Horizon Zero Dawn

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Horizon Zero Dawn

Post by Twiztid Elf »

Looks like we've got a winner on our hands. Getting 9's across the board.
It's one I've been excited about since it was revealed, so it's good to see it's turned out awesome.

Dammit Sony! You release this two days before Switch/Zelda drop?

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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

Post by Rorschach »

Day 1. PS4 is absolutely killing it at the moment. This, plus Yakuza 0, Nioh and Persona 5 will see me comfortably through to the end of the year.
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

Post by GeneraL CyberFunK »

I have a $30 JB voucher.. Horizon will be purchased with that.
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

Post by t0mby »

I lost my $30 JB voucher at the gym so no game this month.
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

Post by GameHED »

I like the idea behind it. Reminds me so much of zoids mixed with Far Cry Primal. Ubisoft should sue sony for copying their ideas.

Giantbomb, candy's fave anti-nintendo website gave it a 10/10 (5 stars)
http://www.giantbomb.com/reviews/horizo ... /1900-759/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

:allbow:
Horizon: Zero Dawn is, more or less, an entire game based around Arthur C. Clarke's third law, which states that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." What would happen if only one person had the world at her fingertips? If only one person had access to a smart phone and the entirety of the internet, what advantages might that give them over their peers? Replace "smart phone" with "networked augmented reality device," set things in a tribal world where anything the world's inhabitants don't understand is likely to be worshiped as a god, and you've got the basic setup for Guerrilla's thrilling new game.

That tribal world is Earth, in a far-flung future where tribal society is the order of the day. Hunters hunt with bows and spears, but in addition to boars, turkeys, and rabbits, deadly, animal-like machines also roam the landscape. Metal ruins of the old world lie below. This is where players enter the picture as a young girl named Aloy. As a child, Aloy falls into one of these forbidden ruins and finds a "focus," the aforementioned augmented reality device. Suddenly, there's a whole new layer to her world. She can extract data from computers, detect broadcasts, and analyze her environment in a "Batman detective vision" sort of way. This ends up making Aloy far more deadly with her bow, spear, and other weapons, too.

It also means that Aloy's story progresses along two branches. At first, she's the tribal outcast, attempting to gain favor in her small community and avenge the death of her caretaker. But as she ventures further and further away from her old village, she begins working with and against numerous other factions. The focus attached to her face also means that she's quickly thrust into quests that get her closer and closer to the truth behind the nature of the world itself. Why are they there? What happened to the ancient humans that came before her? Where the hell did all these vicious machines come from? Who made them? Who continues to make them? What do they want? The surface level "this faction of this tribe wants to take the city from this other faction" stuff is fine, but once the game starts making good on its initial setup and letting you peek behind the curtain, the story shifts into a higher gear. It's a fantastic science fiction tale that expertly hangs the next piece of information just out of reach without feeling like it's stretching its information out too thinly. I thought the game was coming to an end around two-thirds of the way through, only to discover that there were multiple hours of mainline gameplay left to experience and additional answers to seek.

By the end, Horizon comes to a satisfying conclusion in a way that left me feeling like they should probably never make a sequel. It's a near-perfect story that creates a world and also provides meaningful answers about said world. Not to soapbox about it, but games don't do that often enough anymore. The events of Horizon have weight and the game feels less like franchise building and more like a cohesive statement. Of course, the developers couldn't help but leave in one little bit that hints about what might happen if and when they decide to make another one, which I found to be a little unfortunate. But I guess that's business.

Zero Dawn is structured quite a bit like the recent Far Cry games. You'll level up, gain new abilities by slapping points onto a skill tree, and hunt for crafting materials that let you hold more things in your inventory. You'll happen upon a handful of bandit camps, tag enemies, and try to prevent them from setting off an alarm if you're spotted. You'll climb a few things to reveal objectives on the map, but the game manages to craft a decent take on that concept that doesn't overstay its welcome. The stealth is satisfying, though some of the options you get to handle enemies can be a little game-breaking. For example, hiding in tall grass means you're effectively invisible, provided you haven't already been spotted. Early on, you can choose an ability that lets you whistle. It only ever alerts a single enemy, and that enemy comes right over to you, where you can take them out (unless they're one of the larger machines or armored humans) with a "silent strike." That doesn't alert the other enemies, usually, so you can do it again and again, clearing out entire areas with zero risk.

