Tag: crafting

Horizon Zero Dawn Review

Horizon Zero Dawn Review

The First 15

First comes a lot of cutscenes that cement my place as an outcast. I’m also getting a lot of shots of the wilderness which is admittedly quite beautiful.

It seems my name is Aloy (similar to alloy, which I doubt is a coincidence). One day while out and about as a child I manage to fall into a hole in the ground and find myself in a cavern that looks like the ruins of an old underground installation. I’m exploring the space while my character makes comments. It seems that this game takes place a great deal of time after the fall of human civilization.

I come across a room with a strange metal object inside, but I’m unable to get in due to the rocks in my way. Maybe I can find another way inside further in. I come across a dead body with something on its ear. I pick up the object and place it on mine. The object appears to be a computer complete with heads up display. I find it very interesting that I just ‘found’ my interface for the game.

I continue on and encounter a room with a bunch of recordings. After listening to them I believe I’ve encountered what I think is a group of people who planned on committing suicide. That’s not at all creepy considering I’m currently playing as a small child. At last I manage to make my way through the ruins and find my way back outside.

Story

Horizon Zero Dawn takes place many years after the fall of civilization. The only thing left behind from that civilization are old ruins and a nearly infinite number of machine creatures. The main character, Aloy, is raised as an outcast from a tribe of hunters but goes back to compete in a trial that allows her to become a member. But more important to her, if she wins then she can demand the leaders tell her who her mother is.

Despite some complications, Aloy leaves the lands of her tribe in search of answers. Unfortunately for her, those answers are quite dangerous and a number of people will stand against her. Of course, even when she does manage to find some answers they only seem to lead to more questions. And naturally, to find those answers Aloy must face even greater dangers.

I want to commend the writers for managing to keep the story feeling personal throughout. Even as the world and story continues to expand and grow, players remain rooted in the character who at times really could not care less about some of the things she discovers. She has her own goals and despite the worldwide implications of what she finds her search remains personal.

Something I found particularly impressive was the way in which the writers handled religion within Aloy’s tribe. The tribesmen would pray to the AllMother which could have felt awkward or pathetic, but the writers never made the people feel obnoxious or naive for believing as they do. In fact, a few moments even manage to highlight the beauty of their religion and its ceremonies. In our world where, more and more, people tend to make fun of other people’s religion, it’s nice to see a story treat even a fake religion with such reverence.

There exists a unique dichotomy between the world aboveground of the wilds and the world belowground of the ‘world of metal’ as Aloy calls it. Going from one to the other is both jarring and completely natural. You can see how each has influenced the other even though both worlds stand very much in opposition. Unfortunately the story doesn’t explore this ying-yang relationship as much as I would have liked.

Interface and Controls

I alluded to this earlier, but the way in which players acquire the game’s interface rather than have it available to them from the start is quite unique. I like the way in which they did this, though I think they could have done more with it. Since the interface is a part of the game, I would have liked to see players be able to collect different visual overlays for the interface. For instance, players could unlock a futuristic overlay, or maybe one which makes gives the effect of being constructed using watercolors. The interface would still function exactly the same regardless of which overlay is used, but the option to make custom alterations to the look would have been nice.

Your spear vanishes whenever the character sheathes it on her back. I realize it’s a bug, but it’s extremely noticeable and damages the sense of immersion to see it constantly appear and disappear.

There are several different types of quests. One of those is tutorial quests. Tutorial quests become available whenever you unlock/acquire a new weapon. They’re a great way of getting the player to try out a new weapon. The one problem with them is that they won’t progress unless they are set as the active quest. So even if you use the new weapon in the correct way to complete the tutorial quest, it won’t update until you set it to be the active quest and do it again.

Photo Mode is something I completely wasn’t expecting, but which I now wish every game had. In short, whenever you pause the game you can enter Photo Mode. In Photo Mode, the game remains paused but now you can manipulate the camera to zoom in, zoom out, or change the angle the camera is looking at the main character. There are also a wide selection of filters and effects you can apply to the camera. Then, once you’ve got everything set, you can take a screenshot. The result is some absolutely incredible shots that truly feel epic and can help capture moments from your journey.

