Post by Tonyborbony on Mar 2, 2017 2:08:11 GMT
Okay, so, I pre-ordered the collector's edition of the game, because I'm a sucker for statues and little art books. Well, the game came out today (technically yesterday since it's after midnight but shhh) and I got a box in the mail with my collector's edition.
For those who give a damn, here's an unboxing video:
So, right after filming that I popped the game in and played it for 6 hours straight, took a little break to eat dinner and join the PC Daily Playlist here and went back to playing for another 2 or 3 hours, I honestly don't remember. But here is a quick overview of the game and my first impressions.
Overview
So Horizon: Zero Dawn is an action RPG set in a post-apocalyptic world where technology and robotics have advanced to an incredible level, but some kind of calamity has caused human civilization to collapse. The remaining humans live in primitive tribes and robotic creatures pretty much rule the land. You play as a young woman (I'm guessing early 20s, not that it matters) named Aloy who's part of the Nora tribe. The Nora tribe has this punishment system where people who have done wrong are labeled as "outcast" and it's pretty much forbidden to speak to them or involve yourself with them. When Aloy was still an infant she was put under the care of an outcast named Rost, effectively making her an outcast as well. As the game begins you play as a 6 year old Aloy who falls into the ruins of the old human civilization. There she finds a little computer which she calls a "focus". This device gives her certain perceptive abilities such as seeing the path machines walk, information about machines and it gives her the ability to interact with the technology of the old civilization, or as they're called in the game "The Old Ones".
As time goes on, Aloy gets sick of being labeled an outcast and wishes to learn more about her mother, whom she knows nothing about. The problem is that she's not allowed to speak to anybody and nobody will speak to her. Rost tells her about a challenge called "The Proving". If she completes the challenge she'll become known as a Brave which effectively gets rid of her status as outcast and if she comes out on top of The Proving she earns the right to ask the matriarchs of the tribe a direct question or favor. Rost trains Aloy to fight, hunt, and survive to prepare her for The Proving.
First Impressions
This game reminds me a whole lot of Far Cry 4, except that it's third person and gunplay is nonexistent (so far). I really dig the atmosphere of the game and the graphics are excellent. It's just that the area reminds me a whole lot of the mountainous region Kyrat is in and also the resource gathering. To heal yourself you can craft healing potions or you can gather medicinal herbs which you store in a pouch. To craft bigger quivers and the like you also use different materials found on killed machines, resources obtained from animals like bones, meat and skin and things you find in the world.
To hunt down the machines Aloy has several weapons in her arsenal. Her main weapons are a bow and spear. The bow, obviously serves as her ranged weapon and the spear is a melee weapon as you don't have the option to chuck it. There are also other weapons such as trap wires and tripwires and slingshots.
There are three separate skill trees: Prowler, Brave and Forager which focus on stealth, combat and foraging respectively. The skill tree is fairly small but does unlock some awesome abilities as you progress.
The combat will mostly consist of you sneaking around in tall grass, picking off machines one by one and running when you get caught. More docile machines based on animals like deer and horses are easily startled and will likely run away when they hear/see you approach. Though they are also capable of doing some massive damage if they have to. Which is why I choose to be sneaky, because it's a giant pain in the ass when they gang up on you. It forces you to be smart about how you approach enemies to make sure they don't gang up on you.
The game will give you three different ways to respond to NPCs which are marked by a fist, heart or brain. They represent "mean", "nice" and "clever" responses respectively. I don't know (yet) if the choices you make during dialogues will actually affect the story but I'll find out in due time.
The map seems to be decently sized and the first 6 hours of my play through were spent in the beginning area. Whether that's because of my playstyle or because the of the pacing of the game isn't really clear since I tend to wander in these types of games. The world is scary to me though because even the docile machines might attack you on sight and that makes me move through the world more slowly than I normally would.
The game is fully voice acted and it's not bad, I quite like it. The story so far is pretty interesting, though a certain major event is pretty predictable and you can see it coming from a mile away. I've already mentioned how pretty the game is.
The only things so far that I dislike is that an arrow to the head won't kill human enemies and that tall grass might block your view when aiming with the bow. But other than that I have quite little to complain about. The game doesn't really offer any new and exciting gameplay elements compared to other action RPGs but that's alright imo.
All in all I really like the game and can't wait to find out how the story progresses and what other machines I'll come across in my quest. It is a bit unfortunate that the new Zelda game is released on Friday. So I probably won't give this game as much attention after that... =P
I'd love to hear the thoughts from people who have bought the game and have played it for a bit.
