Horizon: Zero Dawn

[bob]

I had the same problem (although I'm not playing on hard, do the time limits change?).

 

In the end I picked the alley with the most log piles and kept restarting until they stampeded down that one.

[Nolan]

I got lucky on that one I guess. I just charged into the pack of them and they ran towards me not away (which I've had happen more than once.) and into the middle valley of traps.

[Fierce_LiNk]

After a long day, I've decided to come home and give this a whirl.

 

Update has downloaded. My body is ready. Let's go!

[Hero-of-Time]

I got lucky on that one I guess. I just charged into the pack of them and they ran towards me not away (which I've had happen more than once.) and into the middle valley of traps.

 

I ended up doing after a few tries, yesterday. I threw a few slingshot bombs behind them, which forced them to run in the direction I wanted. Still took a few tries though.

 

After a long day, I've decided to come home and give this a whirl.

 

Update has downloaded. My body is ready. Let's go!

 

How are you liking it so far?

[drahkon]

How are you liking it so far?

 

Pretty sure he's made zero progress and took aprox 800 screenshots

[Fierce_LiNk]

How are you liking it so far?

 

I played for an hour/two hours on Thursday and was shattered after work/football last night. I came home intending to play, but ended up getting a takeaway before falling asleep on the sofa. I'm going to spend the entire weekend doing nothing but playing.

 

First impressions are good, though. It looks beautiful...in fact, breath-taking in places. The lighting in this game is seriously wonderful.

 

I'm not sure if I'm getting the maximum out of our new TV though and I'm sure I'll need to fiddle around with a few more settings. @Eenuh will be better at that than I am. I have HDR turned on and it's just a case of playing around with those settings, brightness, etc.

 

Pretty sure he's made zero progress and took aprox 800 screenshots

 

I've taken a few, yes. :p

[bob]

I came across a couple of new types of machines yesterday. Looked huge. noped out of the first pair, and took a potshot at some others from safety across a river. Then it started firing homing balls at me from miles away and I had to nope away from those too.

Edited March 25, 2017 by 130131301364

[Fierce_LiNk]

Just experienced rain for the first time. Hnnnnnnnggg.

 

Think I underplayed the lighting a bit a few moments ago. It's really, reeeeeally good. Absolutely gorgeous looking game.

[Hero-of-Time]

Game finished and platinum obtained.

 

Every once in a while I play again that makes me glad that I love this hobby so much and reminds me why I continue to play games. This is one of those games. I thought the visuals were incredible, the story is fantastic and the gameplay mechanics very satisfying.

 

The care attention to detail that GG gave the game is amazing. I was reading this about the games development, yesterday.

 

Horizon Zero Dawn is a beautiful game. Sometimes, it seems too beautiful. Here’s how the developers achieved such an uncannily gorgeous look.

 

Studio art director Jan-Bart van Beek recently explained to Kotaku that the studio spent many hours watching BBC nature documentaries, which allowed Guerrilla Games to lay out a conceptual framework for Horizon’s visuals.

 

“It’s a quality that isn’t actually completely photorealistic,” Beek said. “It’s a form of hyper-realism that we started calling ‘BBC-realism.’ It’s all shot in perfect condition, at the perfect time of day, with exactly the right dramatic light angle, cloudscapes and weather. There is a lot of cinematic grading to add contrast, atmosphere and saturation to the screen. It’s a film process that takes weeks to find those conditions and film a 10 second snippet.”

 

Fortunately, Horizon is a game, so the developers didn’t have to wait for hours just for the right conditions to appear. Instead, they deliberately programmed the game to always capture that picturesque quality.

 

“In Horizon we wanted to give them the sense of being in a 24/7 version of BBC’s nature, where it is always at its most epic, most impressive,” Beek said. “Anything less than the best look, we would simply remove. So to some degree we indeed make it unnatural.

 

 

 

“But it was not a matter of turning the beauty to 11. It was a matter of removing anything less than a 9.5 on the epic nature scale. It’s not a ‘reality’ simulation, it’s all very controlled. If we like a certain amount of fog at a particular time-of-day because of the nice lighting effect it gave, we simply set it up so that amount of fog was the ONLY amount of fog ever allowed at that time of day. If we only liked a certain amount of snowfall, then that would be the only amount of snowfall ever allowed.”

 

Another thing that came from this interview was just how much of the world is procedurally generated.

