Horizon Forbidden West - PS5/PS4

[Lebowski]

Was pretty impressed at the opening few sections, it dose a good job of giving you a tutorial area to start you off, then a small valley to explore to get you used to how the world works, The exploration is all pretty organic too i pretty much cleared out the whole valley before moving on too the next area. The side quests are rewarding and you get some pretty decent gear and items by not rushing through this area.

Getting out into the game proper and scaling my first tall neck to get a map left me a little taken aback though, the amount of icons on the screen all at once is very overwhelming. It would be good to just see the points of interest and let you choose if you want all the secrets mystery items and locations bombarding you all at once. A map system i really liked recently was Sables on the Xbox, buying a map of a cartographer in that game revealed the area but didn't clutter your map with icons, it instead made you study the map and then tag areas that looked interesting. id much prefer a more organic system like this with maybe an option to reveal secret things later on for completionists.

[hudson]

There's a nice mix of styles to the side quests and loot hunting. In particular in the early part of the open world there's a ruined building which has a door with code key requirement. The whole thing was set up like a puzzle which was great.

[Cassius_Smoke]

There's a nice mix of styles to the side quests and loot hunting. In particular in the early part of the open world there's a ruined building which has a door with code key requirement. The whole thing was set up like a puzzle which was great.

Yeah there are a few moments like this. Or caves systems that you need to navigate like a puzzle. It's like 'Aloy goes Tomb Raiding' at times.

[JU!]

Looking forward to reading some more impressions about this, sounds very much like the first one. First 10 hours sound a bit pants by all accounts and heard combat using the stick not got much more varied, which I found a bit of a gripe for the first one.

[hudson]

There are much better multiple skill trees to dig into now. I've gone down the Warrior path first and the stick now has deeper mechanics. Combos and some kind of triggerable flashy mode which I've yet to use.

[fishbowlhead]

The stalker (stealth) tree has a full on cloaking device now.

The hunter path has a skill for extra damage & small bit of health back for each arrow that hits.

[Cassius_Smoke]

A few niggles I'm finding...

They've added the ability to jump backwards when hanging on a ledge, which is nice. But it usually results in you having to awkwardly turn the camera to see where to aim for, or just jumping directly at the screen in the hope you catch it.

Having no lock on means most close quarters combat results in hammering dodge, switching to aim, rotating on the spot to find your target, only to have to hammer dodge again and then try and find them again.

They made a massive deal of the lovely underwater effects, but I've been playing now for over 30 hours and still don't have the rebreather so I can't explore most of the water sections.

[Neon Ignition]

I've done next to nothing so far but the two immediate visual things I've noticed are:

1-It's the most stunning PS4 game
2-It's still a PS4 game and some of the small details like interaction with foliage and water have been exaggerated. Aloy doesn't directly affect it, it just bends under he model that her feet then clip through

Perfectly normal for games so not a criticism but again, it's a PS4 game.

[fishbowlhead]

A few niggles I'm finding...

They've added the ability to jump backwards when hanging on a ledge, which is nice. But it usually results in you having to awkwardly turn the camera to see where to aim for, or just jumping directly at the screen in the hope you catch it.

Having no lock on means most close quarters combat results in hammering dodge, switching to aim, rotating on the spot to find your target, only to have to hammer dodge again and then try and find them again.

They made a massive deal of the lovely underwater effects, but I've been playing now for over 30 hours and still don't have the rebreather so I can't explore most of the water sections.

Seems it’s locked behind a story mission “Sea of Sands” and you can’t get it before hand. Annoying cause i was wondering when I’d get it and thought it would be at the start of the game.

[huxley]

I've done next to nothing so far but the two immediate visual things I've noticed are:

1-It's the most stunning PS4 game
2-It's still a PS4 game and some of the small details like interaction with foliage and water have been exaggerated. Aloy doesn't directly affect it, it just bends under he model that her feet then clip through

Perfectly normal for games so not a criticism but again, it's a PS4 game.

Yea this one is going to look amazing when it comes to PC.

[fishbowlhead]

Update for this last night hard crashed my console, the update finished, i clicked on the icon to resume game and it just hung, then the console switched off, took 5 mins to come back to life and i was a little worried for a min, all fine now and no other issues.

[Cassius_Smoke]

I'm getting very frustrated with the combat on this.
Its just a constant barrage of attack from all around, with little chance of avoiding most of it.
If you set up traps, as soon as its triggered machines from a 400 mile radius are immediately on you. I pretty much completely avoid combat now.

[fishbowlhead]

Year I really don’t like getting bum (you know what) by a group of machines, 1on1 its fine, but the second 2-3 are on you it’s absolutely carnage and not fun.

The kangaroo like machines can suppress your abilities, climb mountains, scan for you, do a leaping jump stun attack & throw stun balls at you, their pure evil in a group.

[huxley]

About six hours in and I cant bring myself to play this anymore. Dont get me wrong the story and presentation is very good, Guerrilla spin a good yarn. I`ve been flicking between this and the original on PC and this just isn't doing the game justice visually. I assume this will come to PC at some point and if it does I trust GG will lavish the same details and attention they did the original.

[fishbowlhead]

You playing on PS4 because this is an absolute visual tour deforce on PS5, a pc version wouldn’t really improve it.