My short-ish review. Later than expected due to waiting for the "performance" patch.
I'll break it down simply, otherwise later kena flame by a certain someone who says "play and enjoy la, kecoh buat ape".
What I like;+ A pretty engaging story, which was surprising to me as many open world games has a main plot that I generally forget about after 4 or 5 hours. Games like Far Cry, where you are given a "big" introduction and then pretty much becomes irrelevant after the map opens up are the classic examples of how boring main plots are in open world games.
Not so with Horizon, something that happens in the first 2 hours of the game is still talked about or referenced to it after the 15th hour. There's fairly good character building with Aloy and the other antagonists as well as protagonists. They remain relevant in the first part of the game and in the second part of the game, that's what I really appreciate as this comes off to me like the writers respecting the player's time.
+ A fairly simple combat system that is fun, addictive and variable. There aren't a lot of "bow and arrow" games, at least in comparison to games with "swords" or "guns". To me, GG did good with the bow and the variety that Aloy has in her arsenal makes for fun ways to take down the machines. Yes, you can cheese your way through by hiding in a bush and whistling for enemies to come by, and perform instant stealth kills repeatedly. But the point is, there are over a dozen ways to use the bow and arrow to overcome the machines even if they aren't the most effective. I appreciate that.
+ What's equally important is how different each machine is. There is a good amount of variety, each with their own challenge (especially when you face them for the first or second time). I can confirm that as the hype has shown, taking down a Thunder Jaw IS VERY, VERY satisfactory and exhilarating. More so when you keep doing it with different skills, arrows, bows and overall your own strategy. As a result, the game doesn't feel boring even after 20 hours.
+ HDR is well done. On my LG E6 OLED, colors are well balanced and not overly saturated. The atmosphere this game can bring out during the dawn is just simply breath taking! The contrast between a forest with heavy trees and a mountain with snow is just so different, it definitely feels and look like traversing through the wild lands.
+ This is the best looking open-world game right now, bar none. I've played the Witcher 3 on PC at 4k with several of mods and even then, Horizon matches up to it. That's the testament of how beautiful this world looks, mad props to the art team at GG. Truly, "gg" indeed.
+ Game performs very well as was already shown by DF. I'm playing on a PS4 Pro of course, but did play it for a bit on the OG PS4 as well. Sure there are some noticeable visual differences (for one, the texture filtering is obviously superior on the Pro), but generally the OG PS4 version still looks very good. If a comparison has to be made, the base version is better looking than the Witcher 3 and MGS5.
What I don't get (the "huh?" moments);~ Weird surround sound mixing. This was mentioned by DF also, but to me the channel mixing in this game is weird. I'm playing on a 5.1 setup with this game because with 7.1, the oddities of the surround effects are just too distracting for me.
~ To add, during cutscenes, voices are not locked in the center channel. Instead it loops in between the left, center and right channels. This is despite the fact that the character speaking is the one in focused in the center, yet the voice is coming from the left or right. It's definitely immersion breaking.
~ Facial animation ranges from good to mediocre to hilariously bad. Seriously, GG has some of the best animators in the world and while I understand it is no easy task to hand animate dozens of different characters with different facial structures, it's still no excuse to have the basic lip syncing brought up to standard. The lip syncing for some characters are PS2-era standards, which is hilarious at times.
What I hate;- Sidequests. Sorry, but this has to be said and unfortunately, GG doesn't do better than ubisoft in this regard. There are a lot of re-skinned fetch quests, "go there, kill something" quests and pointless time wasters. They are optional, but at the same time they do become a chore if you decide to grind it out.
- The reason I said with 7.1 being even worse than 5.1 for this game is because there is an inherent problem when I'm going through a forested area, where I can hear all the nature's calls. But when there is an enemy near by, I simply cannot pinpoint from where it is making noise from. I can vaguely tell the direction, but when I look there, often times I'm wrong. This is the FIRST open-world game I've played to exhibit this problem. Changing from 7.1 to 5.1 brought down the variances noticeably however.
Anyways, there's that for a break down review on Horizon Zero Dawn. We're 3 months into this year and it's been an insane several months of very good games. Horizon continues that trend and it absolutely deserves your hard-earned, depreciating ringgit. If you can only buy ONE game in the first 4 months of this year, Horizon should definitely be in your list of consideration without a doubt.
I hate ratings, so I'll just leave it at:
THIS.GAME.IS.A.MUST.PLAYone of your con match back wif a review video i watched recently - the lip sync.
Jun 16 2015, 08:52 AM, updated 4y ago
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Have to pre-order this.
will perform and graphic is like....
thanks....
( a bit sarcastic ya 
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