the art design is beautiful and unforgettable. visually its probably the most creative and interesting video game ever? theres really nothing else quite like it. i mean the bar is low i guess for the medium but still lol i love the icelandic looking america and the fantasy supernatural stuff with the cool looking scifi tech/menus. its a fun combo of genres. all the main characters are so unique and cool. the music is great too.

i loved the gameplay more than i expected. i came for the aesthetics and stayed for the land traversal lol it all felt experimental & unique and fit with the unique art style. i just liked learning a new kind of gameplay it worked a lot for me. is hiking simulator an insult? sorry i don’t speak dumb moron i was having too much fun with it.
i enjoyed doing most of the orders. some are occasionally repetitive but every play session i learned something new or ran into a new challenge and i was always having fun with it.

its very cutscene/lore/dialogue/infodump heavy. i dont hate it but its got a ton of symbolism and thematic stuff you have to keep track of. it certainly makes the game feel epic and grand which i love. but the whole thing feels like its suffering from telling rather than showing.

the ending is sorta confusing. its super long with like several endings that goes on for a long time. its a weird feeling holding a controller and then setting it down because you realize youre gonna be watching the cutscene for a long while. its got a ton of dialogue that makes it hard for me to stay focused the whole time listening to them all talk. its got so many weird twists and things its hard to keep track of it all. moments that should feel emotional don’t because i dont know whats even happening until later on when things are revealed. but sometimes things are just not explained well at all. lol good luck trying to remember all this wacky symbolism storytelling in your head the first go around. like i was engaged and i dont hate it but its the type of storytelling that requires some homework to figure it all out and just inspires those tacky clickbait “ending explained” youtube videos and reddit threads. so thats lame.

like the basic stuff about being a dad works. i like that its a ‘dad game’ but unlike last of us & bioshock infinite the dad protagonist is actually a good person who saves the world and isnt a racist or a selfish mass murderer. it was a unique experience since i dont want kids and ill never have them. but never before in a dad game have i found my actions so heavily dictated by caring for the baby. i built & rode ziplines more to have fun with the baby hearing it laugh than to get places faster lol i was careful not fall down because i actually didnt want to hurt the kid. i got frustrated at one point with my task and in a normal game id kill my character jumping off a cliff or blowing myself up out of frustration to restart and before i was about to do that i heard a little baby noise and i i decided against it because i cared about the baby and wanted to peacefully restart instead instead of taking the kid with me jumping off a cliff lmao ive been getting over a depression so i related strongly with sams cold emotional state and how this kid was his main new reason for living. again i dont want kids so that element was a weird experience ill never actually have irl but it still made lot of sense and it was cool to have it in a story about the importance of connecting to other people.
so theres so many other moments like that but the point is that the gameplay felt so tied to the final parts of the story so it all makes sense that its about parenting.

but i wish the more complicated story stuff made some more sense and was explained and shown more clearly.
its also part 1 of a continuing story so maybe it could make more sense and be fleshed oiy with the sequel. i guess we’ll see. i like that there was still an attempt to make this game a stand alone experience and it is and it works as it needs to. but as ariel the little mermaid sings: i want moreeeeeeee

the tone and comedy is very odd at times but i didnt hate it.
i like that theres humor to the orders like the film directors king kong figurines lol
the bizarro humorous meta gaming references were... odd lmao not sure the point of all that?


most of my complaints come down to petty things. the game functions as it needs to. but i like nitpicking so here we go hehehehe

everytime i saw the horizon zero dawn holograms id delete them immediately. get that the shit OUTTA HERE!!! i dont care if they helped make this game or whatever im not playing their game. put a thank you in the credits and shut up. i just love the the art design of this game and hate the shit from that game. i hate seeing those giant ugly robot dinosaurs near structures its so dumb looking go away!!!!

the chiral artist girl was cringe and annoying. i hate couples like that. am i supposed to care about these dumb hetero clowns? i dont.

i wish there was a gay character. its cringe that all there was for that kind of diversity here was a weird subtle bashing of asexual people? whatever at least the directors cut fixed that.

i wish keanu reeves was in this game instead of stupid cyberpunk2077 (and i wanted that even before i knew he was considered to play clifford lol) i dont want him to play clifford but idk i wish he played someone in this story. actually no put him in the sequel!!!

its kinda annoying to have the only black character be the most annoying intrusive character always bothering you with audio messages.

young sam looks weird and ugly (no offense to the child actor lmao) but he looks nothing like norman reedus. why didnt they make a young version of his face? just copy photos of him as a kid or just have his son do mocap for the flashbacks.

i hate the way ziplines are used with sam just hanging on with one hand? like how is his arm not getting ripped off from the weight of his cargo or breaking his wrist on the cufflink? it just looks weird and wrong in a bad way. i wish he wouldve been sitting in like a cute lil single seater chairlift that flies on the weird blue light beam instead lol you only really need to build them in the snowy mountains so a chairlift wouldve probably fit the aesthetic better.

i wish the preppers had more mocap animations. they feel like robots. its interesting that the holograms are used for bts and for preppers. idk maybe there was so thematic symbolism there to visually compare them lol

its weird theres no indigenous americans in the game… theres like a dreamcatcher used i guess but like i wish there was more to do with them and black people. the game is explicitly in america but doesnt really engage with those pretty core aspects of this country.

the film director had some dumb email about ipads or whatever. i hate that director irl he’s so pretentious. gtfo of this game.

there shouldve been a music player to use during orders. have it fade off when youre in mule territory or building structures but play songs when youre just walking.

