Horizon Zero Dawn Review

My first impressions were sent for publication last week I was certain that my 20-hours with them would be worth it. Horizon Zero Dawn It had made significant progress on its main story and I was able to finish it in just a few days. After a few endurance runs, and about 30 hours later I was finally able to put down the controller to see the credits roll. I had time to think about the sequence, which was quite long. This is normally where I would look at my notes and jot down more information, then get up to stretch. Instead, I sat down with my hands folded in front. And I pondered.

Horizon Zero Dawn was a game in which a young tribal woman fights robotic animals using a spear, and a bow, and it was more meaningful and touching than any other I have ever played. It is a beautifully designed setting that features believable and flawed characters and factions. They have their own beliefs and practices, and they are very open to technology. Its final message is both love and caution. Love for the planet and its inhabitants and caution to not take our advances and the environment for granted.

Source: Polygon

You only need to look at the jaw-dropping images to see how much respect this game has for the natural world. You can see desert badlands, tundras and snowy mountains, forests, and jungles all around you. It deserves special praise for the lighting and particle effects. The hazy sunsets over the mountains and the brilliant moonrises above the mountains remind you of how small you really are. I would be embarrassed to admit how much time I spent in Photo Mode, which was surprisingly robust and wore out my Share button. This is by far the most beautiful and performant game I have ever seen on the PlayStation 4.

My first impressions spoke of my love for Aloy as a protagonist. This grew as I continued to push forward. The combat is a focus on understanding the weaknesses of each robot and finding the best tools and abilities to defeat them. This reminds me of Witcher. Aloy's role as the avatar for the player is similar. Aloy is her character, with her core personality, drives, and beliefs. All three conversation choices, friendly/emotional/logical, intelligent/logical, and aggressive/violent, feel more like real facets of Aloy than starkly different, character-altering divergences. There are no rules or morality, and there is very little gameplay impact on your choices. You only have to feel about how the other person responds.

This may seem negative to some, but it is a positive for me. This wasn't about the player's story; it was Aloy's. She is independent in every sense. One of my favorite lines has her responding to being called "Aloy from the Nora (Tribe)," and instead calling herself "Aloy without the Nora," which I found hilarious. This is a very clever line that really demonstrates her character. As I think this game is best enjoyed fresh, I won't go into too much detail. However, I will say that Aloy is a fascinating, fun, and sympathetic protagonist. She is rarely grumpy or sombre, and she is often called out by other characters for being so. Her sarcasm is more genuine and charming than the endless smug quipping writers seem to prefer these days.

This is in large part due to Ashly Burch’s outstanding performance. She stands out from a cast with no weak performances, and she holds her own against Lance Reddick’s brilliant turn as Sylens. This is how celebrity voice acting can be used in big-budget games.

Aloy's charming quality can also be attributed to her stellar animation work, especially on the protagonist and the machines against which she is fighting. Each machine draws inspiration from one or several animal archetypes - raptors and birds of prey, big cats, big crocodiles and grazing herbivores. Each machine takes animation queues based on their inspiration. It is truly terrifying when a Sawtooth (basically, a giant robot panther), spots you and runs towards you, closing significant distances in an instant.

Aloy has an impressive and subtle animation of movement. This includes her transition to a scramble when climbing up steep inclines. The shuffle and slide she does when she descends such inclines. There is also a springiness in her step when she abruptly runs or the effortless hops that she makes over low obstacles and debris without any player input. These animations and her freerunning ones not only demonstrate her ability to navigate the environment, but also add personality to her physicality. This will enhance, albeit minimally, the player’s connection to her as a person and character.

Final praise should be given to facial animation. Although there were some issues with lip sync in some side content, most conversations showed an ability to convey emotion through characters' faces. It is beautiful in its simplicity. It doesn't strive for photorealism or the fidelity that good motion capture can provide, but it is content and confident with its own methods. It is somewhat hampered by the flat shot reverse shot pattern. This is used for all conversations that are fully in-realtime, rather than the more meticulously crafted cutscenes. It will be obvious and it will stay with you forever.

