Horizon Zero Dawn - Review @ LaptopMag

If you are on PC and considering buying it on steam, just go read the top "most helpful" reviews, (for "all time" time period) they are mostly negative, and complaining about crashing, bugs, and unable to continue the game in some cases. So there does seem to be various technical issues, and that its a badly done port. This isn't a game I personally am interested in, but I do respect steam pc reviews. Maybe I'm more of a less forgiving gamer but I would not touch this game (assuming it was a game I wanted) with a ten foot pole at this stage, not until it got a whole bunch of patching.

That's not surprising, I always thumb up negative reviews for every game I didn't buy thanks to such review.

But is that really most helpful? Nah. That review didn't help me, I had no problem that needed helping with.
Steam should change it to "most popular" or "most liked" review.

If I did not come here to read sad comments from people who are not playing the game I would not know this game has issues, and I am currently playing at it.

Originally Posted by Kos
If I did not come here to read sad comments from people who are not playing the game I would not know this game has issues, and I am currently playing at it.

This. Of course people having issues are going to go on Steam and make noise. The people who aren't having issues are too busy enjoying the game. Even when it's a small minority having problems, they can often be loud enough to make it seem worse.

While that might be true that generalization is losing it's touch. I've seen that same logic portrayed on politics and other areas of discussion it's lost all meaning. A red herring.

Whenever a sentence starts with " While that might be true", it's usually self-contradicting.

And the people on Steam..

Not Recommended
23.2 hrs last two weeks / 23.2 hrs on record (16.5 hrs at review time)
Playing it with a
RTX 2700 Super
16 DDR4 4000Mhz Ram
I7 9700k

And the Frame Drop from 90 FPS to 5 Fps

Brave guy, could still milk 7 hours of it with 5 FPS. I am not even mentioning the work you have to clock to make that configuration misbehaves.

Not Recommended
20.8 hrs on record (15.4 hrs at review time)

Wait for fixes.
If they fix it, I'd recommend it. Right now, play the waiting game.

Another brave guy who proposes to wait and not very good at following his own advise.

It's a PC game, a complex one. It will certainly never run on a first go on every configuration out there, moreover when most of them don't even hit the minimal specs.

I expect Cyberpunk 2077 to have that kind of feedback with the endless 'My laptop is making a lot of noise and I don't hear the voices. Bad Port!'

Originally Posted by sakichop
Yes, nothing says PC gaming like ‘crank down the settings and it will play buttery smooth’.

I'm running a computer from 2013, you want me to put everything on Ultra and go cry on the forums my game runs at -32 FPS and crashes after a few minutes?
PC gaming to me is enjoying whatever I throw at it and having fun. I could run quite a few games on Ultra some years ago, but I got to reckon it won't keep up forever.

Originally Posted by Kos
Another brave guy who proposes to wait and not very good at following his own advise.

I have similarly given advice in the past. It's not advice that I am able to follow, when I am not in the same position as the people I am giving advice to: I already bought the game.

It also depends on who you imagine giving that advice to: the general public or someone with identical interests as yourself. Not recommending does not mean getting no enjoyment from the game.

Hey, I have about 60 hours played on Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and I still don't recommend most friends to play it. That may change later this month if turn-based mode is good, I hear the game got patched repeatedly and most bugs have been cleaned out.

I would never not recommend a game based on performance unless the issues seemed to be universal for everyone. That's obviously not the case here.

The problem with giving advice based on performance issues is that the person is assuming others are going to have the same problems they're having. That's a lot to assume. You're just as likely to be cheating someone out of a good time as you are to be helping them in any way.

Originally Posted by Nereida
Hey, I have about 60 hours played on Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and I still don't recommend most friends to play it.

I didn't recommend it to a neighbor I drank coffee with during ban on bars because - he has playstation and not PC. Whatta id… Well, can't speak badly, he's fun otherwise.

But a friend who adores BG1 and BG2? I nagged him day after day till he bought it. Made him happy.

I'm saying depends who is on the other side.

Originally Posted by JDR13
This. Of course people having issues are going to go on Steam and make noise. The people who aren't having issues are too busy enjoying the game. Even when it's a small minority having problems, they can often be loud enough to make it seem worse.

Every game has a small minority of people that have bugs or can’t play it. Not every game has an article on every gaming site I go to about how buggy and poorly optimized it is. Even the developer admits the game has issues and promised to make fixing them their highest priority.

Obviously with the staggering amount of possible PC configurations some people won’t have any issues and others won’t be able to run it at all. It’s impossible to know how many are having issues and how many aren’t but we do know enough people are having issues to gain traction in the gaming media and get the developers attention which isn’t the norm.

Originally Posted by sakichop
Not every game has an article on every gaming site I go to about how buggy and poorly optimized it is.

