horizon zero dawn

Horizon Forbidden West on PC

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I have to admit I feel a little bit bad for the Guerilla Games. This game released in early 2022 and was somewhat screwed over by Elden Ring releasing within a few days of it. Now the PC version is finally out and it is colliding up against the release date for Dragon’s Dogma II. For me… not being a souls-like fan I played this game originally on the PS5 but bounced around the midpoint of the game, or at least what I feel like is the midpoint. After some time I made the decision just to wait and revisit it when it released on PC since I enjoyed the first game infinitely more with a mouse and keyboard. Sony really needs to tighten up the release cadence of these games because two years waiting on a PC release seems a bit brutal. Complaining aside… Horizon Forbidden West is a beautiful game.

On so many levels, this is just mechanically a better version of the first game. It does everything that Zero Dawn did right and then adds multiple layers of nuance and enjoyment on top of that. The addition of gliding really improves the entire experience and makes this quite possibly the best version of “Breath of the Wild” that exists. The mechanics of hunting dinobots is just so much fun. Focusing in on specific weak points and weak elements to quickly decimate these gigantic machines is just pure enjoyment for me. However few moments beat this massively long glide down from the side of a mountain after finishing an epic climb.

The other thing that I really feel like calling out about this game is that the side content is so much more developed. In the first game the main story was the highlight but you still met a lot of really interesting side characters. In Forbidden West every interlude seems to be filled with characters that I legitimately care about. I was happy to see a bunch of folks returning like my Petra, my favorite side character from the first game. However there are a bunch of new characters like Silga… who once heard a radio broadcast for a brief moment and it sort of dominated her destiny from that point forward. So many heart felt stories woven through the forbidden west that I have spent way more time focusing on side content than actually moving the main story forward.

There are also so many freaking vistas that are just breathtaking. Like who else could have made a swamp look this interesting? The color palette of the game is part of what makes it all work so well. Everything is so vibrant and really pops on the screen, even without leaning on the gimmick of HDR since I generally play with that turned off. For the most part I have been playing the game at 1440p at at 144hz and it looks amazing. There have been a few times I shift it up and do 1080p 60hz when I am downstairs and playing on my laptop remote into my gaming machine upstairs via Parsec and that still looks gorgeous.

That is not to say there are not some performance issues with the game. There are some areas surrounding the region known as “The Grove” or “Lowland Territory” that have volumetric fog that seems to slow everything down. The game has received a few minor patches and I have not experienced since the first days, so maybe that is now taken care of… but I did experience some sluggish experience in a few specific areas. This was also something that impacted cutscenes where the dialog and the animations were wildly out of sync with the animations playing much too slowly. Like I said I have not experienced this in a few days and there were some patches… so hopefully it was a bug that was taken care of but I can’t talk about the game without at least mentioning that there were some issues from time to time.

I’ve passed the point where I was in my previous attempt at the game, and I have no clue how far I am from the end… but it is my goal to wrap this up prior to the launch of the Path of Exile League on Friday. That is going to happen fairly late in the day and I am off Friday so if nothing else I should be able to wrap up loose ends then. The Horizon series is just a phenomenal experience and it gives me some hope about the talk of an MMORPG version of this game. If I could have a game that is a mishmash of Horizon, Destiny, and Monster Hunter that I could play with friends… I would be in heaven. The only thing that gives me some pause… is that this project is being led by NC Soft… a company that is not known for creating games that I love. Sure they published Guild Wars 2… but that is more Arena.Net than anything that NC Soft did. They also had the short-sightedness to cancel City of Heroes so… suffice to say I am cautious about that project.

AggroChat #312 – A Whole New World

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Featuring:  Ammo, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen

Tonight we are back after having a week off due to scheduling.  Bel is super excited to talk about Amazon’s New World, which finally leaves NDA.  He goes into a deep dive of his experiences so far with the assorted systems of the game.  From there we have a reasonable segue into a discussion about Guild Wars 2 and getting used to the WvW pvp system.  We also talk a bit about other games like Final Fantasy XIV and how it handles PVP.  We have a random aside where Bel talks about how he tends to avoid using mounts in Open World games, and finally Ash talks about how he has come to peace with the Blue Mage in FFXIV.

Topics Discussed:

  • Amazon’s New World
    • Deep Dive into Systems
  • Guild Wars 2 WvW System
    • Final Fantasy XIV PVP modes
  • Frog Fractions ???
    • When a DLC is a new game
  • Bel Ignores Mounts in Open World Games
    • Ghosts of Tsushima
    • Horizon Zero Dawn
  • Making Peace with the Blue Mage
    • How Ash Learns to Accept the Systems

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

AggroChat #301 – Sega is Bad at Launchers

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Featuring: Ammo, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen… also featuring special guest Nephsys

Tonight we welcome our good friend Nephsys along for this ride because she more or less got kidnapped into the podcasting channel.  We start the show with some discussion about being back in Final Fantasy XIV and the current event where they bribe us to do unpopular content.  One of those content types is Rival Wings, and Bel talks about how it is PVP that he actually enjoys.  From there we break into a discussion inspired by a conversation that happened while watching the cutscenes of Praetorium, which is what games would you like to forget so you could experience them fresh again for the very first time?  We talk for a bit about the afterglow of watching your friends get into something that you really liked.  Finally we nestle into the main topic of the week which is the somewhat awkward North American PC launch of Phantasy Star Online 2.

