Quick Look: Horizon: Zero Dawn

kinda wish they showed more robit monster combat in the quick look. don't blame them really, they most likely didn't know how things would play out when they started.

Worst UI of the year contender.

Jeff knows his shit

Does anyone else think that line that comes out after you shoot an arrow looks distractingly bad?

Especially on the fire arrow, where the texture just stops and looks cut off. It annoys me every time the character fires her bow.

I really like Aloy's animations. For Jeff to say that the majority of the game isn't fighting, they sure showed a lot of it. I think even Brad was getting tired of it towards the end. Jeff's praises for the story still really excite me. If that Healer quest wasn't even a main sidequest, that is encouraging as well.

Having not yet watched this, I just want to say that it bothers me way too much that Aloy looks almost identical to Freaky Friday era Lindsey Lohan in the thumbnail image.

the way characters look and animate is just off putting

hard to look at

@wynnduffy@vinny@drewbert @unastrike Something about the video color, saturation and contrast in this and the Sniper Elite 4 QL seems off to me. Now both videos are from completely different productions/offices, but they were both captured on a PS4. So I'm wondering if maybe they're both using PS4 Pros and this issue might be from converting an HDR source to SDR format, or some other compatible issue?

@jijipose: It looks horrible. It's some PS2 type stuff. Especially on the guns.

@ripelivejam I don't think there is anything wrong with Jeff's review. He clearly liked it. I just don't really like what I'm seeing here. It doesn't look like 5-star material, that doesn't mean someone else can't think that it is.

All I can say is: fuck yes.

well, ok, that and I'm excited to watch this QL and play the game tomorrow. XD

Man.. maybe another mispurchase based upon a Brad or Jeff recommendation.

Noticed the same issue here. Glad to see it's not just my display.

Looks well done, but this particular formula of open world is as stale as a loaf of bread sitting out on the counter for a month.

I got to 2:30 in the video, before pausing to go order the game.

people are scrutinizing jeff's opinion of it in particular, like how could he possibly give it 5 stars, and i was mainly addressing that. of course you're entitled to your opinion, but like all things that get overall high praise this reeks a bit of backlash.

Looking forward to this one :D

A small thing to complain about but there is a H in Herb, and it is pronounced! C'mon guys, you're professional writers, you should know this ;)

@ripelivejam: I was only speaking for myself, not what others have claimed. Again, nothing wrong with Jeff's review. I just don't like the particulars being shown here. It is indeed backlash, since I'm sold on this being a 5-star game, but it just doesn't look like one. But that's normal, no?

Wow, the difference between get hype trailers and this QL is insane.

The premise of this game is interesting but I felt this QL mostly showed long-winded battles with distracting trails on projectiles and bullets, horrendous Uncharted 4 climbing mechanics, backtracking and confusion, badly designed UI, stupid AI and that water looked worse and less interactive than some games from the early 2000s. I'm not bitter about this since it's money saved. At least for now.

Echoing some others, this looks kind of boring. Most glaring to me is that combat lacks feedback. For a game that utilizes a bow as a primary weapon, it seems like they didn't really create a very good feeling bow. When Jeff showed off that arrow that tears off components, he hypes it with, "This is a cool weapon." Then he shoots it and the components fall off the robot in an extremely unsatisfying way. Then he starts pelting it with normal arrows, with little feedback. Shooting human enemies seemed to offer similarly poor levels of feedback. Compare the bow to something like Rise of the Tomb Raider, and it's just kind of bad.

On a more general level, reviewers have talked about how this rises above the open-world formula, but I just don't see it.

"You don't know how many boars I've killed in this game"

So the game is a bit of a boar then?

Well damn, this convinced me to not buy it. This looks like any other generic open world game with pretty graphics. And now I'm really confused about the glowing reviews, even from people like Jeff and Jim Sterling. I don't get it.

