I give the game an 8. I don’t see much replayability in it, and the multiplayer offering is severely gimped. It’s a really, really good game, but if I subscribed to Gamefly, I’d have rented it instead of bought it.
Now, an 8, you say. Why? The controls are still clunky and the menus aren’t easy to rummage through. Because they tried to throw multiplayer in and didn’t do it right, I can’t give it a 9 or 10.
That’s the best thing about this game so far (aside from it’s awesomeness) in comparison to GTAIV. You can take as many sidequests as you want and you can do them at your leisure. And there’s no endless cellphone calls and trying to keep people happy by playing darts for the fifty millionth time.
Finally picked it up. Agree that the horse riding is a bit awkward, the first time I rode in a race I went galloping straight off a cliff. From Assassin’s Creed 1 & 2 and Oblivion I’m used to horses stopping when I stop pushing buttons, so controlling the speed somewhat offended my gaming sensibilities.
Overall it reminds me more of Far Cry 2 than it does GTAIV, lots of travelling in open empty wilderness where things want to kill you. The random encounters are a nice addition, if a bit quick and chaotic - in the space of seconds you have to ascertain what’s going on, decide how to react and then act upon it (and with somewhat clunky controls - I wish the weapon wheel paused the game, something I’ve got used to from Mass Effect 1 & 2). By the time you’ve got your bearings whoever you were meant to save is probably dead. In one instance in Armadillo a bunch of guys on horseback rode through town shooting; naturally I filled them full of lead but was horrified to find that my honour meter went down. Gunning them down anyway, Marston then says “I wasn’t gonna let them terrorise this town,” so I must have been doing the right thing but accidentally hit a civilian.
The honour system is also interesting, but from an RP point of view it makes no sense to be a psycho, as in the cut-scenes he always seems like a good guy.
The weapon wheel can get irritating no doubt. Trying to switch from a pistol to a rifle in the midst of a gun fight is infuriating, or going to target someone at the start of a fight and discovering you still have your lasso or knife equipped. A quick tip is that if you press start and pause the game and go into your weapon inventory you can click on what weapon you want and Marston will automatically draw that weapon when you unpause.
One of my first random encounters was right outside Armadillo and two men were chasing a third, yelling at him and firing their pistols. Without thinking I drew my rifle and gunned down the two men. Imagine my surprise when the game informs me immediately that I’ve incurred a bounty on my head for two counts of murder. The third man thanks and congratulates me for killing two lawmen. He dies a half a second later. I walk over and inspect the first two men and discover they have badges on their chests. Oops. :smack:
Thanks for the tip, I rarely have my knife equipped but it’s annoying to get into a fight straight after a bounty take to pull out your lasso like a prat.
Must say now that I have some better weapons I’m finding thinks a lot easier; bought myself a bolt-action rifle which seems a million times superior to my Springfield or repeaters, and a semi-auto shotgun which dominates at close range. Still using a Schofield pistol, haven’t been able to find anything better yet. I’m longing for a sniper rifle to take down the guards of bounties so I can move in and lasso him alone. Taking bounties alive is a real pain. In the previews they made a big thing of how you could cripple to make hogtying easier, but on my first bounty I shot the guy through both knee caps only for him to get back up and start shooting!
Ha, I’ve literally just had that one now in Mexico. The guy they were chasing comes up to me and says “Hey, you don’t like the federales either eh?” Reload!
Weirdly I had a similar encounter earlier where two men appeared to be executing a third on his knees by the roadside. I shot one of the apparent aggressors only to get a bounty, but my honour increased. Shooting the second cleared my bounty and raised my honour to ‘hero’, while the guy on his knees ran off. Very odd stuff. Presumably they were corrupt cops or something?
And just got another where a guy asked for help then tried to nick my horse, ha! These random encounters are almost more entertaining than the main story.
Have you encountered De Santa yet? You can find one in the “Empty Promises” mission given by him, according to the wiki.
Ah, yes I’ve met him but only done one mission for him. Thought it might be a mission type thing since I couldn’t find one in a gun shop. I wondered where the hell my lasso was until Bonnie gave us one. Thanks for the info, I’ll make him a priority.
