Horizon: Zero Dawn (PS4) Review

We've arrived at the first review of the month of May, and it's a big one. Horizon: Zero Dawn has already sold nearly three million copies worldwide, making it the PlayStation 4's greatest selling new franchise. But were these sales worth it? Well, let me answer that simply: Yes. Now see my rationale with the SuperPhillip Central review!

Rage Against the Machines

For what seems like eons, Guerrilla Games has been stuck working on the Killzone series, Sony's answer to Halo and Call of Duty. While the series has had its own success, many PlayStation fans were wanting to see what else the Killzone developer could come up with. Seeing as their first end result is Horizon: Zero Dawn, an exciting open world adventure set in post-apocalyptic machine-ruled world, maybe Guerrilla Games should have moved on from Killzone ages ago!

Horizon: Zero Dawn tells the story of a world set in the distant future, ravaged by an unknown calamity that completely took humanity to the proverbial clearns. Now, survivors live in the most basic of tribes who constantly face the threat of hostile machines. The heroine is Aloy, a child born under strange circumstances and taken care of by an outcast, Rost. Because of this, her fellow Nora tribesmen and women treat her with utter contempt, prejudice, and refuse contact. When a young Aloy falls into some ancient ruins, she comes across a unique device known as a Focus that allows her to not only increase her powers of perception but also gives her the ability to interact with machines.

Events that follow give her the desire to find her true mother, and Rost trains her over the course of her adolescence, as she can only ask the Nora Matriarchs the truth about her mother if she survives a ritual to join the Nora tribe. The game fast forwards time to Nora as a young woman, ready, able and willing to complete the Proving ritual and uncover the knowledge behind her mother, and unbeknownst to her, soon the knowledge as to what caused the calamity that wiped out humanity so many years ago.

Aloy, always ready to help a friend (or total stranger) in need.

Horizon's main quests follow Aloy's journey from the Proving to finding out her place in the world. The beginning is so focused and strong, so it's a bit of a bummer that the story doesn't maintain that level of quality the whole way. It drags a bit here and there before ramping back up to a satisfying conclusion. Side quests are another story (no pun intended), as these aren't very enjoyable to play through. They all sport one of the following scenarios or a combination: using Aloy's Focus to follow the tracks of someone, getting an item of some kind, or defeating enemies. There's little variety, and most of the time I found myself just fast traveling from one campfire to another to complete side quests as quickly as possible. I couldn't have cared less about the side characters as they weren't really intriguing, unlike the main story that set its hooks in on me early and never really let go.

These mountains may not be of purple majesty, but they're darn tootin' impressive all the same.

The open world setting of Horizon is gorgeous and breathtaking, from gazing upon hazy mountains and vistas in the distance to taking an up close glimpse at the bark of trees and collective grass blades on the ground. It's just a shame that the game sports a seemingly thrown-in checklist of things to do to add to its longevity in this open world. Whether it's metal flowers to pick, vantage points to climb up to and uncover, or ancient relics to discover from piles of debris, there is a lot of stuff to acquire in the expansive world of Horizon. There's even the must-have feature seemingly taken from Ubisoft games of all titles, towers that show the areas of nearby collectibles. Except rather than stationary targets they are roaming, docile machines that must be jumped onto from a high point, scaled, and then overridden to accumulate data. That said, finding stuff is indeed fun.

Radio towers by any other name, these are Tallnecks that Aloy must ascend to reveal local map data.

When you're discovering new towns and campfires (both serve as fast travel points while the latter serve as quick save and manual save points), you're most likely to come across a hostile machine or two. Some are harmless creatures (though they will get rowdy when provoked), but most thirst to cause any trespasser in their territory a terrible time, and possibly their life. Thankfully, Guerrilla Games have given Aloy a multitude of means to take out machines no matter how big or small. From traps that can shock and stun any machine that crosses over them to holding machines down with ropes to temporarily stop them in their tracks, Aloy can use brains over brawn, but when it comes to pure muscle, she has her trusty bow and arrows, as well as a spear.