For those who give a damn, here's an unboxing video:
{Spoiler}
So, right after filming that I popped the game in and played it for 6 hours straight, took a little break to eat dinner and join the PC Daily Playlist here and went back to playing for another 2 or 3 hours, I honestly don't remember. But here is a quick overview of the game and my first impressions.
Overview
So Horizon: Zero Dawn is an action RPG set in a post-apocalyptic world where technology and robotics have advanced to an incredible level, but some kind of calamity has caused human civilization to collapse. The remaining humans live in primitive tribes and robotic creatures pretty much rule the land. You play as a young woman (I'm guessing early 20s, not that it matters) named Aloy who's part of the Nora tribe. The Nora tribe has this punishment system where people who have done wrong are labeled as "outcast" and it's pretty much forbidden to speak to them or involve yourself with them. When Aloy was still an infant she was put under the care of an outcast named Rost, effectively making her an outcast as well. As the game begins you play as a 6 year old Aloy who falls into the ruins of the old human civilization. There she finds a little computer which she calls a "focus". This device gives her certain perceptive abilities such as seeing the path machines walk, information about machines and it gives her the ability to interact with the technology of the old civilization, or as they're called in the game "The Old Ones".
As time goes on, Aloy gets sick of being labeled an outcast and wishes to learn more about her mother, whom she knows nothing about. The problem is that she's not allowed to speak to anybody and nobody will speak to her. Rost tells her about a challenge called "The Proving". If she completes the challenge she'll become known as a Brave which effectively gets rid of her status as outcast and if she comes out on top of The Proving she earns the right to ask the matriarchs of the tribe a direct question or favor. Rost trains Aloy to fight, hunt, and survive to prepare her for The Proving.
First Impressions
This game reminds me a whole lot of Far Cry 4, except that it's third person and gunplay is nonexistent (so far). I really dig the atmosphere of the game and the graphics are excellent. It's just that the area reminds me a whole lot of the mountainous region Kyrat is in and also the resource gathering. To heal yourself you can craft healing potions or you can gather medicinal herbs which you store in a pouch. To craft bigger quivers and the like you also use different materials found on killed machines, resources obtained from animals like bones, meat and skin and things you find in the world.
To hunt down the machines Aloy has several weapons in her arsenal. Her main weapons are a bow and spear. The bow, obviously serves as her ranged weapon and the spear is a melee weapon as you don't have the option to chuck it. There are also other weapons such as trap wires and tripwires and slingshots.
There are three separate skill trees: Prowler, Brave and Forager which focus on stealth, combat and foraging respectively. The skill tree is fairly small but does unlock some awesome abilities as you progress.
The combat will mostly consist of you sneaking around in tall grass, picking off machines one by one and running when you get caught. More docile machines based on animals like deer and horses are easily startled and will likely run away when they hear/see you approach. Though they are also capable of doing some massive damage if they have to. Which is why I choose to be sneaky, because it's a giant pain in the ass when they gang up on you. It forces you to be smart about how you approach enemies to make sure they don't gang up on you.
The game will give you three different ways to respond to NPCs which are marked by a fist, heart or brain. They represent "mean", "nice" and "clever" responses respectively. I don't know (yet) if the choices you make during dialogues will actually affect the story but I'll find out in due time.
The map seems to be decently sized and the first 6 hours of my play through were spent in the beginning area. Whether that's because of my playstyle or because the of the pacing of the game isn't really clear since I tend to wander in these types of games. The world is scary to me though because even the docile machines might attack you on sight and that makes me move through the world more slowly than I normally would.
The game is fully voice acted and it's not bad, I quite like it. The story so far is pretty interesting, though a certain major event is pretty predictable and you can see it coming from a mile away. I've already mentioned how pretty the game is.
The only things so far that I dislike is that an arrow to the head won't kill human enemies and that tall grass might block your view when aiming with the bow. But other than that I have quite little to complain about. The game doesn't really offer any new and exciting gameplay elements compared to other action RPGs but that's alright imo.
All in all I really like the game and can't wait to find out how the story progresses and what other machines I'll come across in my quest. It is a bit unfortunate that the new Zelda game is released on Friday. So I probably won't give this game as much attention after that... =P
I'd love to hear the thoughts from people who have bought the game and have played it for a bit.