To update on my DLC thing from earlier - I am retarded. Those were MOVIES, to DESCRIBE multiplayer, not multiplayer patches or whatever. 1000 :smack:s for me
Love this game. Bought it yesterday morning and played straight till three at night. Couple of things that bug me:
- Can’t open the map without pausing the game first
- The weapon wheel is a pain, but pausing first is annoying
- There’s so much detail that it sometimes hard to see what’s going on. I have a 50" plasma, but I regularly need to strain my eyes to target something.
- Can I only chase one bounty at the same time?
Apart from that, this game is genius. The voice acting is the best I heard in any game, the characters emote really well with sometimes very suble facial expressions. I was in awe when Marshal starting telling of his past for the first time: his expression dropped, he looked away, took a deep breath (I swear I saw his chest move) and started the story. Sometimes I even forget I’m playing a game.
Most of the damn horses in this game deserve to be sent to the glue factory. I have to get a white stallion for a stranger’s quest, but the stupid bloody animals keep hurling themselves off cliffs and into rivers before I can tame them. Then my own horse knocked me into the fecking river where Marston’s super drowning skills came into play.
How are you supposed to lasso horses properly? I LT to draw the lasso then RT to throw it, holding both triggers. But the stupid animals run to their death regardless, and I can’t move with something lassoed without un-lassoing it.
It’s a good game, but the controls are a real PITA.
Edit: Never mind, nicked one instead. GTH!
Wait for the DRAW signal. Pull left trigger to draw your gun.
Use right joystick to target areas, when you want to shoot an area, pull the right trigger. The more vulnerable the area, the higher the meter goes. If you only target the legs, it goes up by small notches. If you target the head, it goes up 50%. Torso shots are decent. You can also disarm people by aiming at the arm/hand/gun (not sure).
I thought that the lassoing could have been explained a bit better, too, but it seems I do it:
- hold LT to aim, press RT to throw the lasso
- assuming you get a hit, keep holding LT for all steps below
- press Y to dismount your horse, quickly move to your lassoed target
- press Y to hogtie target or mount horse for breaking
I’ve been really enjoying the game on my PS3; however I can’t be the only one who thinks that Rockstar needs to hire the developers from Ubisoft (Assassin’s Creed II) to design video game controls.
Thanks, I got it for bounty targets, but horses don’t seem to want to know.
The game is equal parts satisfaction and frustration. Frustration at bumping into a copper thanks to crappy controls and getting a bounty on your head at the end of a $600 bounty take. Or at the five-finger fillets; the third round in Torquemada is impossible. Satisfaction at the gunplay and story, particularly the jaunt in Mexico; hogtying, beating the hell out of and then executing the snivelling backstabber De Santa, finally tracking down Escuella, blowing the hell out of government forces then finding Williamson and the Colonel, and putting a bullet in both of their heads. Ha!
As I don’t know how to type the spoiler thing, don’t read the following if you don’t want a SPOILER:
[spoiler]
Is there any way J.M. can make it at the end (when he exits the barn) or is bullet time always insufficient?
I read the newspaper at the end and it said that Edgar Ross (one of the agents) had retired in a cabin by lake Don Julio in Cholla Springs. I know of only one cabin there. I went there at different times during the day and found no one. Is he ever there?[/spoiler]
I’m a few missions off the end. I’ve done 50 missions.
I loved it. Basically spent 25hrs split over two days playing it.
Yeah there are annoyances with some of the controls etc. but overall it’s one of the best single player games I’ve played. The world is amazingly cool. I just enjoy riding around it.
The look, sound and feel are all right. It’s Rockstar’s most accomplished game IMO.
I wish they’d have got an actually Irish person to play Irish as the accent was one of the worst I’ve ever heard but even that didn’t really annoy me too much. Great game over all and I will be replaying it soon I reckon.
Now excuse me while I go hunting bear.
If you quote someone else’s spoiler, you’ll be able to see how they format it. Please do so, I couldn’t click away fast enough.
I reported it to get a spolier tag added to the post.
As to the end. MichaelEmouse you may be interested in this …
After John dies and you come back as Jack years later there should be a ? on the map. Go to that and you can start getting your revenge
This game is very enjoyable. I wholeheartedly recommend it.
I love the attention to detail, too. Very mild spoiler below:
I was riding behind this guy and all the sudden, he dismounted. I was getting ready for a fight, since he looked like he was up to no good. He then headed towards the bushes and took a piss. I’ve seen him again since, but the first time was just gold.