It has a lot of what I liked about old GTA games in it, but more than that, it expands upon what I've liked about sandbox games and makes it better experience. I think I should be honest here. I haven't truly loved any of the sandbox games I've played this gen except maybe Saints Row 1/2, unless Fallout 3 counts, and I don't count it. Last gen, sandbox games were among my favorite genres but I couldn't get into Assassin's Creed, Crackdown, GTA4 (well, I liked some of GTA4 and its episodes but not as SANDBOX games);etc But it's like this game was made for me from the beginning.
Things I like
- The random elements, like gangs, rivalries. This is something I missed in GTA4, and RDR has brought them back and made them better. They're also enhanced due to the fact you can choose what to do. During my adventures, a gang of bandits rode in to town guns ablazed. I killed them all, and the more I killed bandits who rode on my tail in the desert, the more I noticed more kept coming into town. I saw one guy try to have his way with a chick in town, shot him in the head. Suddenly I'm some hero.
In more ways than one, RDR feels like my story more than John's. That's...uh, a unique trait, I think, considering the fact that John has a clear motive and a clear personality. It's hard to pull that off with voiced main characters I feel.
- The script and story are interesting. I think it's due to the time period. It's just...interesting. The game, unlike past Rockstar efforts, doesn't feel like it's trying earnestly to be funny, but when it does (the movies at the theater
) it does so with charm and wit, rather than petty adolescent humor like in recent GTA's. I dunno. It's weird because, even doing the cow herding mission is fun to me even though all I did was ride a horse and yip yip and make a bunch of cows run into a plain to eat grass. And yet I had the time of my life.
So far, the characters lack Rockstar's trademark quirkiness. They're all down to Earth people, and talk about actual issues. It feels natural and it works.
- The game does a great way of unveiling features and revealing new ones. Like, it actually TELLS you about Stranger missions. In GTA4, stranger missions just pop up randomly. It has a nice sense of flow, and for the first time in years, I have an urge to explore a sandbox game's world rather than just do the story.
- Money actually means something. You have to earn your living through skinning, doing bounty hunter jobs (btw how the fuck do you keep a bounty alive? Also do you sometimes have to fight other bounty hunters?
). There's tons of shit to buy: maps, healing items, property (should have been in gta4, especially since gtavc and sa already had this feature)...
- It feels like a real sandbox game. TLAD and Gay Tony were better than GTA4, but to me they still felt utterly scripted. In RDR, I encountered a bounty and saw he was going to try to get away so I killed his horse and chased him down. It was quite an adventure. If this were GTA4, his horse would be invincible and he'd have to stop somewhere in the desert before I could kill him.
- The controls, they're the same as GTA4's but they're far, far tighter. I have the game on casual actually, and I'm loving the controls. I find that in a game with wide expanses like this, lock on is better than free aim in most cases, especially when you consider you go up against fast animals. No need to worry about cars swerving around tight corners in city streets full of traffic. They're smooth.
And I can't stress enough how much I love the setting. I still think GTA5 or whatever the next GTA is could use a change in
something along with the expanded features in RDR.
I know what game I'm buying next. I ended up buying SMG2 instead like 3 weeks ago.
