[PS3/360] Red Dead Redemption

[Sharingan]

Got this last week or so.

It's Rockstar's latest game; very reminiscent of their Grand Theft Auto series, but set in the American Wild West, around the turn of the century (ca. 1900). It's more story-driven than the previous games; less humour (but still tongue-in-cheek where appropriate) but with plenty of gunslinging action. I'm loving it so far.

Graphically, it uses only a slightly re-skinned and touched up version of the GTAIV engine, but I must say it looks excellent nonetheless.

Definitely recommended, though, if you own a PS3 as well as a 360, the 360 version will probably be the better version visually (owing to the fact that Rockstar didn't bother to optimise the graphics engine much from GTAIV - which used a proprietary engine better suited for PC-like architectures).

[Harrison]

I there any news of a PC release?

[Sharingan]

Thus far, no, though I do not doubt there will be a port eventually. Shouldn't be too hard to convert to PC.

Did you play the PC version of GTAIV? Heard it was a right b*tch to get running smoothly, despite the fact that GTAIV wasn't a graphical masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination.

[Demon Cleaner]

Definitely recommended, though, if you own a PS3 as well as a 360, the 360 version will probably be the better version visually (owing to the fact that Rockstar didn't bother to optimise the graphics engine much from GTAIV - which used a proprietary engine better suited for PC-like architectures).That's what I read in several reviews too, thus I pre-ordered the 360 version last Friday. Unfortunately I didn't get it yet, perhaps today.

I also ordered Split/Second, I liked the demo a lot, and I had to get Bayonetta, which at the moment is only a bit under 13£ at Amazon UK. All of the 3 games I got for the 360, as the PS3 Bayonetta version is terrible, and as for a racing game I prefer a 360 controller, the PS3 controller is a bit small for me, and hence my hands hurt very fast when pushing the shoulder buttons too hard and too long. Happens only with racing games though.

[Sharingan]

I'm sure you'll enjoy it!

I have to say it's quite easy to get sidetracked in this game, since there's so much to do BESIDES following the storyline. You can play Blackjack, Poker and Dice games in saloons. You can pick fights with drunks. You can duel. You can accept bounty requests. You can do arm wrestling. You can race horses or capture wild ones. You can hunt animals, skin them and sell their hides for money.

On more than one occasion, I found myself hunting animals for 2 hours before realising I had to get off my ass and actually do something productive!

[Harrison]

I heard people had trouble getting GTAIV running on the PC, but I never had a problem. Ran perfectly from first installing it and no slowdown. Although I was running it on a high spec, so maybe it was only on lower spec PCs that had problems, but that is always the case.

[Sharingan]

Finished the game, enjoyed it a lot, but it did get a bit repetitive in the end. There's only so much mission variety you can build in, considering the era didn't have vehicles other than trains, stage coaches and steam-driven automobiles! The early missions involved shooting people, the later missions didn't change all that much - it was still shooting people.

Having doubts as to whether I should dabble with the online portion of the game. I joined one public free roam session so far, but didn't have the motivation to explore the same game world over again, doing essentially the same stuff. Maybe when they release the (free) Co-op DLC, I might try that. I'm not too fussed with competitive multiplayer stuff.

Anyways, got 71% if the trophies, which were mostly fun to obtain. Will be putting the game aside for now and perhaps start God of War III.

[Harrison]

How long did it take you to complete it?

And what percentage of what you played was the main story? Is there a lot of side quest style gaming in it?

[Sharingan]

Hmm ... I'd say about 30 hours of total game time, spread over several weeks. Of that, I'd say about 20 hours of that is time spent on the storyline. If you were to do absolutely everything there was to do in the game, you could probably push 50 hours.

And yes, there's quite a bit of stuff to do on the side, such as bountyhunting, hunting animals, harvesting rare plants, gun duelling, robbing stage coaches, horse racing, playing blackjack/poker, armwrestling, dice games and so on. There's also a fame/honour system in place, which changes how people react to you depending on the choices you make during the game. Rob and shoot innocent people, and you will become infamous. Protect the innocent and you become honoured. It's fun to hear how people say different stuff to you as you progress through the game.

[Shoonay]

This game hill-larry-ass!

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/bt/fr/vga/24133-diplomatic-immunity