An up close and personal enemy makes for an easy target.

Sometimes, though, Aloy might not want to get the attention of an entire horde of Scrappers, for instance. If that's the case, she can use tall grass to hide in, toss rocks or whistle to lure nearby Scrappers to her location, and when they're close enough-- wham! Stealth kill! ...Or for stronger machines, a considerable decrease to their health. It's fun to pick off a swath of machines one after the other until there's nothing left. Aloy's Focus can be used by pushing in the right stick. This allows players to see the paths that each prey takes as well as their weak points. Dealing damage to these parts takes off more health from them than hitting anywhere else. With enough power, special pieces of each machine can be shot off, and Aloy can get stronger arrows which have the job of more easily blasting them off. Some pieces can even be used as weapons against the machine itself, such as the Disc Launcher of a Thunderjaw, one of the most powerful machines in the world of Horizon.

Don't mind the mess, Aloy is just making scrap metal out of your buddies.

There's nothing like rolling away from a rushing Ravager while flanking the machine, slowing down time to unleash an arrow or two at its weak points, knocking some of its topside weapons off of it in the process. Each machine requires a different approach to it. Simple Watchers can be taken out with a well placed arrow to their eyes or a few spear thrusts and slashes. Meanwhile, something like the Stormbird is a battle of endurance, taking out each one of the capsules on its wings to make it crash down to the ground where Aloy can go to town on the avian machine.

An attack from behind might not be sporting, but it's a machine-eat-machine world out there.

Still, there is an annoyance to be found with facing faster machines. It can be difficult to see the direction in which Aloy rolls away from an attack. It's easy to lose sight of an enemy, especially quick ones. I wish there was a way to lock on to a specific enemy like in a 3D Zelda game where the foe would always be in Aloy's sight.

Nonetheless, other times Aloy will want to even the odds even if by just a little bit. After all, why should she have to do all the work? By moving close to a machine not on alert, Aloy can use her spear to override it. This process takes anywhere from a second to several seconds depending on the machine type, and she can be interrupted by an alerted machine. What overriding does, however, is make a hostile machine turn friendly, suddenly attacking its brothers and make the odds all the more fairer. Some machines can even get mounted, making for quick coverage of ground or a means to attack other hordes. That said, Aloy starts out with a limited number of machine types she can override. As she ventures into optional Cauldrons, cavernous dungeons, she can access new functions to her spear that allow a greater number of machine types to override.

Aloy watches the sunset atop her trusty, overridden steed.

Making machines friendly is an option, but if not, then the goal in the heat of battle is to just make them scrap. When this happens, Aloy can scavenge and salvage the remains, picking up materials to be used to upgrade things in her inventory, such as how many weapons and resources she can carry. Aloy can also use resources found from fallen machines to receive a great amount of weapons, armor, items, and more. These are traded to various merchants throughout the game world, whether they be in settlements or sprinkled about in the wilderness.

Outside of machines, there is another type of enemy in Horizon, and that is of humans. These encounters happen during bandit camp raids, which are optional, but also a lot during the story missions. It's in these battles where the complexity and depth of Horizon's combat merely turns into a bog standard third-person shooter. The enemy AI on display from humans isn't too impressive, offering only the most basic of tactics. They won't try to flank Aloy, they won't try to outsmart Aloy. They will merely hide behind the occasional cover or just stand out in the open, firing arrows or running at Aloy for a melee attack. While I didn't feel these types of combat situations heavily brought my experience with Horizon: Zero Dawn down, they weren't the highest highs of battles in the game.

Human opponents are much less exciting to face than machine ones.

General exploration is enjoyable, though I never really took time to really learn the world because of a combination of how easy it was to fast travel between locations (depending on how far you are from the fast travel spot is how much longer the loading will take) and the UI always showing the path I needed to take in the open world to reach my destination. The real fun came from the aforementioned collectibles of sorts that made me have to discover ways to reach my destination or find a hidden doodad in a specific zone of the map. Horizon has some Uncharted-like platforming in the game, though this is just as basic as its inspiration. Aloy will automatically grab ledges, and these are always plainly marked compared to the rest of the environment, so you really have to try to miss a jump.

