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Horizon: Zero Dawn is too beautiful to exist

Agreed OP, I think half of my play time was spent in photo mode, haven't gone back since they updated the photo mode even more, would probably sink even more hours into it. Some OG PS4 shots:
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I definitely agree the game is the best looking one currently out. Unlike a lot of people in this thread I also think it's more fun to play than a lot of other open world games. I'm looking forward to replaying through on NG+ once the new expansion comes out much more than replaying either TW3 or BOTW.
 
Horizon will be PS4's GOTY no doubt. Nintendo had to pull off one of the greatest videogames of all time with BotW in order to rob Horizon of the overall 2017 GOTY.

Superb game and the best Sony exclusive title since 2013 gave us The Last of Us.
 
The actual problem on NeoGAF, is that entering a praise thread and uttering a word of negativity, has the people who fanaticize love the game immediately go DEFCON1 as they attempt to write your criticism off as "lol salty", "lol hater", or "you just didn't get it".

Takes two to tango.

As for me, I should get around to this some day.
 
Horizon will be PS4's GOTY no doubt. Nintendo had to pull off one of the greatest videogames of all time with BotW in order to rob Horizon of the overall 2017 GOTY.

Superb game and the best Sony exclusive title since 2013 gave us The Last of Us.

Honestly, I will take Horizon over BotW. On an emulator it has a chance, but on the Switch it has too many technical problems for me.

As for Story Horizon kills it. As for world design well Zelda has a lot of open world to claim, but fatigue also sets in. Horizon for me is the game that truly does it right. If it had slightly more exploring and maybe less uncanny animations when talking it would be nearly perfect. I love BotW, but it's not getting my GotY this year.

Maybe a Co-GOTY is in order lol. Horizon does too many things well that Zelda fails at, while the only thing not in its favor is that it isn't Zelda and people were never going to overrate it, and maybe they didn't quite give us enough ways to explore, though that is up for debate.
 
The game is pretty, yes.

I Platinumed it and enjoyed it for what it was. Really didn't think much of it once I had finished it. Yes, it has a bit of Zelda, a bit of The Witcher, a bit of Skyrim, a bit of many other games... but I don't think it does anything better than those other games, to be honest.

It's good, it's solid, but that's it, if you ask me.

I fizzled a few hours in myself. Still want to give it the benefit of the doubt, but it really didn't inspire much motivation in me either. All I really saw through the rich visuals was yet another open world quest with all the same trappings. Combat was a bit inspired, but the moment I opened the icon-laden map, I just checked out. I probably would love it if I could muster the desire to sit through yes other one of these at the moment.
 
I fizzled a few hours in myself. Still want to give it the benefit of the doubt, but it really didn't inspire much motivation in me either. All I really saw through the rich visuals was yet another open world quest with all the same trappings. Combat was a bit inspired, but the moment I opened the icon-laden map, I just checked out. I probably would love it if I could muster the desire to sit through yes other one of these at the moment.

That post is complete absurd and full of obvious bullshit hyperbole. Horizon for one does combat a hell of a lot better than ANY of those games. It also has a way more cohesive world with much better voice acting and scripting of events than either W3 or Skyrim.

Skyrim is a pile of old shitty bones compared to this game. The lore in Skyrim is great. The tech of that engine is fucking awful.

Zelda barely even has a story or any motivation to continue on. Most people just wander around and do puzzles and stuff. You all are selling this game too short because of some obvious bias here IMO. When someone says it does nothing better than a bunch of great but heavily flawed games you know they are talking shit. Skyrim lol. C0me the fuck on.
 
I fizzled a few hours in myself. Still want to give it the benefit of the doubt, but it really didn't inspire much motivation in me either. All I really saw through the rich visuals was yet another open world quest with all the same trappings. Combat was a bit inspired, but the moment I opened the icon-laden map, I just checked out. I probably would love it if I could muster the desire to sit through yes other one of these at the moment.

The thing that really frustrate me about Horizon is GG had the tech, budget and it was new IP. they could have choose much more interesting way to do open world but in the end they went with Ubisoft style check list open world. Why? Couldn't they come up better way to do open world?
 