Easily the worst part of Horizon Zero Dawn is dealing with the camera during battle. Since there is no way of locking onto a target, you must manually rotate the camera in order to keep an enemy in view. This is especially annoying since several enemies will charge at you (and then past you when you dodge out of the way). This also leads to a lot of getting hit by enemies from offscreen. I would like for there to be a way in which you could lock onto a target and have the camera automatically follow that target. For the controls, the designers could remap L1 to be target lock/unlock, and have the touchpad on the PS4 controller bring up the weapon wheel.

The other annoyance with the camera occurs when aiming at things in the sky (such as flying machines). The camera is positioned a little behind the character, which means that if you are crouching or standing in tall vegetation when aiming up the plants will obscure the camera even though the vegetation is not between Aloy’s eyes and the target. The game needs to fade out any objects that are between the camera and Aloy.

Items are rather annoying to use since you have to cycle through them all one at a time using left and right on the D-pad and then press down to activate the one currently selected. Instead, I would prefer if you could assign an item to left, right, and down the same way in which weapons are assigned to the weapon wheel. Players would also have the option of activating an item from within the inventory menu as well.

Gameplay

I like that one of the first things you can do once you gain the ability to move around freely is revisit the cavern which you fell into as a young child. Now that you’re older you have the strength to break through some of the rocks that previously barred your way into certain areas. It created a nice dynamic to see an area both before and after so close to one another.

Combat in Horizon Zero Dawn is about a lot more than simply unloading damage into an enemy machine. Instead, every machine has different weak points that can be targeted. And each of these weak points needs to be targeted in a different way. For instance, if a machine has a canister of blaze (essentially fuel) on it, then hitting that canister with a fire arrow will cause the canister to explode. On weaker machines that might be enough to destroy it, and on other machines being on fire might reveal previously hidden weaknesses for players to exploit. Some enemies can even have their weapons removed and turned against them if players can manage to pick them up. Boss battles tend to take this system to the limit and require the exploitation of these weaknesses in order to defeat. This system of strategic dismemberment makes for some extremely compelling gameplay and makes fighting the machines quite enjoyable.

The development team did a fantastic job on their climbing system. Climbing along surfaces feels very fluid and near effortless. My only complaint is that the actual climbing areas are all rather simplistic. I would have liked to see a bit more complexity involved with areas you climb around on.

Early on you come across a merchant (and all merchants after him) who will sell you maps that show you where all of the important collectibles can be located.  The maps themselves only show you a general location and it is still up to you to snoop around to find the item. I really like this idea of introducing such maps near the start of the game rather than at the end

The fast travel system is a little awkward. Traveling itself is fine, but each time you travel you must consume a fast travel pack to do so. What makes this feel weird is you end up having an almost limitless supply of fast travel packs as you play through the game. Eventually you can even buy a fast travel pack that truly is infinite. I always felt like the travel packs served no purpose other than to take up inventory space. I would like to see the designers remove the need for these packs from the game altogether.

In this game the cauldrons act as dungeons. At first glance they all seem the same, but each has its own setup that makes it feel unique. And as with any good dungeon there is a boss fight at the end. Cauldrons do a great job of both reminding players of the metal world hidden beneath the surface as well as taking what is mostly an open world game and for a while narrowing the focus down to one room at a time.

Players can compete in trials that earn them marks for completing the trial within a certain amount of time. Each trial has three rankings depending on how fast you finish it. The problem with hunter marks is that they are only useful once you’ve visited all of the sites and completed all of the trials. Rather than have bronze, silver, and gold rankings for each trial, I would prefer it if each of the trials only had a single pass/fail ranking and the Hunter’s Lodge handed out rewards for completing 5, 10, and finally all 15 of the trials instead.

As you go through the game you find merchants who will sell you more and more powerful weapons. Often times you can even skip straight from the normal version to the most powerful shadow version. In a game that has you gathering so many different resources, it feels odd to simply buy better weapons rather than acquiring a base model for a weapon and having to craft upgrades onto it until it becomes the most powerful version. I would have liked to see them add in a crafting system for weapons where possibly players would acquire designs and then have to collect the necessary resources to construct the design. Each weapon would have a basic design, and then be upgradeable using upgrade components. The designs for these upgrade components could be bought from merchants with each upgrade component affecting several different weapons. For instance, a bowstring upgrade component could be applied to either of the bows available. I also dislike that you cannot upgrade your spear with the exception of a single side quest.

