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Zero Horizon Dawn has a really nice world and story. My only gripe is that it tries too hard to 'educate' its players, which gets tiresome after a while. Apart from that, it could have been really great.

Altogether: 4/5 stars

(1) Story is very linear. It would have been nice to have several endings or to simply ignore the proving. After all, the villagers don't want you, so why should you try to kiss up to them?

(2) Survival of early antagonists. It would have been interesting for character development to see Bast or the girl in the beginning survive. And maybe eventually come to respect Aloy.

(3) Depiction of men and women. Ok, I get that Sobeck/Gaia/Aloy are all good and wise and nice. And all female. And that Ted Faro/Hades/Helis are all evil or incompetent. And all male. And we have at least Rost and Lansra counteracting this black and white world view. But after some time, it gets tiresome.

(4) Stone age utopia. This is a fantasy story, so you can of course depict utopian societies. But the suggestion that a tribal, stone age culture would work as a 'modern', 'multicultural' society is a bit wishful thinking. Just have a harsh winter and these tribes would immediately splinter and break apart.
Post edited December 13, 2020 by GR11
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GR11: Zero Horizon Dawn has a really nice world and story. My only gripe is that it tries too hard to 'educate' its players, which gets tiresome after a while. Apart from that, it could have been really great.

Altogether: 4/5 stars

(1) Story is very linear. It would have been nice to have several endings or to simply ignore the proving. After all, the villagers don't want you, so why should you try to kiss up to them?

(2) Survival of early antagonists. It would have been interesting for character development to see Bast or the girl in the beginning survive. And maybe eventually come to respect Aloy.

(3) Depiction of men and women. Ok, I get that Sobeck/Gaia/Aloy are all good and wise and nice. And all female. And that Ted Faro/Hades/Helis are all evil or incompetent. And all male. And we have at least Rost and Jenna counteracting this black and white world view. But after some time, it gets tiresome.

(4) Stone age utopia. This is a fantasy story, so you can of course depict utopian societies. But the suggestion that a tribal, stone age culture would work as a 'modern', 'multicultural' society is a bit wishful thinking. Just have a harsh winter and these tribes would immediately splinter and break apart.
This was very helpful for me. I'll definitely skip this game.
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Wayrest: This was very helpful for me. I'll definitely skip this game.
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You don't need to skip this game, it's not a bad game. It's just an increasing trend in the past few years that games have started to become 'preachy'.

Games are allowed to touch philosophical or political topics. They just need to be honest with themselves, willing to be self critical and able to depict potential pitfalls of the world views they favor. If they become too naive and one sided, it starts to sound preachy and takes away the fun a game should be.

The best 'political' game I have ever come across is Alpha Centauri. It depicts various factions/ideologies and discusses advantages and pitfalls of all of them. And the player chooses which faction he favors.
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Wayrest: This was very helpful for me. I'll definitely skip this game.
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GR11: -----------------------------

You don't need to skip this game, it's not a bad game. It's just an increasing trend in the past few years that games have started to become 'preachy'.

Games are allowed to touch philosophical or political topics. They just need to be honest with themselves, willing to be self critical and able to depict potential pitfalls of the world views they favor. If they become too naive and one sided, it starts to sound preachy and takes away the fun a game should be.

The best 'political' game I have ever come across is Alpha Centauri. It depicts various factions/ideologies and discusses advantages and pitfalls of all of them. And the player chooses which faction he favors.
Thanks, but it's an accumulation of things. On the plus side I want to support businesses that provide good PC ports. On the minus side:

