She kept asking me how I liked the game so far.
At first I told her that I couldn't answer because all I had to judge it by was the graphics, which I'll say are good but inconsistent.. and the game play which was rocky to start with but does pull together. I couldn't judge the game's visuals and controls very highly though because every now and then there's some random bullshit thing that breaks immersion or just happens to be infuriating. And it had only been a day. Now starting the third day with the game.. I guess I've seen enough, over 60%, to figure I've seen all the gameplay and graphics the game has to offer. The rest is going to be story.
Makes me want to compare it to so many other RPGs in the last decade.. like Mass Effect (visuals, style, storytelling), Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning (visuals, style, storytelling), Destiny (um... Lance Reddick).
There's just something about HZD's story. For more than half of the game I just didn't give a shit. All these pointless quests.. Where's the story at?! So no I have no idea if I like this game. It isn't ugly by any means but the world presentation is buggy. Too many invisible walls, too much verticality that seems only to be there to get Aloy more than 12 feet off the ground so she has enough height to fall and die hundreds of times.. and really there isn't enough variety. Somehow that's in context. But the story has to develop for that to become clear.
So when the game says well look, there's really specific story reasons for the world to be the way it is.. fine, I took that for granted.. however there's still a lack of variety AND the game's controls are too clunky despite being really good. My first 3 minutes in the game were all what the fuck is this camera?! Nothing in this game is more vexing than dying because 1 the camera is tool god damned slow and 2 Aloy is too god damned slow. Combined and well combat while very good.. is incredibly irritating. There's no story reason for it. Destiny's UI choices are similar. Mass Effect's UI and gameplay remain very solid for a game that also has a story to tell. So I want to compare and say there's no reason for HZD to have such a miserably slow camera, for Focus Mode to slow shit down even more, while the machines don't also get slowed. I just don't understand.
Having Triangle have multiple superimposed actions is one. A universal action button.. is aggravating because it shouldn't take long to realize certain actions have precedence like mounting a machine.. versus gathering materials.
Fine. But it is the same for the graphics.. I'd like to say that this game should be a new benchmark for what video game graphics should be but from the start it felt like Guerrilla could have done more. These are the Killzone guys. This is a show piece title for Sony. I just couldn't put a finger on why the games visuals were leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
But that aside the game does have story above all these dumb quests. Yes the errands, quests and main story are compelling.. but asking me what I thought about it? I mean what can I tell you about what time is when I need to explain what an hourglass is but all I've got is a grain of sand?
The only thing I can do is watch as the sand falls. As more of it reveals the shape of the hourglass, then yeah I guess I can start to grasp what the hourglass is.
But you get to a point when the bottom half of the hour glass gets filled up. Normally that would be the end of time.. and not much else happens in that top portion.
The measure of a great game is when more sand keeps getting added to that top half. When you feel like you've done everything the game has to offer and the only thing it has left is the story and the experience only gets richer as you keep playing once you start to think it has little more to offer.
Destiny was a game that barely filled the bottom third with what was offered at launch. Everyone was left feeling empty once they'd complete the story or what passed for.. and all activities offered. Then Bungie was like OK GUYS pay us more and we'll keep filling the bottom half of this thing for you. So we're here shoveling sand into this thing ourselves but never seems like that bottom half was getting filled. The game didn't ever seem to reach its potential. For everything that was added Bungie would also be taking stuff out. Changing things. One of the hardest things was trying to settle the argument of if the game actually had a story. I mean versus just slapped together bullshit so each DLC drop made sense. No. Obviously not. All Destiny is is what Bungie says it is and that changes all the time. It isn't about us players or what we want. Or what we paid for.
Bungie now expects that as we've reached the game's end of life, for real this time.. that it's perfectly ok to finally revisit content from the games first half which we've been asking for since year 1. That they redo the old raids and that they bring back elemental primaries. Taking them out was a mistake that ruined the game. And this is right after saying that nothing carries on into the sequel. Oh because you can still keep playing Destiny 1. WHY?! Why should anyone care? Punchline.. they don't say anything about vault space. Since they starting dropping new content and demanding more money people have been saying HEY! I have too much stuff! give me more space to keep it all. To which Bungie has usually replied, go fuck yourself. One reason I don't do PvP is that I don't have enough vault space for just PvE gear. Year 2 and 3 have seen changes in how loot drops such that even if I don't care about PvP I still am forced to deal with PvP items showing up in my inventory. So I caved and said fuck it. I'll run some PvP but still don't have vault space for all the items from both PvE and PvP. The straw that breaks the camel's back though is saying that they are revamping everything so there's EVEN MORE shit to grind for. NO!
But we're being very generous with the loot now!
NO! Are you fucking demented?! NO! there's no room! for fucks sake!
The games last hurrah then comes back as a muted fart for people that not only have no vault space but we already deleted all the shit from those deprecated activities because they never carried forward into the current game's new content waves. Because we were told that constant obsolescence made getting new stuff more fun. Destiny's hourglass has holes in it, intentionally, so that we'd keep shoveling more sand in.
It's almost shocking to play HZD because, I mean there's a story here.. This is what playing an RPG with a story, character development.. depth.. It's been so long! Shoveling all that sand for nothing.
HZD at first felt comically horrible for all this campy tribal bullshit.. only to have it all go Enter The Matrix. 17 years later and it feels like a video game actually comes close to what that movie was about.
But even more shocking is that I wanted this game to have multiplayer. Guerrilla is more than capable.
HZD could have been a new Mass Effect trilogy.. A new Destiny but with significantly better everything. But the more I play it.. the less that seems to matter. If multiplayer would have ruined this game's story.. then fine.. Let Destiny be an example that should never be tolerated or repeated.