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Sophisticated Gameplay Drives Captivating Story In Guerilla’s Newest IP

Aloy taking aim at an enemy during an eng-game scene.

How often do you find yourself truly immersed in something? The walls around you feel like they’ve been knocked down, ambient sounds fade to back and its just you and the subject. For some people I’d imagine this feeling can be found one of several ways — maybe at the theater, a gym or a bookstore. I don’t often have this sense of tunnel vision, if at all, but I was lucky enough to find it in my most recent game review.

There were only two games that I can honestly say had me excited about my then-impending Playstation 4 Pro purchase — “Final Fantasy XV” and “Horizon Zero Dawn.”

The game, released Feb. 28 by Sony’s first-party developer, Amsterdam-based Guerilla Games, “Horizon Zero Dawn” centers around protagonist Aloy in her quest to uncover her past, her purpose and discover the mysteries outside of the isolationism she’d found herself in her entire life.

The Story

Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t played and think you will in the future I suggest you skip this section.

One of the greatest parts about “Horizon” is the slow, addictive buildup of its story. You know fairly little at the start of the game, beginning as a young version of Aloy, growing up with her caretaker — both as outcasts. At the onset you could assume the game takes place in the 1600s when Native Americans lived in relative isolation from the rest of the world. You quickly discover the beautiful, serene environment is simply concealing the once technology-driven metropolis’ that once covered the planet.

Skyscrapers are decayed to four-story structures, streetlights are entangled with foliage and roads no longer exist. The only remanents of a high-tech world exist in cauldrons and bunkers encased in mountain ranges and underground. Aloy stumbles upon her first bunker early on and discovers what’s called a focus on a decaying corpse. The item, what looks like a typical bluetooth earbud for a cell phone today, enables her to see and access past incidents in certain locations throughout the game.

The story begins to unfold once you take control of Aloy as a teenager. The tribe she was outcast from at birth grants permission to join after completing “the proving,” a task young members of the Nora tribe are asked to perform. The participants are attacked, slaughtered by a group of Shadow Carja, a separate tribe that worships “Hades.” In short order, Aloy discovers she was the primary target in the killings because she bares an uncanny resemblance to someone dressed in modern day attire.

The setting reveals itself to be the Denver, Colo., area in a dystopian time nearly one thousand years after a catastrophic event. In the year 2064, machines are developed for the use as peacekeeping weapons. At first everything is hunky-dory, humans are in control, things are getting done. But like all tragic stories revolving the rise and fall of humans who become dependent on machines, i.e. Terminator 2, machines begin to destroy the planet. Why, you ask? Because these robots were equipped to run on biofuel, essentially destroying enemy lands as a means to an end. Given the sophistication of the robots, they’re also able to construct new machines on their own. A countdown is on to the end of civilization and the end of life on the planet.

A genius doctor who specializes in renewable energy projects at the company that lost control of the robots branched out years earlier. At the time of crisis, Dr. Elisabet Sobeck was able to devise a project that would consist of a different robot placed in hiding underground. Knowing the end was inevitable for life on this planet, the robot known as “Gaia” was created to begin life anew on the planet by reconstructing the biosphere and eco-system as it saw fit. By roughly the year 3064, life had returned to the planet albeit with a mix of animal-like robots built to help construct the plant’s ecosystem and primitive humans who have reverted to primitive ideologies. The humans, spawned using genetic properties inside “Gaia” were eventually set out into the world after it became inhabitable. They were taught basic education skills inside by robots, but they had no idea of how they came to be or why the world was the way it was.

Now, because rebuilding life on the planet was left to a machine, the creators had to make sure it got it right or else human life would no longer exist and there would be no one left to realize it didn’t work. As a fail-safe, “Gaia” was equipped with a kill switch of sorts, to re-destroy the eco-system all over again and start over if it didn’t get it right. The machine built to execute this plan was called “Hades.”

Fast-forward to your time controlling Aloy and it’s revealed that the Shadow Carja who worship “Hades” are doing the bidding of a machine built to destroy the planet. Come later to find the only kill switch left lies in the genetic DNA of Aloy, the daughter of Dr. Elisabet Sobek. The woman who bore an uncanny resemblance to Aloy was in fact her mother, the doctor and architect behind life on the planet in the year 3064. There is so much more that can be said about the ins and outs of this game’s story. It’s just refreshing that video games are no longer a control this person-get-here-do-this-you win throw-away piece of entertainment. The game felt like I had just watched a 40-hour-long movie with a rather concrete story plot, better than I’d find in most movie theatres these days.

The Game’s Beginning

Every game handles tutorials differently. Sometimes there’s a very clear “this is a tutorial” mode that is mandatory before you even begin the game and other times it’s a learn-on-the-fly system. Both, in my opinion, have more negatives than positives, with basic tutorials boring you and fast-paced tutorials frustrating you during periods of in-game combat. In the case of “Horizon” I found the tutorial to be well-balanced. The early portion of the story, a non-threatening period of game play allows time for the player to learn the game mechanics without affecting important scenarios. It wasn’t boring and it actually felt less like a tutorial and more like an interlude for the main story.

Following the opening act/tutorial the game proceeds to present day when your character Aloy has matured. This is when the game really gets interesting.

Best Looking Game Ever?

It doesn’t take long to see how brilliant this game looks. I’ve never seen such a visually impressive game in my life, even on my paltry 1080p HDTV the colors really popped. Owners of 4K televisions have raved how much more this game sparkles in higher resolution but fear not basic HDTV owners, you won’t be disappointed.

From the tall blades of grass and Aloy’s hair blowing in the wind to the snow-capped mountain peaks and dense jungle foliage, it’s impossible to not stop several times while playing and just take in the incredible world that has been created. I wandered aimlessly while doing minimal quests/missions just taking in the sites of the fictional world. To make matters worse, I found myself constantly pausing the game and taking advantage of the games photo mode. Ever image posted with this review was taken using the games photo mode and all images were taken during real-time gameplay — not CGI and not during cutscenes. Over the past few weeks of playing I’ve seen hundreds of player photos taken during the game and shared on gaming community websites and Twitter; this feature would be an afterthought for most games but not in “Horizon.” Trying to find great photo locations and scenarios has become a game within the game.

I know, you’re thinking how is a 34-year-old father of four still going on endlessly about a video game? You have to understand, I grew up with video games as entertainment and “back in my day” I had to settle for 8-bit Mario running left to right on my shoddy, 19-inch RCA.

Gameplay

A video game isn’t fun to play if it isn’t fun to play. By this I mean a game can have all the features you’re looking for but if the controls are sluggish and gameplay doesn’t match the games best features then it isn’t going to matter. Thankfully, gameplay matches and at times exceeds the impressive graphics in “Horizon.”

While Aloy has a variety of weapons at her disposal your go-to weapon of choice will be a bow-and-arrow. I’ve played a few games where your character uses a bow but many lacked precision and game mechanics required to make it an enjoyable experience. The variety of arrow tips — from fire and ice to explosive and piercing — coupled with slow-down mode and variable ways to aim make the “gunplay” in “Horizon” truly enjoyable. A primary method for bringing down some of the gigantic beasts is by targeting weak points with your bow and shooting them off.

And unlike a majority of games, this game wasn’t too easy. In fact, I died quite a few times until I learned how to properly attack each mechanical beast.

Last Thought

If you get or play this game, and my recommendation is you certainly should if you haven’t already, I recommend turning off as much of the HUD as you can; it blocks too much of the gorgeous surroundings in the game. My final review: one of the best games I’ve played to date, 9.5/10.

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