Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN APRIL 2024?

On Thu, 02 May 2024 17:11:46 +0300, Anssi Saari
<anssi.saari@usenet.mail.kapsi.fi> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:
>

What Have You Been Playing... IN APRIL 2024?

>
My streaming Horizon Forbidden West saga finally finished.
>
So, I liked the game well enough to play something like 150 hours of
it. What I've said before, the exploration and side missions, that was
all great fun. Not that I did everything, there's probably another 50
hours of this and that I could do still but I'm kinda tired of it. Maybe
I'll do a replay with the PC version at some point, once it comes down
in price.
>
Some of the new stuff was pretty tedious. New weapons, meh, stuck with
bow and spear. There are melee combos too. With the streaming setup's
input lag sometimes I managed to trigger those and sometimes I didn't.
>
New skill tree? Nope, it's still a bush. I think I have something like
50 skill points still, don't know where to put those.
>
Some of the machine overrides are now gated. As if it wasn't enough to
fight through a Cauldron, still need to get parts of some machines to
unlock the override. Not to mention you need the same parts for weapon
and armor updates. I got one legendary armor but actually my upgraded
not so legendary updated armor was better. Plus the upgrade part
collecting for legendary armor seemed legendarily tedious.
>
The cauldrons had some effort to make them a little different. One was
sort of reversed, you get to the core first, then have a long slog to
get out of there.
>
Valor Surges, let's call it combat mana. Fill the bar through combat and
you can use a super ability briefly. Handy sometimes but generally, I
didn't bother. Early on "extra rip parts from machines" was good, then a
Doom-like "quad damage" and defense boosting "toughened" were all I
used. Towards the end I forgot I even had those and could've used the
toughened thingy especially to beat the tougher fights. Well, used a
little grit instead.
>
Main story in the game though, bah. The ending seemed more than a little
weird and rushed and unsatisfying, the setup for the next game likewise.
>
Oh well, money well spent, I think three months of PS Plus premium with
the first month free is about 35 euros or dollars. Plus the PS5
controller but I expect I'll use that in other games.

Disappointing. I generally enjoyed the first "Horizon" game, even if I
found it to be a bit too formulaic. But it had pleasing visuals and
the central game-loop and mechanics were satisfying enough (the combat
was a bit too melee-focused, and the camera was somewhat uncooperative
but otherwise it was fine).

But it sounds like the sequel got kitchen-sinked*, with the developers
adding in new ideas willy-nilly without really understanding how it
would affect the overall balance, loop, and atmosphere of the game.
It's always tempting to do 'same... but more!' (and for DLC I'd say
perfectly acceptable) but with sequels, you need to be willing to pare
away almost as much. Or just, you know, start an entirely new IP so
your systems can stand on their own without being compared to an
already beloved title.**

I figure eventually I'll give "Forbidden West" a try, and I'd even
wager good money that I'll largely enjoy the game... but only about as
much as I enjoyed "Assassins Creed 3": mindless fun, sure, but already
slightly bored with the game before I even finish the tutorial because
its core lacks originality and the the newer features don't mesh well
with the old. But - expecting that - the price of entry will have to
drop significantly before I add it to my library.









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* I'm gonna make this phrase a thing, no matter how long I have to
keep at it! ;-)
** and I'm gonna keep bitching about publisher's reliance on rehashing
old IPs over creating new ones for a long time too. ;-)