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Didn't see a thread for this, so here it is.

This game is beautiful. Skyrim on really high settings beautiful. The opening training sequence/montage is full-on epic journey. Gameplay is a weird combination of Tomb Raider, Thief and Mass Effect so far and the storyline is fairly compelling.

Will report back as I progress.

Tomb Raider, Thief, and Mass Effect?

I was thinking Shadows of Mordor, Zelda, and Monster Hunter.

I have not played it. Was I wrong?

Apparently a copy of this will be in my household shortly.

Not for ME.  For my eldest.   :oh_i_see:

I'm praying that the PSN update speed gods are good to me so that I can actually play this tonight.

Also I think maybe more Far Cry than Thief or Mass Effect (have not played yet).

No PC release, no interest.

I kinda want to get Horizon and Nioh but I don't have a PS4 Pro, don't really want to pay $400 for a half-assed upgrade console, and don't want to do these games a disservice by playing them on a regular PS4 and not getting the full experience. So good job I guess Sony.

I can't speak for Nioh, but I'm playing Horizon on a standard PS4 and it's fucking gorgeous. So far the gameplay is derivative but very well done for what it is.

I was thinking about getting a PS4 Pro for this game but since I play at 1080p I didn't see enough of an improvement in the screenshots and videos people were posting to justify $750 (console + SSD). Also the Pro still has lots of issues.

Shit.  Really?  Man... fuck.

I'm sure it looks great, I'm just stuck in this weird middle-ground where I just got a 4k tv (which my PC is hooked up to also which has worked well). I kinda want to get a Pro, but it doesn't have a UHD drive and it's still a little pricey considering my standard PS4 has largely been a Rocksmith machine. Then I think about getting the upgraded Xbox when it comes out since it has a drive capable of playing UHD discs, but UHD movies are still overpriced and with poor selection and the first party exclusives for Xbox are all supposed to come to PC (unless MS already gave up on that).

So ultimately my choice is to either just say fuck it and just play the games on the standard PS4, wait for a price drop on the Pro at some point and hold off on the games until then, be stupid and buy a Pro and the games now, or just play PC stuff I already have since the new Mass Effect game is only a few weeks away.

I sure the hell hope so, since it means I can play a football game for the first time since 2k5.

And yeah, this game looks cool but not $750 cool.

Man I'm loving this so far.  It looks amazing, plays great and the story is interesting.  It actually reminds me quite a bit of Witcher 3, in a good way.

I'm pretty sure Madden will not be an XBox One exclusive.

True, but I thought it was 'if it works on Xbox Scorpio, it works on Win10' kinda thing.

I hadn't heard that but I'd welcome it. I too miss having an NFL video game even if Madden has been pretty shitty in comparison to the NFL2k series of games.

It's not all games, they have to be UWP applications (Universal Windows Platform).  It's their new-ish software architecture that allows people to write an application and publish it to multiple devices/platforms (i.e. desktop and mobile).  In this case it's Windows 10 and Xbox.  The biggest hurdle for a game like Madden would be that currently UWP apps have to installed from the Windows store.  If EA were going to publish a PC version they would likely want to do it on Origin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_Live_games_on_Windows_10

Yeah, though I'm going to start over tonight on very hard. Game is really easy so far. It does remind me of Witcher 3 but with a drastically simplified inventory. It's good, no complaints so far.

This looks really awful streamed, or at least I seem to be turning in during boring spots.

I hope this comes to PC eventually. I don't see a PS4 Pro in my future anytime soon.

This game is developed by Guerrilla Games, most well known for their Killzone games, and is a studio owned by Sony. This game is considered a "system seller" and Sony traditionally does not port those kinds of games to the PC (think the Uncharted or Gran Turismo games) so the chances this game will get ported to the PC are almost nil.

Also you don't need a PS4 Pro to play -- it's just one of the few games currently that properly supports 4k (checkerboard). If you are running at 1080p the benefits are minimal.

Edit: known

It's running fine on our PS4. Very pretty, although a couple hours of intense staring trying to spot targets through the ground clutter in the weird reddish sunset-type light has left my eyes very tired. TV is 65" 1080p(I think) led, not HD. As likely to be due to age as the game graphics though!

It's pretty fun. Felt like it was on rails then I stepped off the (literally) beaten path and started exploring and completely lost track of time while making no progress on the main quest. very nice.

Very heavy Skyrim vibes from stealth archer combat to gathering and even many of the UI elements.

The character models are a bit plastic-y though. And the facial animation reminds me of that Final Fantasy movie.

I really dislike the gamepad aiming, wish it was PC/mouse, although I'm getting kind of used to it. Inventory handling and crafting are the best UI and ease-of-use I've encountered on any console game, and better than far too many PC games even without consoleitis.

Same here.  I just can't use a controller for anything other than fighting and racing games anymore.  I've been spoiled by M&K for all these years.

It has some stealth elements (grass cover, plus the ability to Sneak Attack! from the grass), crafting, and gathering.  It's pretty.  It's been fun for the first couple hours, and I hope that doesn't change.

I do hope at some point I get to wipe out the tribe.  They're a bunch of assholes.

They aren't all assholes.

The practice of shunning is authoritarian meanness turned up to 11. Shunning a child is an atrocity.

I have to agree that using the bow isn't the best.  I've only really used it so far when I had to during the tutorial, and not much outside of that.  I'm sure that will change once I can no longer Sneak Attack! things to death in one shot with my spear.

I'm getting pretty darn good with a bow, got levels 6 - 8 tonight, one-shotting watchers in the eye and striders on their backpack at long range. Scavengers I haven't figured out, sometimes i do massive damage and sometimes none at all on direct hits. Also bagged a bunch of geese and boars (boar takes two shots now, was 3 or 4 with first weapon) and a few fox and rabbit. rabbits are really hard though, little bunnies won't hold still!

But yeah, once in melee range I'm whacking things with my spear as I dodge around, usually hitting the wrong button and dealing with doing something very different than what I'd planned.  Fortunately it seems to confuse the mobs as much as me! :why_so_serious:

The camera is in pretty tight so when you roll away most of the time you lose track of your target and basically just hope for the best.

I've been working on a stealth build and just killing shit when they least expect it. Pop out of the tall grass that your ginger hair conveniently blends into and then pop out, stab mobs in the face and then disappear again. Silent strike and death from above are a helluva drug.

Also,

The console controller does have the advantage of two analog joysticks, which make it possible to have incredibly fluid, flexible and precise control of your character not really possible with M&K. Of course, that's a theoretical possibility which would have had a much higher probability for me several decades ago!

Playing this thing on our 65" TV and near-audiophile sound system is really incredible.

We've encountered no bugs and no horrible design choices. AI pathfinding seems quite competent. The overall fit and finish is quite good. While obviously taking inspiration from both Skyrim and Fallout this is definitely NOT a Bethesda game needing 5 patches before becoming relatively stable and complete and never even attempting to polish any of the rough edges off.

Voice acting is fantastic. Save spots have so far been frequent enough that it's really not that far to the nearest at any given time.

Still wish it was on the PC, but Sony.

Man I use the bow all the time.  The first time I had to take down a belcher before I had the right equipment was a looong fight  :grin:.  After that, I went and bought all the weapon types I could find.  Now I constantly rotate between 2 bows, the trip caster and a slingshot.  For humans and the small stuff stealth is the way to go though for sure.  Sneaking through the grass in that game is great.  Also fun is whistling at a watcher then shooting him in the eye.

I had heard the game was kinda easy so I started on hard.   I think it was a good choice, it'is definitely is challenging at times.  Most everything bigger than a watcher has the ability to 1 shot you in some way.

Same its glass smooth and so pretty it causes my 80 year old mom to stop in her tracks and oo and awe at it. If your game is pretty enough to get mom to even notice it let alone comment on it they done good. I am sure its spectacular in 4k but I am not sure if it loses much on normal ps4 at 1080.

I am pretty shocked even on big fights with lots of dinos crashing around and shit exploding I have never had a frame rate dip.

I've been in a few places with frame rate drops but they are rare.

I'm probably about 3/4 of the way through the main quest line and this thing just keeps getting better. And all the feels are being felt.

I will say that this is the best game I've played in years, hands down.  Although I haven't played any of the Witchers or Dragon Ages yet.

