Horizon: Zero Dawn

I'm not angry at all. You made reference to getting "owned," so I figured part of your frustration was that you didn't know how to handle Glinthawks. I did find them annoying at times -- someone at GAF compared them to cliff racers in Morrowind, and while I don't think they're that bad, they do get aggravating at times, especially if there are three of them swooping down at you at once. As I ranked up, got better gear, became more experienced in fighting them, I enjoyed those battles a lot more. Eventually I had a lot of fun with them, but it took some time to get there.

Sounds like you and some others bailed on the game early, after 10 hours or so, and so never really got very deep into the game or the combat. I don't blame you -- if you don't find a game interesting after 10 hours, stop and do something else. I just think you missed a lot.

Anyhow, after 120 hours or so, I didn't find the combat tedious. I was impressed by how many different approaches there were and how each battle unfolded differently.
Funny. I really enjoy fighting the bird enemies. The game does a great job of eliminating unavoidable hits. I like how important timing is.
 
Yep. There's a wow factor early on, but the game is incredibly boring. I stopped playing after about 10 hours. Deleted from the HDD. I"ll never finish or revisit it.

This is crazy to me. Considering how pro PS you are these days and Horizon being the only truly promising new IP these days. More power to you. I guess when you only play on PS4 you get spoiled anyway. If i only had an Xbox, i'd kill for a game like this.
 
At least MW is honest. I respect that.

Repetition in games is such a fine line and subjective. Many thought Alan Wake was repetitive. I thought it was entertaining throughout.

I need to get back in to Horizon though. I didn't get very far. But I was having fun with it.
 
At least MW is honest.

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I must be at the part of the game where I don't have any good weapons yet. The arrows I have do nothing but make the machines angry at this point. It isn't hard, just tedious. While I am pumping 20 arrows into something to kill it, 5 other robots just wandered in and are now all attacking too. Then it is run, hide, repeat. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, or just haven't unlocked the good gear yet. Most of the weapons I make are pretty terrible. It takes 20 arrows easy to take down anything big, and usually more.
 
At least MW is honest. I respect that.

Repetition in games is such a fine line and subjective. Many thought Alan Wake was repetitive. I thought it was entertaining throughout.

I need to get back in to Horizon though. I didn't get very far. But I was having fun with it.

Very true. I've played games that i mostly enjoyed or didn't really enjoy after hours of play and still said they were awesome. I'd rather give devs credit for what they do right than drag a game down for what wasn't done right. Sometimes it's just easier to say it was a great experience than point out the flaws.

All of these games i'm talking about were on Xbox of course, but the point remains. PlayStation exclusives? Forget about it. Greatness Awaited, and it delivered. Hit after hit after hit..
 
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I must be at the part of the game where I don't have any good weapons yet. The arrows I have do nothing but make the machines angry at this point. It isn't hard, just tedious. While I am pumping 20 arrows into something to kill it, 5 other robots just wandered in and are now all attacking too. Then it is run, hide, repeat. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, or just haven't unlocked the good gear yet. Most of the weapons I make are pretty terrible. It takes 20 arrows easy to take down anything big, and usually more.

Sounds like something is going wrong, if you are slinging 20 arrows into an enemy, and then you get ganged up on by 5 others, so you have to run away and come back, over and over. Yeah, that doesn't sound like fun.

Let me see if I can help.

1. When you're early in the game, you're only supposed to be taking on the lower-level enemies -- Walkers, Striders, Grazers, Scrappers, etc. You should be able to take those out with two or three well-placed shots or other strategies. You're not supposed to be capable of handling medium-level enemies like Bellowbacks, Sawtooths, Snapjaws, Ravagers, etc (to say nothing of the harder enemies). Those things are supposed to scare you, because they are way more powerful than you, and you are not equipped to handle them. If you try, you will end up badly outmatched. So maybe you are trying to take on enemies that are just too tough for you?

