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Horizon Zero Dawn - Boston Dynamics was a mistake

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The E:
TL;DR: If you have a PS4 and the words "robot dinosaur hunting" seem appealing to you, you should consider adding this game to your library.

This game has taken an uncomfortably large amount of my time recently. It's a third-person, open world action RPG made by Guerrilla Games (previously known for the not-as-good-as-hoped Killzone series), and it's excellent. It combines a sort of  :v:-esque approach to game design (as in, take the best ideas of other games in the same genre and make them work) with a beautifully realized world. The combat (at least when going up against the aforementioned robot dinosaurs) is frantic and meaty, with an emphasis on proper preparation and planning before kicking off the killing. That the human enemies are comparatively unengaging and kind of stupid is a bit of a letdown, but then you realize that your character's skillset and gear is built to take down robot T-Rexes, and that humans going down in one or two arrow hits shouldn't be surprising at all.

Oh, and it also has strongly compelling writing and good VA performances across the board, and a background lore that is so bleak in its implications that it could've been sprung from the brain of Peter Watts.

0rph3u5:
I can only recommend the game as well (as I did in the "What are playing"-topic)

It lacks some convience features (e.g. the time you waste hunting wildlife because the map doesnt track wildlife only machines) and they are obviously sequel-baiting, esspecially around the 50%-mark of the main story, but neither distracts from the good experience.

One important shout-out: the game stays techno-positive all the way through
Spoiler:While Earth was stripped of its biosphere by defective militarized robots, the answer was to entrust defeating them to and rebuilding the planet by an massive life-positive AI-construct, which did its jobThat's quite rare in the handeling of AI in fiction recently and in games inparticular (Note: I follow the AI Now Iniative with great interest)

EDIT: Full disclosure: Because the marketing campaign focussed heavily on the robot hunts (which I was rather lukewarm about) I got myself placed on a influcencer/multiplier-list and got the game for free (FYI not proud of it, but a person has got the right to be cheap)

0rph3u5:
So hey,

the DLC came out a week ago (?) and I really like to encourage players to support this game (again).

Granted the DLC is not as good as the main game but it is good a value - adding a section to the game world which while mabye not visually interesting to anyone but snow-enthusiasts (like me) as well as new weapons and skills which add a bit of quality of life to game.

The story of the DLC is while integrated into the story of the main game (i.e. its still before the final mission "The Looming Shadow") doesn't add much to the plot of the game per se or carry the same weight. However once you completed the story of the DLC you will have opportunity to have some minor elements of the world "explained", unless of course you already put a version of it together via an extensive collectophon.

Alloy's dialogue is good as ever and that alone is worth checking out.

The E:
The Frozen Wastes is pretty good, yes. The new enemies are really quite a challenge to deal with, the story is okay (but, as you pointed out, lacks the immediacy and drive of the main one); As a few reviews have put it, if you liked HZD, this is more HZD.

This DLC has, however, shown the problems with games that structure their story in the way HZD did: By making the ending a complete break with the previous story (When you finish the main campaign, it's implied that Aloy is going on a trek to find the body of Elisabet Sobeck, her "mother"; after the credits have rolled, the game resets to just before the last mission), any additions to the story have to be slotted into its middle or end. This means that the game has to do extra work to justify Aloy going on a detour while there is an apocalypse to stop, and that's always a bit of a drawback.

0rph3u5:
PC Release date has been announced - August 7th 2020.


So mark the calendar, and keep an ear to the ground as the quality of the port.

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