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[JusDoIt]

HZD has my favorite combat mechanics in a 3rd person openworld game. It can't be overstated how good combat feels in that game. BoTW did amazing things for openworld traversal, but HZD did the same for combat.

 

[Big_Al]

I ended up trading it in after 5-6/7 hrs in. Obviously not a bad game but it didn't really do anything for me. Didn't care enough about the story or Aloy (though Ashley Burch's performance was excellent) and whilst the combat's fun enough it didn't really hook me enough to want to continue. But different strokes and all that, usually it's me loving a game that everyone hates so it's a bit different to not particularly care for a game everyone else likes!

 

[takriel]

Shooting arrows feels really satisfying in this game. Makes me feel like a badass when I hit an enemy in its weak spot.

 

[Tyaren]

After I learned on E3 that Sony pushes all the bigger titles that I was truly excited for to 2018 and that AC Origins will be the only upcoming big title that I am interested in this year, I think I can by now alreay also crown Horizon my GOTY. Well, maybe let's see how the mentioned AC Origins and also UC The Lost Legacy perform before...
I thought Horizon was amazing and it was the only game that came close to reaching the adoration that I feel for The Witcher 3, which is imo still the best game this generation. It felt like such a long and hopeless wait for an open world RPG this great.
Horizon has a few flaws, like an annoying inventory upgrade system, towns/settlements that lack a bit of life (especially in comparison to the Witcher 3), side quests that were mostly just okay and the biggest flaw was brain dead human enemy AI.
Where it excells is in story telling (probably the best in any open world game that I played before), characterization of its main protagonist Aloy, creating an absolutely gorgeous and varied open world environment, great and interesting world lore (created basically from scratch by Guerilla), exhilarating combat with superbly designed, varied enemy machines and last but not least its imo unrivaled visual fidelity in the open world category of games.

Horizon is imo the best PS4 exclusive game and a must own for everyone who loves open world RPGs like The Witcher 3.

 

[TedMilk]

GOTY

 

[score01]

I'm a week into the game and loving what I am playing so far.

The best compliment I could give the game is that it feels like the witcher but with great combat.

 

[Phreak47]

I found the thing to do early in the game when you're feeling underpowered is just keep following the main missions for a while, at least until you have the override ability. I also didn't do all the hunter trials until after the main story. There's a hump to get over.. game gets much better when you do.

 

[c1d]

HZD has my favorite combat mechanics in a 3rd person openworld game. It can't be overstated how good combat feels in that game. BoTW did amazing things for openworld traversal, but HZD did the same for combat.

This. There's just so many possibilities in how you deal with each machine.

Also, I really like the VA (so much that I actually listened to conversations instead of quickly reading and mashing through)

 

[Jblanks]

It's my GOTY, and I can't wait for the DLC.

Horizon is awesome and easily the game of the year. As an overall package, not a single game this year has or will come close and the only game that I would put ahead of it this generation is The Witcher III.

Can't wait for the DLC later this year.

You got it.

 

[FeD.nL]

Fantastic game.

It's been a while since I was so captivated by the story of a game. Loved the beats it hit, and it llayed fantastic to boot. Cannot wait for the dlc.

 

[Dargor]

Really is one of the best games of this generation. First game I got a platinum, so yeah, its done a lot of things right to make me bother lol

 

[refreshZ]

http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/columns/metagames-horizon-zero-dawn-should-get-a-hugo/

In many RPGs, you find epistolary evidence that fills you in on exposition or colorful detail. These are the diaries where an enterprising farmer tells where they've buried a treasure or hidden a key; news articles about the crimes of the villain you're about to confront; wizards or scientists describing just the key details of an experiment gone wrong that you'll need to know to survive the area before you. (Some games are self-aware about this tendency, too. Witcher 3's expansion Blood and Wine lampshades this trope and features a journal from a bandit leader complaining about how all of his underlings are constantly scribbling in diaries, rather than conducting proper banditry.)

In HZD, the landscape is likewise littered with pieces of media that expand the narrative universe and fill you in on important facts that help you to navigate the world more effectively. But for the most part, these are digital artifacts from a time that is their ancient history (and our future to come). There are advertisements for futuristic dating services and luxury apartments, an obituary for the leader of a cult, news reports on the construction of a spacecraft.

And there is a wealth of multimedia content, too. Aloy doesn't just find text—she finds audio and video recordings, as disparate as a long-dead soldier's message to his family, private therapy sessions, recordings of what went down in a conference room long, long ago.

You learn about the past and the wider world in the same ways and at the same time as the character you're playing. There's no as-you-know-Bob here.

And everywhere you go, the past is there under your feet, inescapable. Here is a thing that can happen in HZD: you are climbing across a large stretch of rusted metal, overgrown with lichen and vines. Slowly you come to realize that you're walking along the wing of a downed aircraft. Or you venture down a straight, wide road and see the unmistakable silhouette of broken parking meters running along the side. Or you climb high into the mountains, and discover that the way is dotted with long-abandoned tanks, rusted and dormant but somehow still menacing.

These signs of the past-yet-to-come are everywhere in HZD, and they tell a story just as compelling as the story of Aloy and her struggle to find the truth of her heritage.

More at the link.

 

[RedSparrows]

Extremely competent. Overrated on here, imo, but I can see why people love it. I just found it beautiful but ultimately too conservative and too guilty of the same things we slam other open world games for, whilst fudging some details (weather shifts are far too swift, Magic Stealth Grass, economy) as it nails others (robot design/look). Combat against humans was utterly rote, against bots it was much better, but it was not as clever as it wanted to be.

I liked the main city though, it looked lovely.

 

[NotUS]

I thought it was a fantastic first attempt at an open world by Guerilla Games.

