Horizon Zero Dawn

[Dicknose]

This deserves its own thread, especially since we have a late night owl who has stated already.
Anyway I'm off to the local mall to grab it.

[Jason]

I have a feeling I'll be picking this up after I'm done with Zelda :up:

[dodint]

Gonna grab it in April after the semester ends.

[Rare White Ape]

Yep. The unfortunate timing of this game's release has relegated it to an April purchase for me too :lol:

[Tom Servo]

Am I the only one that has this? I am continually blown away by how amazing it looks. The scenery, the facial expressions, the machines...just absolutely gobsmacked. So far really enjoying the gameplay - I'm doing better at the stealth than I normally do, I it's really fun setting up traps and then luring the idiot machines into them. I also like that it's got the "picking berries" and such like Skyrim did, only you actually need to do it and don't end up with a glut of crap you never use - you really need to collect things to keep ammo and health.

This is the most fun I've had with a non-racing/rhythm game in a long time.

[dodint]

This is the most fun I've had with a non-racing/rhythm game in a long time.

This is what I'm hoping for. :up:

[Dicknose]

I found it a bit harder to get into that Skyrim or Fallout.
I think the "follow the quests" is a bit forced at the start, you can't get out into the world till you do a few set pieces.
Also I'm not a 3rd person fan, so that's wearing me down a bit.
It does look great, resources are good, controls fairly easy.
I'm also finding stealth useful, probably because I'm weak and taking on tougher machines.

It's got a nice mix of skyrim open world, uncharted climbing and almost metal gear solid stealth.
I'm getting into it, just not as fast and deep as the Bethesda games.

[novicius]

I found it a bit harder to get into that Skyrim or Fallout.
I think the "follow the quests" is a bit forced at the start, you can't get out into the world till you do a few set pieces.
Also I'm not a 3rd person fan, so that's wearing me down a bit.
It does look great, resources are good, controls fairly easy.
All of these points could apply equally to The Witcher III. :|

[Tom Servo]

I am seeing a lot of comparisons between Horizon and The Witcher III, but I haven't played The Witcher myself.

Things were going so well up until I hit the Metal Ring and now I regularly have my ass handed to me. Hopefully I can get past this part sometime soon.

[Drachen596]

Supervisor at work played this. Got irritated when i asked how he liked Far Cry with Robot dinos.

He says its a great game and looks good even at 1080 or whatever PS4 runs it at.

[Dicknose]

Metal Ring I did a bit of stealth, then got spotted and just went to blow the target. That then lets others come to help, plus moves the save/restart point forward!

Had it snowing on me, when I was inside a building!

[Tom Servo]

Nice...I hit that point where dying set me so far back that I'm having to get myself amped to try it again.

Not helping that I'm all tired from gardening. Hooray for adulting.

[Tom Servo]

Thanks for the advice to just go for it on that one. Past that now, and finally realizing that my bow is massively underpowered at this point. Haven't been buying much, am suddenly realizing that I need to do a lot more of that.

[Dicknose]

Buy weapons and use mods to up the power.
If you can, save for shadow weapons, they have more types of ammo and usually more slots for mods.

Took down a couple of behemoths. Hardest bit was separating them so I only had to deal with one at a time.
Then it was a lot of "shoot arrows", move to new hiding place. Used some ropes, shock and other stuff. But the shoot a few, move, re-hide works well. Having a small creek in between us was good. It could cross it to attack me, but wouldn't cross it just to look for me.

[Tom Servo]

You folks are still way ahead of me. I just had to take down two Sawtooths and it took me damn near 45 minutes. Hitting that blaze canister on the underbelly was a pain in the ass, but it was impressive how much damage it did. I'm learning more and more that if it seems like I'm getting nowhere, it's just that I'm doing it wrong and need to start changing up my tactics. As part of that, I've only recently learned just how much fun it can be to target the Grazer right in the middle of the pack with a fire arrow right in the blaze canisters. Seeing a watcher running away on fire was a nice bonus.

