Horizon: Zero Dawn - Sorry PC mustard race, look away

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Okay, I've completed it now and yeah, overall a very solid experience. It's not perfect, a lot of the side quests are forgettable and there's too much "follow the dotted line" style missions which are too prevalent in games today.

I personally found the story pretty good and it kept me playing because I wanted to find out more. The combat is great, especially for an open world and the robo-dino's are absolutely the star of the show. The world was a joy to explore, and a lot of that comes from just how fantastic the game looks.

Also, today I overrode a Thunderjaw, that robo T-Rex that features so prominently in the promotional material, and made it fight another Thunderjaw. That alone was worth the price of admission.

Oh, and it's an easy platinum trophy if you give a shit about such things. I almost got it by accident because I don't look at the trophy list before I've completed a game and have trophy notifications turned off.

That said, I'm not sure I'd play it again, once was probably enough.
 
Wow
Anchuent Christory said:
I'm not sure why any of that seems particularly bonkers to you.
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You didn't find it weird a scientists decision to keep diversity alive before anything else when the world was basically being rebooted strange .Or how people didn't all end up brown after all those years because fuck it? You didn't find matriarch led civilizations a little strange either? It is just stupid before anything else don't know why people don't find this borderline retarded not that it wouldn't keep somebody from enjoying said title as most games have shit reasoning but Jesus man denial much?
 
Hui said:
Spoilers ahead for anybody who still gives a shit.





You didn't find it weird a scientists decision to keep diversity alive before anything else when the world was basically being rebooted strange
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I think the better question is why do you think that is strange? Also, the human preservation aspect of the Zero Dawn project was only one aspect along with the preservation of plants/animals and as much of the sum total of human knowledge and art and culture as they could manage, so it wasn't "before anything else" it was just a single aspect of the snapshot of humanity they were attempting to take. (plot twist! it didn't all work as intended!)

Hui said:
Or how people didn't all end up brown after all those years because fuck it?
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You could level this criticism against any work of fiction that features humanity years from now and if you're going to be that pedantic about scientific accuracy then virtually any other aspect of science fiction crumbles as well, this is spectacularly nit-picky.

Hui said:
You didn't find matriarch led civilisations a little strange either?
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There's only one tribe that's matriarchal in the game and you later discover it's because they worship the "all mother" in the mountain which is actually the AI voice of an ancient security system from one of the ancient bunkers.

And you know what? The matriarchal society is portrayed in a very negative way in the game, they're superstitious, backwards and so obsessed with motherhood that Aloy has spent her life as an outcast, shunned by her own tribe due to her not having a mother. There's only one of the matriarchs that's shown as a decent person. Even better, the person from the tribe that has the best portrayal is Aloy's adoptive father who is easily the character she has the most respect and affection for.

Aloy has nothing but contempt for their matriarchal ways and pretty much right from the get go she can see just how misguided they are.
So if you think that the inclusion of a matriarchal tribe in the game is some sort of celebration of womanhood being superior, that I'm afraid that's just plain wrong.


When it comes down to it, the moment this game was revealed with a main character who was female and didn't look like she'd gotten her outfit from a bondage shop, the neckbeards have had it in their crosshairs. Then they doubled down when it became apparent that it featured a diverse ethnic cast.

If the simple inclusion of those two aspects makes it a "SJW, bring down all the males" game to you, then that's your choice and I'm certainly not going to be able to change your mind. Either way, I think this dialogue has been exhausted and all it's done is derail a thread that wasn't even that popular in the first place.
 
Anchuent Christory said:
I think the better question is why do you think that is strange? Also, the human preservation aspect of the Zero Dawn project was only one aspect along with the preservation of plants/animals and as much of the sum total of human knowledge and art and culture as they could manage, so it wasn't "before anything else" it was just a single aspect of the snapshot of humanity they were attempting to take. (plot twist! it didn't all work as intended!)
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I find it weird after being brought back from extinction after so many years (about 1000 or so) we would have many different ethnic groups living within what, two states? But yeah realism right? lol.

Anchuent Christory said:
You could level this criticism against any work of fiction that features humanity years from now and if you're going to be that pedantic about scientific accuracy then virtually any other aspect of science fiction crumbles as well, this is spectacularly nit-picky.
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Because pointing things out is bad and I should feel bad its not like I don't do this for everything else. Yeah got it.

Anchuent Christory said:
There's only one tribe that's matriarchal in the game and you later discover it's because they worship the "all mother" in the mountain which is actually the AI voice of an ancient security system from one of the ancient bunkers.