Open combat is more exciting, but it can also be slightly clunky. You always have a spear, which has a light and heavy attack. After some upgrades, a couple of heavy strikes will knock an enemy over, letting you jab them with a critical strike. The ranged combat is a bit more varied, though I never felt the need to use some of the fancier weapons, like a ropecaster that lets you strap enemies down, effectively knocking them over the same way your heavy melee strikes can. Or the tripcaster, which lets you set traps for enemies. The weapons work as advertised, but the different bows and arrow types always felt like the star of the show to me.

Fighting machines, especially bigger ones, gets easier if you pay attention to an enemy's weak points. You can knock off armor pieces and components as you fight, so disabling a stalker's stealth generator will make it unable to become cloaked. Knocking the gun off the top of a big cat machine means it can't shoot at you, and so on. There are lots of bits to chip off of larger enemies, and reducing their effectiveness is a great way to survive the larger fights. You'll have elemental arrows to exploit specific weaknesses, and a type of damage called "tear" is specifically designed to help you strip the machines clean before you start moving in for the kill. This leads to a few cheap moments where you can Skyrim-hop your way up the side of a mountain, where a machine can't follow, then patiently strip off every single piece from complete safety. But, by and large, it's an exciting system that makes every shot count and ratchets up tension in the bigger fights. Of course, if fighting isn't your thing you can reduce the number of encounters by learning how to override the machines, which tames them and makes them aggressive toward your enemies. Or you could always fire corruption arrows to confuse them into attacking each other... point being, the game has some nice options that'll let you play the encounters a few different ways.

The overall story is solid, but the moment-to-moment dialogue is also quite good. Even some of the smaller quests get their own fascinating twists and turns, and characters often defy expectations in welcome ways. Aloy is well-voiced as a character caught between worlds, someone who has to try to explain advanced technology to a bunch of religious zealots who think she's either the second coming or a demon herself. It all makes for a really refreshing experience that zigged when I assumed it would definitely zag on a few different occasions. That said, it's worth noting that a lot of the lip-syncing in cutscenes is remarkably off. In a game with such fantastic visual design, one that pays such close attention to tiny details, this sticks out more than it would otherwise.

Horizon: Zero Dawn is familiar but also really refreshing. It's not a short game (I spent around 30 hours with it), but the storytelling still feels concise and efficient. The combat has some nice options that make encounters fun, even when you're just stacking up stealth kills from the relative safety of a bush. And the presentation end of the game holds up its end of things with a solid soundtrack, great voice acting, and a cohesive design that makes all its disparate parts fit together. All in all, it's a great game, it's Guerrilla's strongest release to date, and I suspect I'll go back in after the fact to clean up whatever side quests and errands I have remaining, if only to spend a little more time in that world.
note to candy arse:
by Jeff Gerstmann on February 20, 2017
:unbiased:
proof that PC gaming is even more doomed since it is not on steam. Not available for the keyboard tapper crowd :(

Darpa is already creating those things in the game BTW. So maybe Sony is trying to warn us of what the future holds?
only a matter of time before giant versions of it is made and we have our first AT-AT. And while I'm at it: Hurry up with those realistic sex robots, japan. Americans have already built the robots from all the robot animes. You are being left behind.
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

Post by Candy Arse »

CrackHED logic - PC gaming is doomed because of a PS4 exclusive game.

Except console-exclusive games have been around for decades, and gaming on PC has only gotten better and better and better, to the point where it's now the best way to experience games, more user-friendly than ever before and cost effective.