2. I get the impression you are just engaging the enemies with bow and arrow. I say that because you keep mentioning it. The combat works best when you are using all the weapons in your arsenal -- traps, tripwires, ropecaster, grenades, etc., not just bow and arrow (although you use a lot of that, too).

3. I did a lot of stealth. I really enjoyed that approach in this game. You might want to use more of that, if you're not already. It helps thin the herd considerably. And taking the machines down feels satisfying.

4. We've mentioned this before, but there are good strategies and ineffective strategies for each enemy in the game. If you're finding yourself plunking 20 arrows into a creature, running away and repeating, you're either 1) trying to take on an enemy that is too advanced for you right now, or 2) not using the right strategies.

5. It may also be a matter of personal taste, to some degree. I enjoyed the process of coming at tough enemies over and over, making repeated runs, until I finally took them down. I remember the first time I took down a Bellowback. I think I spent 20 minutes on it -- plunking a couple of arrows into his tender spots, then hiding and hoping he didn't sniff me out. It felt good to finally get him, though. But to you, maybe that process is tedious. (Later in the game, I could make much shorter work of Bellowbacks, but the first time was tough.)

I hope that is helpful. Ultimately, though, if you're not enjoying it, just drop it. No game is for everybody. Horizon hit all the right notes for me, but it might not be your type of game. Different strokes and all.
 
The Frozen Wilds will be out in 2017 and be priced at $15 for PS+ members and $20 for non-members. At least, that is the current price -- it is available for pre-order -- and there is no indication that it is a promotional price.

Promo materials:

The Frozen Wilds contains additional content for Horizon Zero Dawn, including new storylines, characters and experiences in a beautiful but unforgiving new area.

· Uncover a compelling new story.
· Explore a brand new area
· Face new machines.
· Enhanced for PS4™ Pro with dynamic 4K gaming, improved graphics and environments, and High Dynamic Range visuals*.


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E3 trailer:

 
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I'm guessing by the theme of this it will be more about the Banuk?

Yes, I think so. Looks like an area farther north, into Banuk territory. Also, you get a Banuk avatar for pre-ordering, and everyone in that trailer seems to be wearing Banuk garb. Which is fine. The Banuk seemed like an interesting and sort of odd people.

Aloy is wearing the power armor in that clip. I'm thinking they are signaling that the difficulty will be ratcheted up, to give players who've acquired that armor a challenge. I didn't get the power armor until after I'd completed the main story, and when I did, it made things almost too easy. I didn't mind; I felt I'd earned it by that point. But people with the power armor would not want to just skate through the DLC. So I'm assuming the DLC will be relatively challenging.
 
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Really looking forward to it. I love being in that world.
 
I'm guessing / hoping this is set in Yellowstone / and the Grand Tetons. The map in the main game seemed to widely be based on northern and southern Utah (excluding the jungle section...). Considering this is supposed to be further north and they showed a hot springs and large mountain, that general area makes sense to me.

Preordered this morning, the wait begins.
 
Yea I'd be curious on specific locations. Part of it is Colorado as well. The jungle area I'm a little curious about. Maybe Mexico? Not sure if the southwest used to be like and maybe after hundreds of years without humans it returned.
 
Day one.

This is probably my game of the year for 2017.
 
From a recent interview with Shawn Layden:

Guerrilla Games’ open world post-apocalyptic adventure is one of 2017’s great success stories and one of the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s few serious challengers for the game of the year crown. It’s fair to assume the upcoming Frozen Wilds expansion is merely the tip of the iceberg.

“That’s another studio I don’t tell them what to do,” laughs Layden. “The Guerrilla team have spent 10 or 12 years on the Killzone franchise and Horizon Zero Dawn could not be more different from Killzone if it had tried. When they said they wanted to come up with an open world, heavily nature based kind of game using all the different colours they had never used in Killzone - like blue. And red, and yellow, and green - it was a big stretch goal for them but they nailed it.