1. The price+age was the initial concern, though this price wouldn't be an issue if I would enjoy the experience. Or I'd wait for a sale.
2. The price concern is exacerbated by the multiple payment models (see thread "Data collection in the GOG-version"). Not a game-killer on its own, but another negative point for me.
3. I was attracted by the 'RPG' tag but it seems clear that this is primarily a form of first person shooter (in 3rd person, making it worse for me). Prior to checking here I read a useful review that raised this, I think the site was PushSquare.
4. The inability to freely save (and name) progress is typically console, not PC. It also suggests a game that has no meaningful choices, consequences etc. Also, I might have to stop playing suddenly and my tolerance for replaying something I'm not particularly enjoying has become low. Again it's not necessarily a game-killer (thanks for your response to my question about it btw) and even works well for some games. Miasmata and The Solus Project come to mind.
5. Inequality, predictability, games designed for a vocal minority and enforcement of negative male stereotypes are just some of the consequences of your 3rd point in the original post, which is the most important one for me. I now only want to play games that treat men and women equally, whether equally well or equally badly. I'm tired of games (and movies and TV series) that pander to a vocal minority on Twatter, etc., most of whom aren't even gamers. I put up with it in real life and don't want it forced down my throat in what is supposed to be escapist entertainment. If developers/publishers want to focus on a small minority of their customer base to the detriment of the majority, they deserve to lose that majority.

This last point really became an issue for me during our 1st Covid-19 lockdown. Having enjoyed The Expanse I decided to catch up on recent TV sci-fi. I soon realised it was all utterly predictable because everything I watched sticks to the same feminist formula. (I started out with The 100, which was probably the worst place to start! Watch for the ridiculously exaggerated flinch when a man dares to raise his voice to a woman.)

I know my principles will make me miss out on some good games and others will disagree with my stance and principles. But I'm entitled to my stance and am sticking with it.

The pendulum has swung way too far.

p.s. I live in a country where a woman in authority carried out a Mussolini-style round up of innocent men in order to meet her rape conviction quota, withholding evidence of their innocence in collaboration with the CPS. She was guilty of perverting the course of justice on literally hundreds of counts. She not only kept her job but was awarded a medal for her public service at the start of 2020. Nobody in the CPS was convicted or dismissed either,
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Wayrest: p.s. I live in a country where a woman in authority carried out a Mussolini-style round up of innocent men in order to meet her rape conviction quota, withholding evidence of their innocence in collaboration with the CPS. She was guilty of perverting the course of justice on literally hundreds of counts. She not only kept her job but was awarded a medal for her public service at the start of 2020. Nobody in the CPS was convicted or dismissed either,
Complaints related to evidence without providing any evidence yourself (by which I really simply mean ANY reference. Such as who that mystery woman is...) - not the wisest of moves...
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Wayrest: p.s. I live in a country where a woman in authority carried out a Mussolini-style round up of innocent men in order to meet her rape conviction quota, withholding evidence of their innocence in collaboration with the CPS. She was guilty of perverting the course of justice on literally hundreds of counts. She not only kept her job but was awarded a medal for her public service at the start of 2020. Nobody in the CPS was convicted or dismissed either,
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sh4dow83: Complaints related to evidence without providing any evidence yourself (by which I really simply mean ANY reference. Such as who that mystery woman is...) - not the wisest of moves...
Easily found by anyone with more than 2 brain cells to rub together. You have the information and these things called search engines...
Post edited December 09, 2020 by Wayrest
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Wayrest: 5. Inequality, predictability, games designed for a vocal minority and enforcement of negative male stereotypes are just some of the consequences of your 3rd point in the original post, which is the most important one for me. I now only want to play games that treat men and women equally, whether equally well or equally badly.
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A game can depict certain ideologies, sexes, ethnic groups etc. as great or 'better' than others. You just shouldn't do it in a too blatant way. Because then people get annoyed.

After all, western movies like the first Star Trek depicted western society as great and had blonde, capable, male heroes ;) Now, you have movies and games highly critical of western technology, depicting stone age societies as a great place to be, women as utterly wise and capable or minorities as honorable and good.

You just shouldn't exaggerate your point too much, because then you come across as 'preachy'.
Post edited December 09, 2020 by GR11
I have no problem with female heroes whatsoever. Only problem I have is the sexist "woke" garbage depicting men as evil and women as angelic, or vice-versa--which just isn't true at all. Real life is nowhere near that simple.

