When it got sidetracked by technical issues on using a bow. That was a weird tangent.
Whoah, I got here way late, look at all the replies. For what it’s worth, I think Tom’s prose in the review was a bit hard to follow in the first few paragraphs, but I found it very interesting otherwise. It clearly goes against all the gushing the Horizon Zero Dawn got in its thread on the board, as I can also see from all the replies above.
Totally agree with the review. It takes design decisions from so many games and leaves them literally at the surface. Also the story is just an extremely out of context bits put together. I mean from where does Joel come back to save her on the cliff. She falls 2 times from huge heights and still doesn’t die. It tries too hard to create emotion.
Also the world feels static if you noticed. I mean apart from the red grass, nothing really interacts with you… The grass doesn’t sway as you wade through it, neither does the rest of the foliage. They made a huge world and no deep water bodies to explore. Also futuristic tropes of the 80s “Lets put tubelights in everything to make it look futuristic”…
I myself gave it a 3/5 initially, and I dunno if you will have the same experience or not, but as I keep thinking more about the game, the rating goes down even more. Because most things don’t make sense.
For example- If Gaia was tasked with preserving human life and terraforming it, why did she decide to put T-rexes, Deers, bulls and ostriches in the same accessible world. Doesn’t make much sense to me. And yes as some sharp people like Yahtzee and Razorfist said, you can’t help but feel that the idea of robotic animals is working backwards.
She didn’t. This is explained in the game, but it’s perhaps easy to miss this aspect of the backstory.
19 years prior to the start of the game, when Gaia was destroyed, ALL of the subsystems had broken free of her control, and started acting autonomously. Not just Hades, but all of the different systems.
In the case of the more hostile animals, they are the product of Hephaestus. He’s not so interested in preserving humanity, and is more interested in creating his animals… so he’s been making them more and more aggressive and weaponized.
Right, plus it’s shown in one of the holograms in a main mission.
The main groups of animal robots were the devices Gaia produced to do the terraforming. So when you see them digging in the dirt or the giant birds flying around, they’re doing the services that are making the planet habitable again.
You should be ashamed to call yourself a games journalist. The article is poorly written, flawed and your points are just salty mixed with a lot of try-hard - you cannot even spell her name right; did you even play this game or just look at screenshots?
Yeah and she created the robots much before that. They only started going outta control (Or beserk, how the story describes it) 20 years ago. Prior to 20 years ago, none of the robots would have attacked Aloy as has been explained in the story, but they were present before that.
Faro Swarm is fine. #FakeNews
– SamJoes4584359367
Welcome to the forum!
QT3 is the best because it’s the only forum where your FIRST post can be “YOU SUCK SO MANY BALLS, TOM!”
We used to ask whether they just looked at the back of the box. But I guess there are no boxes anymore, and people don’t read either.
(Spoilers ahead for those who havent yet played it) Great article it is refreshing to hear a different opinion about such a great game, however there are a few things that seems to bother me, im not sure if youve completed the entire game but i would encourage you to do so if you havent i mean actually play it read every data you scan listen to horizons backstory, lots of stuff reveals itself once you take the time to scan the worlds data. The dialogue is lacking i will say that, but it seems like you bashed the game more than you gave it credit for its different approach on what we have in our heads as a open world game.
You seemed irritated by what defines as a post apocalyptic game now. Keep in mind though that the earth was barren wasteland once the faro robots consumed all life in it, it was only then years later something happened and gaia “booted up” and began executing its protocol, and that is to terraform the earth back to what it once was hence the vegetation. The game also explained how gaia was able to do so and that was through all the “robot dinosaurs” that now roam freely. Each one from whichever cauldron they were created in all serve a purpose.
The game also explains the “silly caveman stuff” and originally another ai(dont remember their names) was to teach the new human race about civilization, culture and yes technology and how not to recreate history, however in a critical juncture in aloys journey, as seen in the cutscene what happened to the team that were responsible for placing that in the ai’s memory core, resulting in their primitive state. This to me is important info i want to know why there are advance machinery yet, such primitive weapons i love that kind of info it makes for a more in depth play experience. I love finding out how the new race of humans are all clones designed to repopulate the earth and such, and how Aloys cloned dna is of sobeck’s to ensure project new dawns success.
This is a studio that all they know is creating fps for the major parts of playstation’s timeline, and to step out that comfort zone and had to rethink the way they make a game is a huge feat. Comparing it to juggernauts such as bioware and rockstar is a waste of time, rockstar redifined the definition of open world and the writing for witcher and mass effect is unmatched but these are companies that has had time to prefect their craft, and based on how horizon ended there’s definitely going to be a sequel that will further explain those mysteries signals and such. So i think horizon deserves way more than that personally.
Theres really a good science-fiction story below a pile of USB drives with sound pieces. And I enjoy it very well. But I think Tom opposed mostly the delivery (sound pieces) and somewhat the setting. I don’t find how your post question Tom article actually, @Gameratbirth.
You’re half right.
This is totally fair… I really enjoyed that story, but it’s valid that the fact it’s presented via little collectible objects, emails, and holograms make it potentially cumbersome to reach.
But I found it really compelling, to the extent that I actually cared WAY more about collecting that crap in this game, than any game previously.
It is an odd dynamic, as when I think about it, I guess in reality I actually didn’t care that much about the story that happened in the game… I cared about the BACKSTORY to the game. Which is weird.
I mean, it takes place like what, a thousand years later or whatever? How else would we be able to pick up the narrative of the “old world”?
Sure, it totally makes sense… but it’s still a weird thing that when I say I really like the story, I’m talking about the backstory rather than the events that unfold within the game itself.
Correct and HADES was acting out based by his programming, HADES task is like a giant CRTL+ALT+DEL kind of ai, basically he wipes it out so GAIA can start from scratch again should something happen to go wrong, however GAIA said something about her system was compromised or something like that and HADES (as he was programmed to do) sensed that and tried to taking over and gaia stopped him
You are correct, he did mention the setting one of which he was questioning how modern rpgs with a post apocalyptic setting is filled with greenery, as he had a few mentionables i am legend last of us etc…, and the primitive race as well. I was just merely explaining the backstory to these topics, and a few other things
I actually don’t mind the backstory being delivered the way it’s delivered in a game that’s working for me. But unless the game gets me invested, I’m not going to care about whatever bits and bobs are tucked into audio diaries and emails on computers and text logs conveniently sitting on desktops. In other words, hiding a good story underneath a bad story isn’t a viable way to expose me to that story.
I scooped up plenty of that stuff in Horizon – you can’t very well not collect a collectible, right? – but I doubt I read or listened to more than a quarter of it, if even that. I honestly couldn’t have cared less about why the robot dinosaurs were running around, how the rogue AI nonsense unfolded, what happened to the survivors in the various bunkers, or the ridiculous stuff with Elizabeth and the evil CEO dude. A story’s first job is to make me care about the main characters or the world. Failing that, I’m not going to get much further.
Metal Gear Solid V is a perfect example. In that game, I wanted to read the bits of text and listen to the tape. Kojima knows what he’s doing. Guerilla Games, on the other hand, pretty much lost me at hello.
-Tom