Topic: Days Gone - OT

@MaulTsir It's a weird one. I'm generally not a big fan of open world games. But Death Stranding had me grabbed for some reason and I completed that game. I think I'll do the same with Days Gone. I started playing it two years ago when it came out, but I quickly grew bored with it, and I just forgot about it. I decided to give it another chance, and it worked. I think the story and characters are nothing special, but they're enough to tie it all together as @Kidfried already mentioned. The gameplay loop is satisfying, so it just seems to work.

Where would I rank it? Good question. I prefer this to Spider-Man I think. Horizon has cool robots going for it, but the ''human'' encounters are way better in Days Gone. In the end I'll probably gravitate towards the more linear and structured games like God of War and TLOU, or something more unique like SOTC or Last Guardian. But that's just my personal preference. It definitely has a satisfying gameplay loop, but the other open worlds games from Sony have a quality finish that Days Gone lacks in some areas. The character model for Deacon looks brilliant (the acting is very good as well), however as soon as you encounter an NPC, it's back to PS3 era graphics. I've also encountered quite a few glitches that caused certain objects to be stuck in a low polygon mode. Nothing bad, but it does take you out of the experience. Still a good game regardless though!

@Kidfried Yeah, I'm currently doing the hordes. Most are way smaller than I expected. I was going in with sweaty palms expecting 500+ hordes, but so far most are around 50-100 in size. Interestingly, more and more story quests are popping up on the map.

@Octane Fully agree with your take on the game. If this game had a more compelling story and had a "quality finish" I think this game would have topped a lot of people's lists.

@MaulTsir Personally I think it's an essential PlayStation game. For me it's just behind Horizon. Just quickly and from the top of my head made a ranking for all big SIE games in the PS4 generation:

1. God of War
2. The Last Guardian
3. Horizon Zero Dawn
4. Days Gone
5. Ratchet & Clank
6. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
7. Gravity Rush 2
8. MediEvil
9. Dreams
10. Uncharted 4
11. Tearaway Unfolded
12. Until Dawn
13. Infamous First Light
14. LittleBigPlanet 3
15. The Order 1886
16. Infamous Second Son

Not played yet:

• Death Stranding
• Marvel's Spider-Man
• The Last of Us Part II
• Ghost of Tsushima

@Kidfried I completely forgot about Ghost of Tsushima lol. All their open world games have their positives and negatives. GOT was probably the most repetitive by the end though.

@Octane @Kidfried yeah I agree with both of your assessments. For me the story and characters are definitely the weakest part of the game. Even Deacon himself I've found it hard sometimes to get on board with him, some little things like the way he angrily mutters to himself when killing a freaker or ripper seem a bit corny to me.

I have loved playing the game though and I'm really glad that I've give it a go because early reviews did put me of a little.

You can tell alot of work has gone in to the game and the world building side of things.

I've had a few glitches, nothing game breaking just more annoying than anything, similar to yourself low polygon modes, killing enemies and they stay upright, when I stealth kill sometimes sometimes the animation ends up showing us upside down and the best one that had me sniggering to myself was a few characters I cut scenes had their eyebrows or beards all bright white with coloured dots in, Deacon had this for about 2 hours worth of cut scenes 🤣.

All in all I've had a good experience with the game and I'm going to keep enjoying it until I've attempted the plat.

I'd rank it in the middle of the exclusives I've played personally, not in the same league as God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last Of Us or The Uncharteds but definitely a worth while addition.

@MaulTsir I actually had quite a few obnoxious bugs.

One of them was a few zombies in a pretty big horde that I just couldn't kill. Every bullet would miss them. Had to reload the horde. And another one was that south of the the university was a piece of map of 100 by 100 meter that just didn't load - no matter if I restarted the game. It was just no textures, no land, just a few flying random objects like car wrecks. I was really afraid one of the quests would have me do something in that part of the map, because I would've been screwed. Thankfully it was a useless piece of terrain.

@Octane I'm not really looking forward to Ghost of Tsushima actually. The setting is exactly my cup of tea, but I fear it's just a really good open world game. Well, I tend to not really like what the public thinks is a "good open world game", which makes me super cautious.

I want my open world maps to be the perfect arena for great gameplay experiences. I don't want them to be beautiful worlds that have some gameplay added to them.

@Kidfried Yeah, in that case you're probably better off waiting for a sale. I think it's a good game, it's not bad by all means, but I didn't get all the praise (which may have had more to do with the reception of another game earlier that year I think). It's like if Days Gone didn't have the hordes, but had more human encounters instead. There's missing something that turns it into an addicting gameplay loop for me. It doesn't help that the map consists of three regions, and they're all equally big, and more of the same. The setting absolutely saved it for me, but it's just a pretty aesthetic in the end.

@Octane Ouch. You really know how to kill my mood for that game.

@Kidfried You're welcome!

Agree with you guys in where Days Gone fits in the exclusives. I am trying to get into spiderman now, but something about it just does not interest me. Same with GOT, something about it bored me, I couldn't get into the game. I believe Ive had enough of riding from point to point on horseback tbh. RDR2 gave me and poor Arthur enough saddle-ass for a lifetime.

@Jimmy_VNC82 Traversal in Spider-Man is absolutely brilliant. I personally found the missions and combat a little repetitive.

That's days gone completed, overall I'd rate this game a solid 7, I did feel the story could have a good 5 - 10 hours cut and it wouldn't damage the story much. Loved clearing the camps and nests and the bike especially when upgraded was brilliant and I didn't like the bike mechanics at first.

I've got 6 trophies to get the plat probably gonna go for it and have that done in the next day or 2 then that will be me for Days Gone, really good exclusive and I'll be back for the 2nd if there is one.