The thing that really frustrate me about Horizon is GG had the tech, budget and it was new IP. they could have choose much more interesting way to do open world but in the end they went with Ubisoft style check list open world. Why? Couldn't they come up better way to do open world?

The Ubisoft way works fine IMO as long as they reign it in a bit, which Horizon did do. Witcher 3 is really no different. It's just a bunch of checklists. If you are talking about Zelda or W3 well it is obvious they didn't want people randomly wandering around their world for 60 hours off the main story.

Maybe in a sequel puzzles will be a bigger part. Sorry to say but I got tired of both W3 and Zelda and I still am on break before I finish them. Horizon may be not much different, but it is a more concise experience.
 
I get it, but I much prefer the open world of Horizon then say a Witcher 3. The open world fatigue in Witcher 3 and BoTW hit much sooner and much harder then Horizon could ever hope to hit. How many time can I explore in BoTW and end up discovering the same thing, a shrine. How many times can I follow trails in Witcher 3 that lead me to generic enemies to fight. Sure Horizon has some of this as well, but the structure of the game leads to a more streamlined experience that pushed back on open world fatigue. Point is I think there's room for both.

"new landmark"

Witcher 3 in a nutshell

Horizon is amazing on every level. It is less organic in terms of interaction with the world, but there's a sense of pure discovery, toying with what was and what is ... the blending of raw nature + robotics, in a future imaginated as a tech savy prehistoric age ? yeah. I don't know how that is boring. Premise of open world is that you get to make your own stories, it doesn't need to have a ton of events all over the place to make it interesting

On that end tho, I'll say that Blood and Wine was a better experience than Witcher 3
 
The Ubisoft way works fine IMO as long as they reign it in a bit, which Horizon did do. Witcher 3 is really no different. It's just a bunch of checklists. If you are talking about Zelda or W3 well it is obvious they didn't want people randomly wandering around their world for 60 hours off the main story.

Maybe in a sequel puzzles will be a bigger part. Sorry to say but I got tired of both W3 and Zelda and I still am on break before I finish them. Horizon may be not much different, but it is a more concise experience.

I absolutely fucking hate Ubisoft style open world, this why I stop playing Assassins Creed and any other Ubisoft open world games so I can get away from that. When first Horizon revealed I though the art direction was interesting and since this was not made by Ubisoft I thought I don't have to worry about that but I guess I was dead wrong.

I personally want from my open world is either have secrets to find or have interesting way to traversal.
 
The thing that really frustrate me about Horizon is GG had the tech, budget and it was new IP. they could have choose much more interesting way to do open world but in the end they went with Ubisoft style check list open world. Why? Couldn't they come up better way to do open world?

I dunno man. For me, Horizon (and BotW too, I guess) just proved that the Ubisoft style open world is actually pretty fun when done right. I actually enjoyed discovering the map and climbing the towers in both games. They both also had so much environmental variety that it never felt like a bore like in Skyrim.

Shoutouts to Witcher 3's as well. Didn't have to uncover it Ubisoft style but there was still plenty of markers to go to on the map. It's so beautifully crafted that I never found it boring. Honestly enjoyed finding the points of power more than a lot of the main quests.
 
This might be an unpopular opinion especially with the PC crowd but despite the obvious flaws like being 30fps, the LOD transitions, pop-in and non interactive vegetation, whatever I'm seeing onscreen on my non-pro PS4 still looks more impressive than any other open world title I've played so far, pc included.
 
Uncharted 4 and Zero Dawn are those kind of games that just make you wonder WTF other developers are even doing with these consoles.

Their stuff is such a obvious step above everything else technically / visually.
 
I dunno man. For me, Horizon (and BotW too, I guess) just proved that the Ubisoft style open world is actually pretty fun when done right. I actually enjoyed discovering the map and climbing the towers in both games. They both also had so much environmental variety that it never felt like a bore like in Skyrim.

Shoutouts to Witcher 3's as well. Didn't have to uncover it Ubisoft style but there was still plenty of markers to go to on the map. It's so beautifully crafted that I never found it boring. Honestly enjoyed finding the points of power more than a lot of the main quests.

Discovering what exactly!!? You open up more maps by activating Tallnecks which are already on the maps for you. Heck Aloy will even tell you she picking up signals.
 
