No. It’s not pronounced that way at all. Did you even play the same game as the rest of us?
[quote=“tomchick, post:17, topic:129887, full:true”]
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.[/quote]
Is every game set in a post-apocalypse automatically derivative? Even when the nature of the apocalypse is both original and absolutely fascinating, and the world it ends up creating is strange, wonderful, and really does not follow the Fallout template of videogame post-apocalypse. Or is any game with a father figure derivative, just because there exists an earlier game with a totally different father figure? Seriously, the characters and story beats of Rost and Joel have way more differences than similarities. And how dare a game use story quests as the mechanism for doling out a story!
It feels like you’re setting an impossible bar here, which could be applied to any piece of entertainment to brand it as derivative. Obviously by ignoring enough details, everything can be boiled down to one of a handful of worn out plots. But it’s the details that make the story!
It’s a similar thing with the character of Aloy. You’ve chosen to reduce her to “chick” and “bow”. It’s like saying that Franklin in GTA V is just another character that’s a “black” “criminal”. Or Geralt is just another “dude” with a “sword”. Technically true, but also totally meaningless. Aloy has a fascinating backstory, a very conflicted relationship with the world, and some really good dialogue (that somehow manages to be snarky exactly at the times when I as the player wanted that).
Maybe I will get this as I’m currently playing DragonAge III which is getting a bit tedious (nice graphics though). Need something less involved than changing the political system of the entire planet.
Well, let’s analyze this a bit.
Ok, so the reference to Katniss is, what, a bow? The fact that she’s a girl? Because there’s not a whole lot else beyond that. So it seems like any game where the weapon is a bow and the character is a girl is going to be derivative of the hunger games? That seems silly.
Likewise, the comparison to the Last of Us is equally shallow… some single guy raises a daughter? Wait, no, not really, since that wasn’t the realtionship in the Last of Us. Basically, guy + girl = Last of Us?
And Lara Croft? Because she’s a girl?
I think that if anything, the dismissal of this game’s story as derivative seems largely driven by the simple fact that the main character is a girl, and there aren’t many games where that’s the case. You basically just laid out the few examples of where it was the case previously, and said it’s derivative… but that ignores all the other stuff going on besides the fact that a girl is who is doing it.
It seems silly to really dive into the Eloy character to specifically point out how she’s totally different from the characters you listed. Her motivations are different from any of them. Her backstory is totally different from any of them. Literally the only thing that is the same is that she’s a girl with a bow.
In terms of what made the story interesting, for me at least, was the way the story itself unfolded. I was expecting a fairly standard end of the world scenario, and enjoyed learning how the world ended, and up until the end of the game I did not predict exactly what had happened. It was an interesting twist on the apocalypse that no other story had, as far as I know.
At first, I did not liked the character. But she won me over time. She is honest about his opinions, and own his opinions and have not problem with doubts about them. Is a imaginary human being, but it end being a solid one.
Is also a character that (I think) we never see really angry, or showing extreme behaviors (If I remember correctly). This may look bland, but I think is part of her character.
I remember crying in some points of the story. Is pretty tragic once you reveal all the details. And theres no cartoon evil versus cartoon good, is a very human story.
I remember thinking “Wow, this game has really good story”. But I guess the character is bland and the world could be seen as a combination of theme parks. Maybe?
I was actually really interested in Aloy’s tale and the world building itself was a lot of fun, I got sucked into the setting and the characters early and never felt like the thread was lost. The second half of the game’s main story is just a lot of amazing revelations one after another, and I loved every minute of it. Story in games isn’t very important to me, but sometimes I get really pulled into a narrative and this game was one of those times, to the point where even if the game hadn’t been fun I’d have seen it through, I think. Thankfully I didn’t have to make that call, and the gameplay was excellent.
Those of you trying to break down and analyze Tom’s criticism are probably wasting your time. Why? Because mental exhaustion at derivative material is a subjective problem, not an objective one. If Tom feels overwhelmed by these types of stories, that’s because of the games and movies he’s experienced in the last 5 years, which might be different than the ones you experienced, and because of his tolerance level, which might be different than yours.
The clue should come from the common critics’ refrain and posts in the Horizon thread: “I was sucked into this game despite being fatigued by open world games.” That’s not a rational process, and it should be no surprise that some other person failed to get sucked in. Sometimes the magic doesn’t happen.
I have no dog in this fight. I can just see people are going to struggle with this.
Three stars! This is an outrage! An outrage, I tell you!
Tom only “liked” the game! He wasn’t completely bowled over and stunned by the masterful execution of the true PS4 Pro savior! He’s an Xbot!
I was going to post something similar, but it looks like @TimJames has it covered.
My biggest example of this is the movie Yes Man, starring Jim Carrey. Like most critics, I thought it was a derivative movie with a cheesy message that I’d seen a million times before in other movies or tv shows. But a friend of mine watched that movie and it changed his whole life. He was really powerfully affected by that movie. It spoke to him in ways that no other message of that sort had before. He forced himself to turn into a Yes man, and started saying yes to the opportunities that came his way. And the movie had a profoundly positive effect on his life.
Having said all that, it’s still fun to try to figure out if Tom is insane or not.
What’s way more fun than that is sitting back and watching how many other people Tom drives insane. It would be way more fun if it had been a two star review, but we take what we can get.
I didn’t find the story very derivative, except superficially. I loved the introduction, and how the game elements got introduced by the story and how perfectly integrated everything was. It just felt right to me.
This was probably my absolute favorite thing about the game. As somebody who is invariably annoyed every time a story introduces an AI (or typically anything with computers and hacking) I loved how they explained everything. They started off with Robot Dinosaurs and other mechanical animals, something that should be nearly impossible to rationalize, and sold me on it. A considerable amount of this is hidden in logs and notes scattered throughout the world, so it’s easy to miss. Almost every objection I had to the story’s ridiculousness had a set of entries that explained how it happened in a plausible fashion.
Even hard sci fi novels fail this for me most of the, so to be that satisfied from a game was an amazing experience for me.
Is Tom trying to make some type of joke here? It’s not pronounced eh loy or E-loy, it’s clearly A-loy.Is that the problem? That the A shouldn’t be long? But then why the E? I realize explaining the joke kills it but whoosh, clearly it went over my head.
[quote=“tomchick, post:1, topic:129887, full:true”]
This is the game you play after you’ve finished The Witcher 3, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, and Far Cry: Primal. It is the greatest hits compilation of open-world games. Yeah, sure, you might want to own it, but the real connoisseur has the original albums.[/quote]
Ok, now you are just trying to troll me
It’s a good idea not to forget this of course, but we are after all posting on a gaming forum. Arguing about games is close to the point.
Yes, clearly that’s exactly what I’m saying.
So if I want to play a really amazing open world game, should I buy this or Red Dead Redemption? Or the Polish version of Witcher 3? I know what the review said, but the audience seems restless.
I wasn’t replying to you.
I’m lamenting the fact that we haven’t had that kind of post yet.
Both of those games are better. The thing about Horizon is that it’s visually stunning.
I found the gameplay of HZD to be much better than RDR.
Your guess is as good as mine. That’s why I asked what game he played…
I’m with you 100 percent on this Tom.
The writing is incredibly derivative. Ok, so the core concept of dino-robots is cool, but that’s setting, not writing. The story itself could is so derivative that I can’t do much more than stare incredulously when someone claims that it took their breath away.
To make matters worse, the yawn-worthy writing is presented as something to provide alternative to the constant robo-killing.Ah, yes – sitting around, listening to mediocre dialogue. What a vacation!