villa4europe Posted February 21, 2022 Share Posted February 21, 2022 9 hours the updates has been running... Wife and baby just gone to bed and I'm only at 87% I **** this bullshit with modern games Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted February 21, 2022 Share Posted February 21, 2022 It's definitley horizon... Its good, its more of the same with new bits, way more confidence and the gloss that you'd want from the new console, the voice acting and motion capture is really good and the graphics I'm not in the big open world yet and I'd say they're good but not mind blowing at character level but at the same time the scope and detailing of the world around you if the most next gen thing I've played by a distance, it's really busy, loads of plants and water, it looks and feels denser than the first game I'm going to have a good 30 hours with this 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 I've put about 10 hours in and it's good but not great, about an 8/10 (it must be alright for me to do 10 hours in 3 days...) Stand by the comment that it is more of the same, same strengths and weaknesses - the robots are awesome*, the indoor facility style areas that drive the story aren't Maybe it's 5 more years of open world gaming that I'm noticing it more but I think the assasins creed scattergun of ideas is in full force here, there's loads to do and it's not all good, so much gear and crafting items that it can get lost unless you're specifically tracking something * the hippo might be my new favourite 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted March 4, 2022 Share Posted March 4, 2022 I'm up to 28 hours, 35% complete... Opinion on it hasn't changed, its a very good horizon game, the world is brilliant and absolutely brimming with detail, it's a fully fleshed out world that's brilliantly designed and written, the map is huge with great variance in setting from snowy mountains, jungles, deserts and coasts it all works Smashing the dinos is brilliant with story mode difficulty well balanced for me, I have to think about what I do and which weapon / ammo to use but I don't have to waste 5 mins on every enemy sneaking around and scouting them, I can just pile in (you can stealth if you want) The main story arc which more often than not leads you inside to old world places spoils the fun 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daweii Posted March 5, 2022 Share Posted March 5, 2022 Elden Ring came out so soon after completing Forbidden West that I forgot to give my impressions. Overall I liked the game. I thought the combat was more refined and fleshed out. I also liked seeing the improvement in visuals, audio and mo-cap cutscenes. I also thought the story was serviceable albeit nothing particularly special. I could say more about the things I liked, but most of what I liked aside from the combat refinements are superficial things. Everyone can see the improved visuals, and everyone can see the cutscenes are better than the first game. Just watch a trailer and you'll see 90% of the things I liked about this game, but you won't see any of the things I disliked about it. So I'll talk about the negatives with a bit more detail. My main issues stem from how the game does things; Issue #1 As someone that doesn't like having my hand held in games, Forbidden West was infuriating. Aloy was a character I liked a lot in the original game, but we grew apart over my time playing this game. She talks all the time. Aloy walks the player through this game as if she's carrying a strategy guide, but worse she mentions things that I couldn't even see. "A cave, I wonder what is in there". What cave? I can't see a cave? Some may see that as helpful, I see that as ruining the surprise of stumbling on said cave. She did similar to me when I was climbing a mountain. I had no idea what was up the mountain, but half way up Aloy was like, "A tower, I wonder what is in there?". Thanks Aloy, I just wasted 3 minutes climbing this mountain to discover what is up there, yet little miss strategy guide told me before I got to the top. Strategy guide Aloy also extends to quests. You better not decide to explore after finding a puzzle because Aloy will tell you the solution every 5 seconds until you do it. You better not take longer than 2 seconds to do what the game expects you to do or Aloy will spell it out for you. I have a example of this. I was on a side quest exploring some abandoned outpost and I needed to get into a building. I hadn't even fully explored yet and Aloy was already saying, "The roof looks weak, something heavy could break it. Those ropes, I could shoot them". Keep in mind I didn't even know what roof she was talking about, I hadn't been to the place she was talking about yet. Infuriating, I hated it. Issue #2 This game has a loot problem. Want to know why being told about a tower before I could see is was annoying? It's because the loot sucks in this game. The joy of exploration was finding these places not the contents within. This is a game that has two types of loot chest. The standard chest which are everywhere and mostly contain digital watches and bracelets, and special chests which contain a piece of armour, or a weapon (that a vendor likely already sells). My issue with the former is it's not exciting to find my 400th purple rarity digital watch, but worse is the watch is there because a chest full of metal shards (currency) wouldn't be as exciting. The digital watch has no use, it is only to be sold, which means it is merely metal shards wearing a different costume and I find that boring. Why should I explore this cave (that Aloy spoiled for me) when all I'm going to get from it is some XP and 7 digital watches? Issue #3 The expanded RPG system destroyed the part of the game I enjoyed most about Horizon. I played through the game on a mixture of hard/very hard using the custom difficulty setting, and even then the RPG system made learning the machines weaknesses pointless. There are some abilities in those skill trees that are broken. Braced Arrow can one shot 90% of the smaller machines and do 25-50% damage to the ultra-gigachad machines. Couple that in with some selective perks from other trees to get stamina back