And you know what? The matriarchal society is portrayed in a very negative way in the game, they're superstitious, backwards and so obsessed with motherhood that Aloy has spent her life as an outcast, shunned by her own tribe due to her not having a mother. There's only one of the matriarchs that's shown as a decent person. Even better, the person from the tribe that has the best portrayal is Aloy's adoptive father who is easily the character she has the most respect and affection for.
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Alright finally you gave me some insight about it rather than be dismissive about it.

Anchuent Christory said:
When it comes down to it, the moment this game was revealed with a main character who was female and didn't look like she'd gotten her outfit from a bondage shop, the neckbeards have had it in their crosshairs. Then they doubled down when it became apparent that it featured a diverse ethnic cast.
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Yeah just call people that find it dumb racists and misogynists already. Because god forbid anybody has an opinion of some sorts when people lay down some information via videos from the devs and twitch streams.
 
I watched a LP and the lore is fascinating, does the gameplay reward repeat playthroughs? I'm debating spending part of a bonus on a PS4 to play this for real instead of watching it.

Anchuent Christory said:
When it comes down to it, the moment this game was revealed with a main character who was female and didn't look like she'd gotten her outfit from a bondage shop, the neckbeards have had it in their crosshairs. Then they doubled down when it became apparent that it featured a diverse ethnic cast.
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The endless parade of puff pieces hyping Aloy being a STRONK FYMALE KARAKTUR didn't help with everyone thinking the game was about agenda instead of gameplay. It's not like games media doesn't have a well-established reputation for promoting absolute dogshit so long as it was made by their friends/people who share their political opinions.
 
Absolutego said:
I watched a LP and the lore is fascinating, does the gameplay reward repeat playthroughs?
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Y'know as much as I enjoyed the game, I have no desire to replay it, at least not any time soon. A lot of the fun comes from discovering the world and once you've seen it, you've seen it. I wouldn't get a ps4 just for this game, or any other game. That said, the ps4's library has gotten particularly strong, especially over the past few months so I wouldn't be put off if you really fancy one.
Absolutego said:
The endless parade of puff pieces hyping Aloy being a STRONK FYMALE KARAKTUR didn't help with everyone thinking the game was about agenda instead of gameplay.
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Aloy's a good female character in the same way the Ellen Ripley's a good female character. Basically, it doesn't really matter within the context of the narrative.
If folk are then going to hijack Aloy for their list wars, well I guess that's up to them.
I suppose there's also the fact that people had zero faith in Guerrilla to write a competent character either way, and that's not really unjustified.


krautkid said:
Exactly the reason I've been kinda staying away from the game which is probably really petty of me, but I really cannot stand being told that I should care about a games 'message' by the media. The assumption people are so dumb they cannot come to their own conclusions about a game's message or that, in fact, a game even HAD some sort of agenda message only the journalist understood just grinds every gear in me.
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If the game has a message, it's one of conservation.

These days it's hard to walk the line between learning enough about a game to decide if you want to drop your hard earned cash on it and having your opinions influenced by click-bait articles and hyperbolic forum warriors.
 
I'm at the point where I'm going to go to the Zero Dawn lab or whatever it is. Am I halfway done, or more, through the game? I've already been spoiled plot-wise so IDGAF.

The game's pretty fun, but the game mechanics is so Witcher 3 that it's hard to not make comparisons (and really, it's no contest). I actually enjoy playing as Aloy, though. She's not Geralt with his asshole-ness, but she's not a goodie-two-shoes either. As a woman I enjoy playing a video game where it's a female protag, is not overly sexualized (she's wearing PROPER ARMOUR omg!), and so on. I do not mind seeing sexualized women in my games, but when it's appropriate and makes sense.
 
PropaGONDA said:
As a woman I enjoy playing a video game where it's a female protag, is not overly sexualized (she's wearing PROPER ARMOUR omg!), and so on. I do not mind seeing sexualized women in my games, but when it's appropriate and makes sense.
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OMG SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR!!!!

Seriously, though I concur with your points, the closest parallel is definitely The Witcher 3. The world's more barren and the plot points aren't as good, but the combat's way better.

I kind of liked how understated Aloy was and somewhat deadpan. I mean I really enjoyed playing as Geralt, he's pretty awesome, but even the most rabid fanboy has to acknowledge he's a massive neckbeard mary-sue.
 
Anchuent Christory said:
OMG SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR!!!!

Seriously, though I concur with your points, the closest parallel is definitely The Witcher 3. The world's more barren and the plot points aren't as good, but the combat's way better.