I'm beyond impressed with not only the play but the professional polish on EVERYTHING. Graphics, music, animations, sound effects, game balance, all the game systems, controls, story, you name it. No bugs at all to speak of that we've seen. One place had mob sound effects that didn't go away when they were all dead. Or at least I think they were all dead! LOL

I took my time in the opening area before following the main quest to "The Proving", including going back to visit the caves from the earliest bit of the game (worth it!), trying to get my skills up to the point I felt I could live up to the training montage.  I'm still pretty crap at rapid and accurate aim with the controller, but am getting better than the bullet time aim skill helps a bit too.

The writing and voice acting is a little hit or miss, and the facial and character animation in cut-scenes is clunky at times, but wow it is just a beautiful world to explore.  Love the critters.

I *really* enjoyed the revelations after The Proving.

There's a running and jumping sequence in The Proving that worked really well for me in a way that such things often don't in these games -- I wasn't terribly confused about where I should be going and the mechanics worked for rather than against me.  (Compare vs The Last Guardian which I loved, but holy shit the control scheme actively hosed me a number of times)

The facial animations and lip-syncing are the weakest part of the whole game for me so far. Far better than most games, yet waay into uncanny valley territory.  And it varies from character to character and even sentence to sentence. Unfortunately your character is one it often fails on.

I restarted on very hard and I don't regret the decision except for one thing: the trials. They're really fucking hard and somewhat tedious. That's pretty much my only complaint so far.

Only did the trials insofar as it got me access to the Hunters' Lodge. That said, the skills I honed there helped me take down some harder enemies later in the game.

I finished it this morning. A tad predictable but still an emotional gut punch even though I saw it coming. Probably one of the best games I've played story-wise in the last decade.

I'm closing in on level 40 and I think my highest main quest is level 18.  I should probably quit doing side stuff and progress the story a bit  :awesome_for_real:

Still really loving the game.  I think the enemy variety combined with their different weaknesses and weapons types just keeps the combat fluid and fun.  Also I love the bow combat.  I was also a fan of the newer Tomb Raiders, so maybe that's just something I like.

As far as stuff I don't like it's mostly little things things like the collectibles aren't very fun and the collecting for the medicine pouch is a bit tedious.  I think they could double all the collection values and it would be fine (seriously way too many 9% plants).  Also, although there are different environments they all feel kinda samey.  I think some more diverse areas, like the cauldrons, would have been nice.

So would the people playing conclude this is a must buy if it goes on sale? I waited till I picked up the Witcher 3 and got that for $25 and I'm pretty happy with that...

If you can handle a 3rd person LOLconsoleshooter and like open world games then yes.

^ This. It's a derivative mashup of many game from the last five years (Far Cry 3&4, Tomb Raider reboots, Witcher 3, many others) and the story isn't exactly breaking new ground.

However, it is a must-buy for the PS4 if you like action and/or open-world games. They took the best parts of many games and polished the experience. I have no problems with the $70 I spent, absolutely no regrets. Sure, there's a few minor complaints I have but I'm looking forward to the game every day after work and I don't really want to play anything else.

It would be a console-seller if it launched early in the PS4's lifecycle.

It made me buy a PS4 Pro just for the 4K.

I think it's well worth full price, and I'm happy to support decent folk like these guys that do such a good job and play nice with others as well.

I hope I never find out how many hours we've spent on it though! LOL

I'm loving it.  40 hours in, level 26, finally advanced the main quest to Maker's End (whee, more revelations!), and survived Cauldron Rho.  Still much world to explore, quests to do, etc.  Enjoying this more than Fallout 4 (which was fun).

It tells you if you ever do a manual save or load a specific saved game.

Multiple times!  Wow.  I loved the story.  It really delivered.

This one's now the one to beat for GOTY 2017 for me.

And I feel like the purpose of the robot critters, even the Rockjaws, etc, were reasonably well explained in the end.

I think I'm nearing the end of the story. I'm stuck on a few of the side tasks, gated by Cauldron Zeta. How in the fuck? I'm playing on Very Hard and I don't see how this fight is possible.

Any tips? I know
It also pretty much one-shots me, so most of my attempts are me getting caught on terrain while trying to avoid the charge/swipe. It's a bullshit fight.

