Today's first isn't really a first but it feels so because I haven't played a proper PlayStation single player exclusive since PSOne days.
In those days I played Final Fantasy VII and GT. Since then I haven't bothered with PlayStation (at least buying one. I played some while testing games. GT always bugged me for not having real collision physics despite how anal they were about every other detail. or a real international campaign that allowed you to feel like you were going from country to country, rather than just venue to venue. It did go really in depth for customizing cars sure.. but you didn't get to really feel what it was to drive them. You'd just go around a track, start to finish. What I really liked was the content diversity and license testing. That left a lasting impression because that training does lend to real world driving.. but without the consequences of smashing your car, getting injured or injuring others, or dying. There are almost no games that have such consequences though. There really aren't that many games since those days to do injuries as if there's a real human driver. Forza could have done it.. but they were just interested in cloning the competition. Can't even say the current Horizon series make any sense either but.. wtv.
Though I've been waiting to play a great game on PS.. this is a single player game. It feels like they could have had a multiplayer component but spent more time refining the story and art to bother tacking on even a token multiplayer system.
Just left imagining the tactics players could set up to infiltrate enemy camps or to take down large machines.
Horizon etc etc whatever the rest of title is isn't the game I want to play. Not really. It does live up to its marketing as a single player title with a great story and art so.. Kudos for creating a fantastic game. In this day and age, which means after seeing other games that have a similar vibe but lacking a vested effort in production value and story.. before playing HZD all I can think is this game just looks so miserably boring without tribes, where's the option to actually build your own tribe? to make up your own rules and set up trade routes and go to war if required. Like Ark. After playing Ark for so long it is shocking to play a character that doesn't ever have to eat. Funny though that most of those things aren't in single player Ark and I totally refuse to play on official Ark PvP servers because of how lawless and toxic that environment is.
And would it have changed the game that much to have given Aloy similar needs such as eating, sleeping, being clean.. etc. As i listened to people play I thought.. why doesn't she ever sleep, or wash up? or cook and eat? She's fighting all of the robots sure.. but she's also able to cook whatever meat she can get from killing wild animals.
The game itself should feel be very pretty but it's almost lost behind the constant objectives, for me at least.
At first glance I see a distinct color palette that is making my eyes bleed. After the constant over saturation of Ark which at least ends periodically.. this game feels like its always oversaturated. I'm guessing proper HDR support would help because at least part of the screen would have deeper colors.
This game has very high production values.. but if I can say so without being meaning to be negative, just that it's my opinion.. it focuses too much on art in its presentation. Having the art be for them, the characters in the game.. the villagers.. that would be fine.. but the whole UI is this tribal art stuff which is at first somewhat inscrutable. It rubs me wrong because I'd prefer the tech portions.. an alternate UI based on the high tech society that died out. So the story in this game already bugs me since it dictates the look and feel of everything else.
Almost put me off playing it.
The title should be exemplary of PS4Pro's extra rendering power as well but from what I've seen that doesn't mean much over the vanilla PS4. everything looks the same. Without a real 4K tv though I'm stuck streaming the game to my PC at 1080p, which is the Pros only current value. Not complaining in the last about that because the performance is pretty good for what it lacks in resolution and color quality.
I'd like to say that visually the game is compelling and such but all I'm seeing are inconsistent light sources, reflections, shadows and short looping animations. Very little feels dynamic or interesting. Not trying to nit pick.. but I'm really trying hard to find a locus for immersion into this world's art style.. and the story. I'm trying to do this and acclimate to the controls by sitting in a position and just turning the camera, or walking around and taking in the environment. One of the first objectives in the cave is to enter the said cave. This doesn't leave the screen. Why?!
Little Aloy doesn't seem fussed whatsoever about running around in water.. or that there are bats. Either she's a strange little girl, I'm not trying to assume her gender but she seems boyish.. who doesn't seem to have any fear of anything at all. Or it is a little boring to have her not react at all to the environment? I'm reacting to the bats animation that has a constant extremely irritating noise. Even after a while.. or as you're going deeper into the cave system.. no reaction to it at all from Aloy. No desperation. She makes a remark about a dead person but seems more interested than disgusted or fearful.
The rumours of PS5 coming out next year come off as funny because no matter how much potential there is to render more in 4K with a baseline refresh rate of 60 frames per second or higher, for VR so you don't get motion sick.. Most people don't really care. Adding even more memory would mean more dynamic worlds and a large area where you can actually see things happening and be able to plan things out. Ark comes off as too much like a fakey theme park, like Westworld, than a nature preserve overrun with dinosaurs that know what to do with themselves from birth to death.
At this point it seems like Studio Wildcard could target Microsoft's further updated Xbox (Scorpio) and PS5 next year to launch Ark 2. Some people seem to be expecting this versus them ever launching a retail and polished version of the original game. I'd be happy if they just did whatever it takes to make the animals in the game look real.
HZD doesn't because the wild animals are just resources on legs for the upgrade system.
I'm looking at this cave and thinking there's so much more that could be done here, even as impressive as it is.. to make it much more immersive. Versus skin crawling and cringe worthy for all the wrong reasons.
Example:
The devs, Guerilla, want you to notice how much attention they placed on where Aloy places her feet and how they meticulously animated her movement. I mean it is all commendable.. but just don't look too closely. You might notice that young Aloy is a Yogi and she has managed to learn how to fly.
I might just be bitter that the game didn't get a PC launch so I could actually play it in near 4K. but beyond that.. beyond that horizon.. this game could have had mods like Fallout or Skyrim.. thus adding all the things that are missing and changing the UI and music. As I'm writing this there's a looping score which is driving me nuts. very close to muting the game's music.
The intro.. it's unskippable. This bothers me. It ignores that people will see this game on Twitch and probably a substantial amount of it before they cave and decide to buy it. Amazon's Twitch actually allows you to buy games while watching them on stream finally so technically all that's missing is for game devs to accept that allow players to skip shit they've already seen. Cutscenes mainly. Some missions, like the first few tutorial missions and Aloy's training should be necessary. They don't take very long to run through anyway.
I'm kind of glad I didn't pay much attention to the playthroughs on Twitch.. All I got from it was that child Aloy is a mushroom.
I'm choosing to ignore how she's treated though, being an outcast and all.. because that's the story. I'm not going to challenge the story.. I remember doing that with the original Mass Effect because of how racist and sexist that game seemed, but it all fit into that story's world context.
What I didn't notice from Twitch was how choppy the UI is and that look sensitivity is locked. I'm clawing my eyes out. I'm locked into a console game experience with supposedly challenging combat with garbage look sensitivity.. meaning I can't whip the camera around with a flick. It takes something like 4 seconds to turn around. I'm rubbing my face and clenching my fists.. How am I supposed to play this game when I haven't done anything yet and already my skin is ablaze with rage?
One thing that I appreciate with the story is that shunning certain folk allows them to live more freely. They become expendable explores for what remains a dangerous world. Those living in the warm bosom of a matriarchal society are expected to live a certain way. Rost happens to be one of those few outcasts that still remains faithful to the rules of the society that he grew up in.. I don't yet know why he decided to leave.. other than to live with fewer restrictions.. but he comes off as a man living with some kind of guilt or shame AND still unwilling to embrace the world outside of those rules.
Aloy.. the mushroom princess.. can't tell if she's just too young and impetuous.. or just doesn't give a fuck because she's not accepted in that society.
Her character makes more sense but seems forced. Way too forced.
And then she pops on the augmentation device.. enters Focus Mode, it now takes 6 seconds to turn around.
WHY?!
I was listening to my friend play HZD and it was always easy to tell when she switched from Destiny or YouTube back to HZD because of all the insanely annoying sound effects.
After leaving the cave the device she finds shows her words. I didn't notice while watching other people playing the game that she might not now how to read or if the people in the game know how to read. I joked that the device would tell her to drop that silly bow and find a real weapon, but if she's being overloaded with information about everything, the first thing would be for Rost to wrest it from her and smash it. Didn't happen. Story progression.. sure..
Hmm.. gather the berries.. I told you gather the berries, pay attention and gather the berries. As a tutorial this is really heavy handed.
Once you're playing young adult Aloy you have more skills at your disposal. The game goes out of its way to reference this because you're able to go back into that ruins area of the old metal world.. and get a couple of more things done. But I'm still not feeling that Aloy is a real human being.
At this point the map is littered with objectives and groupings of enemies. Fighting them becomes much easier when you learn the basics of stealth. I so wish Ark had some of these features.. but whatever.
It almost feels like cheating to be able to dodge roll or sidestep charging enemies and just one shot them. The alternative is wasting ammo and time crafting more ammo to take them down. And all the gathering of materials to heal her if being stealthy doesn't work.
At the moment I'm annoyed with the crafting requirements because they require meat that she should be eating and too many materials to upgrade things. It is far easier to just run through the story than to get bogged down trying to gather all the stuff needed to upgrade all of her weapons and traps and things.
I think I did it wrong.. I almost one shot the Sawtooth by doing a death for above and then just doing heavy hits on it. Oh well.
Nifty.. a Horse. It isn't a Sparrow or Argentavis but it does get the job done. Trouble with vehicles is that how are you supposed to gather while mounted? Ark at least made gathering much easier when you're mounted.
Trying to figure out if combat is easier while on a mount or off since you can sidestep enemies and jump them while you're on foot. Can't be questioned that you're much faster on a mount though.
Starting to think that maybe the characters aren't as bad as I thought when watching people play the game on Twitch. The facial animations, once you're used to them, and if you ignore their mouths are eventually impressive. Paying attention to their eyes and words and not the mostly tongueless and too bright because there's no shadows mouths speaking them. Kind of feels like Destiny and Ark but with an actual story.