Keep ruining your own arguments, CrackHED :lol: :fight: :lol:
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

Post by Rorschach »

I'll be getting the digital copy only because it's the same price as the physical copy. Hell, even the digital deluxe version is reasonably priced for a change.
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

Post by GeneraL CyberFunK »

I've definitely warmed to the idea of digital in recent times.. Partly because I am trying to sell all my old stuff and also given that it's somewhat more convenient in terms of storage. With that said though.. downloading 64gig for a game is rather inconvenient.. especially when your connection to the Microsoft Store keeps dying.
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

Post by Rorschach »

With a good connection digital only is great. I just wish console digital wasn't a complete cash grab, I'd buy more games otherwise
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

Post by Cletus »

GeneraL CyberFunK wrote:I've definitely warmed to the idea of digital in recent times.. Partly because I am trying to sell all my old stuff and also given that it's somewhat more convenient in terms of storage. With that said though.. downloading 64gig for a game is rather inconvenient.. especially when your connection to the Microsoft Store keeps dying.
I get a bit miffed that they charge more than a store bought copy. Convenient yes, rip off - totally. (I guess it's the same as LIVE)
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

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Currently sitting on 88 metacritic score. I wasn't expecting it to score that high, I was predicting 7.5 ish, but good to see it doing well. I didn't have much interest in it to be honest but that's changing. Pro patch will available with a better frame rate, hopefully 60fps and not unlocked.
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

Post by Rorschach »

Just preordered a digital copy, preloads on the 26th. Way I read it the digital price will go up after release. Pumped now
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

Post by lestat »

flipswitch wrote:Currently sitting on 88 metacritic score. I wasn't expecting it to score that high, I was predicting 7.5 ish, but good to see it doing well. I didn't have much interest in it to be honest but that's changing. Pro patch will available with a better frame rate, hopefully 60fps and not unlocked.
SJW reviewers love it. I was expecting low 80s, the SJW themes gave it a +5 rating boost.
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

Post by Rorschach »

Heh, I LOL'd
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

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digital foundry analysis of the graphics:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digit ... e-analysis" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

SJW reviewers love it. I was expecting low 80s, the SJW themes gave it a +5 rating boost.
It's all up to generation Z to fight the millenials imo. Hopefully we gen X'ers can undo the damage these idiots are doing to gaming as a hobby. We can't allow the likes of Ben Kuchara to dictate what is and isn't acceptable in games. This is why games will get discriminated again in future if they don't hold a politically correct view of the world. If someone makes a Duke Nukem sequel and hires a comedian to write the funny dialogue and the gameplay is a fun as Doom remake, you can bet these guys at polygon will automatically give it lower scrores than others. (just because you play as a masculine white male)

Meanwhile horse rape can be in the latest japanese Berserk game and nobody complains that asians are promoting bestiality to little kids because white men didn't create the game.
Torture is ok though in GTA5 because it's a man getting beat en up, (violence against men is fine) but hookers can't be run over by cars? "Ban the game from Target!" lol

We got to question the logic of these crazies and make fun of them everyday until they are embarassed to be associated with the SJW crowd. Technology has allowed them to promote communistic values and collectivist attitude to how society should be run. (ie the needs of the group outweight the needs of individuals freedoms)

To reverse the damage we got to get generation Z (the pewdiepie fans) to watch stefen molynuex vids and encourage them to challenge the brainwashed baby boomer college professor to open debates. (that is if they want to preserve freedoms - if they don't care then let them join the bad guys and watch their civilisation collapse as muslims outbreed them and kill them once the muslims know they have leverage over the nation and turn it into a third world shithole with warring factions bombing each other in suicide revenge killings like the middle east)

If we can expose the ugliness of SJWs and other thought control freaks (radfems infiltrating male spaces and pretending to be real gamers) then they will lose legitamcy and be forced to go underground again. (making them ashamed to be openly SJW due to peer pressure) The baby boomer generation is obviously using the millenials as tools to rape other generations by giving them a voice. And you can tell these celebrities have been offered a lot of money to kill masculine role models to boys in order to keep welfare programs going for as long as they can so that people become dependent on politicians to think for them rather than take control of their own destiny. This is what the reptilians fear. They do not want strong independent thinking people. David Icke has been warning about that shit for ages. They want robots the just do as they are ordered to do by the government and corporations (two rival gangs fighting for control over your mind but both part of the two winged dragon) and not ask any questions.
If we can get kids to focus all their energy into fighting the central banking system which lets older generations to enslave future unborn generations through perpetual debt, then we can finally start to live a 'star trek' future and not a 'mad max' future where the deprived are forced to kill others just to live instead of being self-sufficient and independent and strong. This is how the satanists create a divide and conquer world where one side is told to get angry at those that are not poor and deprived like them and so the only solution is to kill and destroy and steal from the ones that are not poor and suffering. The true solution is helping these poor nations to stop listening to satanists/pedophiles and falling for the trap of taking their money off them (wealth that doesn't exist in reality) and using it to kill other peaceful people in order to live. (constant conflict/wars creates engineered chaos that lets the NWO bring dictatorial control and "order" to the land which gives them power to boss the nations into doing their bidding.)