 

Beek noted that, in order to nail the aesthetic, they tweaked weather transitions to be faster so that the player never sees anything below a certain level of quality. You only ever see whatever looks best. Some of these visuals, such as the human settlements, are tailor-made, but Beek estimates that about 80% of Horizon’s natural landscape is procedurally generated.

 

“Procedural nature simply means that the artist does not have to place every single rock, tree or blade of grass by hand,” Beek said. “Instead the artists define rules and draw maps on where they want to certain assets to appear. So with a simple paint stroke on the terrain they can have a collection of flowers to appear. It gives them a lot of control, but also a lot of speed when working on a world as big as Horizon’s.”

 

“But [the] artist can still place individual trees and such, which is often what they do to dress up vista point, or important roads, or cut-scenes, because we know a large amount of players will see that content and it is worth the effort to hand-craft it.”

 

Amazing stuff.

 

I have to give props not only to GG but to Sony. They could have told GG to sod off when they pitched their idea to them and forced them to continue to make the same old thing they've always done. Instead, they had faith in GGs vision and gave them the time they needed to produce this masterpiece. To think that GG made the Killzone games and then went on to make this just blows my mind.

 

For me, this is probably the game of the generation so far. Nothing I have played has come close to touching the experience I have had while playing this game. Well done, GG.

 

Finally, I didn't really faff on much with Photo mode but I did take quick shot while in a Cauldron. It's not really a spoiler as it's just the innards of a Cauldron but I will hide it anyway.

 

 

Edited March 25, 2017 by Hero-of-Time

[Fierce_LiNk]

I've been on this for the whole day and I'm finding it difficult to put down.

 

It's stunning. Gorgeous graphics! I'm getting a Tomb Raider/Rise of the Tomb Raider kind of vibe from this in the way that it moves and plays. I'm enjoying the lore and story much more than I thought I would.

 

The actual gameplay is so satisfying. The combat is fluid and exciting. Looking forward to putting even more time into this!

[Blade]

For me The Witcher 3 is the game of the generation so far. How does it compare @Fierce_LiNk? I'm going to be looking at picking this up after Zelda I think.

[Fierce_LiNk]

For me The Witcher 3 is the game of the generation so far. How does it compare @Fierce_LiNk? I'm going to be looking at picking this up after Zelda I think.

 

Finish Bloodborne first.

 

It's a completely different style of game. Can't really compare the two. Like I mentioned earlier, it's closer to something like Tomb Raider with the way that you play it. One similarity is maybe the forestry type of locations, as there is a lot of green in this game and those lovely moments with the sun's rays coming through the trees.

 

I'm enjoying the story so far and there is a good sense of "history" to this game. It's an interesting world and one that I'd like to learn more about. In that sense, it's like The Witcher. But, the world isn't constructed in the same sort of way. You get a post-apocalyptic sort of feel from this, as it is a bit (well, maybe very!) dystopian.

 

Definitely would recommend, thus far.

[Fierce_LiNk]

I encountered my first

Tall Neck

yesterday.

 

It was very much a "wow" moment. I could hear something loud and then I got closer and I could just see its head above trees. Climbing up to it was fun and there was an immense sense of scale when you reach the summit.

 

 

I'm in love with this game.

[Hero-of-Time]

I encountered my first

Tall Neck

yesterday.

 

It was very much a "wow" moment. I could hear something loud and then I got closer and I could just see its head above trees. Climbing up to it was fun and there was an immense sense of scale when you reach the summit.

 

 

I'm in love with this game.

 

 

Pretty much, yes?

[Fierce_LiNk]

 

Pretty much, yes?

 

Yup, that's pretty much it.

[Nolan]

How long until someone turns the brontosaurus into a tallneck in that gif?

[bob]

Does anyone else find Aloy really annoying? Like, when she's talking she's just irritatingly...sincere the whole time. I don't know how else to describe it but she just seems really dull.

[dan-likes-trees]

^ Yeah, totally agree 3B0B131301364. The script doesn't help, but I think her voice actor comes off as trying a bit too hard in general or being directed to sound too selfserious.. ultimately comes off as pretty portentous and bland. Then again, lacking social skills and interesting dialogue is probably fairly realistic for someone who's grown up the woods without any mates!

 

For me The Witcher 3 is the game of the generation so far. How does it compare @Fierce_LiNk? I'm going to be looking at picking this up after Zelda I think.

 

I'd agree with Flink - though they're ostensibly the same genre, you'll be pretty disappointed if you go in hoping to scratch that Witcher itch - they're both good at totally different things.

