DEVELOPER: Rockstar
Played on: PS3
Initial impression: Grand Theft Stagecoach!
Liked:
- Story (so far, approx 3/4 done)
- Environment
- Attention to detail
- Multiplayer
Disliked:
- Occasional control issues
- Cheap kills
- Lock-ups
On The Fence:
- A specific side quest chain whose ending is unresolved (spoiler alert)
It's 1911 in Texas, just outside of the town of Armadillo (that's what they call it!). You're John Marston, a former bandit reformed and content to leave his former life behind. Unfortunately the rest of your band is still at large. The US government wants them taken care of - by you. Before you can say "screw you" they've taken your family hostage. Yeah, you read that right. The government is holding your wife and child ransom to the tune of "kill your former gang members" for them. At the start you ride off from Amarillo with a guide to confront the second-in-command of your old gang. That meeting doesn't go so well, to say the least. You spend the next 2/3rds of the game hunting him down through the expansive wilds of Texas and into Mexico. Just when things seem like they're turning in your favor, you get screwed over. Again and again.
To call this game Grand Theft Stagecoach is only half-joking. It's obviously built off the exact same engine as GTA4, giving similarities to the way Marston handles when walking and even shooting. A nice addition is "Dead Eye" - think Bullet Time in sepia tones. It allows you to slow down time to take aim and mark your targets. At first the game will mark targets for you as you sweep the reticle over anything you can shoot. Later on you have to learn to paint targets yourself. This took some getting used to as it's about 1/3 in where they make the switch.
When I say attention to detail, I mean it. Towns look wind-whipped and dusty. Shady cheats at the poker table look shady. The majority of the game is about the wilderness and it looks believable from a romanticized Western view. Some places suffer from "obvious wall" syndrome, where a plateau is made very steep in order to keep you on a set path. Fortunately these aren't all too plentiful.
Multiplayer lets you get together with other real people to storm bandit camps among other fun things. I like just riding around, really. You have the entire world unlocked in MP, so go wherever you'd like! I also like that there's a private instance version if you don't want to get ganked by griefers over and over. And you will find those people out there, trust me.
Marsten can't swim, so water equals instant death. The horse can be a pain in the ass to turn around, especially when near the bank of a river. I've taken about a dozen fatal plunges into a stream because I couldn't get the horse to wheel around. I've also suffered at the claws and teeth of the cheapest enemy creature in existance - the cougar. These bastards are one-shot killers that sneak in the underbrush. Chances are if you are discovered by them while on horseback, the horse WILL be instantly killed, while you'll be knocked to near-death. You have one chance to pop into Dead Eye, get a bead on that cat's head and fill it full of lead.
I've only experienced a lockup at the end of one specific quest. The first time the game just sat there. Horses were flailing their tails. Birds were soaring above. Nothing was happening. This went on for about 5 minutes before I hit the PS button and ended the game. The second time I got to this point the same thing happened, but it only remained for about 2 minutes. Seems there was a cutscene loading disconnect somewhere with that one. Oh I almost forgot - I also had one or two problems where an NPC doesn't move to advance the mission (when they need to open a door or something). I fixed that by lighting them on fire with fire oil.
Another quick complaint is about helping random people. I don't mind doing it, I just hate when I have someone come running up to me crying that someone stole their horse, then 2 seconds later the game says I failed to help. It never gave me the chance and I think that's a minor glitch but it mostly happened in Mexico so maybe it's limited to there?
Time for the on-the-fence thing, and if you didn't see it before:
***SPOILER ALERT***
The name of the quest line is "I Know You". A mysterious man meets you in three places, the first two times he wants you to help him do something. The third time he just talks. It's my impression, with how things develop, that he's the ghost of someone Marsten murdered long ago. They just don't resolve it as such and I don't like that. In fact they leave it at Marsten shooting the guy in the back but it has no effect. You're left to your own conclusions, and I think it needs something more. Granted there could be more but all the info I looked up on it say it ends there. Disappointing, but not so much that I dislike the game - just that quest.
***END SPOILER***
Overall I think this is among the best games put out this year, and may hold that until next year.
9/10 only because sometimes the things I get hung up on are game-breakers, like the damned cougars and horse-diving problems.
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