One nice quality of life feature in this game that I hope to see in more games is that whenever you have to follow other characters they will move at your speed. So if you walk, then they will walk. If you start to run, then they will run as well. This gave me the ability to slow down if I wanted to listen to a conversation and speed up if I wanted to get things moving along.

Treasure boxes hold an odd place in the game. These boxes can be found in various places, or handed out after completing a mission. Opening the box reveals the contents which players can remove and their inventory. I believe this was the developers’ way of ensuring that players always got their rewards even if they did not have any inventory space. And, every time players encounter a new merchant, the merchant ‘sells’ players a free treasure box with some common resources inside. There is no limit to the number of boxes the player can hold. As a result, this led me to often times hold onto a box and leave the contents inside since it allowed me to hold onto more resources than my inventory would usually allow. In essence, the boxes became a sort of pseudo second inventory. I like having the boxes be for rewards from completing missions, but I think the designers went too far with it when they allowed players to collect boxes from corpses and chests. I feel like they should have restricted them solely as objective rewards.

Conclusion

You will like this game if you enjoy a good personal story and a unique way of thinking about combat. Both are compelling and will keep you interested all the way up until the end.

You will not like this game if you dislike combat with a lot of constant motion. You spend almost as much time dodging out of the way as you do firing arrows. Combat also requires a lot of very precise hits which can be difficult for some people especially on consoles.

Horizon Zero Dawn is a very enjoyable game with a strong story and a unique take on combat. Thinking about enemies as a series of different parts rather than simply a target to unload damage into gives each machine a truly unique feel to it. I very much enjoyed this game and I believe others will as well.

Starbound Review

Starbound Review

The First 15

I found the character creator to be simple and yet fun. There wasn’t much, but it got the job done and made me feel like the character was one I chose.

The available difficulties are Casual, Survivor, and Hardcore. I chose the Survivor difficulty.

I like how in the story you are already late right from the start. It reminds me of The Journeyman Project (ten points if you’ve even heard of that game).  It probably isn’t intentional, but it was a nice nostalgia trip for me.

You get the Matter Converter right away and start using it immediately. Even this early I can tell that most of the game will revolve around the Matter Converter.

Strangely enough, I just got this super advanced piece of technology (the Matter Converter) and the next thing I get is a…sword. Not a beam weapon, not a phase pistol, not even a normal gun, a sword. And, the sword I get isn’t some futuristic weapon. It’s a metal sword. And somehow, it’s the only weapon I find during my escape.  From a gameplay perspective it makes sense that you start with a melee weapon, but the sharp disconnect when it comes to the lore of the game makes this interaction feel forced. It might make more sense if I got a piece of metal I grabbed from the rubble to use as an improvised weapon, but instead someone from this super advanced society took the time to create a really crappy sword that I just happened to find. This could have been handled better.

I arrive on my spaceship and find there is a cat already aboard. It’s a small decision by the designers to include a silent companion, but it’s a nice touch and adds a bit more personality to the game. The other “character” is the computer AI who likes to make very sarcastic remarks. For instance, “There is a 32% chance this discovery is important and a 98% chance that you have nothing better to do than investigate.” So far, I like the cast of characters they’ve put together for me to “work” with.

The very first thing I did upon arriving at the planet was try digging a hole into the earth using the Matter Converter. I got a little ways down and found a cavern with some enemies who killed me in short order. Alright then.

And that seemed a fitting end to my first 15 minutes of playtime.

Story

The opening of the story certainly gave me a sense of having just barely managed to escape something horrendous. My problem with the story is that very quickly the game explains exactly what is happening and you get recruited to defeat the ‘great evil’. In a game that’s supposed to be all about exploration and experimentation it seems odd that they would simply hand you the whole story right from the start without any sort of effort. The story itself is intriguing, but I feel that it would be even better if players had to piece it together themselves by exploring the various planets.

