Horizon: Zero Dawn [PS4]

V F said:
I despise if you run too far the AI will reset or stop chasing you then reset. As if there is an AI boundary.
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Yes - this is prevalent if you use terrain to get a good position from a higher elevation. Seems clear the devs wanted you to go toe to toe rather than hide in rocks and ambush their robots!! :p
 
What I was trying to do was lure them and get 8 - 10 big machines into a full blown battle.

Imagine if it was possible. A ton of tramplers, 6 sawtooth and/or ravagers, a thunderjaw or two and a couple of stormbirds fighting them all in one area. Maybe thrown in with a behemoth or two. In between mighty explosions. Like Helms Deep.

It should have been harder. The beasts hound you down, face or die. Fight to the death. Imagine 3 - 6 Sawtooth and Ravagers always chasing you. They're machines after all. They don't tire.
 
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LOL! True. I think that is why they have those AI border zones. Imagine if we had this on the PS5 with no limitations.

Game developers can be infuriating. Even if that was all possible, they would cram in even more foliage and whatnot and still couldn't get mighty spectacular battles. Even if it was a PS6.

I want gigantic battles damnit! Real heart pounding sweaty palm stuff where the twitch isn't twitchy enough.
 
BuffetSlayer said:
Some fair comments, others not so.

Combat in witcher 3 is not as simple as you make out. Granted, a lot of combat is timing sword strikes and moving properly, but oils, decoctions, potions and spells have to be managed properly, as does your decision to fight in the first place. There are plenty of things you cant kill from the off until sufficiently levelled up.

I really dont think you can compare the level of detail in witcher towns and cities to that of HZD. It wins hands down, both in terms of attention to detail and overall believability. But I do accept your points on limited interaction with NPC's. A system more akin to GTAV would have been better!

I also agree the story elements can drag on a little and it suffers somewhat with pace. That said some story elements are outstanding as is the voice acting and script which suit the game perfectly, unlike HZD.

I never said Witcher 3 was perfect, far from it, but it does in my opinion have more depth than HZD overall.

Im not being harsh on HZD - just pointing out elements that I believe could have and arguably should have been done better.

HZD has a lot going for it, theres no doubting it is a cracking game. It runs a lot smoother than many games for a start! Its an interesting concept and the art direcion is good but I cant help feeling like Im playing farcry 4 with robots every time I play it.
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Frankly, I've spent quite a lot of time on W3 (finished the base game and both expansions, well, almost;p) and I don't really think the combat is anything more than basic. You just become too OP fairly quickly to even bother with concoctions and stuff. I ramped the game up to the highest difficulty after a while and it was mostly a cakewalk. I tested everything the combat has to offer in terms of tactics etc. but there was no point in using it all when you could plow through virtually anything in the game just using Quen from time to time and timing light strikes. I've recently started Dark Souls 3 and now that is a game where combat really requires attention and tactics. Hell, the tutorial boss was more epic and way more difficult than any boss from W3.

As for the story, it's occasionally nice but ultimately rather shallow for what it was hyped up to be, at least in the base game as Hearts of Stone is much more original.
Everything else e.g. graphics, the feel of the combat, animations and world (except the cities) go to Horizon IMO.

It's not that I didn't enjoy W3. It's just that its gameplay formula is really weak and repetitive for such a long game and it doesn't really help the story drags on so much and never really gets properly epic. Also, the game feels rather clunky when it comes to animations, horse riding, collision detection etc. I'd rate it 7/10 to 8/10 during better moments.
Were it not for some of the sidequests and hilarious moments I don't think it'd have much going for it as it doesn't excel in any particular regard except the amount of dialogue, occasional clever writing and a bunch of fairly interesting characters (mainly Lambert and Baron, the rest was rather forgettable).
 
V F said:
LOL! True. I think that is why they have those AI border zones. Imagine if we had this on the PS5 with no limitations.

Game developers can be infuriating. Even if that was all possible, they would cram in even more foliage and whatnot and still couldn't get mighty spectacular battles. Even if it was a PS6.

I want gigantic battles damnit! Real heart pounding sweaty palm stuff where the twitch isn't twitchy enough.
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Yes because graphics!!!!

Sex sells and the sexier the foliage, the more horny gamers gonna be! :p
 
BuffetSlayer said:
Im not being harsh on HZD - just pointing out elements that I believe could have and arguably should have been done better.

HZD has a lot going for it, theres no doubting it is a cracking game. It runs a lot smoother than many games for a start! Its an interesting concept and the art direcion is good but I cant help feeling like Im playing farcry 4 with robots every time I play it.
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HZD is the first game of a new IP from a developer used to making just above average shooters, to be fair you are being harsh on it. No doubt a sequel would have all the things you expect from that kind of game.
 
