Horizon Zero Dawn™ Complete Edition

I never played the game before, although I heard high praises about its gameplay and narrative when it released on Playstation. I was tempted to buy the game on Steam since it released. When I saw it came out on GOG I decided to buy the game instantly. The game's narrative is well crafted with good exposition and pacing. It does not rush to tell it's story and succesfully balance narrative and action. Too many games attempt to pursue a rich narrative experience at the detriment of the gameplay. However, as it has become the trend for Sony, this game delivers a remarkable story telling with phenomanel gameplay that just feels right. The combat in the game is similar to the Tomb Raider reboot, especially RoTR and SoTR., but feels more polished and the enhancements feel well thought out. There are a lot of additions to the aforementioned example that make it stand out. The game flow is good and the game world is beautiful. Performance is a mixed bag, I run the game at 3440x1440p at 80% render scale with a Ryzen 7 2700 and RX 5700. In general I avg about 60fps at the high preset. The performance impact from high to ultra is not that much, but when you are on the border of 60fps it is meaningful. I did not try tuning the settings manually as the experience was very good out of the box. It is also worth noting that I am using the Radeon Pro drivers so they are not game optmized. Your millage may vary the game performs better on Navi than equivalent RTX 2000 series card. I only encountered one crash, but again, this could be because I am using Radeon Pro drivers. So far, - Narrative: 9 / 10 - Graphics: 10 / 10 - Gameplay: 10 / 10 - Voice Acting: 7 / 10 - Performance: 8 / 10 - Graphical Options choice: 9 / 10 (supports UW and HDR) NOTE: the game works on Linux but the performance is terrible. Performance might improve with DXVK and proton updates who knows. For best experiene Windows 10 is required.

If you like single play games - then you should buy this game! Story, picture, gameplay - all this is on high level. I've playd 70 hours and wount going to stop

First off, I was able to play without purchase via an accidental Playstation Now purchase, so this will be based on the PS4 version of the game as I watch the credits scroll. Due to text limit, I am having to gut my review to the uncovered bits. Anyway, to address the politics, the plot itself is certainly not femminist. There's lots of glboal warming jabs, but the main plot is actually anti-authority. It seems anti-capitalist, but it's not. There are small pandering quips, but it's not the central theme of the story. Story wise, the game is certainly a coming of age story for women (Mary Sue only in her survivability in the deadliest of situations and the usual player skill over AI, but she goes through much growth under the direction of strong male mentors), but not feminist. And while the political pandering does feel out of place, it's maybe 10%. Does well at building the story, though. Does not present long form arguments, however, like one would expect from a game like Metal Gear which it very obviously draws inspiration. The gynocentrism (which isn't as strong as complained about) actually makes sense in (and necessary for) context of the lore, but will come off too strong until the plot finally comes together and explains it. When it comes to the gameplay, I found myself very quickly pushing myself to "story difficulty [had to switch alot]." It's an unhealthy mix of Metal Gear (heavy stealth), Far Cry 5 (limited benefits from leveling), and Monster Hunter (monsters hit like a tank). It does the Metal Gear bits well, but the limitation in upgrades and the damage scaling will having you spending alot more time gathering resources if you don't take the difficulty off normal, because it'll take alot of supplies to take something down, and you won't get enough from doing so (you can buy supplies, however), and machines will kill you fast.

First off I am a sucker for open world games like this, and I have no problem playing a female character, hell if you are going to look at someone for 100 hours they might as well be cute. But the developers just can't keep their activism out of the game. Its a Matriachal Society, no problem there are many examples of this in real life. There are idiot men, well that's fine because there are many idiot men in real life. All women are stunning and brave....here we go. I had no problem for about the first 10 hours of the game, in fact the story was quite good. I was having a blast in the little safe starter area and spent probably more hours there than most just becasue I was having fun and exploring the systems. Then I get out into the first map and things slowly start to come to my attention. Almost all men are idiots, almost all quests involve saving an idiot man or are given by a cowardly man who is worried about his bad ass Sister or Mother. Look at the injured in the towns, they are all men. Comment after comment in the dialouge with any man talks about how they ran from this battle, of are too afraid to leave town or go to a forbidden area, but their Sister did. Quests revolve around saving icompetent men that lost thier supplies or could not defend themselves without your help etc. Everyone has heard about you and how amazing you are, you get told this almost ever time you talk to someone. Now I am over 20 hours into the game and I am still going to finish it and enjoy it, but there is no way I can give this 5 stars when I have to cringe through every converstation. Sure have some quests with idiot men but also have some save the women quests as well. Balance in all things. Sorry guys but your agenda is showing and it taints this awesome game. So glad I got this at half price.

This game is just pure perfection. Every Single Thing of it.