So I bought the game because I saw it in Gamestop. The cover caught my eye and I haven't heard of it, so I decided to look at the back. It sounded and looked awsome. Looked at gamerankings.com for average score. Anything 80% or above is in my acceptance zone. Read a review to find out what was bad about it and decided to buy it. It was 40 bucks anyway. Awsome.
Started to play it and configure graphics. Graphics are pretty ok. Nothing spectacular. It tries to pull of some type of HDR bloom & blur crap, for Idk what reason. The graphics don't look better to me and you can't turn AA on because of it. Since this "HDR" looked like crap, I leave it disabled and just turn on 4xAA, which has more benefit. They also have some other types of graphics settings like Depth of Field and Advanced Graphics Settings. I don't have a clue what the hell they do. They should describe what they do in the manual, but again, nobody tells anything but the obvious. Anyway, the graphics seem like Battlefield 1942, even with the ugly texture aliasing everywhere, which sucks, but with some lighting. Characters look pretty nice with ok lighting, looking realistic maybe 5% of the time. Some lighting is impressive. For instance the lighting on this whore's upper chest was nice highlighting her collarbones. New to me.
Hitches deserves it's own paragraph. I experience hitches at many points in the game at predictable, and sometimes not, locations. It gets really annoying since it can happen many times within one minute of riding around in the horse. When you get a faster horse later on, it really gets almost unbareable, happening about every ten seconds of riding it seems. And now when I approach a town called Empire, it stutters and then it fails to load buildings and textures in a timely manner until about 3-5 seconds after the stutter. This issue is the most deteriorating of the game. It ruins immersion and can get you killed.
The game is very interesting, and I hate Westerns, at least most movies. The only Western I like is Back to the Future III. But the story of this game is very good along with believable environments featuring interesting architecture of the times, which are almost completely free roaming. Meaning you can go anywhere within the map, except for lakes. The map is a pretty big spanning 2 towns and 5 areas. 2 areas though are important to you only for a short period of time. You run around on a horse, but the controls aren't defined as well as they should be. When you hold the sprint button, you don't have to hold forward key. It was causing a lot of confusion and bad control which was only worsened by the stuttering. I found this out halfway through the game. Even still the controls are a bit awkward as holding the back button doesn't make him move back, but instead turn around, which isn't the best.
The game keeps you in the action almost all of the time, during the main mission, shooting people. That's a lot of fun, although it has an awkward weapon changing system, which needed some Max Payne in that. But it's not harmful and I got used to it in the end. The enemies don't become really challenging until about 75% of the way through the game. The AI doesn't do anything amazing, but it's good, doing it's duty quite well.
You get various weapons and upgrades, which you buy. You can get money by picking at gold located in various places throughout the map and by doing side quests. Sides quests are a bit interesting, but they reuse about 5 simple ideas. For instance, there is the Pony Express, in which you become a timed delivery boy. Each delivery sends you to someplace new and for a different reason. So it doesn't seem too repetetive and gives you instight into western life. There are side missions in both towns and in the outskirts. Completing a mission of the main game, unlocks more side missions of the same 5 ideas. This gives you more stats and money to help you on your main quest. What's annoying is that if you're not doing the main mission or a side mission; say you are just exploring the world, there is the freakin message that pops up and says what you have to do next in the main mission. The game could've benefitted from a journal instead.
I'm not fond of these side missions and this stats/money concept. It is obvious that the game was way too short to be released as the main mission itself, so they added these side missions. I think you might spend more time doing them, than doing the actual main mission, not sure. They aren't boring, although, I think some of you might find it as such, but the main thing I don't like about them is that it interrupts the story. This game has such potential that it bothers me how they wasted it. The story should have been expanded and they should have done away with the side missions. About 10 hours of excellent story driven gameplay would have been better. One good thing about the side missions though is that they really get you to soak in the world. Since you will get to know locations and do lots of traveling for the missions, and each employer has a small story associated with it. You really get a feel for the old west.
The game is good, but it's issues push it into the $20 bin.
Started to play it and configure graphics. Graphics are pretty ok. Nothing spectacular. It tries to pull of some type of HDR bloom & blur crap, for Idk what reason. The graphics don't look better to me and you can't turn AA on because of it. Since this "HDR" looked like crap, I leave it disabled and just turn on 4xAA, which has more benefit. They also have some other types of graphics settings like Depth of Field and Advanced Graphics Settings. I don't have a clue what the hell they do. They should describe what they do in the manual, but again, nobody tells anything but the obvious. Anyway, the graphics seem like Battlefield 1942, even with the ugly texture aliasing everywhere, which sucks, but with some lighting. Characters look pretty nice with ok lighting, looking realistic maybe 5% of the time. Some lighting is impressive. For instance the lighting on this whore's upper chest was nice highlighting her collarbones. New to me.
Hitches deserves it's own paragraph. I experience hitches at many points in the game at predictable, and sometimes not, locations. It gets really annoying since it can happen many times within one minute of riding around in the horse. When you get a faster horse later on, it really gets almost unbareable, happening about every ten seconds of riding it seems. And now when I approach a town called Empire, it stutters and then it fails to load buildings and textures in a timely manner until about 3-5 seconds after the stutter. This issue is the most deteriorating of the game. It ruins immersion and can get you killed.
The game is very interesting, and I hate Westerns, at least most movies. The only Western I like is Back to the Future III. But the story of this game is very good along with believable environments featuring interesting architecture of the times, which are almost completely free roaming. Meaning you can go anywhere within the map, except for lakes. The map is a pretty big spanning 2 towns and 5 areas. 2 areas though are important to you only for a short period of time. You run around on a horse, but the controls aren't defined as well as they should be. When you hold the sprint button, you don't have to hold forward key. It was causing a lot of confusion and bad control which was only worsened by the stuttering. I found this out halfway through the game. Even still the controls are a bit awkward as holding the back button doesn't make him move back, but instead turn around, which isn't the best.
The game keeps you in the action almost all of the time, during the main mission, shooting people. That's a lot of fun, although it has an awkward weapon changing system, which needed some Max Payne in that. But it's not harmful and I got used to it in the end. The enemies don't become really challenging until about 75% of the way through the game. The AI doesn't do anything amazing, but it's good, doing it's duty quite well.
You get various weapons and upgrades, which you buy. You can get money by picking at gold located in various places throughout the map and by doing side quests. Sides quests are a bit interesting, but they reuse about 5 simple ideas. For instance, there is the Pony Express, in which you become a timed delivery boy. Each delivery sends you to someplace new and for a different reason. So it doesn't seem too repetetive and gives you instight into western life. There are side missions in both towns and in the outskirts. Completing a mission of the main game, unlocks more side missions of the same 5 ideas. This gives you more stats and money to help you on your main quest. What's annoying is that if you're not doing the main mission or a side mission; say you are just exploring the world, there is the freakin message that pops up and says what you have to do next in the main mission. The game could've benefitted from a journal instead.
I'm not fond of these side missions and this stats/money concept. It is obvious that the game was way too short to be released as the main mission itself, so they added these side missions. I think you might spend more time doing them, than doing the actual main mission, not sure. They aren't boring, although, I think some of you might find it as such, but the main thing I don't like about them is that it interrupts the story. This game has such potential that it bothers me how they wasted it. The story should have been expanded and they should have done away with the side missions. About 10 hours of excellent story driven gameplay would have been better. One good thing about the side missions though is that they really get you to soak in the world. Since you will get to know locations and do lots of traveling for the missions, and each employer has a small story associated with it. You really get a feel for the old west.
The game is good, but it's issues push it into the $20 bin.
Facebook
Twitter