Uncharted 4 and Zero Dawn are those kind of games that just make you wonder WTF other developers are even doing with these consoles.

Their stuff is such a obvious step above everything else technically / visually.

Other developers have to develop for 3 platforms which takes significant effort. Exclusives are always going to end up pushing boundaries on consoles - it's been this way for every console generation.
 
I'm more impressed with how good the story was.

No matter what anyone said, I thought the concept of highly advanced machines being present among primitive civilizations was outrageous.

I still think the concept is dumb, but the story executed it's story as well as it possibly could with it's respective themes.

Aloy was great too, she felt genuinely strong, yet still human.
 
Discovering what exactly!!? You open up more maps by activating Tallnecks which are already on the maps for you. Heck Aloy will even tell you she picking up signals.

You seeing the map don't mean much .
There are quest , enemies encounter , how the environment looks etc etc.
Plus you don't even need to use the tallnecks .


IMO nothing wrong with Ubi way.
All you have to do is take out certain aspects if your game don't need them .
 
I absolutely fucking hate Ubisoft style open world, this why I stop playing Assassins Creed and any other Ubisoft open world games so I can get away from that. When first Horizon revealed I though the art direction was interesting and since this was not made by Ubisoft I thought I don't have to worry about that but I guess I was dead wrong.

I personally want from my open world is either have secrets to find or have interesting way to traversal.

It doesn't sound like you know what you want. How will you incorporate all that in Horizon without making it bloated like Witcher 3 and BotW. I love those games but they are bloated as hell.

There are interesting ways of traversal in the game. Again, I don't know what you want here. Not all Ubi open worlds are the same. There are plenty of little secrets to find in Horizon, but that is definitely not their main focus. I like secrets too, but in no way did Horizon really suffer that bad for not having 900 seeds to find lol.

I'm also getting tired of the Ubi comments on open worlds. THEY ARE NOT THE ONLY DEVELOPER that makes open world games like this.

It sounds like the game is not for you. Plenty of games and other threads out there I guess.

Other developers have to develop for 3 platforms which takes significant effort. Exclusives are always going to end up pushing boundaries on consoles - it's been this way for every console generation.

I mean, ND and GG are also superior devs matched by very few others. It's not just 3 consoles, it's the fact you have two of the best tech developers out there working on one console.
 
Honestly, I will take Horizon over BotW. On an emulator it has a chance, but on the Switch it has too many technical problems for me.

As for Story Horizon kills it. As for world design well Zelda has a lot of open world to claim, but fatigue also sets in. Horizon for me is the game that truly does it right. If it had slightly more exploring and maybe less uncanny animations when talking it would be nearly perfect. I love BotW, but it's not getting my GotY this year.

Maybe a Co-GOTY is in order lol. Horizon does too many things well that Zelda fails at, while the only thing not in its favor is that it isn't Zelda and people were never going to overrate it, and maybe they didn't quite give us enough ways to explore, though that is up for debate.

My experience with Horizon was so uneven that it was kinda frustrating to play.

The story in Horizon has some very interesting parts (the past, the first machines going berserk parts), however, there were some parts that were horribly told or would just contradict the world view it was aiming for (Meridian as a whole).

Combat, when it works, it's truly great. However, there were only a couple of enemies that actually would put you in danger and force you to use your entire arsenal. The rest was too easy and stealth was far too stupid.

Since I didn't liked the world building very much, it felt too artificial, I never got the urge to go exploring that I felt in Zelda. The Ubisoft open world style does not suit me well currently since they point where he rewards are.

While I liked the game, I can't separate the good parts from the bad ones. I really hope that Horizon 2 delivers in what the first failed to.
 
The game looks nice, but I found it to be extremely dull. The gameplay and the way they restrict you is not enjoyable at all. Not even being able to climb small edges is beyond stupid. Apparently there needs to be paint splashed on a surface before it can be climbed.

The game has still the same old gameplay hidden in prettier graphics.
 
My experience with Horizon was so uneven that it was kinda frustrating to play.

The story in Horizon has some very interesting parts (the past, the first machines going berserk parts), however, there were some parts that were horribly told or would just contradict the world view it was aiming for (Meridian as a whole).

