Did Guerilla fail to cement Horizon's place among gaming's elite?

We all know Sony, and by extension, Sony fans, live and die by Meteoritic scores (as evidence by Days Gone getting the axe for failing to meet Sony's minimum of 80).

Horizon Forbidden West is coming out tomorrow and missed the 90 mark by a hair, scoring the same as its predecessor.

It seems it'll forever remain in that second tier of very good (albeit not great) games instead of joining the ranks of games like BOTW, TW3, Bloodborne, Super Mario, GOW, Forza etc.

Will this perception change once the games hit the shelves or is it doomed to wallow in that state of limbo with games that fall just short of greatness?

I can honestly say that I don't care if it hits greatness by the masses or not. I enjoyed the first one and I anticipate I will enjoy the sequel. Gamers opinion on games tend to be all over the place and too much group. Folks still sub to nonsense like greatest game ever and place value to GOTY.

In a nutshell, if I enjoy the game, then it is great to me and that is all that matters. Me selfish.😎

I want to like this series because the setting and story are interesting. But the game just turns into a hiding in the grass simulator, with some AC/Batman combat and traversal. The gameplay loop feels stale right from the jump. It's too bad. The games look great though! I'll probably play more of the first and then get the new game when my backlog empties out a little.

😄

Its simply not good enough to be with the others. Horizon is a blockbuster, while something like GoW or BB is a masterpiece.

It’s so bizarre that cows are going ballistic just because this game didn’t hit a 90 on Metacritic yet here we are. Oh what a world. 😅

It's probably not going to be considered elite but, it's undoubtedly an amazing game. An 89 still makes it an A tier game. That's quite a feat considering the only other open world games that score higher are basically just anything Rockstar, Zelda and The Witcher.

It happens when your gaming experience is dictated by others.😂

Hopefully it’ll garner enough of a Twitch audience to save it from mediocrity. 😂

That is golden.😉

I see what you did there. 🤣🤣🤣

I saw people losing their minds over sites scoring it a 7/10 and FH5 a 10/10 as if 1. They were comparable at all. 2. Forza wasn't great in its own right, and 3. Opinions couldn't differ.

It is silly. If you are not into racing games then FH5 scoring or even being at 92 on MC is irrelevant.

@goldenelementxl said:

@Archangel3371 said:

@Pedro said:

@Archangel3371 said:

Hopefully it’ll garner enough of a Twitch audience to save it from mediocrity. 😂

That is golden.😉

I see what you did there. 🤣🤣🤣

😂

Game will be awesome at 89 or 99, just like Killzones were awesome. Though I do prefer Killzone.

Even if it's an improvement over the original.... 89 is almost certainly higher then what I will rate it.

I guess I should read some reviews ...

you need to check yourself. BoTW isn't second tier, its a 97 on metacritic, literally masterpiece territory. Nothing on the playstation compares. The closest is tlou1.

Forza Horizon 5 is also a perennial 1st tier game. It is a masterpiece as far as arcade racers go with a rating of 92.

Read my post a second time. This time though, try to understand the words.

yes i misread :D. Either way, its fine, people should know what real masterpieces are.

You know what's really sad?

People scoring it that "low" are probably getting death threats from fans.

They do. Same happened with GTA V. Some reviewers had the nerves to score it a 7/10. How dare you score a game I haven't played above average! Die you heathen!!!

Well, Sony should establish some more publications to award their games 10/10. Easy peasy!

Well according to the scores at metacritic, HZD FW is a better game then halo infi😂

@daredevils2k: Copium

Lmfao at “missing greatness” due to it not getting a 90 score. This is what’s wrong with gamers. This addiction to other peoples opinions/ scores. Much like GOTY awards, they’re nonsense.

It did well, but most early gen games get forgotten in time. They can still make a sequel. Honestly though the studio is making better performing games critically and commercially than their time with Killzone, but I'd like to see them take another crack at that myself. At very least though Sony should be happy and that's good for Guerrilla.

All the games you listed are meh anyway.

BOTW is considered 'elite', but yet I enjoyed Horizon: Zero Dawn more. So, what does any of this shit matter? If the game is good, play it, enjoy it, never mind the bullshit.

