Agree with everything that’s been said so far. Only played for about an hour so still firmly in the hand-holding tutorial section but already a few things stand out. I’m playing on a Pro on a 4K TV with HDR and this game looks amazing. I know its hyperbole but this is easily the best looking game I’ve ever played on a console. The animation work on the environment and on the way Aloy moves is really good. When she’s walking through that tall grass and casually brushes it aside with her hand, I’m noticing these little touches a lot. I have not yet been able to hunt any dinos but I’ll second what @Chaplin pointed out that the “herd mechanic” or whatever is very cool. I like how in a group of different robots some are passive, some are playing the “lookout” role, others are like defenders or hunters. It’s got a very African Savannah vibe going. Anyway going to hopefully play some more tonight but so far I’m totally on-board with this.
Yeah, this game is strong on the little details that show developer love. Not sure about the combat yet, though. Melee is weak; I think I’ll only use it for stealth kills and finishing off downed enemies to save ammo.
I’m still shocked at how shitty Sony’s network is. How is it that I download games on Steam at 250mbps but can’t crack 20 on my PS4?
I’ve worked on software delivery for many years, and it’s pretty surprising how complex a thing it is.
Steam, for example, does a lot of fancy stuff client-side which most other services don’t do. They open up multiple connections, have backup connections to pick up the slack when other connections don’t work, etc. Their proprietary file system also breaks things up into much smaller download chunks which usually makes things far more efficient and faster to download.
Xbox and Windows 10 just introduced something similar last year, where they download from multiple connections so stronger connections can make up for weaker connections, which is resulted in huge improvements in download speeds. Sony doesn’t have this feature, which is why sometimes a pause/resume on PS4 can speed things up. On the resume it might get a faster connection with fewer hops.
The biggest advantage Steam has though are a ton of deals with local ISPs (especially Comcast) to locally host content right within the ISP servers so that it’s one hop away from customers instead of needing to exclusively rely on third-party content delivery networks. Valve being a private company enables them to take on costs for things like this.
Someone tell me the PS4 Pro has a higher field of view and I’ll go buy one tonight. My only complaint so far.
I might be able to let you know in a few more hours, since I’m downloading like it’s 1999. ;) I just got a bonus at work, so decided to splurge a bit and pick up a Pro in hopes that I can actually get some use out of a console (just need to figure out what to do with my old PS4 now).
@LMN8R, thanks for the info, that’s pretty interesting! Regardless of the reasons or difficulty, having to wait half a day or more for a game to download is absurd in this day and age, at least when the holdup is on the service provider side.
Where can I read more about this sort of thing?
Oh man, just started and damn does the view feel terrible. Probably weird since I’ve been playing Nioh a lot. It feels way too zoomed in behind her.
Yeah I felt the same way but once you get past the beginning it either gets better or you get used to it, after a few hours it doesn’t bother me anymore.
True, heh.
Well, the Amazon outage on the East Coast cost me delivery today, but that’s o.k.
The kid and I both played about 2 hours each tonight. He went ahead but I stayed to play around in one of the first main areas after you leave your “dad”.
Was enjoying it a bit at the start but the more I played, the more I enjoyed it and once the kid goes to bed, I’m staying up.
Love all the skills and upgrades. Used some proximity bombs to take out Striders and that was fun. Upgraded my bow quiver and a few other items. Gather pretty much everything I can. Found a few side quests and am working on those. Just want to spend as much time in each area as possible and then more open world exploring once I’m out of those starter areas…very happy so far. I wasn’t a Witcher fan much either…despite trying that game mutliple times.
Any non-spoilery things we should know before playing? Particularly around resource management, which reviews suggest is a bit obscure when you start out.
For the limited time I spent in game (maybe two hours tops) I would suggest not Bee lining to the goal on the first couple of quests. There’s a lot to see and do in the initial area. Explore!
I thought this was pretty amusing:
I got about an hour in last night and man it’s a beautiful game, even on the regular PS4. Have a great feeling about this game.
Maybe we need a spoiler thread. I would create one, but my threadcreating-fu is too weak.
I played about an hour also. Luckily they move the camera back after the initial tutorial bit! Really enjoying it so far. I wish the dialogue was a little better though. The lack of contractions is bothering me. I think the voice acting would sound better and more natural with that change. And the water effects are pretty poor in comparison to how amazing the rest of the game looks. Small complaints though as this is shaping up to be quite a game
I made one, feel free to leap in
This game, thus far, has continued to increase in quality as I’ve played it for a few hours. It starts out slow, and ramps up slow… but recently I’ve gotten to a point where I just realized that the overall world is immense, and I’ve explored a tiny little corner of it.
Without going into spoiler territory there’s one missable trophy for those of us who care about that kind of thing.