Combat, when it works, it's truly great. However, there were only a couple of enemies that actually would put you in danger and force you to use your entire arsenal. The rest was too easy and stealth was far too stupid.

Since I didn't liked the world building very much, it felt too artificial, I never got the urge to go exploring that I felt in Zelda. The Ubisoft open world style does not suit me well currently since they point where he rewards are.

While I liked the game, I can't separate the good parts from the bad ones. I really hope that Horizon 2 delivers in what the first failed to.

Yeah well Zelda didn't even have a story basically. We could go on and on about problems with games. It seems like people are willing to overlook all of the significant flaws with Zelda, and of course Nintendo gets a free pass because hey why not.

You said the game was too easy, and I fully doubt you have played on the Ultra hard mode.

As if Zelda was hard lol. People seem to have a lot of inherent bias when it comes to these games. One of the main criticisms even in some press reviews was that Zelda was too easy. They added a hard mode as DLC no?
 
Yeah well Zelda didn't even have a story basically. We could go on and on about problems with games. It seems like people are willing to overlook all of the significant flaws with Zelda, and of course Nintendo gets a free pass because hey why not.

You said the game was too easy, and I fully doubt you have played on the Ultra hard mode.

As if Zelda was hard lol. People seem to have a lot of inherent bias when it comes to these games. One of the main criticisms even in some press reviews was that Zelda was too easy. They added a hard mode as DLC no?

Colin Moriaty is that you?

This thread went the way of all Horizon threads. People really took it to heart Zelda reviewed as well as it did.

Get over it. We have two fantastic games.
 
The thing that really frustrate me about Horizon is GG had the tech, budget and it was new IP. they could have choose much more interesting way to do open world but in the end they went with Ubisoft style check list open world. Why? Couldn't they come up better way to do open world?
The thing is, it only is Ubi Soft-esque if you, as a player, makes it that way.

You really have to go out of your way to reveal the map with the Tallnecks, and can choose to play without these (beside I believe 1 quest that introduces them).
 
This is so confusing; it's ranging from GOTY to absolutely underwhelming. How am I supposed to figure out if this game is my #1 Black Friday game?

My buddy told me it was much better than Resident Evil 6, and that it was hunter gatherer red dead revolver.
 
This is so confusing; it's ranging from GOTY to absolutely underwhelming. How am I supposed to figure out if this game is my #1 Black Friday game?

My buddy told me it was much better than Resident Evil 6, and that it was hunter gatherer red dead revolver.

Buy it, especially if you can get it for a great deal in November. It's worth playing through and there's a far greater chance you'll love it than feel underwhelmed.
 
Agreed OP, I think half of my play time was spent in photo mode, haven't gone back since they updated the photo mode even more, would probably sink even more hours into it. Some OG PS4 shots:

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Gotta say... these shots are not flattering.

I feel like I've seen better visuals from For Honor and even XCOM 2 (yes, the turn-based strategy game). Granted, I only play PC so my frame of reference is obviously going to be different, but I genuinely can't understand the rabid praise this game gets on GAF.

It looks good in videos, especially for an open world game, but I'm not seeing the sort of transcendental experience that I would be expecting from the praise.
 
It doesn't sound like you know what you want. How will you incorporate all that in Horizon without making it bloated like Witcher 3 and BotW. I love those games but they are bloated as hell.

There are interesting ways of traversal in the game. Again, I don't know what you want here. Not all Ubi open worlds are the same. There are plenty of little secrets to find in Horizon, but that is definitely not their main focus. I like secrets too, but in no way did Horizon really suffer that bad for not having 900 seeds to find lol.

I didn't play Witcher 3 so I don't know how is the open world on that game. Also when I'm talking about secrets Im more talking about weapons, armours, dungeons or even secret boss fights. they could be
Gaia's
defective robots that you could find and fight them. Also what interesting traversal Horizon has exactly? she cant even climb unless there is a man made spots for her to climb. I honestly found Mounting on Horizon pointless.

Look If you enjoy Ubisoft style open world game then more power to you but I personally hate that and I thought I don't have to worry about that if I don't play Ubisoft games but I guess I was wrong.
 