All I know is Sony got 70 bucks from before the first reviews came out

I liked the first one a lot but absolutely loved GOW and Bloodborne. It's not really in the same class. In fact I still have my PS5 and I'm not in any hurry to rush out and get it but will if the price drops and I haven't sold the PS5.

I think Pedro's wild totally out there idea of just deciding for yourself what you should like or not like might be worth looking into.

Seems like the first game was a pretty big deal, and I suspect this one will be too.

If some people really want to split hairs and say these are elite at 90+ ...

• God of War 2018
• The Last of Us Part II
• Uncharted 4
• Demon's Souls Remake
• Shadow of the Colossus Remake
• Astro Bot Rescue Mission

And also want to split hairs and say these are very close to elite at 89 ...

• Horizon Zero Dawn
• Horizon Forbidden West

I'm fine with that.

Give those elite games a try if you like the genres , and work your way down from there. Greatness awaits.

@Juub1990: No.

89 metacritic is a stellar score. Y'all putting too much weight into reviews.

They are doomed and will never be looked at the same way again

I haven't played the sequel, like many others so it's tough to say. I will say that I was hoping they'd pull an Assassin's Creed 2 with it, where they elevate just about every idea from the first game into something of a fully realized vision.

It would seem many reviewers enjoyed the game quite a bit... How the gamers remember it, and the potential of the series still remains to be seen.

I did really like Horizon 1. I liked Alloy and I thought her big ridiculous story was fun.

I really don't care and all you gamers need to know is, I for one still looking forward playing HFW and couldn't careless about MC or any game for that matter.

But lets be real. Horizon is doing its own thing, and if the game is good, than that's all that matters in the end.

They failed cows expectations, judging by the reaction to a GS 8 and s 89 meta.

Chill out bitches,your games aren't exclusive anymore and will run,look and probably score higher on another platform

OOOOOF

The game is getting great reviews, and will most likely get great sales. Doesn't sound like Guerilla failed anything. But I think the game is too derivative to "join the greats" as you say. It's basically Assassin's Creed in a slightly different format, while BotW, Bloodborne, Super Mario, etc. is their own thing.

Sony has always had mediocre to average games. It's just how they operate. Their best games are basically never better than an 8/10. Even Bloodborne, that should be a 9/10 game, is at most an 8/10, since it runs like ass. Sony is a very boring company in that sense. Like vanilla ice cream. Works, but there's better shit.

Horizon didn't fail at all lol.

its not a GOTY winner like Uncharted 4.

Its not a GOTG contender like God of War

it certainly isn't a GOTD/GOTG winner like The Last of Us 1 & 2 in their respective decades and generations.

Nor will it go down in history like Halo for the XBOX or Zelda BOTW for the Switch.

But its a superb game, just shy of 90 on MC, will be nominated for GOTY (but of course it won't win because of Elden Ring)

I am sure if it released in 2021 or 2014 it would have been GOTY, those were two shitty years lol.

I got HZD going on PS5 and Alien Isolation on Series X. Playing more of Alien at moment, with Elden Ring and cyberpunk to come it will be a while before I get to this game.

So hooked on Alien at the moment, its a great game.

it's a great game. not quite top tier but not far off. it is the only game made from the ubisoft mould that i've enjoyed from start to finish. a whisker off a 90 mc is roundabout where it belongs

You summed up my feelings of the first game perfectly. The gameplay loop gets very repetitive no matter how much I want to enjoy the game. The setting and story seem amazing but hiding in the grass and just watching robots follow a highlighted trail gets stale really quickly for me. I will give the first game a fourth attempt of clicking with me after I play some of the other games I have lined up to play.

@Mozelleple112: 2021 was a terrible terrible year and theres no understating that. But for gaming, it was actually solid. Only for cows was it a shit gaming year, and frankly speaking, cows don't matter.

Who is the "gaming "ELITE" " ?

Just dropped to 88.

Not just Sony's. Fanboys in general care more about scores than the actual games. There's obviously no difference between an 8.9 and a 9, but for them and their lack of analytical thinking, that 0.1 means the world.

As for Forbidden West, i'm f***ing loving it so far. Gameplay, graphics and story, as we all know are great, but i particularly love how it handles exploration. If we want there are no more pointers everywhere or checklist stuff like in the first game or Ubisoft stuff. Instead we blindly explore based on what our eyes see and find interesting at the distance, like in the good old RPGs.