Topic: Push Square Game Club Spooktacular: Resident Evil 4

Have to say I've only used fast travel once, just to get from meridean to the dlc area. No idea that there was a golden fast travel bundle though! Have got back up to speed with the combat and had forgot how good the machine combat was (and by extension, how pants fighting humans is). Progress wise, I have finished the frostclaw encounter and am ready for the for the Werek challenge . The game looks really nice and is smooth but would look even better if there was a 60 fps patch. Only thing that's throwing me that I had not noticed before is that rapid firing my carja war bow, the animation looks like Buddy the elf throwing snow balls 😂

Took care of the Tallneck so that’s done at least! Gone into the ruins thingy now as part of the Waterlogged quest. Really like the environment so far. Glad there’s plenty machines to fight because oh man, I forgot just how much of a colossal difference there was between how good the machine fights are and how unbelievably terrible the human fights are.

Did they really have to have the bandit camp and hunting grounds part of the main story 😂😂

@nessisonett
You can skip one of them, I left out the hunting grounds.

@nessisonett pretty much my thoughts too! I actually posted that in gaming peeves thread as a think dlcs. For the bandit camp, find yourself a murder bush to hide in and watch people ignore the pile of corpses as you whistle them over one at a time to their death!

The hunting grounds in frozen wilds had one of the best challenges IIRC.

@Octane tbh anything in that game that involves any machine combat is brilliant. I have only done one of the hunting challenge for frozen wilds but I remember the thunderjaw one in the final hunting ground of the main game to be one of the best things in that game.

@R1spam I liked how it was visually different from the others. I wish the sequel would do more of that. Some machines with arrows and/or spears stuck into them.

Beat the bandit camp there. Not fun. The flamethrower’s good though. It’s just amazing how absolutely rubbish the combat against people is. The machine combat has never been better with the added control towers and variants of existing machines. Whereas the bandits just do 400 damage with one hit to make it ‘difficult’.

@nessisonett for the sequel human combat either needs overhauled or removed. I I have finished the main quest for the expansion and loved the final mission, would be good to see what others think of it. I'm not sure I'll do all the side-quests yet, though I might head back to the hunting grounds for the last two trials.

I finished the main quest and a couple of the side quests, I enjoyed the story telling, some good characters in there. Hope to see some of them in HZD2. The boss battles were a fun challenge as well.

I had five fast travel packs from my previous run and used one to get to the dlc area. Can’t say I really feel the need to fast travel when you are doing the main story line or side quests. The world feels interesting and small enough to travel from point to point. It took me a while to get back up to speed with the combat and the aggression of the machines but when it finally clicked it was wonderfull again. I’m really impressed by the beautiful vistas and music, even on the base PS4. Can’t wait for Forbidden West (or to find a PS5...)

I beat the main quest of The Frozen Wilds there. It was pretty good imo, even if it kinda flew by. There were what, 5 main quests? It’s a great area and the new machines are good fun, even if two are just reskins of each other. I wish there was a bit more new music around The Cut and that they’d just dump the janky parkour but other than that, it was a good DLC. Other than the aforementioned janky parkour. God, the cauldron was a chore.

@nessisonett Yeah, so there's a separate soundtrack album for The Frozen Wilds (23 tracks, running to a little over 48 minutes) and for the life of me, I've no idea why. My inner cynic wants to suggest that it was thrown together from the main game's offcuts. It doesn't distinguish itself in the slightest.

@RogerRoger It’s a shame because the setting was unique enough to warrant different music. It would have gone a long way to making the Banuk stand out as really being like a different world, with their own traditions distinct from the other tribes.

Yeah I've finished up, I did a couple of errand missions to upgrade weapons and the three hunters side mission after the main mission, which finished in one of the most beautiful area I've seen in any game! It was filled with sort of giant causeway-esque rock formations with ponds, shame about all the robots trying to kill me! Have to say as beautiful as some of the scenery was and as awesome as some of the robot fights were, the dlc was a bit underwhelming compared to the base game. I'm not sure I used any of the new skills from the dlc at all, I can't even tell you what they were. Hope they were saving their powder for forbidden west!

I hope y'all discovered the last great band on earth, Concrete Beach Party in the flooded dam. Little backstories like that is why I loved HZD so much.

@nessisonett Agreed. I mean, if you listen to the tracks in isolation, you can tell that they're playing a different tune and using slightly different components, but it's far too subtle to notice during gameplay. I'm not criticising the music of the game in the slightest (it's beautiful work regardless) but it definitely blends together when it doesn't have your undivided attention.

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@R1spam I know the area you're talking about, and think it's roughly where I finished up the DLC (and therefore the game) last time as well.

I'm sure Forbidden West will feel a little more evolutionary, at least in gameplay terms. I think a lot of major expansions, particularly those belonging to blockbuster crowd-pleasers, deliberately play it safe and deliver more of the same. It must be a tricky balance for developers to get right; you've got an audience (and likely a publisher) demanding content, and you've got to make it quickly, but you're also wanting to save some fresh ideas for your sequel. For my money, between the base game and The Frozen Wilds, I think they've done enough to earn a Forbidden West pre-order from me.

Congratulations to all who've managed to beat this over the past couple weeks!

I had to force myself to stop playing Returnal, which is why I finally started Frozen Wilds.

1) The game isn't as impressive looking as I remembered it. Games like God of War and Red Dead have raised the bar. Still looks great, but it does come with a lot of pop-in and blur.

2) It's really hard going back to 30FPS after playing so many 60FPS games on my PS5: Spider-Man, Control, God of War, Returnal, Astro Bot.

3) Fights are difficult. But in a good way. It took a while for me to "get it" again, and I'm probably still not even close to my skill level from my previous playthrough.

4) These new robots? They are boss battles all by themselves. I'm very worried about my arrows and resources, because I'm burning through them hard. Should I worry?

5) Very excited about the location and the Banuk. Also liked the idea of having to find the walker (is that how they're called?) parts, instead of just climbing them.

6) Aside from what I said about the graphics not impressing too much, I should not forget to mention that the art direction of this game is brilliant. Everything, from characters to the monsters to the world has a bit of magic to it.

• Still love the game's music!

Two questions to veterans:

• What's your most efficient way to kill robots? I'm using up quite a bit of arrows each time, even though I'm going for their weaknesses.
• Can someone explain Silens to me? I just seen to have forget most details surrounding his character. Main game spoilers allowed of course.

I finished the main story line as well and did most of the side quests. I especially liked the one in the flooded dam (Concrete Beach Party rocks🤘🏼) Overall it was great to revisit Horizon one last time. They did a good job on the quest variety and difficulty. The boss fights forced me to use every resource and trick in the book. Maybe it was a bit more of the same compared to Zero Dawn but for me it felt different enough.