Climbing, crawling, tightrope-walking-- Aloy can do it all.

Horizon: Zero Dawn has some RPG elements to it, though they aren't particularly strong ones. Through defeating enemies and completing quests, Aloy gains experience. When enough experience has been gained, she earns a level, gaining more health and skill points. Skill points can be spent in one of three categories of skills. There isn't too much to think about here, though, as eventually you'll have more than enough skill points to learn everything. The skills themselves are helpful, offering things like greater stealth, the ability to power spear-based attacks, increase machine override time, and so forth.

As you've seen, there are some elements of Horizon: Zero Dawn that I'm iffy on, but what I'm absolutely not is the presentation. After Naughty Dog's utterly jaw-dropping visuals with Uncharted 4, Guerrilla Games throws the gauntlet down even harder with a beautiful and glorious graphical tour de force. From the delightful day and night cycle, weather system (the rain is killer!), fantastic lighting, lifelike human characters, impressive special effects, and everything happening on screen at once, there is little to dislike here. Maybe the 30 FPS cap, but it didn't bother me at all. The soundtrack sports an atmospheric flair while the voice acting is top of the line in every department. Horizon: Zero Dawn has a tremendous presentation package to it.

For Aloy's sake, I hope there's no sandstorm in the forecast.

Overall, the 30-35 hour to Platinum adventure that was Horizon: Zero Dawn was a joyous journey with a great story limited by many dull characters that did little to fascinate. The ones that did, however, were strong. Though the story can lose focus thanks to the size of its open world, the world itself is a thing of beauty, but limited in what you can do in it. Still, from the impressive combat and wild battles with killer machines to its marvel of a presentation, Horizon: Zero Dawn is an adventure that PlayStation 4 owners need to play, pending don't mind yet another open world game.

[SPC Says: A-]

BLTN Reviews: Killzone: Shadow Fall (PS4) Review

While we may be more than halfway through the month of July, there will be plenty of new reviews coming this month to SuperPhillip Central. The first is a game that launched with the PlayStation 4 in 2014. Hence, why this is a Better Late Than Never review! It's Killzone: Shadow Fall!

Get in the zone.

Sony hasn't let go of the idea of making the Killzone franchise its Halo for the PlayStation brand. While the games don't nearly have the same level of fandom as Microsoft's illustrious FPS franchise, the games sell well enough to have Sony keep trying. While I haven't really found a lot of the past Killzone games to be much to make note of, I did very much enjoy Killzone: Mercenary on the PlayStation Vita enough to call it one of my favorite FPS games I've ever played.

Thus, after my high on Killzone: Mercenary, I was open to playing the latest game in the series, the PlayStation 4 launch title, Killzone: Shadow Fall. With an engaging single player, a robust online and offline multiplayer offering, and a story that treks into new territory for the series, I ended up enjoying what I played of Guerrilla Games's latest.

In Killzone: Shadow Fall, you take on the role of Lucas Kellan. The first chapter of the game delves into the current situation with the Vektans and the Helghast. As a child, Lucas and his father are forced out of their home, and the two stealthily move through Helghast-occupied territory to escape to somewhere much safer. In the process they meet up with an ISA soldier who assists them along the way. However, in a skirmish, Lucas's father is shot and killed right in front of the young boy's eyes. Thus, the ISA soldier takes Lucas under his wing, all the way to the present where Lucas is now a Shadow Marshall for the ISA, and the soldier is now a commander for the ISA, giving Lucas new missions.

The Vektans and Helghast now occupy the same planet and are in an uneasy cold war of sorts where any volatile jolt could result in full blown war. A gigantic wall splits up the Vektans from the Helghast, and without spoiling too much, instead of the Helghans being labeled as this wholly evil force this time around, the lines between good and bad blur considerably in Shadow Fall.

