Horizon: Zero Dawn is far better than it should be, given that it’s the developer’s Guerilla Games’ first time making an open-world game. Previously, Sony has shackled these guys to whatever Playstation is currently missing its Halo. Hence the long line of Playstation-exclusive Killzones. But it’s clear from playing Horizon that Guerilla has done their homework, studying what it takes to make an open-world work.
And then they apparently dropped out of class.
Interestingly, Horizon’s “Narrative Director” is John Gonzalez, who was the Lead Writer of Fallout: New Vegas. There’s a separate team of writers and writing lead for Horizon, though.
Edit: Gonzalez was Lead Writer of Horizon for most of its development.
Man, I really, really disagree with you. Eloy’s introduction was so powerful and intense during the tutorial, that my GF almost choked up several places , just from seeing me playing the game. I have to admit, I found it quietly unsettlingly poweful as well, and was kinda sad that we had to leave the childhood behind so soon.
I see Eloy as a real person - Someone who was taught from the beginning what was right and what was wrong, and if you see something wrong, you go fix it. Thats the kind of person that shines through every single action and stance in the game.
Its easy to see that the developers had ideas for more in the game (Throw rock, don’t throw rock) that didn’t get implemented, but this isn’t neccesarily a bad thing - A more focused and narrow desing leads to greater and more fluid gameplay without too many systems.
The inventory is bonkers, and should have been allowed out the way it is, but thats the biggest negative on this game.
The story is incredibly interesting, mostly because the whole world reverberates with it, and its sown thorughout every single little thing you see. Its like the developers took an idea and asked themselves - how can we implement this in every aspect of our game? And thats the way to do gamedesign!
Its probably one of finest games I’ve played in years, and thats both in gameplay, sheer awesomness of its world, combat (its soooo fluid and good) and amazing graphics. I haven’t seen a game ever look as good as this. Hell, there is a thread full of photomode pictures over at…reddit or some other place that is simply incredible to go through.
I feel kinda sad now @tomchick , that your experience with the game left you with feeling that only generated 3 stars in your heart.
They really missed an opportunity with the colon placement. It totally should have been Horizon Zero: Dawn. Then you could have Horizon Zero: Day, and Horizon Zero: Night. You could even go more granular with Horizon Zero: Dusk, Horizon Zero: Midnight, and Horizon Zero: Around Tea Time. Eventually you could move on to Horizons One, Two, Three, and so on.
Seriously, though, I’d be curious why you guys liked the story. I guess there is already a whole long thread about the game and you guys have been talking about it in there. I could just duck in there.
I think Tom got it just right. I had passable enough fun bopping around for a dozen odd hours, the robots were cool, but then rapidly starting wishing I was playing almost any other AAA open world game.
The facial animation was shockingly bad for a game of this visual caliber. Also the weather transitions had no chill. It was like BAM now it’s raining BAM now it’s night.
I liked the story because there was a big central science fiction mystery about how this crazy world came to be the way it was, which was fully resolved in a single game, did not play at all the way I expected it to, and that was doled out at a perfect pace. And it was even a coherent story! Every time I thought “wait, this makes no sense” about the world building, the seeming plot hole got explained in the next 1-2 main story segments.
I don’t know where your hostility to the stories in the side quests is coming from. The obvious criticism for them is that none of them are very interesting mechanically, but enough them have good enough stories that they were worth doing anyway. One part I loved about it is how they recorded multiple versions of dialogue (and even custom animations) so that conversations you have during side quests reflect the changes in the world state from the main quests.
You call it the story “blatantly derivative”. Maybe it, but I have no idea of what that source material could be, despite consuming tons science fiction. Would genuinely love to know what it is, so that I can get more of this.
I also loved Aloy as a protagonist, and dismissing her up as the “latest chick action hero with a bow” is just insane (unless you were mainly going for the pun there).
Well, there’s this from the review: “Katniss “Brave” Croft will be playing your Ellie in this post-apocalypse. She has been raised by a Viking caveman Joel.” Then the paragraph following. I am honestly surprised that someone wouldn’t see how Horizon is derivative. And that’s without getting into spoilers about the standard issue rogue AI stuff eventually folded into the plot.
Uh, okay, I guess that makes me insane. Do I get to call you names now?
I agree with Tom, for the most part. I thought the first 6-8 hours of the game were great, but then it kept hitting me over the head with terrible dialogue and same-mess. I eventually lost my will to go on at the 16-18 hour mark. I’ll probably return to it soon, but I had to get away for a while. From what I’ve seen, I also would give it 3/5 stars.
