Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores - The Sound of Sylens (RIP Lance)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores - The Sound of Sylens (RIP Lance)

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

That's an anagram for... phat damnation

# ¿ Jan 20, 2022 01:30

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 11:02

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

There's this novel, Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, that is about long-abandoned terraforming projects going haywire (specifically one of them where a race of gene-modded spiders becomes sentient and builds a civilisation, it's cool as hell). Anyway there's this part where a human ship visits one of the failed projects, which overlaps with Horizon in a neat way; it presents one of the scenarios where you'd need Hades to step in, which might be what's happening with that red weed in the new game. Anyway:

Tchaikovsky, Adrian. Children of Time. Pan Macmillan UK, 2015 posted:

�As you know, I have been overseeing a survey of the planet that we are currently in orbit around. It seems unarguable now,� and she was good enough to throw a tiny nod Holsten�s way, �that we have arrived at one of a string of terraforming projects that the Old Empire was pursuing immediately before its dissolution. The previous project we saw was complete, and under a quarantine imposed for unknown purposes by an advanced satellite. As we are discovering, work at our current location appears to have been arrested during the terraforming process itself, and the control facility abandoned. I am aware that Engineering has been undertaking the formidable task of investigating that facility, whilst I have been investigating the planet itself to see if it might serve us in any fashion as a home.�

There was nothing in this clipped, dry delivery to give any clue as to her conclusions, if conclusions there were. This was not showmanship or a desire for suspense, simply that Vitas considered herself a pure scientist first and foremost, and would report positive and negative results with equal candour without judging the value or desirability of the outcome. Holsten was familiar with that particular academic school, which had grown more and more popular towards the end on Earth, as positive results became harder to find.

Vitas looked out over the gathering, and Holsten tried to interpret her expression, her body language, anything to get an idea of where this was going. Do we stay here? Are we heading onwards? Are we going back? That last possibility was his major concern, for he was one of the very small number who had first-hand experience of Kern�s green world.

The screen brightened, grey to grey to grey, and then there was the curve of a dark horizon, and they were now looking at the grey planet.

�As you�ll have remarked, the surface of this planet seems curiously uniform. Spectrographic analysis, however, shows abundant organic chemistry: all the elements we might need to survive,� Vitas told them. �We dropped a pair of drones as soon as we had established a high orbit. The images that you will be seeing are all taken from drone camera. The colours are the true colours, with no touching-up or artistic licence.�

Holsten wasn�t seeing any colours, unless grey counted, but as sunrise crept across the orb displayed before him he saw contours, shadows: indications of mountains, basins, channels.

�As you can see, this planet is geologically active, which may have been a prerequisite for the Empire�s terraforming. We don�t know whether this is simply because, of all the Earth-like qualities they wished to find in a new world, that would be the most difficult to fabricate � perhaps outright impossible � or alternatively that they have, indeed, instilled that quality into the planet at an early stage. Hopefully the recovered information from the station will give us an idea of how they went about the process. It is within the bounds of possibility that one day we ourselves may be able to duplicate the feat.� And there was at least a hint there that Vitas was feeling a little excited by the thought. Holsten was sure her voice lifted a semitone, that one of her eyebrows even twitched.

�You can see here the drone readings of the basic conditions planetside,� Vitas continued. �So: gravity around eighty per cent of Earth�s, a slow rotation giving around a four-hundred-hour diurnal cycle. Temperature is high, bearable around the poles, survivable in northern latitudes, but probably not within human tolerance towards the equator. You�ll note that oxygen levels are only around five per cent, so no easy home here, I�m afraid. A salutary lesson nonetheless, as you will see.�

The image shifted to a much closer view of the surface, with the drones flying far lower, and a ripple went through the audience; one of bafflement, disquiet. The grey was alive.

The entire surface, as far as the drone camera could register, was covered in a dense interlaced vegetation, grey as ashes. It feathered out into fern-like fronds that arched over each other, spreading hand-like folds to catch the sunlight. It erupted into phallic towers that were warty with buds or fruiting bodies. It covered the mountains to their very tips. It formed a thick, grey fur on every visible surface. The image shifted, and shifted, and Vitas noted different locations, with an inset global map showing where the views were taken from. The details of the view, however, barely changed.