All of the plot in Killzone: Shadow Fall plays out through protagonist Lucas Kellan's eyes.

All of the narrative is told through Lucas's eyes. However, this means that there are points in the game where gameplay is interrupted by long sessions of exposition where your character just stands around or automatically moves. The lengthiest example of this is midway in the game, a story sequence that begins a chapter that last upwards of five minutes. This cannot be skipped unlike the standard scenes that begin and end each chapter, so this makes it really annoying and bothersome on repeated plays of the same chapter.

Killzone: Shadow Fall itself is a traditional shooter where you get a maximum of two guns to hold at once, a handful of grenades, and to keep yourself alive in dangerous situations, some adrenaline packs. The latter not only restores your health quickly instead of needing to hide in a corner hoping your health regenerates before enemies can get an angle on you to shoot you dead, but it also gives a brief period where everything slows down, giving you a great opportunity to pop enemies before they know what hit them.

Killzone: Shadow Fall delivers intense firefights and visceral melee action.

Further moving Shadow Fall away from just being an ordinary shooter is the addition of a robotic companion that assists Lucas on most of his missions, the OWL. OWL has four functions to it, each selected by swiping in a given direction on the PS4 controller's touch pad. Lucas can assign the OWL to shoot a given target, terrific for distracting enemies in an intense firefight; he can have OWL summon a shield that will defend temporary against enemy bullets; he can send OWL out to stun a group of enemies, or with certain shielded enemies, remove their defense; and one of my favorite uses for vertical levels is the ability to have OWL create a zipline for Lucas to zoom across, allowing him to reach otherwise inaccessible areas (or areas that would kill him if he tried to fall down to by himself).

OWL's main use is to hack terminals to open doors, shut off security panels, and other electronic systems. It can also be used when Lucas has taken too much damage and give him a shot of adrenaline to bring him back to the world of consciousness or else suffer death. However, of course, Lucas can't just keep using OWL's various abilities over and over with a cool-down period. OWL has to recharge, so players have to use it strategically. This means you probably shouldn't send OWL away from Lucas to shoot down enemies if he's about to lose all of his health. OWL will be too preoccupied to revive Lucas, pending he has a spare adrenaline pack.

Many levels offer nonlinear design, letting you as the player take on the level as you desire.

Additionally, no longer is Killzone merely mostly a corridor shooter. The level design of Killzone: Shadow Fall is much more open ended for most chapters compared to past Killzone games. While this can result in not knowing where to go, you can always just tap up on the D-pad to get a bearing on where you next objective is. Regardless, the open ended design allows for much more player control in how they handle missions which is fantastic and most welcome. For instance, one can disable security systems so enemies can't call for reinforcements, or they can simply go in guns blazing with reckless abandon. Though, the latter isn't recommended on harder difficulties. One can stealthily move through levels, entering vents and other alternate paths, or they can once again do their best Rambo impression, shooting down foes with their gun barrel blasting as play plow through levels.

After playing through the approximately 10-hour campaign by your lonesome (that time can greatly increase through going after the various collectibles and playing harder difficulties), you'll probably want to move on to what most longtime Killzone players love most about the series-- its multiplayer. I'm happy to say that despite not being hugest fan of FPS multiplayer games, Killzone: Shadow Fall's offering, both online and off, is pretty darn nice.

I see I have two attendees to my shotgun party. Welcome. Did you RSVP?

Warzones have parties of people roaming to game after game while remaining together. Of course, you can always play individual matches in a one-and-done fashion as well. There are three character classes to select from and a load of loadout options available. The lack of an experience system means that players beginning the online multiplayer experience won't have fear of feeling far behind because they are not only outmatched skill-wise compared to players who have been enjoying Shadow Fall's multiplayer modes longer, but also because they have much worse equipment. Thus, it's much easier to jump into Killzone: Shadow Fall's multiplayer than a game like Call of Duty, for instance.

