melee. And because of the third-person perspective you often can't see Aloy anymore because the robot is between the camera and her. Stagger/knockdown is also the only thing you can't build up a resistance too, which is a huge flaw IMO.

Conclusion

HZD is an amazing game held back by a few glaring design flaws. It's definitely worth playing but be prepared to get really frustrated at times.

Horizon: Zero Dawn: 9.75

Gameplay: 9.75

I spent a large chunk of my time away from any story or quest taking down Thunderjaws. Yes, I strayed from the main story spending my time on something that did not bring my completion progress forward. That is very unlike me. Taking down machines and switching between the several weapons the game offers is a wonderfully fun experience that provides a wide range of variety. Of course, you can win most fights without touching most of your arsenal. I did that, but discovered that using the rest of your traps and weapons not only makes the game more fun, but even makes it easier. Seriously, blast traps are so overpowered. The different kinds of armor, however, aren't really something I payed much attention to. Once you've unlocked the Shield-Weaver armor, every other suit (except maybe the one you need to sneak into Shadow Carja territory) can be thrown away. The ancient armor is by far my favorite piece, and adds a whole new layer of fun and combat (mainly not dodging, taking hits here and there and ignoring otherwise deadly drops). A piece of advice, though: that suit does not absorb fall damage if you drop from too high a place. Don't get caught up in feeling like one of Brandon Sanderson's shardbearers and jump off the top of a mountain. The modifications were another thing that never really grabbed me that much. I'd just choose whichever seemed best, but I can't say whether or not they made much of an impact on my gameplay. Combat is fairly easy, what with the Focus, something similar to the Arkham series' detective mode. It lets you detect hostiles and highlights the weak points of machines. Also, killing enemies wielding giant guns and tearing off the projectile shooting parts of machines provides you with yet another powerful advantage, as well as even more ways to take down your enemy. By the end of the game and during a NG+, things get way too easy, and hunting machines such as the Thunderjaw, Stormbird and Rockbreaker just isn't too much of a challenge anymore. The collectibles aren't so much as fun as they are easy to locate once you purchase their maps (save for the power cells), and only please completionists, except maybe the Banuk figures which provide a limited platforming experience. Speaking of which, platforming is absolutely not one of this game's strengths. Climbing can get really frustrating, especially since you have to find the specific route created to easily get up to a place. The side quests aren't bad, and actually provide a few tidbits of extra story to the game. Most of the errands don't add much, though, and can be completed simply by hunting down things; however, they still give you a glimpse at a few NPC's and Aloy's interactions with them, and aren't really all too bad. Another element of the game is the ability to make your own choices when interacting with others, but this doesn't really impact how things turn out in the end. It really depends on you whether you want to make Aloy caring, calculative or simply angry. Maybe it even reflects what kind of a person you want to be or already are inside. All in all, Horizon: Zero Dawn provides us with great and enjoyable combat and gameplay, although some of its components such as platforming could really use some improvement; however that doesn't mean that it isn't an absolute pleasure to play through.

Graphics: 9.75

The world of Horizon is a detailed, vibrant, lushly beautiful one that all together looks great. The environment is beautiful, the machines are beautiful, and the people, Aloy and the NPCs, are beautifully rendered with detailed features, smooth graphics and good voice acting (some more than others, I noticed). It's a good thing they included a photo mode, because this game is one that actually deserves it.

Story: 9.75

Horizon also boasts one of the best stories I have ever seen in a PS4 game, both well done and well executed. Though I didn't come to care for Aloy as much as others have, I still see how good the story was written. The characters aren't that bad, either, but I didn't find them as good as the ones in Uncharted and God of War. Ask others, though, and they'll tell you how much they came to care for Aloy.

Experience: 9.75

As you may have noticed from my above sentiments, Horizon: Zero Dawn is a great experience. While it did not become one of those special games I truly like with characters I really care for, the gameplay is simply amazing, until everything becomes too easy and reptitive after 40+ hours of playing, that is. But while it lasts, this PlayStation exclusive proves to be worth its price and adds yet another strong reason to choose the PS4 as your personal gaming console.

So far, this is my favorite game I've played on the PS4 so far.

Everything about this game is smart and thought-out, well-designed, and polished to absolute perfection. It's incredible.

Man, I have so many good things to say that I don't even know where to begin.

