Video Game: First Impressions for Horizon Zero Dawn

I judged this game by its cover art, and took a chance on pre-ordering it. Now, like any good game it rules my life. In a good way.

Took a selfie with Thunderjaws...lol

Horizon: Zero Dawn is an open-world third-person sci-fi adventure game. I think the best way to describe it would be as a combination of:

• The gameplay of 2013's Tomb Raider, including:
• Hunting/gathering for crafting supplies.
• Raiding areas for hidden secrets.
• Frequent use of bows, arrows, and melee weapons.
• Small amounts of climbing and acrobatics. 
• Emphasis on hardening one's resolve through survival, experience, training.
• Strong female heroine.
• A sublime GUI that highlights what you need to know without getting in the way too much.
• A story like Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, swapping out giant bugs for robot animals.
• Dialogue trees that resemble Mass Effect and Dragon Age.
• The landscapes of Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, and Utah.

I've seen other folks compare it to Far Cry: Primal, but I haven't played that one yet, I'm not sure how it compares.

So far, I've put in probably 20 or so hours into the game, completing about 25%. It hooked me right from the start. The game kicks off with an involving prologue sequence that slowly introduces you to the gameplay (you learn to hunt a robot, gather herbs, and explore an ancient ruin). Once you get past that, the world opens up a little more, and you're free to complete a few sidequests and hunt. But once you get past the first act (past the Proving), the game just explodes open and you're free to a massive world of warring nations, huge mechanical beasts, and so many side quests and activities. It is a big game that will suck up time and effort. Fortunately, it is rewarding and addicting. Earning experience, finding collectables, completing missions, finding secrets--it all feels rewarding and keeps you running all over the map.

Combat can get pretty tough--machine enemies are powerful and will wham themselves into you. Some spit fire and ice, others have lasers or rockets. A combination of stealth, strategy, and improvisation is a must. You can set up traps, sneak up and take out individual units, and override some. It is possible to become over-powered in time, but it is a tough challenge at first. Human enemies can be a challenge as well.

Graphics are top-notch. Even though I don't have the ability to play it in 4K, it still looks smooth, sharp, clear, and very colorful on a normal HD display. It runs smooth, I haven't had any frame rate drops or crashes. Sound and music are nice. Environments are rendered beautifully with gorgeous weather effects. The game has a nice photo mode to take some great screenshots.

At first, the story impressed me greatly too. The first act is incredibly successful at eliciting sympathy for Aloy, the main character. The prologue shows her birth and childhood, and you can't help but to feel for the girl as she's shunned and outcast for reasons unknown. It's actually kinda frustrating watching this kind of suffering, experiencing it through the character, so it makes you want to succeed and it keeps you playing. To me, this came off as perfect storytelling--firmly rooted in character, using the gameplay and cutscenes to show the conflict as it rolls out, rather than having it spouted off as exposition.

I was also impressed by the story's handling of the world-building. In the first act, the Nora tribe is pretty much all that's shown and all you care about. Once you get to the Proving, you see glimpses that show there's an even bigger world beyond the tribe. And just when you complete the Proving and feel accomplished about it (because you're living the main character's ultimate dream), it all falls apart and plunges you into the even larger conflict far beyond the mother land. It's mind-blowing to go through all that, only to find the scope of everything is much bigger.

On top of that, the world itself is designed with immaculate detail. All the collectables, environments, and ruins give enough hints to show how things were before the events of the game. The dialogue and design for costumes and places illustrate how future generations regarded the past and developed their own unique culture. It's the stuff of intelligent sci-fi, as well as being a grand epic.

This was all fantastic--at first. Once I reached Meridian, the personal stakes and motivations backing Aloy evaporated. I'm not sure if it's just because I got sidetracked from the main quest to do all the other things, or if the story really will head in some off-beat tangent. As it is, the same feelings I had at the start aren't quite there anymore, as I'm running around killing Thunderjaws and helping random strangers. But I am hopeful that it'll all connect and continue to paint Aloy as a deep and rich character.

Few other complaints to be aware of:

• Climbing sucks. You could spend hours trapped in a valley trying to find a good spot to climb. And when you do, it's not always intuitive.
• Crafting pouch upgrades--you have to check each one individually, the game doesn't tell you automatically or on the crafting screen what you can craft and what you need.
• Tutorial quests have to be activated to make progress. If you accomplish a task for them, they won't count unless they are active. Every other quest doesn't work this way. So you may have to stop in the middle of combat to go into the quest screen to make sure it's active.
• Finding the stuff for pouch upgrades is tough. Fox bones, raccoon skins, fish guts--you will have to take the time to hunt wildlife for these rare drops, and it can be frustrating.
• Got stuck under the floor once. Couldn't move out of it. Had to reload.
• Game saves happen automatically only at certain points (some happen as you progress through missions, everything else only when you use campfires). There is a chance you could die and lose some progress between save points.
• Lip synching is awful.
• It has the chance of becoming tedious.

The positives outweigh the negatives. But I fell in love with the game instantly for its gameplay (which is right up my alley) and the storytelling (which is great, at least to start with). It gets an easy recommendation from me. I know I'll be playing the heck out of this all year, at least until that new Mass Effect game comes along...