Not only can you play the Warzones already manufactured by Guerrilla Games themselves, but you can customize and create your own Warzone scenarios yourself. You can select from Shadow Fall's nice selection of ten maps, choose from modes like Search & Destroy and Capture & Hold, and even include bots. Yes! Bots! In a 2014 console game with online! This gave me grand memories of fully customizing every facet of a multiplayer match in Perfect Dark, my favorite FPS game to date, so if Shadow Fall can give me memories of that awesome multiplayer game, then that's high praise coming from me.

With everyone on the same level playing field,
Killzone: Shadow Fall is good for both beginners and longtime players.

The visuals of Killzone: Shadow Fall are absolutely jaw-dropping. This in part to Shadow Fall moving away from past games' drab brown and grey color pallets to something much more bright, vivid, and vibrant in specific levels. The game manages to hold a steady frame-rate for the most part, even in the most intense firefights. Meanwhile, the sound design manages to delight with consistently well done voice acting and moody orchestrated music accentuating the action and more subdued portions of the game.

With a stellar single player campaign and lasting multiplayer goodness, Killzone: Shadow Fall was a pleasant surprise as my first PlayStation 4 game. Although the narrative can interrupt gameplay way too much and certain non-shooting segments feel shoehorned in and rather clumsy, overall, Killzone: Shadow Fall manages to be a stellar first-person shooter that is definitely worth looking into for any PlayStation 4 owner who enjoys the shooter genre. Fall in!

[SPC Says: B-]

BLTN Reviews: Killzone: Mercenary (Vita) Review

BLTN? What could that possibly stand for? Bacon, lettuce, tomato, Nutella? Hmm. That might not be a bad combination for a future sandwich.

Ahem! Anyway, BLTN stands for Better Late Than Never, my series of reviews on games from the past few years that I just played which I am now reviewing. The next game in this feature of reviews is Killzone: Mercenary. As someone who isn't a huge fan of the Killzone franchise, did I manage to find some enjoyment out of this PlayStation Vita installment?

Time to earn some mad merc money

There seemed to be two camps in the PlayStation fan base with regard to FPS games. One camp enjoyed Insomniac's Resistance series, while others were enamored with the world and mechanics of Guerrilla Games' Killzone series. The difference between the two franchises is that one received a lot more hype and a bigger marketing push than the other. That franchise in question just so happened to be the one that stuck around, Killzone.

I've played most of the titles in the series, but they just didn't do much for me overall. The standard mechanics were there-- shooting, sprinting, headshot-obtaining, etc., but something just didn't keep me playing for very long. Killzone: Mercenary, on the other hand, is a rare gem in the franchise. It's a game that I not only picked up and found myself greatly enjoying, but it's one that I played long after the credits rolled. It's the next in a line of Vita first-person shooters that tries to do the genre justice on Sony's handheld, and it definitely does that and then some.

Yes... Come to your death, Helghast scum!

Killzone: Mercenary has you playing as Arran Danner, a mercenary for hire (fancy that) who is hired by the ISA to help fight against the Helghan threat. For fans of the franchise, Killzone: Mercenary is essentially a best-of collection of familiar locations and events in the Killzone trilogy. Being a gun-for-hire, Danner eventually plays both sides of the conflict based off of in-game happenings of the overall plot, and whichever side has the moral high ground, coincidentally enough. Regardless, Mercenary's story is the weakest piece of the equation, and it served for me merely as a means to an end to get to all the running and gunning the game possesses in its nine missions.

I think I'll take a covert approach this time around.

All to itself, the aforementioned running and gunning would be of typical Killzone series quality, which wouldn't be so bad. However, Mercenary offers a clever means to keep players playing. Throughout each mission and multiplayer match you participate in, you're receiving money bonuses for a myriad of actions. Everything from a kill, to a headshot, to a melee kill, to an explosive kill, to getting through a section of a level without alerting the enemy, and so forth, rewards you with money. This money is used at Mercenary's arms dealer, which can be accessed in the main menu, and at various locations throughout each of the game's missions.

This black market will soon be colored
in red with the blood of your enemies.

