Horizon Zero Dawn

[Uncle Mike]

So I was getting a little fatigued on this; the generic "map game" open world template was draining my enthusiasm somewhat. But then I stopped cleaning up the low level side missions, and went for something a little more challenging: tackling a Thunderjaw. That was a good  bit for sure, pinging off its radar, cannon, and then trying to figure out how best to finish it off.

 

Then I progressed in the Hunter's Lodge. Glinthawks can fuck off.

[HarryBizzle]

Tethering a glinthawk to the ground never gets old. 

[Tezcatlipoca]

2 hours ago, Captain LeChuck said:

Dude. I'm playing Uncharted 4 right now, trying my damndest to get fucking camera to go super close up to a character like I can in Horizon. 

 

I hate to imagine Chloe's eyes in 4K 

 

[Monkeyspill]

Was Erend meant to be riding a grazer? I thought so at first.

 

 

[Minion]

1 hour ago, Captain LeChuck said:

You should forget the Hunters Lodge, it's the duffest part of the game.

 

Do you know what the rewards are for it?

 

I'm loving this game, I'm actually quite surprised I thought I was burnt out on open world games but these robot animals/dinosaurs are just so brilliant.

[Radish]

I just found every character in there pretty repellent and never bothered with it. In my head Alloy wouldn't ever want to be a part of that either. 

 

I can only just tolerate Erend too, damn that voice acting (and hair) is annoying. 

[df0]

Finished the Hunters Lodge. Meh, don't bother is my advice.

[Oz]

So how does checkerboard rendering work? 

[MardiganX]

Glinthawks?! LOL. See you. Raise you a FUCKING STORMBIRD!!

 

Its the only machine I have encountered so far where my first instinct was to run, like fuck, and keep on running. I have only encountered one and it was about ten hours of game time ago so may have been under powered but even with a matching or higher character level those things are solid.

[Trumpets]

Don't bother with the Hunter's Lodge. Got it.

 

That said, this game has some great combat, probably the best ever in an open world game unless I'm forgetting something even better?

[HarryBizzle]

41 minutes ago, Oz said:

So how does checkerboard rendering work? 

 

As far as I understand it there is no one standard implementation but it involves rendering every other pixel of a scene (like all the black squares on a checkerboard) for one frame and all the others for the next (all the white squares).

Then using various forms of magic they're able to reconstruct an image from that that gives a very good approximation of a true 4K image. And you use the info from one round to help reconstruct the image for the next round ("temporal reconstruction").

 

This post is a lot clearer but more long winded: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1330505

[df0]

I seem to have been overly harsh on this.

 

Yesterday I finally decided to press-on with the story. I left that for what it was at around level 15 and ventured about (cleared all bandit camps, found 80% of the collectibles, cleared all Tallnecks, cleared out and visited cities and settlements all over the map, killed all animal machine types, completed Hunters Lodge, did side missions etc.) that made me become bored with the game. Same old same old. I leveled up to 47 by just doing all of the above.

 

So yesterday I met the Sun-King and the NPC I know as the Titan Vanguard from Destiny for the first time. Since that moment the story went into high gear and it is great. I can't wait to spend more time with this, after I am done with the chores and responsibilities of an adult 

[Opinionated Ham Scarecrow]

Pretty sure I have hit the point of no return and to be honest was hoping there would be a lot more main story.

[HarryBizzle]

Cauldron Xi 

 

Spoiler

I loved it. Was expecting the same, dodge the Watchers, fight a big baddie at the end. Instead it's full of Eclipse, a refreshing "defend this for 2 minutes" which all lulls you into a false sense of security before totally turning things on their heads by having the Stalkers.

Genuinely felt like a bit of Predator. Especially as I hadn't previously scanned a Stalker. Tethering them so I could safely scan them then taking them out felt amazing.

 

 

So good. There's only 4 or 5 Cauldrons in the game, as with the Tallnecks or whatever, which presumably gave them the time to make them unique and interesting instead of being identical.

[HarryBizzle]

I've only got Zeta left, then.

[dr_manhattan^]

Whoop!  Amazon just delivered my two days early, and my PS4 Pro should be delivered tomorrow!

 

Sunday is sorted.

[Oz]

I just completed a maker's end. this game is the dog's bollocks. I am actually amazed it did not get an edge ten. it must really fall downhill from here. EDIT: I just realised they gave witcher 3 an 8 so I know fuck all apparently. 

[HarryBizzle]

I'm finding it really annoying that if a mission says "kill all the machines" and you override one you can't complete the mission unless you kill that machine as well.

 

 

Does this change if you have the skill to override permanently?

[Opinionated Ham Scarecrow]

No  bit of an oversight that one.

[HarryBizzle]

Well at least I know not to bother upgrading the combat override then.

 

Just did Grave Hoard. Wasn't a particularly good mission. I really like the "Sun Shall Fall" mission or whatever it was called though. Not overly dramatic, just good fun.

[Tezcatlipoca]

Level 31 now, and I still haven't been to Meridian.