I did enjoy it, but it sits on the lower end of the scale in relation to other open world games, and even lower when compared to other RPGs.

Graphics were incredible, story was very good, ranged combat was great, melee was not, the world small and uninspiring, the characters and side quests mostly forgettable.

However, incredible foundation set which will only get better in the next game.

If I were to draw comparisons to other games. Shadow of Mordor would be Assassins Creed Mordor, and this game would be Far Cry Horizon.

 

[GlamFM]

My GOTY for sure. Can´t wait for the DLC.

Game isn't even 6 months old and the OT is still pretty active, hardly LTTP.

Party was 6 months ago.

Perfectly fine LTTP, especially since the OT is in the community section.

 

[roytheone]

I am playing it now and while I overall really like the game, I also have some problems with it.

The traversal for example is pretty terrible. It's really dumb when Aloy can't climb up a small ledge simply because it was not a "climbable" ledge. The upgrade system being reliant on random drops isn't good, if you want to upgrade your damage for example but have bad RNG you simply can't. The menus can suck and keep having to open it and scroll to inventory to switch outfits gets old fast. Your inventory for resources is also too small, even when max upgraded. Having to pick a bunch of flowers after a bad fight takes too long, there really should have been a skill that doubles the amount you get from healing herbs. The camera during certain fights can be a bit of a pain and no lock on means you have to fiddle with it quite a lot. The game also fails to explain certain things (like how shielded blaze canisters work.) Tutorial quests only counting up when you have them active is incredibly dumb. And certain parts of the storytelling are far too relient on you reading a shitton of text logs. Don't mind audio logs since you can just listen to them while running around, but having to read pages of text isn't fun.

However, the world is interesting enough and the combat is incredibly fun making up for these gripes. Still, a sequel could improve the game quite a bit.

 

[Yautja_Warrior]

I love the Sci-Fi world and characters that GG have created with Horizon and obviously the excellent graphics bring it all to life. The mix of Low-Tech tribes vs Hi-Tech machines is an interesting concept to explore. I really like the holograms and audio diaries from the past, which piece together the mystery and show a little glimpse of how the world went to shit.

The robot designs are all brilliant, each with their own strengths / weaknesses that ties into the combat, making it very satisfying when you take down a big machine like a Thunderjaw or Glinthawk, chipping away their armour to reveal weak spots.

I really enjoyed pretty much everything about Horizon, it's just a well made game and I'm looking forward to the DLC a lot now.

 

[Mr.Deadshot]

Second best game of the gen. Best combat system together with Dragon's Dogma in an open world game.

 

[RalchAC]

Honestly Rockbreakers are the easiest enemy in the game. Just get the sling that let's you drop bombs that are proximity. All you need to do is put down a shit ton of them, have the Rockbreaker run into them, and they instantly die.

You're talking about settinglike 30 of them in the same spot?

http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/columns/metagames-horizon-zero-dawn-should-get-a-hugo/

More at the link.

That reminded me to the first room in the Grave Hoard, where you can see tanks, bodies of different soldiers and a bunch of audiologs. It was quite great at telling you what actually happened there without using Holograms and stuff.

 

[DarkConfidant]

I loved it. I don’t like Open World games much, but hunting robots was a blast due to all of the strategy involved.

Can’t wait for the DLC.

 

[Falchion]

Glad you're enjoying it, it's my game of the generation right now for sure.

 

[Ricky_R]

I am playing it now and while I overall really like the game, I also have some problems with it.

The traversal for example is pretty terrible. It's really dumb when Aloy can't climb up a small ledge simply because it was not a "climbable" ledge. The upgrade system being reliant on random drops isn't good, if you want to upgrade your damage for example but have bad RNG you simply can't. The menus can suck and keep having to open it and scroll to inventory to switch outfits gets old fast. Your inventory for resources is also too small, even when max upgraded. Having to pick a bunch of flowers after a bad fight takes too long, there really should have been a skill that doubles the amount you get from healing herbs. The camera during certain fights can be a bit of a pain and no lock on means you have to fiddle with it quite a lot. The game also fails to explain certain things (like how shielded blaze canisters work.) Tutorial quests only counting up when you have them active is incredibly dumb. And certain parts of the storytelling are far too relient on you reading a shitton of text logs. Don't mind audio logs since you can just listen to them while running around, but having to read pages of text isn't fun.

However, the world is interesting enough and the combat is incredibly fun making up for these gripes. Still, a sequel could improve the game quite a bit.

I can agree with a couple of those, in particular the upgrade system relying on drops, like you say. I even created a couple of quests to upgrade and the resources weren't there when I finished all robots. I also agree with the herb skill.

 

[Wag]

I loved the game. I enjoyed it more than The Witcher 3.

 

[Mr.Fletcher]

Extremely competent. Overrated on here, imo, but I can see why people love it. I just found it beautiful but ultimately too conservative and too guilty of the same things we slam other open world games for, whilst fudging some details (weather shifts are far too swift, Magic Stealth Grass, economy) as it nails others (robot design/look). Combat against humans was utterly rote, against bots it was much better, but it was not as clever as it wanted to be.

I liked the main city though, it looked lovely.

I mostly agree with this but I thought Meridian was extremely disappointing. It looks pretty but it feels so artificial.

I booted up Witcher recently and took a stroll around Novigrad - it's night and day if you ask me.

The latter is dripping with atmosphere, packed full of unique districts and teeming with quests. You've got religious cults, people being burned at the steak, criminal bosses vying for power...

The sheer variety of quests and stories in that one city put the entirety of Horizon to shame. Zero Dawn feels better to play and has better combat no doubt, but the quests are so dull in comparison.