This looks like a really poor way of showing of a game with strong story and worldbuilding like Jeff was talking about in the review. Banging your head against an end game filler quest and doing a "third tier errand quest" or whatever it was called for an hour doesnt exactly win over people with fatigue of the ubisoftmodel.

@rethla: So you think this mission is not representative of the game at all? Because I really hope so.

Well said rethla. Just a poor and overly long quicklook that does not do a great job of conveying what is supposedly great about the game. I don't get why you couldn't show a story mission or two and either edit out spoilery parts or simply choose early ones.

Edit: Also, as others have pointed out, man do the water effects when swimming and projectile lines when shooting look bad...

Haven't watched this QL, but based on the comments to the QL, I am cancelling my preorder which was based on the review. It's so hard being a gamer these days!

When Jeff used the "fast travel" system at 55:40 it took 1m20s to load!

This game looks...... fine?
Think i'll pass, seeing a lot of things i don't like.

Holy moly. GB community really tears into games they don't think are deserving of five stars. Interested to see everyone's thoughts on it though and even more to try it out myself.

Not a lot of story lovers here, apparently.

Same lead writer as Fallout: New Vegas, which means I'm all over this game. I haven't played a Far Cry since 2 and don't play much open world in general, so I'm not especially concerned about getting an attack of deja vu from the mechanics.

I see two groups of people in these comments. One group saying the game looks dull and the second group saying the first group is tearing the game apart. It just looks dull, at least in this specific video.

Perspective and context are important here. The combat in this game looks like it'll be fun while you're upgrading your skills and then it'll become repetitive and eventually dull. That strikes me as the same pattern I encountered with Skyrim, Fallout, and the Witcher. It's kind of the status quo for "open world" games. If the story and the world itself are captivating enough to distract you from the weaker elements of the combat it'll come together as a stronger package than the sum of its pieces and that's why this game is getting the ratings that it is. Same goes for every other "open world" game. Take that for what it's worth.

Certainly a lot more than the Monster Hunter clone I wrote it off for after watching the teaser presented at E3. I never saw any promotional material for this game since then so it's a surprise to me the game is open world with plenty to do. The weakest point I see so far is combat against human enemies but fighting robot monsters could be fun depending on the tools the game gives.

Yeah I forgot to ask if anyone else noticed this too, so thanks for confirming. I have a pretty good IPS display so this shouldn't be a problem on my end, but you never know.

The Sniper Elite 4 footage seems overexposed and a bit washed out, but I've seen other similar footage from PS4 and XB1, so perhaps this is just a game specific gamma calibration issue and/or artistic style?

However, the extreme saturation and shifted color hues in Horizon just looks really ugly to me. What's with the extreme reds and greens? That completely ruins the look of the game for me.

Now after looking at other footage for Horizon it looks like this might just be an issue with the game itself and/or the PS4 output. I don't really know, but it's a real bummer to me in either case.

@frytup: I'd actually say the opposite, alot people seem (I know myself especially) they would have liked to have seen some of the story in this quick look. Which at the same time I understand why they didn't show any cause of the concerns for spoilers.

This Quick Look really doesn't make the game look good.

Everything I dislike or am tired of from modern gaming trends seems to be here. Pages of useless and redundant crafting materials, dumbed down stealth, complete with look through wall vision, dumb as bricks AI, and a checklist of seemingly repetitive map objectives to check off.

An observation, but just a stray one that may be incorrect, is that the bow seems completely unsatisfying to use. It seems to behave like a rifle with a short charge time, not an actual bow. Maybe it feels better in game, but it just does not look good.

Another thing that annoyed me was when Jeff was getting shot up, the character had no reaction. The health bar showed that it hurt, but if there weren't blood splatters, they might as well have been pelting her with nerf guns.