i wish the emails & interviews were both text and audio diaries that could be read in the menu like they are or played while doing orders.
even tho the game is already bogged down with story/lore i also kinda wish the stuff in the interviews were used in the story more. it wouldve helped some of the story make more sense.


i feel like a lot of aspects of this game would annoy me if i hadnt played many games before.

the confusing menus are probably my only major issue with the gameplay. theres so much hidden things that arent clear or explained and you really have to look closely at the tiny text to see and discover everything you can do and how to do things.
building ppc’s is weird.
selecting standard vs premium orders is easy to miss on the menu.
quick menu selections have secondary pages that are easy to miss.
the map has side details that are easy to miss.
scrolling in tips/interviews goes to fast with the highlighted selection too far down on the list which makes it too easy to scroll over and miss the new ones you want to read.
the bridge link data is too hidden.

theres exclamation points on the map for prepper shelters indicating lost cargo orders for sam in the shared locker but this info is hard to figure out.
the map needed filters for muting online structures/signs or just showing only your structures/roads/prepper locations. but its all clustered together and makes it hard to decipher sometimes.
i hate that you cant delete signs on the map and have to do it manually in the game.
the hud font should turn blacker in snowy areas because sometimes i couldnt see it against the snow/sky.

i wish orders couldnt be repeated. theres already so many orders theres no reason to do old ones all over again. plus it makes no sense why someone would order the same thing again so quickly lol
the reasons for the ratings are nonsense. sometimes ill fall off a cliff and get an S rank othertimes ill take no damage or anything getting there on ziplines and still get an A or a B for no apparent reason ???
also the rating levels were not explained. i didnt realize there was an additional s rank (and trophies for getting them) only available in hard mode which was annoying after id played 130 hours on normal.
premium deliveries should be auto selected and if you meet the requirements you get the premium delivery bonus. if not it should just log it as a completed ‘standard order delivery’ rating.
though i feel like youre not really supposed to care much about all the order scoring because the evaluation screen glosses over this stuff pretty quickly…

the interactive online aspect is…. fine. like i guess its tied to the themes of the game but i didnt need these exact themes so whatever.
its nice because i rarely ever crafted ladders or ropes because they were always in the environment. but that also makes orders not as difficult or fun because often times someone has already placed all the ladders and things needed on the map making the order boring to complete.
it was annoying having random structures some dipshit player built in places that made no sense so i had to aggressively delete them off my map. the signs were basically useless to me and just ended up making the game look cluttered and littered.
it was annoying when online structures blocked my ziplines.
i dont like button mashing on likes. one like would suffice. which is automatically given if a structure is used

the map splitting into 3 parts is annoying. for edge knot city it doesnt matter because its just story orders but for the eastern region it shouldve had a bottle neck area where you can still walk through instead of seperating your equipment on 2 maps. the great plateu in zelda didnt do that so harshly. it has a cliff but you can still carry all your equipment up to it.

the odradek’s bt area animation is too slow/zoomed in. it should be a quick 2 second slow down like when collecting chiral crystals or cryptobiotes

if youre within a preppers scanner poles their terminal should detect any cargo in the area for deliveries including anything inside a truck. it’s annoying and silly looking the way i had to ram my vehicles into the prepper shelters all wonky just so the terminal picks up my packages because i didnt want to have to pick them all out of the truck and carry them inside. which is annoying when its a big order with lots of cargo or you have multiple ongoing orders with lots of different cargo with you to sort through.

getting into vehicles is a pain because you have to stand in front of the door. in la noire just standing around the vehicle got you in it if you press the button.
i wish i could control when the truck lifts up and down. half the time i got stuck i couldve fixed it if i couldve controlled that.
there was 2 times where i got stuck between a rock and my truck door but couldnt get out of the rock hole i was stuck in making me totally stuck and i had to reload an old save to continue playing.
the trucks have some weird physics/controls to them. like they never flip over on tight turns (which i suppose is nice to not have to deal with) but then its weird the way they spin on hills so oddly and nonsensically. i dont think i ever fully understood it and just relied on getting lucky trying to go up hills. sometimes the wheels would stop completely and other times theyd spin endlessly even when i wasnt pressing buttons or the wheels would randomly go full speed out of nowhere even tho i didnt press them to do that? its like theres a weird control delay i never understood.

didnt care too much for mule raids/interactions, i tried to do stealth but it felt pointlessly difficult and rarely ever worked for me and i always ended up resorting to bashing into them with my trucks. its weird that the mules dont go on the highways?

the oxygen mask was underutilized. i think there were only like 2 toxic gas places to use it?

the unger battles were annoying and took too long for me to beat because its a totally different gameplay (and one that i hate) and the difficulty spike felt too harsh. maybe its just a meta commentary on modern shooter games? whatever.

the directors cut shouldve been a dlc for post game extras available on ps4.


despite my nitpicks i still loved this game a lot.

i had fun doing orders and building ziplines and highways and driving cars around lol

the odradek is so cool to use and its also really cute. sorry to the baby but i cared more when the odradek got shot more than whenever bb was crying/dying. i just hate babies and im not gonna apologize for that lol

im colorblind so having names for the different car colors is nice. idk how common that is in modern games but i like it.

i always held my breath whenever sam did hehe

it was cute getting the santa hat on christmas day.

i love mr lockers menu and his theme music its so chill and moody. i wish i could set the ps4 home menu to that theme.
✌🏻

Reviewed on Feb 14, 2023


Comments