Lots and lots of tripwires?

Are we spoiling because of the type of enemy?

Well, I beat it.


I'm nearing the end - have blazing suns in all trials now, all corruption zone/bandit camp/tallnecks unlocked. I still need to find the power armor and figure out what to do with this "shackle" object I found in a bunker. There's a guy that sells a box for three of them but I've only found the one. Other than that I think I'm ready to wrap the story. It's been a really great game.

This ended up being my first platinum trophy. I finished the story last night and was only missing two from the playthrough: the 23 dummies in Nora lands and a 'kill all of this machine type" that I missed, but finished those up by looking online for locations. Roughly 60 hours played on very hard. I didn't collect everything, some of those world data points are hard to spot. I had a really good time with it, entirely worth the money I spent.

A bit bummed with the ending bit:

Regarding the ending (post credits)

Your second paragraph is what I'm hoping they work on, with the first being a smaller part of the plot.

one thing I wish they had done with this one is


but yeah, quite a game with some fun surprises. I'm completely in awe of how polished everything is. It doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles, and not a whole lot of room to do your own thing. It's no sandbox. But what it does have is very well done, very detailed, and relatively bug free.  I really want to see a movie done from it, much better story and science that most of the sci-fi stuff coming out recently like Gravity or Interstellar for example.

I still haven't finished this.  I've done almost everything I know about, except the main quest and a couple blazing suns.  So I'm getting there at least.

This isn't the kind of game that I've wanted to reload for dialog choices but last night I was cleaning up some side quests and I did one where -


It was all very anti-climatic.  It's the first time I wondered if I should reload and try something different.  Too late now though, I've moved on!

If you want to know, but it's somewhat of a spoiler:

The one thing I actively disliked about the game was the hunting lodge quests. We completed exactly zero of them. Not got top reward, but even completed. at all. The whole timed must use specific weapons/tactics or it doesn't count BS was such a put off, and I started with what might be the dumbest one in the game, having to kill stuff with logs. It was completely annoying, completely unnecessary, and fortunately completely avoidable.

Otherwise, it's been two weeks since we've finished and I'm starting to think about playing it again.  :grin:

It helps to at least do any three trials (bronze rank is fine) so you can unlock the Hunter's Lodge in Meridian.

I know you can unlock better weapons by doing the hunting quests, but are they really worth the hassle?  And why Meridian specifically?

Once you get at least 3 bronze/half sun marks or better you unlock the lodge in Meridian that has a series of side quests, one which will give you a purple weapon independent of the special ones you get from turning in full sets of marks. You also get an ally for the end battle if you finish that quest chain.

Edit: also it's not made clear but you can pick and choose which 3 trials you get marks for to unlock the Lodge in Meridian. I skipped the log one at the first grounds and did the other two and then I did one somewhere else (can't remember which one).

And once you have access to the Lodge there's a fun questline that doesn't require any more Trials, and if you get it early on, you'll likely end up running into and defeating the necessary critters as part of your main and/or side missions.  The second leg of this quest involves two very large critters that you'll also have to fight as part of the main quest, so two for one.

I thought I was going to finish the game this weekend but it turned out I had more left than I thought.  I'm at 97% completion now though, so I should be nearing the end.  I think I have 1-2 more main quests, 1 vantage and then the armory quest left.

I didn't mind the lodge quests but I thought the rewards were weak.  I wish they would have let you pick to upgrade any weapon.  The ones they picked were not ones I really liked to use.  Also getting a pile of green mods from completing the collection stuff was pretty weak, I thought they could have come up with something cosmetic or at least new.

This was my take on the ending as well.  I do kind of wish that:


I really hope they spend a good 3-4 years on the sequel and do it justice.  This game was way too good to good to ruin with churned out follow ups.

My ending/new game theory.

Oooh, I like that.

I am so pleased with what they pulled off in HZD both technically and story wise that I'm not even that interested in trying to guess where they might go next, figuring whatever it is will turn out to be better, deeper thought, and more surprising than anything I come up with anyway!

Anywhere they go with a sequel, I'll follow. This game was that good.

I'm very late to this party but I picked this up for $40 off of Amazon last week and it totally consumed my life until I finished it. I didn't do a 100% but I may backtrack and do a few things I missed.