“The reception for the game has been fantastic. [Guerrilla Games head honcho] Herman Hulst has got a very keen mind on where he wants to take Horizon and what the roadmap is - and that roadmap is expressed in multiple years. I think we’ll be in the Horizon business for a long time.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gaming/w...ions-shawn-layden-death-stranding-spider-man/
 
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If Sony knows whats good for them they will just sit back and let Guerilla do whatever the hell they want.
 
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"With Sony revealing that Horizon Zero Dawn had moved over 3.4 MILLION copies since launch, it was only time before Guerrilla Games would release some new updated player stats and they did so via an email.
  • Aloy has destroyed over 545,000,000 watchers.
  • Over 1,285,000,000 of those annoying bandits have been put to rest.
  • Aloy has died over 185,000,000 times..damn.
  • More than 285,000,000 fire arrows have been crafted.
  • The toughest non-boss machine in the game? The corrupted Sawtooth. Really?! Those corrupted Rockbreakers were a pain my Aloy’s ass!
  • Some guy or girl has picked up over 12,000 rocks. If this is you.. PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY!!
With the “Days of Play” lowering the price of HZD to $39.99, plus the holidays coming up fast, these stats will only continue to climb higher for one of the best PlayStation 4 exclusives around."

https://theplaystationbrahs.com/2017/06/18/latest-horizon-zero-dawn-player-stats-are-mind-boggling/

I agree with him -- my vote for toughest enemy would probably go to a corrupted Rockbreaker in the wild. I never did get a handle on them. I remember running into a pair of them in the open, and it was all I could do to get out of there alive.

Lol at the guy who picked up 12,000 rocks. He must've really liked rocks. You can only hold 10, so he must've chucked at least 11,990 of them.
 
"With Sony revealing that Horizon Zero Dawn had moved over 3.4 MILLION copies since launch, it was only time before Guerrilla Games would release some new updated player stats and they did so via an email.
  • Aloy has destroyed over 545,000,000 watchers.
  • Over 1,285,000,000 of those annoying bandits have been put to rest.
  • Aloy has died over 185,000,000 times..damn.
  • More than 285,000,000 fire arrows have been crafted.
  • The toughest non-boss machine in the game? The corrupted Sawtooth. Really?! Those corrupted Rockbreakers were a pain my Aloy’s ass!
  • Some guy or girl has picked up over 12,000 rocks. If this is you.. PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY!!
With the “Days of Play” lowering the price of HZD to $39.99, plus the holidays coming up fast, these stats will only continue to climb higher for one of the best PlayStation 4 exclusives around."

https://theplaystationbrahs.com/2017/06/18/latest-horizon-zero-dawn-player-stats-are-mind-boggling/

I agree with him -- my vote for toughest enemy would probably go to a corrupted Rockbreaker in the wild. I never did get a handle on them. I remember running into a pair of them in the open, and it was all I could do to get out of there alive.

Lol at the guy who picked up 12,000 rocks. He must've really liked rocks. You can only hold 10, so he must've chucked at least 11,990 of them.

The rock breakers are actually really easy. Hit them with the ice bomb from the catapult to slow them down, then swap to your bow and fire at them until the ice wears off, then rinse and repeat.

And WTF with the player picking up 12000 rocks!!
 
Yea the Rockbreakers were definitely bs. Can't say I ever had trouble with Sawtooths or even the Thunderjaws.
 
The rock breakers are actually really easy. Hit them with the ice bomb from the catapult to slow them down, then swap to your bow and fire at them until the ice wears off, then rinse and repeat.

I probably under-utilized ice in the game, but I've heard it's very handy in certain situations. I guess Rockbreakers are one of them. I'll have to try that.

And WTF with the player picking up 12000 rocks!!

Maybe he made one big pile of rocks. Either that, or he was constantly chucking them, everywhere he went, then picking them up again. People do weird sh*t.

In Morrowind, people would build pillow forts. Horizon doesn't work that way, though -- you can't stack rocks on top of each other.