Horizon Zero Dawn

Already installed. I might be more hyped for this than Zelda.

I see where some Gamestops are selling it at 9pm tonight, but I'm too old and live too far away to for that these days, lol.

I think it goes live midnight on the east coast which is 11 for me

I was able to pick it up here in Oregon at 9PM at Gamestop, since that is 12AM back East. I was interested since I saw the E3 reveal, and after an hour of play, my wife summed it up as 'Tomb Raider meets Skyrim' which is not a bad thing.

After so much time with No Man's Sky, I hate having to learn another control scheme, but I just need a few more hours to get comfortable.

Great looking game (on standard PS4) and crazy good on the PS4 Pro I imagine. Really good reviews and mechanical dinosaurs. What's not to like?

My copy is arriving Thursday. Managed to get it for $20.00 with rewards points plus Prime discount.

Just stopped by Walmart on the way home, and they had zero copies and had never heard of it. Worthless! I'll go to Target first thing tomorrow morning. :headwall:

Barely played last night but today I'm on it today tho

The melee combat feels so good. That's a surprise. The opening is a bit slow, so power through and once it opens up it becomes engrossing. The story is actually quite interesting.

"BlameItOnTheHenne wrote:

The melee combat feels so good. That's a surprise. The opening is a bit slow, so power through and once it opens up it becomes engrossing. The story is actually quite interesting.

I guess it depends on where you're coming from with regards to the opening, with young Aloy. I have two little girls, and the oldest is about the same age as she is during that sequence. She reminded me a lot of my daughter, to the point that it got me a little emotional at one point, lol. For me, it was a terrific way to get attached to the character.

I've spent about two hours with the game so far, and totally love it. The controls and "weight" of things are really, really good. Its interesting to figure things out as I go, as the game does a good job of making things available, but not obvious. Someone else had said that the gameplay was a blend of AC and Skyrim, and thats how I'd describe it as well. So far, its awesome, and beautiful. Looking forward to digging deeper tonight.

Put in a couple more hours this evening, the story is starting to take off, but man, don't get attached to anyone.

I'm taking things very slowly. Combat is brutal. I've yet to figure out any tricks beyond hiding in the grass and stealth killing one robot. If I can't get em' that way, then even a couple of Watchers can kill me if I'm not careful. Just got to level 6. The bow is so much harder than most archery games. Even when my aim is right on the enemy, sometimes the arrow flies away sideways and misses. I estimate that I've died about 10 times so far, and learned the VERY hard lesson that the game does NOT save automatically. Planning on trying to level up a few more times before I move on in the story.

"Unlucky 13 wrote:

I'm taking things very slowly. Combat is brutal. I've yet to figure out any tricks beyond hiding in the grass and stealth killing one robot. If I can't get em' that way, then even a couple of Watchers can kill me if I'm not careful. Just got to level 6. The bow is so much harder than most archery games. Even when my aim is right on the enemy, sometimes the arrow flies away sideways and misses. I estimate that I've died about 10 times so far, and learned the VERY hard lesson that the game does NOT save automatically. Planning on trying to level up a few more times before I move on in the story.

Yeah the game makes you pay for being dumb. I'm level 16 and starting to see some newer bigger and meaner machines. The story is far better than I would have guessed. It sucks because not very far in (going off of the map space I've cleared), and Zelda is tomorrow

"mor911 wrote:

Yeah the game makes you pay for being dumb. I'm level 16 and starting to see some newer bigger and meaner machines. The story is far better than I would have guessed. It sucks because not very far in (going off of the map space I've cleared), and Zelda is tomorrow

Are you going to try and play both? ME:A comes out in three weeks, and I'm just going to wait to buy that one until I'm done with this. For the most part, I'm a one game at a time guy.

"Unlucky 13 wrote:

Are you going to try and play both? ME:A comes out in three weeks, and I'm just going to wait to buy that one until I'm done with this. For the most part, I'm a one game at a time guy.

I don't think my FOMO will let me not play Zelda. It's already killing me that my friends are already 20+ hours in.

"mor911 wrote:

I don't think my FOMO will let me not play Zelda. It's already killing me that my friends are already 20+ hours in.

LOL, I had to Google FOMO. I hadn't seen that one before. :up:

Honestly, the more that I play of H:ZD, the more engrossed I am, and I'm only 6 hours of very patient, methodical play in. Other games can wait!

i think Horizon is fantastic. If you've got a Pro and a 4k TV, it's one of the best looking games I've ever seen.

"mor911 wrote:

i think Horizon is fantastic. If you've got a Pro and a 4k TV, it's one of the best looking games I've ever seen.

