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HORIZON ZERO DAWN

disable all the hud shit and notch up the difficulty and this hits the middleground between canadien lobotomy and passable action reasonably well. dont think id lay my life on the line for its reputation, but at great distance from all the console war fanfare (and at 10 bones) im not too proud to admit i can enjoy killing some technosaurs despite all the clumsy filmic bits and white folks with dreads

really tho, the best use case for software like this is time travel. you turn it on, you gather some herbs and spices, you craft some shit, and you exit the other side of the focus test vortex having effortlessly carved a few hours out of a slow day. this isn't really a criticism; games like far cry 3 are ennui generators in comparison so there must be a level of craft involved in finding the sweet spot where your brain's active enough to avoid autopiloting into WatchMojo Top 1,000,000,000 Most Embarrassing Things You Ever Did. I am safe and sound, my brain humming lowly and sweetly. I fire the bow at the glowy bit and stave off thoughts of material hauntings like tooth decay and cognitive decline for 109 minutes

very cute that this is the medium's idea of "Prestige Shit"; sometimes I think the people who make t hese things don't really like videogames OR movies. but hey, I made it to 5:45PM