That said, I saw a bunch of talk about how effective the ropecaster is. I have to admit I have not found that to be the case...I tried to take down one Sawtooth while I worked on the other and five ropes later, that asshole still killed me. Got to watch in slow motion as I died and all those ropes were doing nothing to him.

[Dicknose]

The ropecaster is better the bigger the opponent.
Sawtooth is probably not big enough!
Also the ropes snap if the target takes a lot of damage, so use it to pin them down and then either do a specific hit or move away to a safer place before attacking.

Don't fight anything tough on open ground. Getting trampled is bad!

[Tom Servo]

Just got through the first Cauldron - that Bellowback was really tough. 'Course, in that one, you don't seem to have much of a choice about fighting on open ground. It's just one big area with little tiny walls it can smash through.

[Jason]

Just started this up the other day, definitely like it so far! Only about 5 hours in. Notes:

- Game looks absolutely fantastic... BUT has the uncanny valley thing going since they tried to go for realism. In a way, I prefer having a more cartoonish style like BotW. That being said, the world, atmosphere, animals, robot dinos, etc all look amazing. The textures are killer and never stop failing to impress me.

- Stealth is handled really nicely so far, which I greatly appreciate. I like sneaking around in games. Also the bow/arrow is surprisingly handy early on. I also appreciate that weapons don't break or anything (side eyes BotW)

- Exploration is severely hampered compared to BotW due to the lack of free climbing, and no glider. But I do like that there's at least climbing paths, and also various quick ways to get down from higher elevations ('zip lining'). At least it's better than FFXV, where you can't climb at all other than like two spots in the entire map.

- Voice acting is really good so far, and general audio is handled nicely. I like that there are audio cues when you're sitting next to a herd of robots.

- I'm not very far in, but so far I like how health and items are handled.

So far I'm doing what I can in this opening area, collecting as much as I can, to make my life easier after I get out into the open world. It's how I usually do things in these sorts of games, which is why it generally takes me forever to 'complete' them :lol:

Open to any non-spoilery hints :)

[Jason]

This game is purdy, and has a neat photo mode:
http://i.imgur.com/RS6NeQS.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/EGLvKDi.jpg

[Jason]

I got to my first Tallneck, which was neat. I like that they are sort of like the towers in BotW. Hunting continues to be a lot of fun, but I'm nervous to fight humans again after my first encounter :lol: I've been doing a lot of farming to get upgrades that I can, and make sure I have a little bit of cash should I need it. Still missing the ability to free climb and glide from BotW, but I'm getting used to the more straight forward nature of this game. While there doesn't seem to be much in the way of puzzles, apparently you can set traps, which I haven't played with quite yet, since the 'ammo' is kinda expensive. Been sticking to sneak attacks for the vast majority of the game, with some bow/arrow action here and there.

[Rare White Ape]

Dude… I watched a video of someone playing a first person shooter this morning and every time they hopped off a ledge I was expecting them to do the gliding thing and it was frustrating that they didn't.

A frikkin FPS man.

It's going to take me years to get BotW's gliding and climbing out of my head.

[Jason]

One thing's for sure... the enemies are harder in this game than BotW. At least so far. Ran into a "Bellowback" for the first time yesterday, and boy can they fuck shit up quickly. Three of them, all with AoE Fire attacks? Woof. I was determined to figure them out though, so I lured one of them away, trapped it, and tried to hit weak spots as fast as possible, but at my current level I couldn't do enough damage before it broke free... so then I ran like hell, and sniped it a few more times. The payoff is not at all worth the effort, you can kill a bunch of easy Grazers for the same amount of Blaze. I assume I'll need a Bellowback 'heart' or something for a trade sometime, though.

[Tom Servo]

I'm still figuring the game out, but tearblast arrows are your friends for fucking up Bellowbacks.

[Rare White Ape]

You can't go wrong with HZD on sale for $39 at Target, which is a good price considering it's usually over $80.

But the sale starts tomorrow so I had to trick the staff at EB to price match it a day early. I'm glad their head office doesn't seem to circulate a weekly deals memo to keep their staff in the loop :lol:

[Rare White Ape]

I'm about 6.5 hours in, and I'm already making far too many Zelda comparisons. I've left the opening area and I'm now doing a bit of exploring along the trail to the next main quest, just taking my time. I found the first tallneck, but I was disappointed to see that there are only five more to unlock across the rest of the map. But climbing it is fun, and I love going for a ride on the top to scope out the terrain nearby.

The visuals are lovely, really great art direction. I just wish it was in 60fps, as the complex visuals (as in, more densely foliaged and gritty and detailed than BotW) tend to strain the eyes a bit in 30fps after a while. I'm also missing the wide-open sense of space found in BotW's Hyrule. So far there are no glorious vistas with nothing but distant landmarks and hints of adventure in them; at every turn it seems like there's yet another hill or ruin or village to break up the environment. And pathways everywhere! I guess it's a bit of a curse of open world games, where they have to cram what feels like 250 sq km of content in a landmass that's only 25 sq km, in order to keep the interest up and the memory requirements low.

And I miss the ability to climb everything and glide back down again :( But that's really a story for another time.

Aloy kind of annoys me with her forced sincerity and monotone voice, and she'll make useless comments about things just when the music pipes up or a machine calls out so you can't hear it. As for the story and the enticement to progress further, it just hasn't grabbed me yet. That's not to say that it won't, I'm working on it, but the hints toward the storyline of Aloy's parentage haven't got me to care enough about her yet. It's a game I can play for two hours, then turn off to go do something else without hesitation. BotW, on the other hand, I have to keep playing for five hours while I starve, miss my toilet breaks, and almost pee my pants when I realise I really need to go. Horizon reminds me a lot of FarCry 4, which is weird.

Probably the best part of the game so far are the dinosaur-like machines that prowl across the landscape. The design of them is incredible. They're engaging to interact with and very fun to take down with the bow. Best of all I love sneaking up to a watcher and turning it into an ally, then sending it off to cause mayhem within its former herd. I was a wee bit sad when the first one I reprogrammed came to its end. I had a moment with it. Goodbye little guy.

nev-R-4-get

http://scontent.fsyd3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/19055193_10155202650115792_205904660499799228_o.jp g?oh=923d40e432dbdeaeb695dbeffe9b1e92&oe=599C6894

[Jason]

I'm at 37 hours in so far, and I'm having so much fun overriding machines and letting them battle it out. So far it's worked every time, other than once, where I overrode a machine that got it's ass kicked and in the chaos, I was seen, and it was absolutely nuts :lol:

Excited to see what Corruption ammo does next :D

[Jason]

Re vistas, RWA, there's some later in the game, a desert area, vs forest/mountains. So while you can see some stuff out in the distance, it's still not like BotW. I think it's the trade off of having more detailed and lush graphics vs a simpler art style. Also, there's a lot more going on in HZD, enemies, ruins, etc around every corner, so I'm sure that doesn't help.

[Phil_SS]

http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/06/20/533617105/why-you-should-play-video-games

[Jason]

So.... just came across my first rockbreaker.... which was also corrupted. That was terrifying. Fucking robot Tremors! I was just chilling out near a fire by a river, and two of the big red bastards come out and start attacking Snapmaws, Shell Walkers, a Behemoth, a Ravager, and a couple Long Legs. Tore through all of them like they were nothing. Just gonna..... avoid those for now :lol:

[Rare White Ape]

Re vistas, RWA, there's some later in the game, a desert area, vs forest/mountains. So while you can see some stuff out in the distance, it's still not like BotW. I think it's the trade off of having more detailed and lush graphics vs a simpler art style. Also, there's a lot more going on in HZD, enemies, ruins, etc around every corner, so I'm sure that doesn't help.

Yeah, like my comments earlier about smooshing all that open world content into too small a space. One thing that I've seen pointed out a few times in games media is that one of the best things in BotW is its peaceful empty space. It has as much currency as an area full of things to do, and the same is true for Red Dead Redemption. It gives the player a chance to breathe, relax, and enjoy being in that world without having to constantly battle enemies or sneak past with their heart in their mouth. You can stroll along a lump of terrain for half a kilometer and not have any foes or secrets to uncover, and that's just fine.

I did find that open vista to peruse in quiet contemplation. I decided to ignore the quest and walk west as far as I could but ended up at a line of gates over a snowy mountain and a canyon. Sadly I'm prevented from passing unless I do more missions, and trying to walk off the edge of a steep path gives me the old "You shall not pass." Disappointing, but it looks very pretty.

[Jason]

I found another super pretty vista yesterday... so they definitely exist in the game. Just some areas are way more populated than others, largely associated with vegetation it seems. Which... makes sense in a way.

[Rare White Ape]

What the fuck is this tower?

http://scontent.fbne3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/fr/cp0/e15/q65/19417200_10155246488350792_8332059123691635695_o.j pg?efg=eyJpIjoidCJ9&oh=317aceac9881d5a218555c798c3fe0e0&oe=59D391B7

[Rare White Ape]

I was dicking around in the game the other day (I still don't know what that tower is) and took this really nice screenshot.

Holy heck the visuals are good. You'd need a lot of computer to push out a 4K image like this.

http://scontent.fbne3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/19577341_10155261045885792_1873397290049124147_o.j pg?oh=c2154b292b129a15dc1ea53ebee9ebcd&oe=59D9D31B

[Rare White Ape]

Watch this interaction that I had with a snapmaw just now!

I've seen them before but never dared to come this close. I was trying to find a way onto the tallneck, and dicing with the massive croc-like 'bots was the only way.

Tense!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O35RbUcjaQc

You'll have to excuse the watermark on the bottom of the video. I received a phone call at the worst moment, just as I was under its tail, and had to hit pause, requiring me to edit it out using a free editor.

[Rare White Ape]

I'm starting to get into the meaty part of the story and the game has really grown on me. Although, the problem with the story is that I find it extremely predictable (for instance, Aloy learned the truth about her heritage, but I pinned that down way back following The Proving when we woke up in All Mother Mountain), but on the flip side I have found the whole past history of the setting to be extremely fascinating. Part of me wants Guerilla to make a spinoff title devoted to this period, like an FPS or something, but it's too bad they've already got Killzone to tie them up in that department.

Another thing that provides endless thrills is the ability to override all the different machines. I found the 'hardest' cauldron first, so that I could override the toughest beasts, and found plenty of mirth in rallying and thunderjaw to my side and having it attack everything within a large radius. As Honest Game Trailers said, I could watch that shit all day.

[Rare White Ape]

Here's another screenshot which I think looks pretty boss.

http://scontent.fbne3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/20248147_10155345555445792_5309795466207043001_o.j pg?oh=da10ad4cf97e215d7c760002b9e9e0dc&oe=5A0F2F83

Almost every time you turn a corner there's some new crazy thing to look at.

[Tom Servo]

That looks like a movie poster.

[TheBenior]

I just bought this since it was $10 for Prime Day. The PS5 will probably be out by the time I get to play it.

[Jason]

Do yourself a favor and make some time, it's a fantastic game

[21Kid]

I should probably get around to this at some point

[Dicknose]

Enjoyable!

[TheBenior]

Do yourself a favor and make some time, it's a fantastic game

You're not the boss of me.

[Tom Servo]

Well, this is exciting news, can't wait to see this game on some way more powerful hardware...

https://kotaku.com/sources-horizon-zero-dawn-is-coming-to-pc-1841043569

[Blerpa]

I am definitely interested!