If you want to live you must free yourself from evil first, (stop taking their fake money and agreeing to pay them back in real goods and services which is making them insanely rich) THEN you can have peace and prosperity. There is enough power to kill everyone on earth several times over. The potential to be rich and powerful is there but you are being told to kill other people to obtain independence so satanists can create division. It's an old tactic still being used everyday. Luckily people are waking up and realising that the fake race war is just Soros trying to waaken the christian nations. I suspect the mainstream media knows this which is why they are trying HARD to censor the internet much like they do in china starting with social media so charismatic and genuinely smart and funny people can't even use twitter unless they are pro-political correct in speech. Alternatives to the existing social media platforms is the oslution to this monpoly on social media. (fact is this is seen by the dino media as a threat so they censor german rapes, milo, demonise alex jones who isn't necessarily anti-left wing but just anti-globalist, and gamergate. (see the episode of CSI SVU where pro-gamergate are portrayed as bad guys for example)
The reptilians are laughing at us for repeating the same mistakes and not learning but just repeating the same pattern.
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

Post by Ambrose Burnside »

I think I'm close to jumping on board this gen with the PS4. Would be my first Sony console since the PS2 and PSP :lol:

More powerful, more exclusives. It's compelling.
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

Post by Candy Arse »

Hearing Jeff talk about it on the Bombcast today - I'm completely sold. This might be my excuse to upgrade to a PS4 Pro as I'll be doing the 4K upgrade of my PC this year too.
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

Post by F for Fake »

This look good. Just the sort of title I'm used to missing out on as a PC gamer. It's been awhile.
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

Post by Rorschach »

Preloading right now for digital owners. Nearly finished, available tomorrow night to play. Day before the physical copy.
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

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I'm playing it on regular PS4. I just hope it doesn't crap out on me. First gen hardware ftw.

$79 target is what I'm price matching.
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

Post by Rorschach »

Grab the digital copy, still only $79 and you get to play it a day early. From what I can tell the price for digital will go up after launch. That said, if you have an awful internet connection I would stick with Target.
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

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A day early, as in tomorrow?
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Doesn't say anything about a day early.


Forgot about what I said about Target. Big W has it for $69.

http://press-start.com.au/bargain-guide ... zero-dawn/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

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My download clock says tomorrow night, roughly 9:00pm
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

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Big W just came in the letter box now. Looks like I'm going physical now. :).
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Re: Horizon Zero Dawn

Post by Jasper »

Haven't y'all heard the news? Horizon is a Legend of Zelda wannabe, that according to game critics FAILS to match the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild... :cry:
Having just completed it, we couldn’t help but think of Horizon Zero Dawn while playing Breath Of The Wild, and how simplistic it now seems compared to Zelda.

You also have a bow in Breath Of The Wild, but you have to account for how arrows arc through the air, rather than it just acting like a low-tech sniper rifle. Boomerangs have to be caught manually on their return and the best way to defeat the skeletons that appear at night is to chop off their head and punt it into a river, like a goalkeeper trying to make a clearance.

Nintendo has talked about how they went back to the very first NES game for inspiration, which sounds like hyperbole given the technology gulf between 1986 and now. But actually, the comparisons are entirely valid.

You always expect a Zelda game to be good, but the attention to detail and willingness to innovate in Breath Of The Wild is well beyond our expectations.

We’re doing our best to find faults here but the truth is we’re hugely impressed. We already know some things we can’t talk about here, and other secrets that have been hinted to us by Nintendo. At this stage we’d shocked if this didn’t turn out to be the best Zelda since Ocarina Of Time. It may even surpass it, and since many still regard that as the best video game ever made it becomes almost impossible to overstate just how good Breath Of The Wild is.

http://metro.co.uk/2017/02/24/the-legen ... r-6470487/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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