I kind of liked how understated Aloy was and somewhat deadpan. I mean I really enjoyed playing as Geralt, he's pretty awesome, but even the most rabid fanboy has to acknowledge he's a massive neckbeard mary-sue.
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Haha, I was worried I was gonna come across as a gamergate SJW or whatever. Honestly, I don't mind in some cases if some women do show skin... but it has to make sense for the character.

I also liked how understated Aloy was. She wasn't interested in romance (turned down potential suitors), and you can see in the game that there are, in my opinion, prettier characters than her. There tends to be a thing in video games where the female protag or female team member has to be drop-dead-gorgeous. Aloy's not super ugly, but she's not super hot either. Honestly, if Aloy was made into a guy I would have never really noticed. That's a sign of good character designing, imho.

And yeah I love playing as Geralt as I said, because he's such an ass. I agree he is a neckbeard mary-sue in some cases. I miss decapitating people in Witcher, it seems more epic. You don't get that kind of satisfaction taking down machines and the occasional bandit.
 
I started playing it today and I'm about 3 and a half hours in. The girl's story feels like a copy paste of How To Train Your Dragon/Brave and predicable.
 
I found the culture in Alloys tribe a bit weird tbh, I mean the aspect how she's shunned and bullied for not having a mother. I mean ok Alloy was
found in the cave where the Matriarchs live with no entrance but one
so I guess this was pretty spooky for the Matrirachs, but they never told this to the common people as I got it?
So my problem with this is: do they cast out and shun every baby who doen't have a mother? I mean it's supposed to be a primitive society with no modern medicine so death in childbirth should've been pretty common, so they must shun A LOT of babys. No wonder the tribe is so small and almost got wiped out during the story.

I found the hairstyles a bit distracting... I guess they were supposed to be generc tribal but all I could think of was "bunch of hipsters with undercuts"

and the weird head bobbing during dialogs was distracting too. I know they were trying to make it look more natural and not so stiff but often it makes the characters look like bobbleheads

otherwise I found the game solid and enjoyable, though I only watched a let's play (I tend to run them in the background when I do other stuff) so I migh've missed out a lot.
 
beansntoast said:
so I guess this was pretty spooky for the Matrirachs, but they never told this to the common people as I got it?
So my problem with this is: do they cast out and shun every baby who doen't have a mother? I mean it's supposed to be a primitive society with no modern medicine so death in childbirth should've been pretty common, so they must shun A LOT of babys. No wonder the tribe is so small and almost got wiped out during the story.
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I think it was not so much as not having a mother, more the belief that she wasn't "born". It's clear one of the matriarchs believes she's the child of the "allmother" but I think the others thought she came from the machine that was poking through the roof.[spoiler/]

I think the tribal hairstyles are them using the tribal theme to make hairstyles that are easy to render tbh.

Yeah, the problem with games with shittons of voiced dialogue is they can't animate by hand it all so they just have a few canned animations and some sort of algorithm to insert them.

It means everybody looks like they're doing a dodgy impression of an Indian dude with that head wavey thing.
 
The game was really fun. I'd definitely have a go at the platinum, but I'm currently preoccupied with other games on my backlog right now, so...

*Looks through thread*

Since when was making a main character female "tumblr/anti-male"? Are the people who make this point the kinds of people that Anti-GG was railing against?
 
Deadwaste said:
bought the game yesterday. it's fun.
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I've been playing it gradually over the past few weeks but I keep getting my ass kicked. I'm usually a PC gamer so I'm having a hard time aiming with the bow on a controller.

Great game though.
 
Beat the game, got the low hanging fruit platinum trophy for being a completionist. Keep intending on getting the DLC but I never quite get around it. Pretty good game, loved the Zoid designs and most of the :autism: ranting about female protagonist ended up being extremely :autism: in the end.
 
Oddjob OTP said:
Beat the game, got the low hanging fruit platinum trophy for being a completionist. Keep intending on getting the DLC but I never quite get around it. Pretty good game, loved the Zoid designs and most of the :autism: ranting about female protagonist ended up being extremely :autism: in the end.
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well i got the complete edition so it already came with the dlc. im in the frozen wilds part of the game. i ran away from the thing that kills you with fire and climbs
 
Been considering playing this game since someone I know already has it, and she acts like it's "the greatest game EVAR!!!1". There's only a couple of problems:

- Said somebody never played Red Dead Redemption, which I have, and I suspect that Horizon's praise is a little overhyped by comparison to what RDR did. I didn't even give a shit about the West, yet Rockstar pulled me straight into their fucked up portrayal of it.

- I still don't trust Guerilla Games in that after 4 Killzone games, they still all played like a poor man's Halo/Half-Life, and their "protagonists" all felt like villains. A real shame considering how good the art and atmosphere for the franchise looked.
 
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