Peew971 said:
HZD is the first game of a new IP from a developer used to making just above average shooters, to be fair you are being harsh on it. No doubt a sequel would have all the things you expect from that kind of game.
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Yes and there are plenty of sources for reference on what works and what does not. Plenty of examples of gameplay elements as well as thriving believable towns and good scripts / voice acting. They robbed the skill tree, inventory and map straight from farcry so why not the caves from skyrim and the towns from unity / witcher 3? :)

It might be their first IP of this kind but they are a well established dev and clearly have the talent and skill to produce something spectacular.

I guess we will wait and see what the sequel brings :)
 
It wouldn't be possible to have everything. How the hell could the game run respectably if it had cities like Unity? Even Novigrad is a joke compared to Paris. And by the same token, why doesn't the Witcher do right everything an RPG should do right? Why don't its cities look like Unity's? Why doesn't it have the pacing of TLOU? There are plenty sources for reference:p It is a bit unfair, TBH. You can't always have everything.

Horizon is a very good first effort, they did a great job and the sequel will surely improve on it unless they **** up.
 
I think given they were working on a new IP that may or may not succeed, they most likely had a budget that limited what they could and couldn't put in the game. They had to do everything from scratch with no previous assets and no guarantee the game would be a success. Even if they had all your ideas for the game it was reasonable to leave stuff out and go back to it for a sequel. All your points would be fair if this was HZD2 but as it stands you are being harsh on them. But hey, still a great game ;)
 
Amatsubu said:
It wouldn't be possible to have everything. How the hell could the game run respectably if it had cities like Unity? Even Novigrad is a joke compared to Paris. And by the same token, why doesn't the Witcher do right everything an RPG should do right? Why don't its cities look like Unity's? Why doesn't it have the pacing of TLOU? There are plenty sources for reference:p It is a bit unfair, TBH. You can't always have everything.

Horizon is a very good first effort, they did a great job and the sequel will surely improve on it unless they **** up.
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See now you are throwing in well reasoned thoughts into my high expectations!! :p

I agree it's never going to be possible to have everything. Just dont get how they can get so much right and so much wrong. But its horses for courses I guess and maybe their vision simply differs from mine.
 
BuffetSlayer said:
See now you are throwing in well reasoned thoughts into my high expectations!! :p

I agree it's never going to be possible to have everything. Just dont get how they can get so much right and so much wrong. But its horses for courses I guess and maybe their vision simply differs from mine.
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Touché!:D Seriously though, I'm rather happy with the game as I initially thought it might flop, it's not perfect but I think it has the potential to become a very good franchise.

V F said:
Never? I wonder what point in the future it can be in gaming.
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Frankly, it's hard to say. Games have surely gotten incredibly pretty and complex over the last decade but a world with a couple of cities the size and detail of Unity's Paris and a detailed landmass with great physics, animations and interactivity in between will be impossible for at least a couple of years IMO. It's not only about raw processing power of the hardware but also the sheer size of data required to achieve such a feat.
 
Who is constantly bringing up TLOU in these open world games conversations? They're not even the same kind of games! :confused:
I think a fair comparison for HZD is with Shadow of Mordor, maybe missing some features for some people but an in all a brilliant first entry. I'm even worried they end up adding too much pointless crap in Shadow of War.
 
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Amatsubu said:
Frankly, it's hard to say. Games have surely gotten incredibly pretty and complex over the last decade but a world with a couple of cities the size and detail of Unity's Paris and a detailed landmass with great physics, animations and interactivity in between will be impossible for at least a couple of years IMO. It's not only about raw processing power of the hardware but also the sheer size of data required to achieve such a feat.
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Mmm! Looks like a different kind of complexity.

 
Hmm, the Hunters Lodge timed trial events are quite fun. Just level 30 Ravagers and Thunderjaw to complete for Blazing Suns then off to the Hunters Lodge. Seems I've found another quest as well. Pretty cool there is always another place hidden away I've not visited. The guy who drinks the Sawtooth blood is creepy.

Loving how this game seems to be neverending.

The ShellWalker trial I thought was quite hard. One shell was on the ground on Very Hard. Had to blow them off their backs.
 
V F said:
The ShellWalker trial I thought was quite hard. One shell was on the ground on Very Hard. Had to blow them off their backs.
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I finished the entire game on the hardest difficulty and if I'm remembering the correct trial, there are two piles of three shells in that hunting area, not too far away from each other.
Look harder :)
 
I need to crack on and do a bit more story. Considering im about 35hrs in I have only just met Avad and am on his 1st quest. Lol.

Been exploring a lot and done all but 1 tallneck.

I havent even looked at lodges

In terms of ravagers I simply pop off one of their guns and mow them down with it. The ravager gun makes short work of most things. :)
 
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