Horizon Zero Dawn™ Complete Edition

This game just has it all: - a gripping main storyline - quality side quests - stunning visuals that pass the test of time - magical music - complex yet flawless animations - great combat physics - impeccable voice and face acting - a good balance between gameplay and cutscenes. It was amazing how bug-free this game was. I wasn't one to follow the line - I explored many corners of the world, took many uncharted routes, climbed remote peaks just for the joy of it - and during hundreds of hours of gameplay, I encountered just one place where I got stuck (and not killed) so I had to reload. Storywise - it's easily one of the best pieces of post-apocalyptic sci-fi I've encountered in my life. The back-story is almost hard sci-fi, which doesn't resort too much to plot devices. I will likely replay this game in the future.

I bought this on Steam, and it didn't have a very good rep over there at the time, because the early versions were, apparently, quite unstable in the Windows port. I started with Patch 1.04, and had a great time with it. I don't think it ever crashed. Patch 1.05 had a thing where it downloaded textures too slowly sometimes, meaning that Aloy (eg, you) didn't always look right for a minute after changing outfit, but I think that's been fixed since. I found the game brutally hard when I started, but eventually developed the skills to fight well. Part of that is cheesing the AI a bit, but that's okay, because this actually _is_ AI.... you're mostly fighting robots, and robots being a bit predictable is to be expected. The difficulty scales well, and one of the more rewarding parts of the game is that you, as a character, don't get that much stronger from beginning to end. You probably about triple in strength from start to end, but the monsters scale up by, sheesh, maybe twenty times? You compensate for the remainder with skill, and it's *very* satisfying when things start to work. The story is good, the engine is good, and I had a fantastic time with this. And there's no microtransaction crap, at least on the PC port. This is computer gaming the way it should be. If I had known it was coming to GOG, I would have waited, but I'll suffer along on my Steam version. Oh, I played this on a 4790K with a GTX 970, at 1080p on Medium settings. This was very playable and looked excellent. I saw it stutter exactly one time, when first entering a very crowded area. It was otherwise smooth and playable at all times. That's old hardware, so if you've got something newer, it should look and play even better.

O tej grze nie można powiedzieć złego słowa... Fabuła, grafika, malownicze krajobrazy, muzyka - to wszystko składa się na niesamowity klimat! Walka i eksploracja otwartego świata całkowicie skradła moje serce. Piękna gra!

Positives: The game looks really pretty. Lots of colour use. The setting is one not too often seen before. The plotline was interesting enough that I slogged through it to the end. The combat works quite well and is mostly interesting too. Look at all the other reviews around to see a lot more in depth for all the positives. For me the negatives dragged the game down from close to a 5 to a 3(.25): Pacing! The main gripe I have is, that the game seems to have a complete disregard, if not a completely derisive attitude towards the player's time. Most quests will ask you to trek across most of the available map to do something, and then trek all the way back again. Fast travel is a thing, but if a game bothers me enough that it manages to make me want to use it, that's a failing in either quest design or a bland world. Add Far Cry 2 style "speedbumps" if you do want to trek (respawning enemies to avoid or deal with) and the desire to take in the world diminishes greatly. As does the enjoyment of the combat system. Additional pacing issue is the way lore is delivered. I spent over an hour on one mission, most of the time of which was spent standing still listening to audio logs to avoid going forward and triggering an overlapping conversation. Also, it seems they wanted to put in loot boxes to help skip the grind. At least they are free, not sure if that was the initial plan. In summary: This is a very good game whose disregard for the player's time and very rough pacing soured my enjoyment of it to suck a degree the last third of it was played out of spite to see the story, not because I enjoyed it. If you don't mind repetetive combat and wandering back and forth, this game may be for you. If you, like me, have a low tolerance for doing the same thing over and over, at least wait for a sale.

I've completed the game in PS4. Now finishing again in PC. Playing it with keyboard and mouse make it feel like a new game. Best graphics and more accuracy control. Really recommended!