�What you are looking at is best thought of as a fungus,� the science chief explained. �This solitary species has colonized the entire planet, pole to pole and at every altitude. Scans of the underlying ground � as overlain here � show that the actual topography of the planet is as varied as one might expect of a substitute Earth � there are sea basins but no seas, river valleys but no rivers. Investigation suggests that there is a planet�s worth of water bound up in that organism you see before you. And it may even be a single organism. There�s no obvious division observable. It appears capable of some manner of photosynthesis, despite the colour, but the low oxygen levels suggest this is chemically distinct from anything we�re familiar with. It�s not known whether this pervasive species is somehow an intended part of the terraforming process, or if it was the result of an error, and its irremovable presence led the engineers to abandon their work, or whether it has arisen after that abandonment � the natural by-product of a part-completed job. In any event, I think it safe to say that the stuff is there to stay. This is now its world.�

�Can it be cleared?� someone asked. �Can we burn it back, or something?�

Vitas�s outward calm had at last been ruffled. �Good luck burning anything with that little oxygen,� she tutted. �Besides, I am recommending no further investigation of this planet. By the time we had established the position down there, and conducted some exploratory research, the drones were beginning to show signs of reduced functionality. We kept them going for as long as we were able, but both of them eventually ceased working altogether. The air down there is virtually a spore soup, new fungal colonies looking to sprout on any fresh surface that becomes exposed. Which reminds me, with all the excitement within this system and the last, we need to construct more drones in the workshops once the resources are available. We have very few of them left.�

# ¿ Jan 20, 2022 09:23

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

Oh it's good as hell. There's a sequel, not as good but I'd say it's worth a read too.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2022 11:47

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

Sylens would give his right arm to be able to talk to you, an idiot goon, for a couple hours

# ¿ Jan 23, 2022 01:16

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

GWENT CONFIRMED :siren:

# ¿ Jan 25, 2022 10:04

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

Apparently there is a leaked review from a Chinese site that claims there's a flying mount in the new game.

The spoilered text is not a plot thing, just a cool mechanics thing.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2022 02:15

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

Plotwise? No. Frozen Wilds is self-contained. There's some cool stuff in it, and Aloy learns a bit about the old world, and even meets an AI! A fairly simple one, but still. It introduces a some new characters, but I haven't seen any of them in the previews or anything.

It's fun for its own sake, but not essential. Also it's hard as gently caress, so if you're worried about Open World burnout you might want to skip it for now.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2022 07:22

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

JBP posted:

Ted pours out, dead as a doornail.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2022 23:18

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

Some dude will step off the spaceship, fire an arrow through like twenty axeheads, and then turn to Aloy and say "See? It's really me!"

# ¿ Feb 17, 2022 01:05

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

edit: nvm

# ¿ Feb 17, 2022 13:15

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

Everything in the PS5 version loads fast as gently caress except for the workbenches and sometimes the stash, which take like 3 seconds of black screen

# ¿ Feb 22, 2022 04:20

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

Madurai posted:

Four days into this and I'm still not sure what Purgewater is supposed to be, or how exactly it works in-game.

Well it's already running on the Decima engine, so it was trivial to port over some of the tools from Death Stranding

# ¿ Feb 22, 2022 06:27

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

Hollismason posted:

How hard is the game? I'm not really a gamer this will be my first game since Ghost of Tsushima

It's... quite difficult. I'm getting two-shot by basic enemies, sometimes in a single combo. Playing on Hard (difficulty 4 of 5), but still, they're only the basic fodder robots. There is a Story difficulty, if you want to take things easy.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2022 01:48

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

I first tried out Braced Shot on that one early hunting quest where you kill a special fanghorn in the flower fields just outside the Daunt. It�s like an actual gun.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2022 07:32