3rd-rate Comedian: "I have no problem with women at all! Everyone should own a few!"...;) OK, bad joke, I know--but we have to laugh at this kind of sexist nonsense as much as the "woke" kind of nonsense.
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waltc: I have no problem with female heroes whatsoever. Only problem I have is the sexist "woke" garbage depicting men as evil and women as angelic, or vice-versa--which just isn't true at all. Real life is nowhere near that simple.
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Well, you have at least one of the high matriarchs, Lansra, which was a little bit evil, but later came around.

The point is that weak characters can be very interesting. A young boy or girl who needs to be protected can be much more interesting than your 08/15 hero. If you are always only having 'strong' and 'capable' males/females, it simply gets boring. And if players/readers then notice that you're doing that on purpose, they get annoyed.

Give me some incompetent females, some evil females. Some debauched drunkards or lazy asses. They can still be heroes in their own way. And the same for the men. Just for variety. We're grown ups, we won't deduce that all men/women are like that ;)

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waltc: 3rd-rate Comedian: "I have no problem with women at all! Everyone should own a few!"...;) OK, bad joke, I know--but we have to laugh at this kind of sexist nonsense as much as the "woke" kind of nonsense.
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Simply start an otome game and you can immediately gather your harem of men ;) It's a fantasy that also exists among women.
Post edited December 13, 2020 by GR11
I don't see this game as "woke" in anyway. I haven't finished it yet, but probably about half-way through the story if I am estimating correctly.

The protagonist is female, there are some females who support her, but there are also males. There are good and bad of both sexes as far as I see. It does seem to promote non-racist views as "good", but I don't find that to be a bad thing at all. I don't think it is unbelievable that civilizations beset by murderous machines would strive to include the best and brightest instead of pushing out those who don't look like them.

Anyway, I am enjoying the story of the game and don't find anything too in your face about the way it is presented or the particulars of the setting.
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davidsheets: I don't see this game as "woke" in anyway. I haven't finished it yet, but probably about half-way through the story if I am estimating correctly.
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You can be critical of Western technology and promote stone age societies as a great 'solution'. But we have now literally hundreds of movies, books and games taking this world view. It becomes a bit ridiculous.

The Western, natural scientific civ is pretty great. It's ok to criticize it, but it became a bit unhinged and downright absurd in the last few decades.

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davidsheets: The protagonist is female, there are some females who support her, but there are also males. There are good and bad of both sexes as far as I see.
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I'm just playing Frozen Wilds and again we have Cyan/Anita Sandoval as the good AI and programmers and Hephaestus and a crazed military Dod Blevins as the evil, incompetent Ted-Faro like antagonist ;) The black and white world view is hard to miss.

But yes, you also have Aratak, Rost and Lansra which is the reason I'm still giving the game 4 stars in spite of trying so hard to 'educate' its players.

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davidsheets: It does seem to promote non-racist views as "good"
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Err, viewing predominantly asian, black or white societies as a 'problem' that needs to be 'solved' is the exact opposite, it's highly racist.

There is nothing inherently "wrong" with a predominantly asian society. Or a predominantly black society. Or a predominantly white societey. It's just ok.

And there is nothing wrong with depicting such different cultures or ethnicities in fantasy games. If someone, for some reason, cannot bear that there might be asians living "amongst themselves" - or black or white people - then he obviously has a "problem" with such societies.
Post edited December 15, 2020 by GR11
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GR11: You can be critical of Western technology and promote stone age societies as a great 'solution'. But we have now literally hundreds of movies, books and games taking this world view. It becomes a bit ridiculous.

The Western, natural scientific civ is pretty great. It's ok to criticize it, but it became a bit unhinged and downright absurd in the last few decades.
It's wrong to say that this game is promoting stone age societies. You can clearly see those societies have a lot of problems, furthermore Aloy experienced firsthand how stupid their traditions can be. On other hand she has a focus, a bit of science, that gives her so much advantage.

So I see it opposite, the game actually promotes science and intelligence but if it's used in right way and not for destruction. There's a bit of anti-war propaganda involved, but sorry, since when the games can't share any views? They would be completely empty then.