I don't have either, and its still fantastic!. The character models and faces are second only to TW3. Really happy and impressed.

Yeah, 1080p and standard PS4.... and it looks incredible. I have a minor complaint about the riding controls (not up to the level of Red Dead) but you have to dig a bit to find even minor flaws with this game.

Mass Effect Andromeda is on the, uh.... horizon, so my wife will be taking over my PS4 at the end of the month. So, I need to get my Horizon playing time in now. :)

One other thought; I'd like to see more big games get a spring release, as the Holiday season is just too crowded.

"Deus ex dolphin wrote:

Yeah, 1080p and standard PS4.... and it looks incredible. I have a minor complaint about the riding controls (not up to the level of Red Dead) but you have to dig a bit to find even minor flaws with this game.

Mass Effect Andromeda is on the, uh.... horizon, so my wife will be taking over my PS4 at the end of the month. So, I need to get my Horizon playing time in now. :)

One other thought; I'd like to see more big games get a spring release, as the Holiday season is just too crowded.

The riding seems fine to me so far, but I've only ridden Striders, and then only to traverse long distances. Very similar to games like TW3, Skyrim or older AC games, and I was able to jump right into it.

I'm loving the fact that they've put a lot of thought and detail into the quests. I had what appeared to be a 3rd tier fetch quest branch into multiple steps, at various points around the map, leading me to meet several new characters and involved a battle with a major (at this point, level 12) enemy. Maybe not up to Witcher standards, but they appear to have tried really hard to do a good, deep job with them, and its very welcome.

I am hoping that the game allows you to eventually meet and make allies, because that's always one of my favorite aspects of a RPG. Thus far, almost everyone I've met (other than some minor NPCs) has either been hostile or indifferent towards Aloy.

The difficulty curve is really, really high. Just took on a lev 8 quest at lev 14, died about 15 times, and then eventually killed the boss using the old Link-style roll and shoot. I earned it! Im guessing that there isnt going to be the possibility of being over leveled.

http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2017/03/soapbox_why_we_need_horizon_zero_dawn_dlc

Also, there are no plans for DLC for the game. So, what's there is what will be, aside from probably bug fixes if needed.

I have to say that I am really, really enjoying the game. 36 hours in, level 29, and its incredible. The graphics are among the best I've ever seen, and the controls are very good. I would estimate that I'm somewhere between 25-50% through the main story.

-I want to reiterate that the difficulty curve is as high as any game I've ever played. At level 29, I just died several times attempting to complete a level 12 quest, and did so by finding a location I could shoot the enemies while I was basically safe. As you level up, you don't gain a whole lot of HP, and better equipment doesn't offer a lot of armor regardless, so even lower level enemies can kill you if they get behind you, or there are too many of them.

-That being said, leveling up itself is actually so easy that its almost unavoidable. The amount of XP that you get for killing robots doesn't decrease as you level up, it just takes more XP to get to the higher levels.

-The world is huge. Any worries that I had about the game being awesome and fun, but small, can be put to bed. While I can imagine someone trying to do a speedrun, and burn through the main quest as fast as they can, in maybe 30 hours, they would be missing a huge portion of the game by doing so. I'm only now digging into the main storyline, and I expect to spend 60+ hours in total.

https://gamerant.com/horizon-zero-dawn-dlc/

The studio has now said that they do plan to have some story DLC, which is great news. No word on when though, or whether its just one, or multiple.

https://gamerant.com/horizon-zero-dawn-best-selling-new-ip-ps4/

The game is the best selling first party title for Sony during the PS4 era alreay, having sold 2.6 million copies. Its also Guerilla Games best selling title.

*Best selling new IP. It passed Bloodborne and Driveclub.

Uncharted 4 is still far and away the best selling exclusive at nearly 9 million.

"BlameItOnTheHenne wrote:

*Best selling new IP. It passed Bloodborne and Driveclub.

Uncharted 4 is still far and away the best selling exclusive at nearly 9 million.

True. I think that the quote meant to say that its the best selling First Party IP of a wholly new title since the start of the PS4 era. Not one that was a sequal to games that were on the PS3 or older.

Either way, its an amazing game. I'm really digging into it. 49 hours played, 58% progress (13 main quests complete), only one machine that I haven't encountered yet. I'm at level 36, so I'm about double the recommended level for most of the quests on my que, but its still very challenging. Really loving how the story is opening up.

After several hours of searching for a hidden entrance to an area, looking high and low all around, I finally gave up and looked for an answer online. It was the first time I'd used any help in the game, and felt like such a dolt afterwards, because the entrance was directly behind me when I first climbed down a mountain to approach the zone in the first place. I just needed to turn around. :lol: