Horizon Zero Dawn - finally getting to play this

The Game Room
#21

When the override ability is maxed (call mount) you no longer need to override. You simply whistle and a mount comes running. Depending on where you are on the map you get different mounts. The charger is the strongest mount in battle. Always having a charger available in the more difficult areas is worth the skill points IMO. Not to mention moving around much faster.

If you want to override something bigger you simply hide in the grass & whistle them over to you (lure call). Not much effort required.

#22

I finished the game a while back including the Frozen Wilds DLC. Once I got that special armor you see but can’t reach near the beginning of the game, I could pretty much walk into any battle and beat things to death with my spear, dodging and stealth be damned. So now when I want a dose of the scenery, I go back and play for a little while to complete side missions I missed or skipped, and if I get impatient and irritated by some machine in the way, I just walk right through it.

#23

I am excited to start playing HZD, but I am waiting until April 19, when it’s going to be part of Playstation’s Play at Home giveaway, where it’s free to download and play for Playstation owners. I am glad I never bought on all those sales over the holidays :smiley:.

However, I wonder if it is going to get a next gen upgrade. Rachet & Clank (the most recent one) was given away and got a frame rate unlock to 60 fps. We’ll see about HZD.

#24

I appear to be in the final series of missions and color me surprise. I did not do every sidequest, but I did a fair share of them. I did not, however do the hunting grounds, something that I had no interest in. I did climb every Tall Neck(except the on in the DLC area) and did half the cauldrons.

Anyway, it’s only taking 20+ hours to reach where I am at and I am not good at this game. I thought it was more like a 40 hour main quest with a lot of side content.

I helped a number of the allies that needed help. “Errands” I think they are called? The sidequests that involve important characters.

#25

Speaking of side quests I really liked Nil and wished he was in the story more. Certainly not a morally good person but he was a fascinating character and I really liked doing his side missions.

It seemed like there might be potential for romance there too for a minute, but alas.

#26

I’m not sure if I am going to continue on into the DLC once the game ends. I am enjoying it, but I was hoping it would be even better than it has ended up being. I’m 50-50 on if I want to continue up there.

#27

It’s not a super long game and there aren’t that many side quests. Personally I like that it’s not very long but I would have liked more side quests.

#28

If you explore every inch of the map and hunt down every last collectible, you can stretch the experience to sixty hours or so. You can also just run around and practice hunting different machines in different settings. That’s about the perfect length of a game for me.

I absolutely love this game. Probably my all-around favorite PS4 exclusive.

(Coincidentally, I happen to be reading the concept art book at the moment also. An amazing level of thought went into its development.)

#29

Yes, reminds me of Cyberpunk only in the sense that Cyberpunk has 60-75 hours of gameplay only if you “do everything”, which I did not(I think it took me 35 hours to play through).

I commend Horizon for putting so much thought into the game. I kind of want a full novel explaining every detail of the backstory. I scanned every single thing I found and listened to all audio ones and I have a good sense of the story, but would love to read everything and know more.

I am in the final battle now leading up to the final conflict/moment.

#30

FWIW, I thought the DLC was excellent.

#31

Wow, thanks for this post. I too have never bought HZD, hoping it would eventually be a free monthly game on PS Plus, but it never has. How is it I’d never hard of Play at Home?

#32

It’s going free really soon for Playstation, isn’t it?

#33

Well, yeah, apparently under this Play at Home program which I’d never heard of, but apparently Sony started it last year because of the COVID pandemic, and involves a series of free giveaways. PlayStation Plus is a paid subscription service which is required for online multiplayer in most PlayStation games, and gives you 2-3 games to download per month.

#34

That sounds identical to Xbox Live Gold. It too is required most of the time for multiplayer, and they have a handful of games for free each month (I believe 3-4 in the case of the Xbox, usually 2 for the modern system and one or two old Xbox 360 titles.)

#35

Though note, Play at Home does not require PS+ membership.

Though PS+ has been releasing a ton of great no additional cost games - Control last month, Oddworld this month.

#36

I got the PS4 about a year and a half ago and it was bundled with The Last of Us, a game I really wanted to try. Unfortunately, I tried twice and just never got into it. But it was also bundled with two other games: God of War and Horizon: Zero Dawn. I’d never heard of the second one but gave it a shot. I was instantly hooked.

I unfortunately don’t have as much time these days to commit to video games like I did in ye olde days gone by. But there was something about Horizon that kept bringing me back.

Eventually I achieved 100% completion on both the standalone game and its add-on Frozen Wilds. Then I went back through on Ultra Hard on new game+ and tried a speed run, completing the entire game again in somewhere around 4 hours. I think the record is about 2 hours 20 minutes so there’s a ways to go there, but I stopped after that figuring that was good enough.

So yeah, I think the game is good. Can’t wait for the sequel but I might patient gamer it anyway to bypass a buggy rollout.