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Horizon Zero Dawn
THE POST-APOCALYPTIC WORLD WAS NEVER SO
BEAUTIFUL... NOR FILLED WITH DINOSAURS.
PS4 | $ 99 .95 | http://www.guerrilla-games.comTHIS POST-APOCALYPTIC WILDERNESS is
sprawling but intricate, taking in vast deserts,
dense forests, ruined cities and snow-covered
mountains. It’s an extraordinary landscape
that evokes aspects of Skyrim, The Last Of Us,
Enslaved: Odyssey To The West and even Red
Dead Redemption, but it never quite feels like
somewhere you’ve visited before. Much of this
is down to the herds of indigenous robotic
dinosaurs, sentient machines created by
humans thousands of years ago and appear
to be bound to whatever caused the world
to collapse. But in among the ruins of one
civilisation, another has risen, constructing
settlements from wood, cloth and recovered
metal to guard against the mechanical apex
predators that prowl beyond their walls.
Protagonist Aloy’s tribe is a matriarchal
society, which shuns technology and appeals
to magic and gods. Aloy stumbles on a device
created by The Old Ones entombed in the
remains of one of the towering buildings they
constructed. Called the Focus and worn in
front of her ear, it gives her the power to scan
environments and robots, picking out points
of interest, vulnerable or volatile components,
and even revealing the AI paths of creatures.
Throughout the course of the game’s
spiralling Machiavellian plot, you’ll encountercrime scenes in which evidence must be
gathered, and trails that must be picked up
and followed. It’s a simple but robust addition,
and it’s one that allows the studio to construct
rich, localised stories from just a handful of
components. Aloy is a keen detective, but she
is much more at home hunting big game or
clambering up rock faces out in the open.
Aloy is beautifully animated, and there’s a
weighty sense of connection to the world.
She can target specific areas of creatures with
her bow or go in for the kill with her staff.
Fighting the more aggressive machines is
exhilarating, and successfully defeating larger
robots requires you to make full use of Aloy’s
available tools. Environmental hazards can be
used to your advantage, too.Many of the quest missions see you going
into battle with allies by your side, though
stealth still plays an important role — in every
case, you’re given the chance to enter situations
alone first, sneaking through long grass to pick
off as many robots, bandits or enemy tribe
members as you can before the alarm is raised
and all hell breaks loose. Despite the size of the
world, Guerrilla has resisted the temptation to
make these events too frequent: in dozens of
hours of play we’ve seen very little repetition.
Horizon: Zero Dawn is an enormous,
ambitious curveball, set in one of the most
beguiling game worlds in recent memory.[ PC AND CONSOLE GAMES ]Bows vs electric dinosaurs
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