PlayStation Nation |OT| Playing Astro Bot on the Horizon Until Dawn

[twintail]

I've finished my survival run of Days Gone.

I had a great time with this game. Played the PS4 version on PS4 so it ran better than it would've originally. I'm not really an open-world fan, but I enjoyed the word because of a combination of the weather system, the danger of the freaks and others, and the use of the bike. I think it's this last part that really made me enjoy the open-world because I felt like the bike was a character in of it's own. There's a story reason for having it, the main character makes it seem like an important item to them (early on), upgrades get reflected on the title screen, and it's your only vehicle for transport. It feels good to ride when you upgrade it. And having to keep it repaired and with gas also heightens the danger of every run you do outside of a camp.

I think gameplay wise it's quite serviceable. I had little issues being able to move, melee, gun shooting, and stealth (even though this is not a great aspect). There's a nice selection of firewarms you can acquire, especially always off fallen enemies. And you can makeshift items for melee which can be fun, but not something I really interacted with (even though doing so is not so different to crafting any other item in teh game).

The big selling point are the hordes you get to fight. And I love that they have a day night pattern to them. During the day they are sleeping, and each horder has 1 of several sights they'll visit. if you just let the game run you'll see them make their journeys from their caves to these spots. It's really neat. Fighting them is fun too, and the game does a great job at 1) having varying sizes, so some are easier to do then others, and 2) allowing users to determine overall difficulty by choosing what time of the day to engage the. Night is usually a lot tougher because they're more scattered and it's dark. Day is easier since they all having the same starting point so you can get thin them out before them become a threat. But taking into account the dynamic nature of the world itself, you could very easily complete 1 horde, only to have accidently caught the attention of another. That's no good LOL

I think graphically it's a good looking game. A lot of times when just driving around I was quite surprised that the game was a few years old. That said, characteral models are somewhat stiff, and the eyes are a real sore point; they can seem very lifeless.

The story is also not something to write home about, but I think it largely works for the first 2/3 of the game: there's a wide vareity of important characters, and with the different camps it feels like you become connected to the people there (at least on the surface). The final 3rd of the game starts off promising, but the new cast of characters you meet just aren't interesting, and having very little dynamics between them. It's a little dissappointing. But the game supposedly had some large cuts (to areas/ missions/ characters), so it was probably planned to be more grand.

One thing I realy enjoyed was the Challenge mode. There's a nice vareity of tasks in the 8 missions. Weirdly, a survival mode (against armed humans) and a crazy taxi like challenge only have 1 mission each. Both are a lot of fun, and it;s crazy that these sort of challenges couldn't just be placed in the open world itself (though the crazy taxi one would seem very out of place lol). But there's so much room to expand on these challenges with extra locations etc.

After completing the game a 2nd time on survival mode, it really is too bad that Bend didn't greenlight the sequel. What a game that could've been... but I am glad the ywere finally able to get a PS5 remaster out. That should be the defivinitve way to play, and I highly reccomend it if you haven't played it yet. but just keep in mind that the complains that the game takes a couple hours to get going is definitely true. The first couple hours are definitely the worst in the entire game because of his restricting it feels. Otherwise, it's good.