Yeah well Zelda didn't even have a story basically. We could go on and on about problems with games. It seems like people are willing to overlook all of the significant flaws with Zelda, and of course Nintendo gets a free pass because hey why not.

You said the game was too easy, and I fully doubt you have played on the Ultra hard mode.

As if Zelda was hard lol. People seem to have a lot of inherent bias when it comes to these games. One of the main criticisms even in some press reviews was that Zelda was too easy. They added a hard mode as DLC no?

I played on hard and even then it was kinda of a letdown. I was really impressed the first time I fought some machines, but the next 10 not so much as the strategy around it doesn't really evolved. It's hard to find a game that makes this balance between challenge and fun.

Zelda isn't hard either, but the combat was so useless that I avoided a lot of it.

So in Zelda I got an awesome game about exploration and I loved the game because of it. It had one strong trait that really, really was well done even if I had a number of issues with everything else. Horizon was something that tried to do many things at once with varying levels of success and not a single of them hooked me in a way I would like them to.
 
The thing that really frustrate me about Horizon is GG had the tech, budget and it was new IP. they could have choose much more interesting way to do open world but in the end they went with Ubisoft style check list open world. Why? Couldn't they come up better way to do open world?

Ubisoft checklist? Not this shit again...

Call it what you want, but the game is better than any Ubisoft game you can name. Why is that?

It's gone take a game with a name like Zelda to top this one and I like Horizon waaay more. But, I can't argue if Zelda takes the crown.

Horizon didn't have to reinvent the wheel, it just had to be good and that it was.
 
GTFO of here with this. You do this often and it's getting old. Stop derailing threads.

How am I derailing a thread when I am answering someone else's question? I didn't bring Zelda into this discussion bud. Calm down. And Nintendo did get a free pass with Zelda. Only after the 97 rating did people start talking about open world fatigue, lack of story, and easy combat. Those things were hardly if ever brought up in reviews. Neither were the technical limitations. That is my opinion. I have played just about every Zelda so stop trying to pin me down as some kind on anti-Nintendo person. Considering I am playing like 5 Nintendo games atm that is ridiculous.

I didn't play Witcher 3 so I don't know how is the open world on that game. Also when I'm talking about secrets Im more talking about weapons, armours, dungeons or even secret boss fights. they could be
Gaia's
defective robots that you could find and fight them. Also what interesting traversal Horizon has exactly? she cant even climb unless there is a man made spots for her to climb. I honestly found Mounting on Horizon pointless.

Look If you enjoy Ubisoft style open world game then more power to you but I personally hate that and I thought I don't have to worry about that if I don't play Ubisoft games but I guess I was wrong.

I agree with you. I think they had a budget, and a lot of it was spent on just getting the world up and running. I am very sure we can expect a much better crafting and armor system in their next game.
 
How am I derailing a thread when I am answering someone else's question? I didn't bring Zelda into this discussion bud. Calm down.

I couldn't care less which games you and others choose to discuss in this thread. You're calling the opinions of users and the press into question because of some imaginary bias you've created in your head, alongside the "x publisher gets a free pass" nonsense. It's incredibly pathetic and you do it often, so stop.
 
This is so confusing; it's ranging from GOTY to absolutely underwhelming. How am I supposed to figure out if this game is my #1 Black Friday game?

My buddy told me it was much better than Resident Evil 6, and that it was hunter gatherer red dead revolver.

Even as someone who didn't particularly love the game, I think it was worth experiencing, just to be part of the conversation and see what it had to offer.
 
I didn't play Witcher 3 so I don't know how is the open world on that game. Also when I'm talking about secrets Im more talking about weapons, armours, dungeons or even secret boss fights. they could be
Gaia's
defective robots that you could find and fight them. Also what interesting traversal Horizon has exactly? she cant even climb unless there is a man made spots for her to climb. I honestly found Mounting on Horizon pointless.

Look If you enjoy Ubisoft style open world game then more power to you but I personally hate that and I thought I don't have to worry about that if I don't play Ubisoft games but I guess I was wrong.

Zelda really found the right formula. Who knew that the most important thing everyone was waiting for in an Open world action-rpg was rock climbing simulation?
 
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