For one, the story is really, really well done. I had a good feeling about the quality of the story right from the training montage cutscene at the beginning of the game - particularly when young Aloy launches herself off of a wooden platform, right at the camera, Rost watching in amazement, and as she hits the ground and rolls, the scene cuts so that it's an older, more experienced Aloy coming out of the roll. It's a simple yet flashy piece of visual storytelling that helps move the story along and just looks really good, early evidence towards the level of care given to every aspect of the game. Another point I want to make about the beginning stages of the game is that you start off playing as a young, chubby-cheeked Aloy, which immediately endears you to her (Disney does this a lot, where the movies start off when the princesses are young and adorable) and her struggles as an outcast from her clan.

From there, the story unfolds beautifully. The journey of self-discovery Aloy undertakes perfectly meshes with her discovery of the world around her - this is a story about growing up, after all, of finding one's place in the world and what meaning one's life may have. It's beautifully done, and Aloy is a perfect avatar for the strange, futuristic, and yet natural and tribal world of H:ZD. She's strong, intelligent, inquisitive, and brave, unafraid of throwing herself into battle against the game world's massive machine monsters or working to untangle political conspiracies or take on cults bent on destroying the world.

The story is part tragedy, part hero's journey. The tragedy comes from Aloy learning about the old world - our world - and how it turned into the world that she grew up in. The old world is filled with stories of greed, callousness, desperation, but also of heroism, solidarity, and hope, hope that allowed the natural world and the entire human race to still exist. It's a story of love, a deep love of the whole world and for all people, a love so intense that it refuses to give up on the world, even when everything seems lost. These are the stories that help Aloy on her own journey of discovery, as she grows more worldly and experienced, her own woman. It's a beautiful, deeply emotional, and surprisingly life-affirming story, one that I'm glad I was able to experience.

Everything, too, has a narrative woven into it, from the side-quests down to the collectibles. One of the most beautiful stories of the entire game involves the "Vantage Points" you can collect - I won't spoil anything, I'll just say that they reduced me to tears upon reading them. If you've collected them all, you'll understand.

One of my few gripes about the story involves the character Sylens, who, for most of his screen-time, is just an annoyingly mysterious dude who knows more than you and gives you quests. I like the presence of his character overall, and I certainly see the necessity of a character like his to further along our understanding of the lore, I also just find him irritating until the story chooses to reveal more about him.

This game is much more than a brilliant story, though.

The gameplay is fucking incredible. The bow, your main weapon throughout the game, feels absolutely incredible and handles like a Lotus Elise. It never, ever gets boring to use, and actually becomes more fun to use as you get more bow types throughout the game with different kinds of ammunition. There are other ranged weapons as well, from slings that you can use to chuck explosives about to "Ropecasters" that can tie the machines down to even low-tech shotgun-type weapons that spray a bundle of bolts at your enemies. There are traps, too, from tripwires to mines. Basically, you have a huge bag of tricks to pull from when it comes to fighting enemies, and everything is fun and supremely satisfying to use.

On top of that, the movement in this game is wonderful. You can crouch down into stealth mode, sure, but you can also jump around, roll-dodge, and slide to your heart's content. Also, aiming with jumping or sliding will trigger time to slow down, allowing you to pull off satisfyingly cool slow-motion shots with your bow and whatnot.

Perhaps most importantly, the machines themselves are a blast to fight. Each type of machine has its attacks, movement sets, and sound design, making each fight an experience into itself, even if it's just a random encounter as you're running around the world. In this game, practice truly makes perfect, and your skill at hunting the machines is largely dependent on shooting off certain weak points while avoiding attacks, made easier by memorizing a machine's specific animations and sounds. Basically, each machine is like a puzzle you have to solve, albeit one that can shoot projectiles at you or knock you over with a swipe of its tail. It's almost hard to express in words how truly fun and exhilarating the combat is in this game, especially against the larger, more intimidating machines. It's simply pure joy through gameplay.

Admittedly, the combat against just normal humans isn't nearly as fun, but it's honestly not as bad as many people say it is. It's merely solid, where the rest of the combat is absurdly fun.

The game's world is amazing, too, a beautifully-designed open world with different, distinct environments ranging from snowy mountaintops to an arid desert landscape to a steamy jungle to thick, forested regions. The graphical fidelity of this game is, frankly, absurd, even on my normal PS4, and there were several moments I just had to stop and admire the world around me. The lighting in particular is stunning, and the day-night cycle and weather effects really show that off. The sun shining through the trees in the morning is as beautiful as the gray, rainy weather feels cold and miserable.

I could go on and on about this game, honestly, but I feel like I need to stop myself at some point or I just never will. In any case, I think this game is an absolute masterpiece and the one PS4 exclusive I think everyone really needs to play.