ultra fast, an OP spike thrower and the game becomes trivial. Horizon Zero Dawn was a more casual Monster Hunter with a mainstream AAA plot attached to it. The key to upgrading was farming select parts of machines and the key to beating machines was learning each weakness, but the RPG system that is massively more in depth in the sequel has nullified almost all of that. There is still the need to target specific parts for upgrades, but once I felt like the systems I adored were largely nullified I just turned on "easy loot" in the custom difficulty setting which drops every material the machine can drop. I understand that Guerrilla Games wanted this to be more of an RPG than the first game and I commend them for wanting that, but I feel like the RPG systems hurt the core gameplay loop introduced in the first game a lot. That's the end of my negatives for the most part. The game was very much a 7/10 for me, but those that loved the original Horizon will probably not have any of the issues I had with the game. For instance one of my friends beat Forbidden West the other day and was waxing lyrical about how it was a 9/10, how it was so much better than the first and will be 2022's game of the year. I didn't get that feeling at all from Forbidden West which is fine. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted March 5, 2022 Share Posted March 5, 2022 I think it has a weird problem where it might be a better game than the first one but I'm enjoying it less 100% agree on the loot, it's worse than assasins creed Alloy talking was mentioned on the computer game show podcast and I'm sure one of them said you can turn it off but I don't know how, the accessibility options on the game are huge, I'm sure they also said you can have the tap R3 scan for yellow handles on the rocks permanently turned on too The RPG skill tree thing I'm not invested in enough, I don't fully understand the valor system or bother using it half the time, I watch some YouTube videos of people just destroying machines with it but I don't get it which is making it harder for me but I've not found myself bothered by it, think I've only died once or twice 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted March 5, 2022 Share Posted March 5, 2022 How long did it take you to finish it @Daweii? I think I could maybe do it in another 10-15 hours but then also with a potential gap coming up I can also see myself putting 60-80 hours in to this whilst playing GT7 on the side for a few months, I'd have thought beyond the new playstation plus surprising me with something this is me for a while now 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daweii Posted March 5, 2022 Share Posted March 5, 2022 12 minutes ago, villa4europe said: I think it has a weird problem where it might be a better game than the first one but I'm enjoying it less 100% agree on the loot, it's worse than assasins creed Alloy talking was mentioned on the computer game show podcast and I'm sure one of them said you can turn it off but I don't know how, the accessibility options on the game are huge, I'm sure they also said you can have the tap R3 scan for yellow handles on the rocks permanently turned on too The RPG skill tree thing I'm not invested in enough, I don't fully understand the valor system or bother using it half the time, I watch some YouTube videos of people just destroying machines with it but I don't get it which is making it harder for me but I've not found myself bothered by it, think I've only died once or twice I got that overall feeling too. I don't think Forbidden West does enough to set itself apart from Zero Dawn. I'm not a huge fan of Assassins Creed anymore, but if I was to give that series credit for one thing it's that every new game sets itself apart. The location is different, the time period is different, which means the weapons have to be different and the look of the characters have to be different. Now the player might still be doing the same stuff that they did in Odyssey, or Origins, but at least it's all done in a setting that feels like a new game. Forbidden West is just Zero Dawn shifted 1,000 miles down the road from post-apocalyptic Colorado/Utah to post-apocalyptic California/Nevada, it's not a huge shift and it makes everything feel very samey, outside of a few areas where it actually feels unique, but those area are few and far between. I couldn't find the "Shut Up Aloy" setting either. It did cross my mind to just mute all dialogue while exploring, but then having to turn the dialogue volume up again for cutscenes would have probably been more annoying that Aloy talking constantly. If that setting exists I hope they make it more obvious where it is, and if it doesn't exist and that person misspoke then I hope they add the setting. It might spare others a lot of frustration. 5 minutes ago, villa4europe said: How long did it take you to finish it @Daweii? I think I could maybe do it in another 10-15 hours but then also with a potential gap coming up I can also see myself putting 60-80 hours in to this whilst playing GT7 on the side for a few months, I'd have thought beyond the new playstation plus surprising me with something this is me for a while now It took me about 45 hours to beat it while doing a decent amount of side quests. I didn't do all the side quests, but I did enough of them to get to the level required for the final quest. I think you could definitely get 60+ hours out of it though if you wanted to. Forbidden West and GT7 seem like a perfect combo to play while waiting for other games to come out. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted March 15, 2022 Share Posted March 15, 2022 Still playing, still enjoying it, I've just about got to the bit where all the pre release footage was from which seeing as I'm bout 50 hours in is a surprise More issues though... Theyve given themselves weapon problems, firstly they've stuck in about 5 different types of bow and around 12 different types of ammo so I don't really have a go to weapon or a balanced wheel, I'm constantly changing it up and slowing the combat down, secondly they've played with the tripcaster and as a result its a bit shit and useless, lastly as a start you can only lay 2 traps (you can improve it with perks) so traps have become a bit useless too, the first game was based around scanning, then laying traps then attacking then slowing the bit down then attacking some more, now it's just a bit repetitive steam in and smash it up Which is what gives me my main problem, I've done a lot of side stuff so have some orange top weapons and they require a lot of resources, so I have to kill everything or buy everything, the second option again slows the game down so what I've found myself doing is dropping the difficulty down so that I don't come across some monkeys in the jungle that wipe out all my resources (seriously the monkeys are right words removed) and just ploughing through everything Its somehow a good game but honestly I'm not sure how or why anymore 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted March 22, 2022 Share Posted March 22, 2022 i finished it, took 49 hours and im 66% complete, will do some more as a i have a gap in my gaming but id lazily guess that platinum requires the hunter trials which i dont like so i wont get it stand by my first thoughts that its a solid 8/10 game with some really cool bits and ultimately the fighting big **** off robot dinosaurs with a bow and arrow is just a winner, had a bit near the end where i was fighting a spinnasauros or whatever its called and a stormbird flew in to see what was happening and it just went mental for 5 minutes, that part of the game is brilliant, probably leads me on to my 2 biggest disappointments in the game with the main story - Spoiler the dropping of the "bomb" on regalla's army and then also crossing the field as the spectres fought the dinos were both cutscenes - i wanted those 2 fights! would have been epic i did have more issues towards the end, the levelling up of the orange / ultimate gear is shit and doesnt have a natural flow to it, for 1 weapon i needed parts from 3 dreadwings and 2 water dinos, for another i needed to kill 5 slitherfangs meaning i had to fast travel in and out because they only ever spawn 1 at a time in 1 location - again as i said before the game makes several poor decisions that slows the game down, i appreciate they're trying to make it hard but make it better the side stuff with the tribes is good, the main story arc is poor, i think with the new enemies they've stretched it a bit thin, i would compare it a lot to assasins creed where overall it needs tightening up, its too scattergun, i haven't touched a fair few of the ideas like the drones etc - as a side if / when it comes i hope a new Ghost game doesnt make that mistake, that game was a perfect example, it just had enough in terms of side stuff and exploration reasons it wont win people over who didnt like the first one but for me its definitely worth a play, there's enough there for sure and for the money its a big game Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted October 6, 2022 Share Posted October 6, 2022 @JoshVilla saw the post in the other thread, you've got to get about 10 hours in to it, down in to the valley, through the gate, past the 1st city and then start to do some stuff with the tribes as they're the core of the game and of course the better dinos...then you'll get to about 20 hours in take a look at how much of the map is still unexplored and think what the **** have i done... resurrected this thread because there's been a lot of horizon news this week, sony are doing a remaster of the first game which no one asked for but im guessing will keep the studio ticking over, they obviously have the VR game beign worked on, lance reddick tweeted that he was doing work with them but then deleted it leading to rumours of DLC and theres a rumour that theres a co-op mode coming and a horizon multiplayer game coming same as last of us which will form part of sonys service game plans 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoshVilla Posted October 10, 2022 Share Posted October 10, 2022 On 06/10/2022 at 09:34, villa4europe said: @JoshVilla saw the post in the other thread, you've got to get about 10 hours in to it, down in to the valley, through the gate, past the 1st city and then start to do some stuff with the tribes as they're the core of the game and of course the better dinos...then you'll get to about 20 hours in take a look at how much of the map is still unexplored and think what the **** have i done... resurrected this thread because there's been a lot of horizon news this week, sony are doing a remaster of the first game which no one asked for but im guessing will keep the studio ticking over, they obviously have the VR game beign worked on, lance reddick tweeted that he was doing work with them but then deleted it leading to rumours of DLC and theres a rumour that theres a co-op mode coming and a horizon multiplayer game coming same as last of us which will form part of sonys service game plans I think it could be that I've gotten a bit burnt out playing so many open world games lately. Over the past few months I finished Elden Ring, Ghostwire Tokyo, Judgement and the Ghost of Tsushima DLC - so I reckon I need to just have a bit of a break from open world games for a bit and then dive back in (he says as he starts up Cyberpunk again....) I'll defo give it another go, I want to love it as I thought that the first game was excellent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted October 10, 2022 Share Posted October 10, 2022 44 minutes ago, JoshVilla said: I think it could be that I've gotten a bit burnt out playing so many open world games lately. Over the past few months I finished Elden Ring, Ghostwire Tokyo, Judgement and the Ghost of Tsushima DLC - so I reckon I need to just have a bit of a break from open world games for a bit and then dive back in (he says as he starts up Cyberpunk again....) I'll defo give it another go, I want to love it as I thought that the first game was excellent. Yeah I get that, have AC origins downloaded but off the back of ghost I put it off Think I might go back to cyberpunk in the spring depending on what sonys big first party game is for Q1 and when the witcher is confirmed for ps5 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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