After seeing a couple folks around here play it recently, and having wanted to replay it ever since the summer of 2017, I finally booted up Horizon: Zero Dawn again last night and started a new playthrough.
My only criticism is that I'd forgotten how stilted and stiff its characters appear, thanks largely to the faux-fantasy speech patterns foisted upon them. Every time Rost said "Follow!" to young Aloy during the tutorial, I rolled my eyes, and my first side quest (rescuing the injured man's daughter and recovering her mother's spear) lacked any spark of humanity in its dialogue to make me care about the narrative; I just wanted to do it because it'd get me enough XP to unlock slow-motion aiming. Aloy herself, once all grown-up, is obviously the best and she has an underlying hint of feeling "real" enough, but that's mostly thanks to Ashly Burch working overtime to sell her clunky lines. I remember liking a small handful of characters I've yet to meet, so I'll look forward to searching them out.
But weirdly for me, it's the "game" part of the game which makes my face look like a heart-eyed emoji. The graphics are beyond stunning, with detail and lighting effects to make more recent releases look like PS4 launch games in comparison. Aloy feels amazing to control, with movement and combat reactions perfectly timed and satisfying to execute. Her skill tree doesn't feel obnoxious, either; she's already a capable badass to begin with, and yet there are dozens of worthwhile unlocks to work towards. As a result, even though I'd gathered enough resources to fulfil a story objective, I stayed in an area to hunt additional machines, just because it was so immersive and fun. That's very unlike me.
Photo Mode is making it take forever to get anywhere, though, so I'll likely try and use it sparingly, making sure I advance the plot in chunks every other evening. Nevertheless, I think this is me for a good month now.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
With Housemarque being in the news lately I decided to redownload Resogun and man that game us still phenomenal! Stayed up way too late trying to get high scores lol. Shame it never got any pro enhancements but still imo the best ps4 launch game by a good margin!
Am currently tackling another game on my backlog as Yakuza 0 didn't arrive on time in Nier Automata and MY GOD what a game.
Am only 6 hours in but is one of the most unique gaming experiences I have ever had, the diversity in gameplay and tones is so refreshing after so many AAA games getting repetitive after a few hours, and the story and characters are so interesting.
The music is impeccable too, one of the best scores I have heard in a game.
@stuzster Top drawer. I'm really looking forward to getting back to it later today. As for The First Tree, I've never heard of it before but I'm gonna check it out now, so thanks!
@DonJorginho Others have said the same about NieR. Glad you're enjoying it so much.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@DonJorginho Like @Thrillho says, the greatest part is yet to come! Like others told me when I first played NieR Automata, my only regret is that I can’t experience it for the first time ever again. It’s that special.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
LEGO Jurassic World - Believe it or not my first LEGO game. It's actually a pretty competent puzzle platformer, and as a fan of the movies it's been a fun romp so far.
Tetris Effect - Been playing this in VR and it's brilliant, which is saying something as I'm generally not a big fan of straight up puzzlers like this. It's a mesmerizing experience and maybe my favorite VR title since Astro Bot. Even at the easiest setting it can get pretty challenging though, as there's been a few times when the speed really gets going I've been barely saved by activating "focus mode", or whatever it's called.
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
@KratosMD Birth By Sleep not hard? The Secret Episode final boss on Critical is one of the hardest moments in any game I’ve ever played. Ventus’ story is hilarious since you get Mini in the first world and lets you steamroll everything except the bosses. Terra’s final boss is insanely cheap and annoying, not in the fun way. Aqua’s at least good but her final boss is also hard. None of the KH games are particularly great on Standard as they truly shine in Critical. That boss can go die in a hole though.
@KratosMD I dunno, BBS basically funnels you through easy peasy Disney worlds then hits you with a monster of a boss every so often. It’s more inconvenient than hard given that it’s the only game in the series I have to grind for a couple of hours just to beat. At least my many playthroughs help me streamline the turgid grinding by finding new ways to speed it up.
I have recently started Resident Evil VII, I have just watched the Derelict Footage video and saved the game, y'know, right at the beginning. So it's good, I hear the first half is much better than the second.
"Man is the pie that bakes and eats himself, and the recipe is separation." - Alasdair Gray
@Draco_V_Ecliptic I literally finished it yesterday. The first half is brilliant but scary af. The second half is a bit linear but still great. Enjoy your time with it!
Playing Days Gone and enjoying what little I've played of it so far, but the real surprise is that after 2 failed starts at Hyper Light Drifter over the years I'm off and running. Having just beat my first boss third time really is the charm. I think I was probably distracted by too many shiny Triple A games during my last few attempts!
@MightyDemon82 I beat the North and West boss now. In between I tried the East, but I already am dreading going there again. I just can't make sense of the map there.
I really dig the other two areas. And so far the difficulty of the game is just right. Because after facing a boss for the first time I go like "how am I ever going to beat him?", but after five tries I actually beat him without using health packs. It's a difficult game at times for sure, but so far never felt impossible.
I'd forgotten the one thing I hate about Horizon: Zero Dawn, the one mark against its perfection, namely that you need to kill animals in order to upgrade your carrying capacities for all items. Wouldn't be so bad if traders sold meat, but they don't, at least not in the opening areas of the game. It's also bizarrely illogical; how does a steak craft me a bigger ammo pouch?
Last night my inventory limitations got so frustrating, I was seriously tempted to pick off a few boar, no matter how much it might've upset me. Moments later, however, I reached an Errand which involved killing four boar and bringing their skins back to town (as well as retrieving a family ring from the stomach of one). Since it was tied to an objective, I grimaced and just got on with it. The kills provided me less than I needed, which I was disappointed by, so I stuck around and continued until I had everything. Made me really uncomfortable, and I turned the game off early.
Hunting as a necessity to survive in games, sure, I get that. It isn't pleasant but then that's often part of the storyline and it's therefore making a point (see Tomb Raider (2013), for example). Horizon does not need wild animal hunting in it, at all. Aloy is not alone, struggling to survive. There is a civilisation around her, one she can access at any time. There are limitless physical resources around her, ones far more suited to creating larger backpacks and quivers than meat, so why am I being forced to harvest it? And sure, her main adversaries may be animal-shaped, but they're also soulless machines with glowing red eyes (and the ones that aren't often don't fight you, and you can domesticate and repair them; I've had the same mount from the beginning, who helps me in combat and gets hundreds of my shards to fix him afterwards... reports of me calling him Trevor are greatly exaggerated).
If memory serves, there are meat sellers available once I reach Meridian. I sure hope there are, because otherwise playing the entire story with my current inventory space (even after its grudging upgrade) is gonna get fiddly and supremely annoying. Oh well.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@LN78 Nope, although I've been considering it lately. I just like animals, and have an aversion to being made uncomfortable when there is absolutely zero narrative need or function (which is why Lara killing a deer doesn't bother me as much).
If Aloy were alone in the wild, starving to death, then I'd have no hesitation slaying a digital pig.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
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