Anyway, amazing game. Best of 2017, even better than Persona 5 which I loved and I'm really looking forward to the expansion pack.

I am also very late to this party, but just finished this.  Binge completed the whole thing, with most achievements, in less than a week, heh.  Been a long time since a game did that to me.  While by the end I was ready to finish it and walk away, the experience was great all the way through.  Great looking game, fun combat, and wonderful plot I can find few problems with.

Some final spoiler thoughts, along with a response to this:

I'm playing through the first DLC (The Frozen Wilds) and so far it's not quite living up to the high bar of the base game. I think it's trying to take a lighter tone, and right now I'm in the middle of a quest that's right out of Tomb Raider. Lot's of climbing, big floor puzzles, turning valves, that sort of thing. Going to Spoiler the rest since I may get into plot/discovery stuff...


On the other hand, some of the humor is funny. There is a character that constantly made me laugh at the same time I was wishing they hadn't put him in the game (or at least gave us different dialogue). The environments are still beautiful, the fights interesting (a few new critters too), and they let you upgrade your spear. And it looks like we are going to get some reveals on Silens' background.

To Teleku's spoilered points, also spoilered:

Arise!

The sequel was announced today during the PS-5 event.

Horizon: The Forbidden West.

No release date yet.

I'm still hyped as fuck and hoping we as a species survive to see and play it.

(https://www.destructoid.com/ul/593958-Horizon-Forbidden-West.jpg)

Played this a while back, and since the sequel is coming, figured I would comment on this:

Also HZD is being released on Steam Real Soon Now.

Anyways, super excited about this!  Loved the first game, and this looks pretty great.  Not sure how it's going to fit into the overall story (But it for sure will at least include Bay Area/Silicon Valley, which is an obvious setup for some sort of AI sub system to be located there), I was expecting something more obviously dealing with Ted or whatever.  But they did such a great job with the narrative of the first, giving them full benefit of the doubt!

I don't know, I honestly think the rest of the world would be pretty pissed if they found out you were directly responsible for

I have started this and played for the first 10% or so of the game four times now. I don't know quite why it doesn't fully grab me--it's not the game's fault, I like it. I think maybe it's that it's actually difficult enough to remember the full array of functional game interface stuff that each time it feels like I have to do it all over again just to be capable of progressing and then I get bored doing the stuff I've done already.

Yeah I mentioned this the pandemic backlog thread (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=26163.msg1536968#msg1536968) but I've forgotten how to play the game too. It's also not just the UI that makes it difficult to relearn. There's a lot of knowledge you accumulate as you play that you forget over time like the strategy and tactics for individual creatures and the game requires much more precise aiming on fast moving targets than many other console shooters.

When it comes out on the PC I think I'll replay it then to prep for Horizon Forbidden West since I'll at least be able to skip over the console shooter aiming part of the (re)learning curve.

Edit: when

I was bummed when I went back to play the Spider-man DLC and had completely forgotten the controls and combos/strats. Got lucky with HZD as a late-comer, played straight through the game and DLC.

Now I'm hesitant to play a great game until all the DLC is released!

Some more details / reveal trailer color commentary from the director: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIyz_7Hz3U4

Main tidbit is it isn't a launch title -- planned release is sometime in 2021.

PC release date for original August 7, 2020.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1151640/Horizon_Zero_Dawn_Complete_Edition/

Also available on the Store That Shall Not Be Named.

Tempted to repurchase it and replay it. This is gonna be EVEN BETTER with a mouse and boosted visuals, and it was already fantastic.

Hmm yes, I paid very little for the PS4 version and am only a few hours in... would much rather play it with mouse and keyboard!

I'll be getting it so I can play through The Frozen Wilds which I have on the PS4 but by the time I got around to trying it I had forgotten how to play and couldn't get past the initial Ravager like I mentioned in another thread.

Yeah, I'll re-up for PC. I just cannot really get too into PS4 games because I feel like I'm monopolizing the common space of the house too much.

I'm also probably going to repurchase on PC so I can play with mouse and keyboard.

I never played HZD (don't own a PS4), so I'm pretty pumped for this!

Good, couldn't get into it on the PS4 because console, might fare better on the PC.  :awesome_for_real: