Horizon Zero Dawn

⭐ 8.5/10

(Originally written by Joseph)

On the surface, Horizon has essentially everything I could ever want in a video game. The gameplay is fun and the combat is unique enough to rise above a lot of the competition. It has both a cool story but also an interesting open world to explore. It features one of the greatest sci-fi worlds with deep lore that I've ever come across in any form of media. Yet somehow this game comes just short of the sum of all those parts.

This game features a universe where humanity is in a primitive, tribal state, yet the story clearly takes place in the future as you can see the ancient remains of modern technology. This setting also essentially sets up the plot as you are on a mission to discover the secrets of the past, and I must say that the mystery is terrific and has an amazing payoff. You play as Aloy who is adventurous, rugged and overall pretty badass, but who I also found a little vanilla as she never shows any personality traits that make her truly unique. However, I do appreciate a big budget video game using a non-sexualized female as a protagonist.

The story is terrific, and like I said had amazing lore that I would read about into the wee hours of the night. The game gives you enough information in the main story to understand and intrigue you, never making the mistake of explaining EVERYTHING, but has a wealth of extra texts and audio clips to access if you want to go deeper. However, the primary shortcomings here are some poor writing and voice acting. Most characters are pretty stiff, and none are memorable (kinda including Aloy). Nonetheless, the story is awesome. I was not super into it to start, but as I came closer to the conclusion, I spent many of my nights during the holidays playing till 3am.

The gameplay is also terrific. You are fighting these massive machine animals, and so you have to exploit their weaknesses to take them down and you feel very clever when you do. This game gives you all the tools, but doesn't hold your hand and tell you how to use them, so figuring it all out is very rewarding. Few feelings in video games are as great as the first time I took down a T-Rex machine on my own.

The open world was a little bland. There is not much to discover, and the rewards for exploration are not really worth it. The movement is pretty restrictive and really not fun. I feel guilty ever using fast travel, but for this game I used it to get basically everywhere because I didn't find the world interesting or worth traversing. It was certainly pretty, but when compared to other games this generation I thought it kinda looked dated.

I could go on, but I guess I should wrap it up and just say that this game is good. It's probably worth 50 hours of your time, though I do think there are better open world RPGs. I think this is an amazing effort by a studio that has never made a game like this, and with such a solid foundation, I'm confident the next game coming out this year will be nearer to the masterpiece that this game almost achieves.