 

Unlocked all the Tallnecks, and done all the side missions I can find.

 

May try and do the Cauldrons and remaining Bandit Campus before I go back to the story...

[Uncle Mike]

Went ahead and progressed actual story stuff for a bit. Found Olin, investigated into Erlend's sister, met the Sun King. Also played Robin Hood. The bigger missions are more fun.

[HarryBizzle]

1 hour ago, Captain LeChuck said:

But at the end of that line you can call a mount without having to find one.

 

Not overly bothered about that.

 

I also don't really see the point of being able to shoot while on wires. I think there's one mission where that would have been possible, let alone useful.

 

Another thing that's winding me up - why have audiologs you can listen to as you walk around if you're going to have Aloy talk over them if you actually try and walk around a bit?

[Oz]

23 minutes ago, Captain LeChuck said:

Yeah. About that...

 

What?

 

Does not surprise me. What I have found is the better you become at the combat the more fun it is. I've gotten super efficient dealing with human enemies. And I do have fun with the human combat when I am basically speed running these camps. I normally sneak in, disable the alarm and then go on a rampage which can get quite fun. I would want to do them all too. 

[HarryBizzle]

Enemies pouring into the sealed crypt/tomb/temple/whatever that no one has been able to find for thousands of years, moments after you found it, is probably one of my biggest bugbears in videogames.

 

Right after you getting winning a fight and then getting done over by an enemy in a cutscene that you have no control over. 

 

 

Having said that, the overall plot in this is incredible. There's only about three story dumps as far as I can tell but each is massive and really, really good. They put a lot of thought into this.

[Opinionated Ham Scarecrow]

It's still basically

Spoiler

Terminator

tho innit.

[Gorf King]

I wouldn't say it is really, no. There's a lot more to it than that, and the most significant mcguffin that drives the story you mention is entirely missing from this.

 

Some of the exposition dumps are quite big, and when you're in a mission that drives the story forward there are sometimes so many collectibles (audio files, text files, holograms) scattered about that you wonder if that section will ever end. A bit of fatigue can set in. Of course, you can choose to ignore many of them and just grab the gist of things from the mandatory holograms and cutscenes, but then you'll miss the biggest (and best) part of the story. Some of the background info and personal stories in them give a far better insight into what's happened, and what's happening, than the cutscenes and other main material do. Some of them are so well-written (and powerful) that I've become quite invested in some of the threads, to the extent that if I think I might have missed one I spend forever retracing my steps trying to find it because I'm dying to know what happened to this person or this situation. (And it invariably turns up round the next corner I was going to turn anyway.)

 

Despite there being an occasional pacing issue - which is helped if you keep back a lot of the side-quests and collectible-searching/exploration to scatter between main missions - and the odd clunky bit, I think the overall level of storytelling's of a very high quality and unusually engaging, sometimes surprisingly affecting. As long as you're prepared to take the time to scour the environment and piece everything together. If that's not your sort of thing you'll undoubtedly get a lot less from the game because the story will seem a lot less rich, and a lot of important details will be missing. The VA and cutscenes alone just don't do it.

[Harsin]

Crazy amount of detail in this game.

 

The robot animals all have a stamp on them from the cauldron that made them.

 

 

[Oz]

I hope they do dlc like witcher did. this game has a lot of legs.

[Opinionated Ham Scarecrow]

15 minutes ago, Gorf King said:

I wouldn't say it is really, no. There's a lot more to it than that, and the most significant mcguffin that drives the story you mention is entirely missing from this.

 

Some of the exposition dumps are quite big, and when you're in a mission that drives the story forward there are sometimes so many collectibles (audio files, text files, holograms) scattered about that you wonder if that section will ever end. A bit of fatigue can set in. Of course, you can choose to ignore many of them and just grab the gist of things from the mandatory holograms and cutscenes, but then you'll miss the biggest (and best) part of the story. Some of the background info and personal stories in them give a far better insight into what's happened, and what's happening, than the cutscenes and other main material do, and some of them are so well-written (and powerful) that if've become quite invested in some of the threads, to the extent that if I think I might have missed one I spend forever retracing my steps trying to find it because I'm dying to know what happened to this person or this situation. (And it invariably turns up round the next corner I was going to turn anyway.)

 

Despite there being an occasional pacing issue - which is helped if you keep back a lot of the side-quests and collectible-searching/exploration to scatter between main missions - and the odd clunky bit, I think the overall level of storytelling's of a very high quality and unusually engaging, sometimes surprisingly affecting. As long as you're prepared to take the time to scour the environment and piece everything together. If that's not your sort of thing you'll undoubtedly get a lot less from the game because the story will seem a lot less rich, and a lot of important details will be missing. The VA and cutscenes alone just don't do it.

 

I was just being flippant; I know there are no muffins in this. This game has taken the A.I. Apocalypse in a much more interesting direction. So close to finishing this, but don't want it to end. Easily the most immersed I have been in a game world since Witcher 3.