 

Unlike Witcher, the characters are all totally forgettable, the script is devoid of humour and character, the lore is all pretty lightweight. You can explore, but in most the towns I've come across, the merchant is the only character you can speak to, none of your choices seem to matter much.. basically, as an RPG it's pretty cack.

 

But it's a great action game! The Tomb Raider comparison is pretty apt. And it's very pretty. And everyone likes it more than me so.. give it a go!

 

I'd be interested to hear how you find it seeing you loving Zelda over in that thread (although, again, very different games).

[Fierce_LiNk]

All of a sudden, I'm starting to dislike the game.

 

I'm finding the difficulty/leveling up of the game to be a bit retarded. I don't feel any sense of progression that Aloy is getting stronger. I just tried to do the City of the Sun mission, which is stated as a level 12. I can honestly say that the middle/latter parts of the mission are NOT level 12 material whatsoever. I'm taking on a quarry on 2 corruptors plus half a dozen/8 humans. The corruptors are apparently weak to fire. I'm hitting them with fire arrows and are literally doing fuck all damage to them. What?

 

I don't really feel that this game is a much of an RPG and the leveling up just seems false to me. It's my first real moment where I've not enjoyed my play session and I've played for about an hour and achieved absolutely zero with it.

[Tales]

Is that the fight at the gates to the western area? I remember it as being a tough fight, but I made it through on the first try.

 

As for elemental damage, there should be a bar appearing on the first elemental arrow, you need to fill it completely by repeatingly firing at it. When it's full it will take more damage from regular arrows, particulary on weak spots like the processor(heart) and other modules, so aim for them. The bar will deplete over time, represented by the white circle around the bar, it depletes faster as you damage it, so repeat when necessary. Although I don't think the corruptor have any, fire regular/hard hitting arrows while it burns regardless. Continuing to fire fire arrows doesn't do much if it's already burning. Sorry if I explain poorly.

 

Maybe also buy some new weapons? Almost all weapons add some new arrow type to use. And maybe experiment with the other types of weapons like the ones that tie them down or makes them trip.

 

Personally I never had a problem with progression(other than hitting the lv 50 too quick) or the voice acting or the character, but maybe that's just me.

Edited March 28, 2017 by Tales

[Jimbob]

I'm passed the collecting stage at the moment, and moved onto the main quests until i find some side-stuff to continue with.

 

Just took out a Deathbringer, and learned about the Faro robots that nearly took out humanity. But Project: Zero Dawn stopped it. It's getting interesting now, and i did spare Olin as i felt sorry for him.

 

[Choze]

All of a sudden, I'm starting to dislike the game.

 

I'm finding the difficulty/leveling up of the game to be a bit retarded. I don't feel any sense of progression that Aloy is getting stronger. I just tried to do the City of the Sun mission, which is stated as a level 12. I can honestly say that the middle/latter parts of the mission are NOT level 12 material whatsoever. I'm taking on a quarry on 2 corruptors plus half a dozen/8 humans. The corruptors are apparently weak to fire. I'm hitting them with fire arrows and are literally doing fuck all damage to them. What?

 

I don't really feel that this game is a much of an RPG and the leveling up just seems false to me. It's my first real moment where I've not enjoyed my play session and I've played for about an hour and achieved absolutely zero with it.

 

Try side quests for do and get new weapons. Chances are you need them. The game is on the hard side if you under level.

 

 

I used the trip caster and the sniper bow on top of the hunter bow. With damage and fire mods you should one shot kill humans. Alternatively you can stealth kill them with melee. Go round the planks etc. The two corrupted are tricky. You can set traps and go all out on one. Fire reveals a weak spot and the two guns are worth removing. Center area has raised place to dodge etc

[bob]

I decided to take on three Bellowbacks at once last night (it appears I am indeed a Bellowback girl). Used some ruins to protect myself while sniping with freeze balls and normal arrows, then dodging out and stabbing with my spear.

 

Once all three were dead, I realised that having torched the surrounding countryside, the place was littered with dead animals! Gathered all those up and had enough animal bits to completely enlarge my resource backpack.

[Jimbob]

I use a mix of the Sharpshot and Hunter bow, with a few mods. Now and again, i do jump on using the War bow with the Corruption arrows to help in some battles.

 

Did end up with a full set of shadow weapons by the time i did the Battle for Meridian main quest.

And i love being able to hack the birds, especially in one mission where i had to save a village from a fleet of them.

 

[Daft]

The game doesn't do the best of jobs at explaining how damage works. Fire arrows are mainly for causing enemies to overheat/set on fire. You want to switch back to ones with high tear damage after that's done.