All of the voice acting and animation tell a story, but the ancient past influences the present in many ways that are both apparent and hidden. The plot of the game's current is a standard action-RPG tale. Our protagonist must travel the globe to find help, do favors, and correct wrongs in order to unify the people. The unique setting that allows for new scenarios and the use of amazing technology to blend with the primitive (relatively) primitive peoples in the present, along with their tribal, feudal aesthetics, and variety of cultural and social systems and beliefs, is what makes the story stand out.

To give the best experience, I won't go into detail about the emotional and chilling story of how this world came to be. Each foray into an old bunker or facility provides a small piece of the puzzle. It is beautifully written and meticulously detailed audio and text content. Although the broad strokes of what happened are not terribly new or groundbreaking for anyone even remotely interested in science fiction, the amount of effort that went into giving names, dates, casualty lists, and all the details of how to avoid the crisis are fascinating. Horizon is a great audio log storytelling method. I hate it. Only one time, during one of the last story missions, did I feel like there was too much exposition. I didn't have enough time to stop and think about how long it had been since the last time I had done more than walk around listening to the dozen audio files that I was collecting.

Aloy travels between major settlements while spelunking through old science labs. Aloy encounters an interminable number of machines. Sometimes too many. I became frustrated that machines were always on the same path/chokepoint to a main story mission. This forced me to use resources to kill them or evade them before I could get to the mission. It got to the point that I wondered how anyone else could get around, who wasn't a badass hunters (I'm thinking of you, random merchant lady sitting in a huge Glinthawk hangout). This is my biggest problem. It took away the fun part of the game and made me anxious for the main questline. I just wanted to get there without stopping to fight every few hundred metres.

Aloy is equipped with the right arsenal to combat these mechanical monsters. Although her basic spear is simple to use, it's not difficult at all. It can be used for both light and heavy attacks that excel at knocking down targets and destroying armor/components. Although there is no block function to fight human opponents, they do have one. So as soon as someone closes the distance, it's time for them to hit the dodge button. Due to AI that is simple and easy to exploit, as well as the inability of engaging in meaningful close-quarters combat, fighting humans is much less exciting. Melee combat is quickly tiresome when compared to in-depth, trap-based and ranged combat.

There are three types of bows available, all with different ammunition types and damage. Tearblast is my favorite arrow type. It has a compressed-air charge attached to it that blasts armor and other components with ease. Its sonic boom and the satisfying metal shower that it produces never got old over 50 hours of playing. The Ropecaster can be used to tie down machines and provide additional punishment. Tripcasters, slings, and Tripcasters are direct and indirect damage-dealers and elemental effect ammunition.

Combat is about three things: stealth recon, planning and setting up the field and using the right tools at the right moment. Reading up on and studying how to expose a weakness and when to exploit it plays like a Witcher 3 monster hunt, except there can be three or four wildly different machine variants in one combat encounter, each calling for a different approach.

Horizon's combat rewards more than just planning. It also rewards trial and error. Instead of boring, repetitive tutorials, every new weapon is equipped with a side challenge that rewards XP for using it in the intended manner. This allows the player to practice and play, which feeds into the core gameplay concept that half the fun is in killing that T-Rex robot with guns on its head and shoulders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRQDqurZJNk

This XP is also earned by completing quests, as well as damaging and defeating enemy enemies. It awards skill points that can be used to create three trees. These trees are primarily focused on stealth, combat, and crafting, much like the Far Cry titles. These skills are more useful than increasing your number of points, and they don't cost any extra. I had almost all of the skills by the game's end. I preferred crafting, which I highly recommend, but I also enjoyed a lot of the side content. These mods, along with the armor and weapon modification system, give you a lot of customization options. You can create some really devastating combinations with gear that has more upgrade slots. Also, better upgrades can be unlocked. For example, tearblast arrows have a nearly double effectiveness boost.

This should be obvious: I love this game. Horizon is a masterpiece of worldbuilding, storytelling, and Guerrilla Games has succeeded in a genre that they have never tried before. They also brought something new to the table by combining strategy with frantic action against overwhelming superior foes. Horizon is a breath of fresh air, a proud notch in Sony's exclusive belt and, most importantly to me, a reminder about why I play video games and what they are capable of.