The Compelling Boringness of Horizon Zero Dawn

The term 'compelling boringness' is an oxymoron that I am quite fond of. It's a paradoxical feeling of something being completing uninteresting and yet you can't take your eyes off it. It is like seeing a car accident in a church parking lot. 

I was warned going into Horizon: Zero Dawn. How it was poorly written with pretty vapid gameplay. However, I ignored the warnings mainly for the main character's design and idk the fact you can fight robot fucking dinosaurs!

I recall a video essay by Super BunnyHop titled "How Design Trends Ruin Great Games." In it, he discusses games that follow a generic gameplay loop, down to the same control scheme, and how that naturally creates a very mundane and forgettable experience. Compare that to more interesting games with unique gameplay loops and control schemes (i.e. Resident Evil 4, FF7: Remake, and Nier: Replicant), and the derivative stuff becomes more of a thorn at my side. 

Horizon: Zero Dawn is the first time this problem has ruined what is overall an interesting game. The combat is pretty good. There is a nice weight to hitting things with your spear and bow. The environment lends itself to multiple approaches to completing a situation. It is pretty good until you realize the climbing is like Uncharted, the crafting and overworld is like Far Cry, and the skill tree is like pretty much every action adventure game that came out in the last decade. 

This extends to the story as well. The backstory is basically Nier albeit less convoluted. The main character is a standard fantasy outcast that ends up being the destined hero. In fact, there are so many tropes in this game from fantasy racism to mentor getting killed to motivate the hero. 

I struggle to think of anything that is truly its own other than the aforementioned character design and the fact you can fight robot dinosaurs. Was that literally the only reason I forced myself to keep playing despite finding it utterly boring? There has to be more to this game than just that. 

I suppose, when digging deeper, this game is quite the spectacle. I loved traveling through the landscape with my robo-Yoshi. The sequence where you traverse a mountain lab is the highlight of this quality. 

It seems this game is a series of little moments that are just fun enough to string you along. Fun in both a good and bad way. 

Horizon: Zero Dawn turns into a bad movie night with its cutscenes. 

There is a little term called exposition that gets thrown around a lot in story writing. It is a term that I feel most story writers wish they can do without since most narrative innovations since the dawn of time have been ways to curtail exposition. We invented "show don't tell." NES games supplied exposition into their manuals. Star Wars and David Lynch's Dune front loads its exposition just to get it over with. 

The thing is that humans don't talk in exposition. However, in a narrative, it is a necessary evil so that an oblivious audience understands what is going on. A good story has to placate that while maintaining the balance so that characters speak authentically. Nothing is more immersion breaking than a character speaking in script rather than in dialogue. 

What this has to do with Horizon is that it does the complete opposite of everything I just said. The story is mainly exposition. Every scene needs to establish a scene, some stakes, or what the character has to do next. Every scene has to communicate something about the world. 

It leads to a story that lacks a lot of character. It is not subtle when you enter a scene and just see the exposition. It feels like a summer camp scavenger hunt run by a very efficient counselor. "Hey we can't waste anymore time. We got to search for the next thing." Horizon: Zero Dawn lacks any sense of play. This stands out when the characters "banter." Often, Aloy will say a quip. It will bounce off the other character with no more than a slight recognition. Then, they will continue babbling about the next mission. 

Some might say that the dialogue is merely being economical. It is trying to mesh as much character, world building, and exposition into one scene. And normally, I would applaud that. Harry Potter does it pretty well. However, and this is a big 'however,' the difference is that Horizon lacks any creativity. Every scene is either one of two things. It is either a typical trailing scene where you follow or watch characters play a scene in game. Or, it is a basic shot-reverse shot exchange with no visual flair. 

It doesn't help that the dialogue has no cleverness. Beyond the Joss Whedon banter, they don't convey any personality with the characters. Aloy, for instance, has nothing going beyond saving the world. She has no goals and no passion. At least give her a love of crossword puzzles. SOMETHING. 

That's the frustrating truth about Horizon. It is the popular high school girl that is too afraid of being different in fear of being marginalized. But in turn, she becomes dull and superficial as a result. I understand there is a draw to this game. It clearly has some creative energy. However, it is afraid to go into that next ambitious step. 

The Horizon series has had the displeasure of being released next to really fantastic games. The first and second game were released in the same window as Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring respectively. The thing with both of those games is that those games are more flawed than Horizon. Excluding the story, both games have jank that keep it from being truly wonderful. That said, I found those games far more memorable than Horizon. It shows that polish doesn't always mean quality. 

I doubt I will remember this game once I finish this review. The only inkling of a memory will be the following: "Oh yeah, the video game that defined compelling boringness."

Rambling about Cuphead Show and Other Random Games I've Played in 2022

Gears of War Trilogy 

You know those games that if someone told you they really enjoyed them, you would be surprised. Like, those games are completely not within the personality you had for the person. That's kind of how I feel when I tell people I like Gears of War. It's a meathead shooter with borderline Michael Bay writing. It's dumb, repetitive, and I love it. 

