Battle for My Gaming Heart: The Last of Us vs Horizon: Zero Dawn
Remember when I said that Horizon Zero Dawn was my favorite game of all time and it wasn't close? Yea, about that...
I was gifted The Last of Us years ago but I got stuck in Pittsburgh and put it down for awhile. Then I went on Christmas vacation and a cousin had it, played through it and got stuck in the same place. In a wave of boredom and a groove with single player games after finishing Uncharted series, I finally decided to power through and finish TLOU.
I was always in love with the story. I've seen the cutscene movie and full walkthrough videos at least 10 times. But there is nothing like being the one in control of the story of Joel and Ellie. So when I finally got past Pittsburgh and union of Henry and Sam (my favorite part) and the emotions felt from their story, that feeling I felt from that moment reminded me why I fell in love with TLOU. It wasn't the first emotional moment in TLOU, but its up there and Naughty Dog is able to get in at least one highly emotional moment in each act. The Last of Us is why video games of its ilk should be considered an art.
So I got to thinking about how I really feel about TLOU and if I ranked it over Horizon.
Horizon is an open world game with a great story, intense combat, compelling story with challenging side quests with some NPCs that leave a lasting impression (Vanasha is bae btw). It weaves in bits of audio and text that explains the world of the Old Ones in its final days and the feeling of humanity losing hope comes across well. The combat is intense and hard. No matter what strategy you used before, you're not guaranteed that it'll work again due to the landscape or amount of surrounding machines. I continuously raved to anyone that would listen to me on how Horizon should have been Game of the Year for 2017 and still maintain that it should be.
TLOU is a linear game that starts with a highly emotional moment and pulls at the heartstrings ever so often and tests your humanity as you traverse cross country. It sprinkles little notes in places that details things that happened around the initial outbreak and life after. Some notes tell of families split apart and people making hard decisions. The combat is more tense and reliant on stealth and planning unless its a situation where a hoard of infected have a fix on your position then the intensity is ramped up by 100 because dying is gruesome and terrifying no matter how many times you play through it.
Both main stories are great. Both expansions build upon what the main stories has done. Both are works of art. I want it all so both can be number 1 but who is 1A and 1B?
1A: Horizon: Zero Dawn
1B: The Last of Us
The deciding factor for me is the open world of Horizon and the how they use the space to tell the story of Horizon and the varied combat scenarios. Then how the story plays out as each large are starts to mold what exactly is going on in the world. That first play through where you're slowly piecing the world together gives it the slightest of edge over TLOU. I can't wait for the sequels to both these titles and I'm sure I'll be having this fight with those two in the future.