And yet the game has an aggregate review score of 84%. Just a hunch, but I'm guessing for most people that would put it into recommendation range if it's a genre they like.

Originally Posted by sakichop
Even the developer admits the game has issues and promised to make fixing them their highest priority.

So it's just like most games then?

Originally Posted by JDR13
And yet the game has an aggregate review score of 84%. Just a hunch, but I'm guessing for most people that would put it into recommendation range if it's a genre they like.



So it's just like most games then?

Ive read a small sample size of the positive reviews and even many of them recommend waiting for patches or say great game but bad port. The positive scores are a testament to the game not it’s release state.

Anyway I’m not interested in a back and forth if you think it’s a non issue and only affects a small minority then that’s your prerogative.

I’ll just agree to disagree.

Originally Posted by sakichop
Ive read a small sample size of the positive reviews and even many of them recommend waiting for patches or say great game but bad port. The positive scores are a testament to the game not it’s release state.

Anyway I’m not interested in a back and forth if you think it’s a non issue and only affects a small minority then that’s your prerogative.

I’ll just agree to disagree.

Cool story bro. You were interested enough though to post multiple times about a game that you've never played.

I just find that somewhat curious. In fact, the only people here who who are pushing the negative slant are all ones who have yet to actually play the game, while all the people who have played it are reporting zero issues.

Hey I reported an issue with the latest patch, and I love the game.

But yeah as I said, the issue will get patched, and the game is still playable by tweaking the settings a bit (not going through a hellish gauntlet of fine-tuning, as some people make it sound). And the pros vastly outweight the cons when you consider playing it vs not playing it, or playing it in PC vs playing it in PS4.

I finished the game in PS4, I enjoyed it a lot, but the analog stick and 30 FPS made it a lesser experience all the way through, oftentimes plain frustrating. Not even going to mention the input lag that the PS4 controller often has, which makes any gaming experience a true nightmare until you fully reset the console and the controller and hope that that will fix it for a few hours.

So, if you want to put it that way, sure, wait a few days/weeks for patches, then get it for the maximum experience. But if your rig can handle it, HZD is a great game to play right now, especially now that there isn't a lot to compete with it, and because the only negative thing anyone has to say about the game is "the graphics are not optimised". I have't heard a single negative point about the game actually being bad. Which should give people who want to play a good game something to think, because we've all put up with all kinds of crap to play games we loved because they were worth it.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Cool story bro. You were interested enough though to post multiple times about a game that you've never played.

I just find that somewhat curious. In fact, the only people here who who are pushing the negative slant are all ones who have yet to actually play the game, while all the people who have played it are reporting zero issues.

All the people who played it reporting zero issues? You know that’s not true.

I said I’m not interested in a back and forth. ( which would most likely consist of me saying it has issues and you saying it doesn’t for 2 more pages) I didn’t say I wasn’t interested in posting at all.

I’m not negative about the game and will pick it up eventually. The fact of the matter is the game has issues presently that are well documented. The fact that you haven’t experienced them or I haven’t played the game doesn’t change that.

Originally Posted by sakichop
All the people who played it reporting zero issues? You know that’s not true.

I said I’m not interested in a back and forth. ( which would most likely consist of me saying it has issues and you saying it doesn’t for 2 more pages) I didn’t say I wasn’t interested in posting at all.

I’m not negative about the game and will pick it up eventually. The fact of the matter is the game has issues presently that are well documented. The fact that you haven’t experienced them or I haven’t played the game doesn’t change that.

You might want to read my post again, because that's not what I said.

I said "people here", as in those of us on The Watch who are playing it. With the exception of HiddenX, who's issue stems from his CPU not the game, everyone seems to be running it just fine.

I also didn't say the game didn't have any issues so I'm not sure where you get that from either. I said *I* haven't experienced any, and that I strongly suspect, like in most cases, that it's a loud minority.

Originally Posted by JDR13
You might want to read my post again, because that's not what I said.

I said "people here", as in those of us on The Watch who are playing it. With the exception of HiddenX, who's issue stems from his CPU not the game, everyone seems to be running it just fine.

I also didn't say the game didn't have any issues so I'm not sure where you get that from either. I said *I* haven't experienced any, and that I strongly suspect, like in most cases, that it's a loud minority.

I reread your post and it doesn’t read like your only talking about people here in the second part of your sentence. It’s a moot point anyway as Joxer and Nereida both say there’s issues in this very thread. So its still not true even if you confine it to this thread.

You and I both know I acknowledged you said minority and at no point did I say you said it didn’t have any bugs so lets no try to misdirect.

I still maintain with the amount of coverage its getting and attention from the devs its more than a vocal minority. I’m done with this line of posting though as this is the kind of going in circles I was trying to avoid. Neither one of us has anything new to add and won’t be changing our positions so again lets just agree to disagree.