Regarding the stone age setting I mostly see it as decoration and it looks gorgeous to me. And overall mix of Sci-fi and medieval/stone age world feels quite unique. At least I haven't played any similar games.

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GR11: I'm just playing Frozen Wilds and again we have Cyan/Anita Sandoval as the good AI and programmers and Hephaestus and a crazed military Dod Blevins as the evil, incompetent Ted-Faro like antagonist ;) The black and white world view is hard to miss.

But yes, you also have Aratak, Rost and Lansra which is the reason I'm still giving the game 4 stars in spite of trying so hard to 'educate' its players.
But there was a lot of good male characters. What about Erend, Avad, Varl and many others? Sylens is relatively good, in addition he's intelligent and authoritative. In Frozen Wilds there was Chau who worked with Anita. It's just ridicoulus to say this game is depicting men as totally evil.

The fact Elizabeth is a woman is dictated by the story and giving the sub-functions of hyper-powerful terraforming AI the names of ancient greek gods looks quite fitting and on point to me, so I don't see any conspiracy here. Should we blame ancient greeks for trying to educate us by displaying Hades as man?

It's clearly not enough facts to say this game is one-sided or trying to educate, especially that it's trying hard. I can imagine a game that would be really "black and white" but HZD is nowhere near that. It just looks like you're trying to pick up certain details which are important to you for some reason and ignoring everything else.
Post edited December 16, 2020 by JunePaik
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Wayrest: 5. Inequality, predictability, games designed for a vocal minority and enforcement of negative male stereotypes are just some of the consequences of your 3rd point in the original post, which is the most important one for me. I now only want to play games that treat men and women equally, whether equally well or equally badly. I'm tired of games (and movies and TV series) that pander to a vocal minority on Twatter, etc., most of whom aren't even gamers. I put up with it in real life and don't want it forced down my throat in what is supposed to be escapist entertainment. If developers/publishers want to focus on a small minority of their customer base to the detriment of the majority, they deserve to lose that majority.
The problem with this whole "story within the story" is that it's entirely subjective. The game never flat out tells you female societies are better, it never says men are horrible... it's just a few main characters that you twist in order to get to the conclusion.

The story does not really depend on the sex of the characters, there are a few nuances that requires Alloy to be female, sure... but there is NOTHING in the story that says Faro, Hades and Helis NEED to be male, or that if they were female none of this would have happened.

See, that's the whole issue with twisting media to hurt your own feelings. It's like the fake outrage of transphobia being in games if you close your eyes and stop thinking for yourself. I don't care how much you think a game implies LGBT is bad or what not, unless it actually SAYS it all you're complaining about is your interpretation.

Which is what this is, you interpret the game to have these misandrist claims and then complain about what you interpret.
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JunePaik: But there was a lot of good male characters. What about Erend, Avad, Varl and many others? Sylens is relatively good, in addition he's intelligent and authoritative. In Frozen Wilds there was Chau who worked with Anita. It's just ridicoulus to say this game is depicting men as totally evil.
While I don't think the game is preachy in any way I do think GR11 has a point, in principle there are four "types" of characters in this game:
- women that are good, capable and brave (aloy, ourea)
- women that are all of the above but stray away from the path a little, but ultimately work for the greater good (the female nora shaman thats "against" aloy, Vanasha)
- men that are evil (helis) or are at least doubious in their nature (nil)
- men that are good but need a women to achive their potential (rost, erend, aratak, varl).

But as said, I don't think that there is a political agenda behind that, just bad character design. For me it is a missed opportunity with Aloys "character" beeing embelemtic to that: she practically is a female version of an 80s action (super) hero - ultracapable in every way from the get go with the opposite sex beeing only either window dressing or a way to make the protagonist look even cooler/more potent/wiser/etc. While this obviously works, I personally give 9/10 despite it's narrative flaws as worldbuilding and combat system are rock solid, I think it would have been much better overall if Aloy as a character would actually grow and would learn by her own doing that not every conflict she encounters can be resolved either by killing all that are on the opposite side or not every one will get out of a conflict and is "happy ever after" with the solution.