Horizon Forbidden West™ Complete Edition

Beautiful game

[h1] CALIFORNIA DREAMIN [/h1] (No spoilers) As beautiful and detailed as this game is, I'm surprised at how well it ran throughout the base game. (More on the DLC later). Truly stunning visuals and effects, great animations with only some minor glitches in cutscenes for the most part. I'm going to break down the game play a bit below. In essence, FW is just ZD with a whole lot more. Bigger world, more machines, more abilities, more traversal, more side activities, more utilities, more customizations, etc. Honestly, maybe a bit more than necessary, but since most of it is not actual mandatory stuff then I can't really fault it. Most of the new machines are awesome, and it was nice to see they brought back all the machines from ZD's expansion, as well as making tall necks more interesting as well. That being said, there are some damn annoying enemies, which leads me to my main complaint in this game. Hitboxes. I feel like the enemy AI in both machines and humans tends to be significantly more aggressive in FW compared to ZD. Especially melee-centric ones. Combine that with the fact that most attacks at close range are devastating, and knockdown times are long and tedious, and you'll be spending a good amount of time healing and being knocked down for attacks that appeared to not hit you at all. Explosions often propel me towards the point of detonation rather than away, which leads to being hit again. Also, aiming feels a tad more inaccurate at base level for some reason. There are also enemy types that are just excessively devastating for no reason. I shouldn't have to fear a giant turtle more than a f*cking T-REX. I digress. Despite this, FW carries a solid story from start to finish, albeit with a slightly less interesting cast of characters compared to ZD. It's a constant push & pull on whether I like FW or ZD better. Whatever might help be a deciding factor... [h1] ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD [/h1] (Burning Shores expansion) Wow. Really damn good. I fear saying much about it would spoil, so I won't. Just trust that it's quite good. My main issue is that it lags like a MF. Unfortunately, all the cool effects and contrast in color between the water, trees, and lava coupled with tons of machines make for a struggling PC. Maybe mine is a little weak, maybe the game isn't optimized well in that area. Who knows. It was never game breaking, and I usually never stuttered during important moments. All in all, a very enjoyable game. A solid sequel to an already complex game that now has successfully built upon good bones. Looking forward to the next main entry (and not that sh!t they've been churning out lately) 8/10

Great game, highly recommended!

Great gameplay improvements on the first game.

Great game. Story & graphics TOP