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

Man Widemaw tusks are a real pain to get

# ¿ Feb 23, 2022 12:47

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

I've also got the perma-notification on the Collectables tab, annoying as hell

# ¿ Feb 23, 2022 23:04

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

The first one I found was in Plainsong

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 02:50

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

Please someone tell me where the first face-painter is, I feel naked

# ¿ Feb 24, 2022 11:52

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

You need to keep going til you've depopulated the map

# ¿ Feb 28, 2022 09:23

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

Yeah it's like 15 shards per lens. Nice views I guess.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2022 05:27

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

gently caress the Thornmarsh pit-master

Luckily the game doesn't stop you from filling the arena with purgewater mines before the fight starts

# ¿ Jun 6, 2022 01:39

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

No, I did that one legit. Thornmarsh is the guy with the shield, and the counterattack, and the 500-damage command grab.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2022 02:33

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

Man First Forge is probably the shittiest quest in the entire series. At least I got a cool bow out of it.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2022 09:28

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

Just got through Gemini; Tilde looks like a PS5

# ¿ Jul 4, 2022 15:05

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

Stand way the hell back and use the gauntlet from a safe distance. As it flies, it sorta swerves toward you, but you gotta give it room to do so

# ¿ Nov 11, 2022 21:36

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

Are you sure? I remember Hades mentioning it had done its job and re-killed the biosphere once or twice, but from the dates given it seemed like it happened early in the process, more like Gaia screwing up the initial mix of bacteria than anything serious.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2022 08:26

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

Endless Trash posted:

If my apartment is not perfectly rendered in Burning Shores it will be an abject failure of a DLC

Aloy: �Hmm� the carpet in here is as hard as steel, but brittle� maybe I could shatter it with my Igniter?�

# ¿ Feb 11, 2023 01:03

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

The problem with the Tenakth is you meet the desert clan first, and they have both the worst personalities and the worst style

Edit: I loving love the teal-and-burgundy birdman aesthetics of the mountain clan

Kazzah fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Apr 13, 2023

# ¿ Apr 13, 2023 03:22

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

Kazzah posted:

gently caress the Thornmarsh pit-master

Luckily the game doesn't stop you from filling the arena with purgewater mines before the fight starts

They may have patched this, but a year ago you could cheese him with mines.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2023 08:51

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

I spent the evening just sort of wandering around the northern edge of the map, looking through all the ruined houses and enjoying the sights. I�m sticking with my policy from the base game of never fast-travelling. It gives the map more of an identity, and it makes things like the Sunwing feel really transformational. Very nice time. Back to questing tomorrow.

On the sea floor in the northwest, just east of the two half-submerged tower blocks, there�s a Quen shipwreck with a functional ballista at the bottom. Tragically I fired the bolt off at nothing, and so I missed the opportunity to use it on what I think is a scripted Tideripper that shows up.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2023 14:38

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

Olothreutes posted:

Also gently caress the Utaru hunting grounds, which I just remembered wants you to silent strike kill a certain number of enemies to death but in very/ultra hard said machines have enough health to survive a fully boosted hit.

Maybe I should also use smoke bombs.

That one's beatable (on regular-hard, anyway) if you use grapple-boosts to do the falling-strike move on them. Which, funnily enough, is also the final challenge for that ground, so you basically just end up doing that twice.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2023 00:46

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

I could swear I remember a one-off line about how at least the post-ZD humans wouldn't have to worry about infectious diseases. Presumably some new ones have developed in the past 700 years, though.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2024 00:37

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

I don't know what I expected out of the PC release, but it deffo wasn't the rise of the Gauntlet Gang

# ¿ Apr 11, 2024 04:10

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 11:02

Kazzah: Jul 15, 2011; Formerly known as
Krazyface; Hair Elf

I get the impression that the education given to the first gen of zero-dawn babies, basic and inadequate as it was, at least taught tolerance and acceptance.

And, well, I can understand the devs being unwilling to go within ten feet of the question of whether widespread racism, sexism, and homophobia arose from the material conditions of caveman societies, or feudalism, or from religions, or are some sort of human default; we�re makin a robo-dino hunting game here.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 00:31

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