Mini Review:
Hi
I have only played the game for around 7-8 hours so far so cannot fully review it so here are my thoughts so far...
Graphics
Everytime a game comes out with brilliant graphics, I wonder what more they can do to push the xbox 360 and ps3. We have seen games with amazing graphics in the past couple of years and this is just another one of them, got to be in the top 3 for graphics.
You can see why it took so long to make this game, the detail in everything is just staggering. From the plants to the animation in the horse and all the people. You can be just riding along and suddenly you see the grass move in front of you, then a few rabbits pop out! They are really well animated and again really well detailed. The facial detail in the characters is really good too but you come to expect this sort of stuff from these guys now! Best moment so far was when it started raining at night, it just looked amazing. Lightening would light up the sky and you would catch a glimpse of a campfire in the distance.
Gameplay
The button controls are almost idential to GTA IV, so ill get that out of the way right away. It also feels very similar in the way you control the character.
I have only played around 7-8 hours so I am still discovering things on the game and still in the "tutorial" type stage where I am getting new things. For example I have only just been given a Lasso which brings a whole new option to gameplay. Instead of killing wanted people, you can capture them!
The WHOLE map is open right from the start, the map is absolutely massive for this sort of game. Remeber there are no planes and no cars, so it would probably take as long to ride from one side of the map to the other as it would to fly from one side of the other in Just Cause 2.
The world feels alive, things just pop up when you are just walking around. For example you could be walking through town and a woman gets mugged by some guy, you can go and kill the guy and return the money, or capture him. I was walking down the road to a mission and suddenly a guy robbed a store! The store manager offered to pay me to capture him so I got on my horse and captured him!
This brings me onto the horse. The horse you have at the start is fairly slow, you get faster ones as you progress and they have more energy too. It takes a bit of getting used to, riding a horse instread of driving or flying but once you are used to it, they control really well. You can press UP on the DPAD to whistle for the horse and he comes to your location within a few seconds.
When playing GTA, you sort of get the "go from dot to dot" feeling. This game sort of has that but does it in a way that it feels natural. Missions just pop up when you are just exploring, you can either ignore them or take them on. You can read newspapers to see what is happening in the world, which also includes things you have done (either good or bad!).
You can be Famous or InFamous. You can also be good or bad which is measured by the honour meter. In my current game I have chosen to be good (mostly) which means you are more likely to be asked for favours and be given discounts at stores. But you can be really bad and kill everyone (well nearly everyone) and rob stores at gunpoint. You can just aim your gun at the shop keeper and he will either try to fight back or give you the money. You can crack a safe too, but you will have the law after you VERY quickly - but just kill them and that will add to your "bounty". Bounty hunters then go after YOU! I played it for 4 hours just doing bad stuff and people ran away when they saw me etc. I decided to reload my save and carry on being good for now though!
You can buy property in the game too. You are given money for jobs that you do, such as hunting, monitoring the farm at night looking out for thieves or naughty animals that eat the livestock etc! There are also shops which you can buy guns, costumes, medicine and a load of other stuff.
If you go hunting on your own, you can skin the animal and take parts of it too. Parts are rated in value which you can sell on.
Rating So far
So Far I would give the game 9.5/10. There does not seem to be much, if anything wrong with the game. It does what it is supposed to do and much more!
More to come
As mentioned, I have only played it for 8 or so hours. I will update this thread with more information but please feel free to ask any questions about the game. I have the xbox 360 version but I will be getting the PS3 version probably on Monday too.
I also have video's in this thread along with live stream (I can only play at certain times of the day, mainly evening UK time)
Zn stream is alweer offline gehaald.