The fact that you can craft at any time seems to take a lot of the challenge out of it too, it seems like you don't have to do any actual prep work to hunt the enemies, just go "oh this guy is weak to lightning, better craft some lighting arrows before I shoot him". Even Far Cry limited you a handful of weapons at once, you had to decide what you were going to carry going in to whatever you were doing. Not to mention games like the Witcher, where preparation is essential. This game seems afraid to put you in to situations you can't win.

I don't know. Maybe the game feels great to play, maybe the story is fantastic, but this video does not do a good job selling me on this being a 5 star game.

i know, we really have it awful. woe is us.

I'm chalking this quick look up to being a very unfortunate mission in an otherwise fun game. I imagine the cave scenes are generally the worst, and the real fun is being out doors with the machines.

Game looks ok, but nowhere near "Oh god I should get a PS4 for this!!"

since the beginning of the latest console generation, jeff has only given 3 other games 5 stars: axiom verge, super mario maker, and titanfall 2. i dont necessarily agree with him on those, but the case he made for them was very strong. this game seems very bland by comparison, and he doesnt seem very excited about what hes showcasing here. perhaps quicklooking it after the endgame content, and thus not showing any of what he thinks is a great story hurt it. overall, it seems like a very pretty, but ultimately staid and generic open world game

I agree with just about everything you've said. It doesn't seem like this game solves any open-world problems and rather just adds a few more; all on top of seemingly being rather boring combat.

Perhaps this is one of those 'you have to play it to understand it' types of games, but I won't spend full price on it. That's reserved for Mass Effect.

I'm sure the game is fine, but, while usually being satisfied with the way "Quick Looks" are, personally I think this just isn't the way to do a Quick Look -- an end- or post-game save file, and a person in control of the game who seems to have exhausted the game of everything of interest. Should have been a fresher look I feel.

@hewitt: You must be British. In American English the "h" in herb is silent. The only time we pronounce the "h" is when it's someone's name.

I'm with some of you who remain unimpressed. This game looks completely fine to me but I expected kinda more after seeing Jeff's 5/5. Obviously the story is a missing factor in a quick look but rarely do I care that much about it in video gaming compared to actual gameplay. Nothing here looks bad but very little looks fresh or exciting. Based on the QL and all I've seen before it I'd say for me personally it seems like a very solid 3 which might become a 4 depending on what the whole package has to offer. Interested to play this but later.

I'll stand by Jeff's 5/5 Syndicate score till the end of my days.

Hope Brad's feeling better, I have a cold now so I'm on his side.

If I had a PS4/PS4 Pro I'd definitely get this, I'd like to see a PC version. I've never played Uncharted so my take on this game might be off, but the wall climbing and bow & arrow stuff remind me more of the Tomb Raider series which is something I've played for a lot of hours (it was the first PS1 complete playthrough for me).

I like the pacing of what I've seen, I didn't really fast travel much in Borderlands since I was quite happy picking off bad guys for fun, and I'm happy with loot gathering as well. I would only go with the idea someone suggested of one button to grab all loot if it was optional. It can be a lazy option since you need to be informed for decisions about things you're dropping to pick up other things instead, which would be a turn off early in the game for me. (I would use it though).

I think the GB scoring system for a five star rating is roughly 80+ (subjectivity aside), so 5/5 doesn't seem unfair?

While I certainly don't think this looks like a bad game, the QL has certainly cooled me on it quite a bit. With this, Mass Effect, and Zelda coming out so close together I'm going to wait to pick this one up.

and people think Brad filibusters :D

Do you use broadheads to kill Broadheads?

Since I planned to get the Switch eventually (Xenoblade Chronicles 2 would make me buy one), I decided to pre-order one to play Breath of the Wild on the Switch instead of the Wii U. So that's taken my entire free budget from the first third of the year. I'll have to wait to play Horizon Zero Dawn (and probably Mass Effect Andromeda too) but I'm very interested in this game now. Prior to release I had almost no desire to play it whereas now I'm intrigued to know about this great story, and I think this game looks (and sounds) beautiful.