.......
....
...
Huh?
Oh! Yeah 10/10. Lemme 'lone.
You still here?
Jesus fine, Horizon Forrbidden West then.
There is a bigger problem that always comes with a sequel to a big open world game. Where do you go from where the last game left off? Sure you can make another open sandbox-type map, but how to you do anything different from the first game that don't basically act as itterations on what was already in the first game. Often these sequels end up being "More of the first one" which for some people is enough. Like me....it's enough for me.
Take Spider-man and Mile Morales for example. Miles Morales isn't really different from Spider-man, hell the map is exactly the same, but what Miles does is that it adds a little bit to the combat, and it gives the player a different flavor on what basically ends up being the same side shit that Spider-man had. And that was great.
Forbidden West does exactly that. The dinosaurs here are still robots and while there are a few new ones, the old cast of baddies remains the same. What is different is the combat options Aloy now has. She's learned a few tricks herself, including super moves that come with a fancy little mini cutscene that's really cool. And she has a lot more skill trees that open her up to a much more taliored playstyle.
Wanna be a sniper, you can spec her into a sniper. Assassin? You can do that. Wanna brainwash all the robots to be your army? You can do that. Wanna just beat people up with a big stick? Yup you can do that too. Or maybe you wanna be a dickhead and let out a bunch of Legos for people to step on. Yep you can do that do, except the Legos explode. Point is there is a lot more to the combat here which adds to the gameplay experience even if the enemies aren't much different from the first game. This varied approach also allows for more freedom when your playstyle of choice goes tits up and you have to resort to doing something else.
Exploration is much the same as the first game, however climbing is a bit more open in a way. There are defined climb sections now, but you can also climb on a lot more things so it does make the map feel more free than the last one even though it's not. Plenty of collectibles and a wide variety of side activities just in the open world actually surprised me. I from hunts, to climbing towers, or breaking through hidden cave passages, to tall necks, to combat trails, to a nifty little battle board game, there is a lot more stuff on offer here. While none of it shakes up the open formula in anyway, the variety of them makes it not feel repetitive.
I've said before that I think Spider-man has the best open world gameplay of any game ever. Because it doesn't bombard you with shit to do all at once. You unlock the backpacks, you can then clear the map of all the backpacks before 50 other map icons shower all over the place. However the reason why Spider-man can do this is because the map is not only very small compared to most modern open world games, but it's also the same map from game to game. New York doesn't change much. On top of a final factor of New York being a real place so it's very easy for most people to understand and memorize as they play.
Fictional worlds can do that, so when they splatter map icons all over the place they have to be carefull. Ubisoft is not careful, Assasssin's Creed Valhalla is just a bukkake of bullshit all over the fucking place and it's overwhelming because a lot of it is meaningless. Forbidden West does liter the world with question marks until you explore those locations, but HFW does it more akin to the Witcher 3 where there aren't as many icons and every icon is interesting and meanfully rewarding. Zero Dawn was the same way and I'm glad they didn't go overboard here. \
The spot where Forbidden West struggles is the main story. But I feel like it's unfair because Zero Dawn had one of the best apocalyptic stories I've ever seen in a game or any form of media really. I thought the idea of a AI rebuilding the world using robot animals to terraform the planet after a mass extinction was just so awesome. The problem is that now in Forbidden West the mystery is solved. The who, what, where, when, and why have all been figured out. It's like when a Movie was so badass and had such a good closed plot that the sequel now makes shit happen that doesn't really make sense from the first movie. So the main story is a bit oddly worked out.
Luckily the story recovers by having amazing dialog and characters with great side quests that are all engaging and interested and it makes this feel like a real world where people are living their lives and Aloy is just around for pieces of it to work out problems for folks. The side content does a great job of holding up the main plot from total collapse.
And finally the game is fucking stunning to look at. The vegetation is insanely lush, the robots are so amazingly detailed, the characters no long have robot faces and emote and act like real people. It's so great. Many of the reviews have talked about bugs and lots of weird pop in. They played on patch 1.3 which was a prerelease patch however when I launched the game it auto-updated to 1.4 so they may have fixed a lot of the issues that people like ACG saw while playing, because I've gotten practically no bugs outside of a couple normal open world bugs where some grass appeared to be slightly floating over the ground and Aloy spazzed out during a couple climbs randomly. But it's been very minor stuff and nothing really obvious.
The game is everything I expected and wanted out of a Zero Dawn sequel, minus a slightly disappointing main point. Still I'd give it a 10/10 and I wouldn't be shocked if this holds up as GOTY for me unless Elden Ring makes me cum in my pants.