Interface and Controls

One thing I found very strange is that, as far as I could find, there is no way to pause the game. Pressing ESC brings up the menu, but it doesn’t pause the game in the background even if I’m only playing single player. There are a million and one reasons players might need to get up from their computer, and not allowing them to pause the game seems like a poor decision. Especially given that on the hardest difficulty dying is permanent.

One big oversight with the game is that the game only saves when you quit. What this means is that if the game crashes (which I will mention never happened to me) or the power goes out (which did happen to me) then you lose all of your progress since the last time you started the game. Eventually I got into the habit of quitting to the main menu and then re-entering the game every hour or so just in case. The game loads very quickly, so this wasn’t a huge annoyance, but it still felt weird not to have some sort of auto-save feature.

You can’t skip cutscenes. I would think that by 2016 developers know better than to have 5+ minute cutscenes with no way to skip them, but it would seem not. This is even more odd given that you do have the option to skip the opening segment of the game.

Gameplay

Early on I found myself getting hurt a lot, which obviously was a problem. However, this became much less of a problem once I figured out how to craft health kits. It’s a smart idea on the part of the designers to give players early and easy access to basic health recovery. It incentivizes players to explore the crafting system without requiring it (since it is possible to get good enough you stop getting hurt). Players who tinker with crafting are ultimately rewarded with health packs for their efforts. This interaction is perfectly designed and represents how a game like this should unfurl.

The lack of an overview map is annoying and makes it difficult to navigate the planet at times, especially from inside the earth.

My biggest complaint with the game relates to exploration and how it interacts with the different difficulty options. Digging into the planet is a fun experience. You never know if you’re going to find a vein of rare minerals or maybe drop into a cavern filled with monsters and treasure. The problem comes when you’re done having fun and want to return to the surface. On Survivor difficulty you cannot return to your ship unless you are standing on the planet’s surface. Meaning that if you dig down into the planet, you then have to dig all the way back to the surface which takes ages compared to how quickly you can burrow down. Also, if you happen to die on Survivor difficulty you lose everything you’ve gathered. This penalty seems more than a little absurdly harsh. And on Hardcore mode when you die you stay dead. On the flip side there is Casual in which you lose nothing for dying and can warp back to the ship from anywhere, including inside the planet. I noticed that exploration became infinitely more enjoyable when I could explore somewhere for as long as I liked, and then warp back once I was done rather than having to slog my way back to the surface. And of course there’s the risk of dying when I dig up into a chamber and get crushed by an avalanche of bones (true story) at which point I lose everything I gathered if I’m playing on Survivor. My issue is that there exists such a huge disparity between Casual and the other two difficulties. You have to chose between exploration being almost too easy, or it being a massive pain. There should be a middle difficulty between Casual and Survivor in which dying still carries a penalty, but doesn’t make you want to quit playing altogether. And as for exploring, there should be a system in place (and available the moment you set foot on your first planet) that allows you to quickly return to your ship in exchange for some amount of resources (such as Core Fragments which are found near the center of most planets). Given how much of the game is about the joy of exploring, they make it surprisingly difficult to actually enjoy exploration.

One of the big upsides to this game is that it supports modding. While I did not use any of the mods available I did take a look through what was available. Many of these mods add an absolutely staggering number of new items to the game while others subtly (or not so subtly) change the rules. There are mods that do things like add the hunger system to Casual difficulty or make it so you don’t lose items on Survivor difficulty when you die (though you still lose money). It is possible that there may be other mods that address other issues I have with this game. That said, this review is for the base version of the game as envisioned by the developers.

Conclusion

You will like this game if you enjoy getting sidetracked by exploring previously undiscovered areas and tinkering with a wide variety of craftable items. You can also build your own buildings and decorate/upgrade your spaceship.

You will not like this game if you want a high action game or one that guides from one action point to the next. While this game does have a core storyline it does a lot of meandering along the way. Much of this game is about finding your own fun.

Starbound is a solid foundation for a game. That said, there are a number of gameplay decisions that make things feel more frustrating than fun. Fortunately, with the assistance of some mods, many of those issues can be addressed rather easily.

Thank you for reading my review and I hope it provided you some real insight into Starbound. Please feel free to leave any remarks in the comments section below.