Topics Discussed

  • Mogrocks for Mounts in FFXIV
    • Rival Wings is Fun
  • Forgetting a Game to Play it Fresh again
    • The Afterglow of Friends Experiencing Games
  • Phantasy Star Online 2 NA PC Launch
    • The systems within systems
    • Figuring things out

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Trapping Anjie

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Watch PSO2 Nonsense because Sol requested it from Belghast on www.twitch.tv
Last night when I got home I fired up the stream and played a little Phantasy Star Online 2.  Over the weekend Sol made a comment over my Stream discord that I really should be streaming as I played…  I assume so she could see what the game was about.  The core problem with that is I am guessing based on some of the things I have seen is that the early game is very much not entirely like the late game.  One of the reasons why I loved PSO back in the Dreamcast days is that it was essentially “Space Diablo”.  Essentially you had a randomly assembled corridor dungeon crawler set on a series interesting tilesets that involved killing everything and getting loot drops as your reward.  This core design loop seems to be in place in PSO2, and while I absolutely knew what I was getting myself into…  I am not sure if most other gamers would view the title the same way I do.

There are certain aspects of the game that feel very dated from the relatively chunky terrain to the fact that everything is essentially a tightly closed in circuit.  Sure you can do more with your terrain than you used to be able to do…  like jump…  I don’t think you could jump in the first PSO.  This is actually used in many cases to hide secrets in the verticality of the level design… but as is also seen in a sequence in my VOD from last night it adds to frustration because the jumping mechanics are also relatively low fidelity.  There is a point where I am trying to jump between the individual islands of rock in a chain surrounded by lava, and I am constantly failing to hit the terrain at exactly the right spot allowing me to hop up onto the surface.  While the game is only five years old at this point… but in some ways it feels older.

One thing of note… it took me a bit to realize that my microphone was muted so for the first little bit of the VOD I am completely silent.  I was talking up a storm, describing the various things I was encountering…  all wondering why the folks watching were not responding.  Then I noticed the blinking red light on my Yeti telling me that I had muted it at some point.  I think I have this revelation about ten minutes into the video where I correct it and apologize.  I am not really sure how often I will be playing PSO2 but I am nonetheless glad I went through the process of installing it.  It is a fun game and the core mechanical loop of killing sci-fi monsters for fun and profit is one that I enjoy greatly.  Just not all that sure how fun it is to watch me doing this thing.

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The tail end of my evening was spent in Monster Hunter World hanging out with my friend Grace and working on getting her the last few tickets needed for The Proving quest.  I had originally hoped to grab Thalen as well and help him out, but he was nowhere to be seen last night.  Generally speaking I am assuming he had pressing family matters, which I hear is a thing when you are a parent.  I mean I sometimes have pressing family matters too with my cats, but they are on I feel a completely different plateau of general needs.  Usually what I am dealing with is Kenzie prancing around in front of me trying to make sure I see the rubber band that she just dropped on my desk…  that she wants me to fling out into the hall so she can chase it.  If you ever hear the sound of a rubber band zinging through the air while I am streaming…  then I am doing precisely that.

The whole Anjanath farm thing had a side benefit in that I had really wanted to create Flammensucher the crazy flame axe that passes for a sword and shield.  During our final run of the night I managed to get the last of my fangs allowing me to craft it… and I have to say while I love it…  I am having a little bit of buyers remorse.  The problem is not the negative affinity, because it deals more than enough fire damage to make up for that.  The core problem so far is that it has completely horrible durability and I got down to orange sharpness while killing ten Gajau for an investigation.  I am used to being able to fight the boss through two changes of venue before dropping out of blue sharpness…  so this is a significant change for me to get used to.  The positive however is that the fire damage is still potent regardless of the base sharpness.

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At some point I need to get back on the wagon and work towards downing the final boss of the game.  I’ve been sitting on that step since this weekend and have yet to really give it an attempt.  I think that is in part because I have a screenshot directory full of things that look like the above…  with me failing various elder dragon fights.  Granted I tend to fail upwards and learn from my mistakes, but it also takes a lot out of me.  This combined with the fact that I have zero burning desire to “finish the game” means I tend to languish around in the doldrums leading up to final boss fights most of the time.  My friends like Void/GrnMushroom have a deep burning desire to defeat games that propels them forward into throwing themselves against fights until they eventually batter them down.  Me… I just like to wander around and constantly find myself actively avoiding finishing things…  even in a situation like this where I know it is just the beginning of a whole new playstyle.

I do however want to uncap my level…  at least until 49 where I have to fight another roadblock…  and start farming elder dragons for bits and pieces to make interesting sets and weapons.  I really need to start throwing myself at Nergigante until he is no big deal and something I can down regularly.  The weird thing is…  I would far rather throw myself into the nonsense that is SOS Roulette most of the time than actually solo something in this game.  I am not sure what it is about soloing that feels bad to me, even though my palico does an amazing job of tanking the bosses and keeping me alive with a constant string of vigor wasps.  It just somehow feels better when I am running around at minimum with another player, and at best with a full party of varied weapons.

Sure it gets frustrating when folks are fainting and there is nothing you can do about it…  it even causes me to curse very loudly sometimes…  but the fights are interesting because I am having to deal with all sorts of random elements.  This weekend when I was attempting Teostra I was starting to feel like I needed to stop calling myself a positivity gamer given how much I was cursing.  However Sita hung out with me and we Duo’d the fight…  but even that took a few attempts.  Basically Monster Hunter World feels best when it is a game played with other players be they friends or completely random strangers.  As a result I doubt I will stop the madness of SOS Roulette any time soon.