Money is then used to purchase new primary and secondary weapons, types of grenades, armor, and VAN-Guards, which are high-tech equipment that can range from a cloaking device, a robotic buddy that electrifies nearby enemies with a wave of electricity, a jammer that cuts off enemy communication, a missile launcher that locks on to enemies, and more. These goodies can be used to create customized loadouts for single player missions and multiplayer.

Although there's but nine missions to complete in Killzone: Mercenary, most of them take upwards of a half-hour on one's first time through. There's also money to be earned from completing missions on various difficulties, with Veteran being the hardest-- although compared to past Killzone games, the Veteran difficulty in Mercenary is by far the easiest.

It's a modern FPS game, so obviously we need
to bloody up the screen to show you're injured.

In addition to simply completing the nine missions for story and progression purposes, Killzone: Mercenary has three special contract missions for each of the nine levels. These take the form of Precision, Covert, and Demolition contracts. Not only do they add replay value and longevity to Mercenary, but they change the way you play each level. Each contract mission has different objectives that go on top of the story-related ones. These are things like getting through a section of a level undetected, killing a certain number of enemies with a specific weapon, getting a number of melee kills, beating a mission under a specified time limit, destroying a number of a certain object, rescuing hostages, and so forth. It makes it so you need to do more than just run and gun. You grow to learn the levels and the best paths through them and which strategies work best.

This particular objective in a Demolition contract
is to destroy this armored dropship.

Outside of the exhaustive solo campaign, Killzone: Mercenary offers a massive multiplayer component, delivering intense shootouts between players online. There's three main modes to multiplayer, such as your standard every-player-for-themselves deathmatch and team deathmatch, and nine multiplayer maps. You can customize several loadouts, so you can equip the right series of weapons and the like for the right situation. You can even change loadouts after each death for if the one you're currently using isn't working for you at that particular moment.

Do you enemies mind? I heavily
value my personal space.

As of the time of this review, over a year since the game originally launched in North America, Mercenary still has short waiting times to participate in online firefights. It's easy to find matches with players. There's even downloadable content to add bots for offline play only. I enjoyed the game's multiplayer so much that I decided to purchase said DLC, though it would have been preferred to have been a part of the original game.

Being another attempt at putting a first-person shooter on a handheld, Killzone: Mercenary is without question the king. Sure, the competition, especially on Vita, where its opponents were a weak Call of Duty and a weaker Resistance spin-off, wasn't too challenging, but Mercenary impresses as a shooter in general. Some might find the forced touch screen implementation for melee kills (swiping in a certain direction), sniper rifle zooming, and a hacking mini-game, which is a regular occurrence in the game's missions, to be pure gimmickry, but it doesn't overly deter from Mercenary's overall quality.

This should clear up that ear infection of yours.

Killzone: Mercenary is an absolutely breathtaking game to view. The various vistas and locales in the game seldom manage to disappoint, and the special effects such as lighting and explosions do nothing but amaze. Unfortunately, Mercenary doesn't run perfectly, sometimes dipping heavily in frame-rate when the action gets too intense. Furthermore, starting each mission results in a significant loading period as the mission briefing plays out. You can't skip this until at least 30-60 seconds into the briefing. This makes it that repeated play-throughs of missions becomes quite tedious. "I just want to shoot things, darn it! Shut up already, generic war guy!"

Beat these snipers at their own game!

For those fans of first-person shooters, you haven't had a lot of great genre experiences on a portable device. Well, friends, now you have Killzone: Mercenary, the cream of the bang-bang, shoot-shoot crop. As someone with a passing interest in the genre due to the seemingly millions of shooters hyped to hell and released each year, I found myself absolutely loving Mercenary, and even wanting to attempt the time-consuming process of obtaining the Platinum trophy. The game isn't perfect with its long loading times at the beginning of solo missions and multiplayer matches and weak story, but overall, Killzone: Mercenary mission to bring great fun and great FPS gameplay to the PlayStation Vita was a success.

[SPC Says: 9.25/10]