....
...
Huh?
Oh! Yeah 10/10. Lemme 'lone.
You still here?
Jesus fine, Horizon Forrbidden West then.
There is a bigger problem that always comes with a sequel to a big open world game. Where do you go from where the last game left off? Sure you can make another open sandbox-type map, but how to you do anything different from the first game that don't basically act as itterations on what was already in the first game. Often these sequels end up being "More of the first one" which for some people is enough. Like me....it's enough for me.
Take Spider-man and Mile Morales for example. Miles Morales isn't really different from Spider-man, hell the map is exactly the same, but what Miles does is that it adds a little bit to the combat, and it gives the player a different flavor on what basically ends up being the same side shit that Spider-man had. And that was great.
Forbidden West does exactly that. The dinosaurs here are still robots and while there are a few new ones, the old cast of baddies remains the same. What is different is the combat options Aloy now has. She's learned a few tricks herself, including super moves that come with a fancy little mini cutscene that's really cool. And she has a lot more skill trees that open her up to a much more taliored playstyle.
Wanna be a sniper, you can spec her into a sniper. Assassin? You can do that. Wanna brainwash all the robots to be your army? You can do that. Wanna just beat people up with a big stick? Yup you can do that too. Or maybe you wanna be a dickhead and let out a bunch of Legos for people to step on. Yep you can do that do, except the Legos explode. Point is there is a lot more to the combat here which adds to the gameplay experience even if the enemies aren't much different from the first game. This varied approach also allows for more freedom when your playstyle of choice goes tits up and you have to resort to doing something else.
Exploration is much the same as the first game, however climbing is a bit more open in a way. There are defined climb sections now, but you can also climb on a lot more things so it does make the map feel more free than the last one even though it's not. Plenty of collectibles and a wide variety of side activities just in the open world actually surprised me. I from hunts, to climbing towers, or breaking through hidden cave passages, to tall necks, to combat trails, to a nifty little battle board game, there is a lot more stuff on offer here. While none of it shakes up the open formula in anyway, the variety of them makes it not feel repetitive.
I've said before that I think Spider-man has the best open world gameplay of any game ever. Because it doesn't bombard you with shit to do all at once. You unlock the backpacks, you can then clear the map of all the backpacks before 50 other map icons shower all over the place. However the reason why Spider-man can do this is because the map is not only very small compared to most modern open world games, but it's also the same map from game to game. New York doesn't change much. On top of a final factor of New York being a real place so it's very easy for most people to understand and memorize as they play.
Fictional worlds can do that, so when they splatter map icons all over the place they have to be carefull. Ubisoft is not careful, Assasssin's Creed Valhalla is just a bukkake of bullshit all over the fucking place and it's overwhelming because a lot of it is meaningless. Forbidden West does liter the world with question marks until you explore those locations, but HFW does it more akin to the Witcher 3 where there aren't as many icons and every icon is interesting and meanfully rewarding. Zero Dawn was the same way and I'm glad they didn't go overboard here. \
The spot where Forbidden West struggles is the main story. But I feel like it's unfair because Zero Dawn had one of the best apocalyptic stories I've ever seen in a game or any form of media really. I thought the idea of a AI rebuilding the world using robot animals to terraform the planet after a mass extinction was just so awesome. The problem is that now in Forbidden West the mystery is solved. The who, what, where, when, and why have all been figured out. It's like when a Movie was so badass and had such a good closed plot that the sequel now makes shit happen that doesn't really make sense from the first movie. So the main story is a bit oddly worked out.
Luckily the story recovers by having amazing dialog and characters with great side quests that are all engaging and interested and it makes this feel like a real world where people are living their lives and Aloy is just around for pieces of it to work out problems for folks. The side content does a great job of holding up the main plot from total collapse.
And finally the game is fucking stunning to look at. The vegetation is insanely lush, the robots are so amazingly detailed, the characters no long have robot faces and emote and act like real people. It's so great. Many of the reviews have talked about bugs and lots of weird pop in. They played on patch 1.3 which was a prerelease patch however when I launched the game it auto-updated to 1.4 so they may have fixed a lot of the issues that people like ACG saw while playing, because I've gotten practically no bugs outside of a couple normal open world bugs where some grass appeared to be slightly floating over the ground and Aloy spazzed out during a couple climbs randomly. But it's been very minor stuff and nothing really obvious.
The game is everything I expected and wanted out of a Zero Dawn sequel, minus a slightly disappointing main point. Still I'd give it a 10/10 and I wouldn't be shocked if this holds up as GOTY for me unless Elden Ring makes me cum in my pants.