I decided to repeat the trilogy on the basis that I don't remember a single thing from the Gears of War Trilogy, and you should be happy to know that I still don't know what the fuck happened in the Gears of War Trilogy. I started with the first one, naturally, and was confuddled the whole way through. It wasn't until the second one where I got a clear sense of the plot and backstory. In a way the second game feels like the introduction to the series. It properly introduces the characters. The threat and the goal to subdue it is clear and makes logical sense. I still don't remember a thing from Gears of War 2, but I remember it doing at least a minimally decent job at telling a story. 

It seems most of what I like from the Gears of War Trilogy really just stems from the second one, and both one and three feel like worst versions of the second one. Gears of War 2 is almost perfect in its gameplay. As a cover based shooter, the layouts are great. The enemies are aggressive but not unfair.  The variety in set pieces are some of my favorite I've seen in a shooter. Things like getting ingested by a giant worm, building hopping to avoid mortars, and traversing through razor sharp hail are stand outs and are one of the few parts of the series that I find memorable. On the contrary, Gears 1 has some cool set pieces. But because it is the first in the series, it feels a bit jank, and the difficulty isn't as finally tuned as its sequel. Meanwhile, Gears 3 is desperately trying to stand out in every way it can but simply doesn't stick the landing. The set pieces are kind of dull to the point that I didn't even finish this one on my recent playthrough. It probably stems from the more lax difficulty which makes the game more of a chore than an engaging challenge. 

Gears 3 also throws in way too many super enemies for my taste. Most of whom carry weapons that one shot you forcing you to have your ally reviving you every thirty seconds or so. Gears 2 did a much better job with its super enemies where each one does something that mixes up the gameplay. Although admittedly, they are some variation of "fall back or else you'll get brutally murdered."

I think I ran out of stuff to say on these games. Kind of an indictment that despite covering three whole games, I only managed to pass five hundred words. But hey, I had fun. I mean, where else can you chain saw aliens? Only in Gears of War. I would suggest just playing the second one. The other two can be skipped. 

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game

This review shouldn't take a while if only because the game itself didn't take awhile. 

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game (or Scott Pilgrim for brevity) is fine. I don't think it has the meat and potatoes of the movie or graphic novels. It is an arcade adaption after all. And like any arcade adaptation, you are getting the assets and levels themed around Scott Pilgrim. There's not much to it other than that. 

For what it's worth, the game feels like a worthy adaption of the source material at least compared to other tie-in games that have historically been beyond terrible. I guess it should also be a good sign that the only major problem I have with this game was that I wish there more of it. I wanted more levels. I want more complexity from the RPG elements. 

Now, I am definitely asking too much from this game, especially considering the turbulent development history. I guess unlike games like Turtles in Time, Scott Pilgrim feels like it is on the verge of a more evolved version of the beat 'em up genre. You have characters with very diverse move sets. There are the aforementioned RPG elements where you can buy stat upgrades which are required if you want to have a reasonable chance at progressing through the game. 

The problem is that the game doesn't do much with those mechanics. The diverse mechanics are great, but the enemies don't react in any differently. They either get hit or don't get hit. The game doesn't react differently to your moves other than combo potentials. 

The RPG elements, while fun, are quite barebones. The most they do is alter the difficulty. And unfortunately, it isn't super balanced. Buy too little stat upgrades, and the game becomes tediously difficult. Buy too many, and the game becomes too easy. 

Still, the game is still fun. It's comparable to a Rice Krispy treat. It's sweet and tasty, but it is gone before you know it. I guess buy it at a discount. 

Bloodborne PSX 

Another Rice Krispy type game. This time, it is a fan made de-make of Bloodborne which has made the rounds on the Internet this year. 

Like Scott Pilgrim, there is not much to say. It's Bloodborne but with the graphics, sound palette, and design conventions of a PS1 era video game. I guess one thing worth noting is how it emulates the jank of a PS1 era game without going too overboard. I was surprised by how well the game controls. And while the camera, finicky lock-on, and lack of draw distance were a nuisance, it wasn't to the point where it drove me up the wall. 

Overall, it is just Bloodborne. But hey, that is probably the nicest thing you can say for a game like this. A fan made project is able to create the same atmosphere and pacing of one of the greatest AAA games of the last generation. For that alone, it is one of my favorite fan games ever right up alongside AM2R and Black Mesa. 

The Cuphead Show

I really wanna play some Cuphead. Unfortunately, I am trying to restrain myself since I want to play with the new DLC that is coming out later this month. So now, I am blue balling myself trying not to cave into my Cuphead cravings. 

Thankfully, Netflix seems to sympathize with that pain and oblige to hold us over with a TV rendition of the Cuphead characters. 

Like everything else here, I don't have much to say. Actually, I think a more accurate statement would be to say I don't have much nice to say about the Cuphead Show. It's not a good start when my first thought when I look back was the show was "thankfully short."

For a game that's fast paced, filled with personality, and even containing a slight edge, the Cuphead Show doesn't really have any of that. It's comparable to the Super Mario Super Show or video games shows from that era. It has all the assets and such, but it is completely its own thing. Maybe that was the point, but it neglected to address the reality that shows like Super Mario Super Show were absolutely terrible. And unlike Super Mario Super Show, there isn't the redeeming quality that the cringe and dated animation that gave the show an ironic draw. 

Horizon Zero Dawn

You know, the more I think about it, the more I realized that I have more to say on this game. Ugh, I am going to have to full review this one, aren't I? 

Alright stay tune where I talk about...ugh this game....