Rockstar Asks For Favorable Reviews

[Aram]

[Hurlshort]

I'm at -75 bucks as a gambler

 

I almost got a bit frustrated with the horse racing mission, but then I remembered to use the horse pills.

[Majek]

Still haven't got the game :/ , so all i have are such spoiler free humorous youtube videos

[vault_overseer]

I finally finished chapter 1 and rolled into Mexico...and awesome continued.

[Pop]

Still haven't got the game :/ , so all i have are such spoiler free humorous youtube videos

Don't forget Gunslinger Dog and the

!.

[Majek]

NO link under Gunslinger dog

[Oner]

NO link under Gunslinger dog

[Majek]

Yay got the game. Love it so far. The controls and character movement could be better but i can get used to it.

[entrerix]

character movement frankly sucks, but its odd how little it actually seems to matter since you so rarely have to negotiate obstacles in the wide open plains...

 

the game is both fantastic and also overhyped. its not the second coming, but its so damn good its easy to get lost in it for hours and hours and look forward to going back to it... its my second favorite game this year (i really liked mass effect 2...)

 

still, its better imo than every gta put together (which is pretty easy for me to say since the only gta i liked was vice city)

 

i also don't think its "too easy", i've died about 20 times so far, which is more than i die in most games nowadays. granted, some of those deaths were to me just charging headfirst into a group of mounted bandits, or getting mauled by a pack of wolves while picking flowers and accidentally pulling out my lasso instead of my gun... (two wolf bites = dead, 5 wolves = very fast death)

 

but still, i dont think its too easy.

 

I haven't touched the multiplayer yet, but all i really want to do is play poker against people online then accuse them of cheating and shoot them while they try to explain they weren't wearing the "cheater suit"

[GreasyDogMeat]

Cougar man. http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/the...aylist=featured

 

After nearly 30 hours of play I haven't seen any of these animal people but the glitch looks hilarious... especially the donkey woman vid which had me splitting my sides.

 

Glitches I've experienced involved a wagon bouncing up and down like it had some funky ghetto beats in the carriage and some odd stuff when latching on to a wall for cover. Sort of shot up 50 feet in the air and fell back down once.

[Hurlshort]

I had a cougar tackle my horse while I was navigating a steep ravine. Pretty scary moment, I got a couple shots off but my horse was dead and the cougar ran off.

[Majek]

A cougar jumped my horse when i was returning a bounty to town, running from a posse of bad guys trying to get their friend back. xDDD I was really sad about my horse but at least we got to die together XDD

[Nemo0071]

All this glitch & ambush & death talk reminds me:

 

How are the saves handled? I'm guessing the "go to your house & sleep to save the game" method won't work in an open environment. I even have my reservations about autosaving only when you finish a particular objective (for all I know it could take about half an hour to finish, say, a bounty hunter mission).

[Pop]

If you're outside a town or gang hideout you can set up a campsite and save / change outfits / what have you. It's also how you fast-travel.

Edited May 26, 2010 by Pop

[Jackalmonkey]

All this glitch & ambush & death talk reminds me:

 

How are the saves handled? I'm guessing the "go to your house & sleep to save the game" method won't work in an open environment. I even have my reservations about autosaving only when you finish a particular objective (for all I know it could take about half an hour to finish, say, a bounty hunter mission).

The save system is just a little bit odd for a free-roaming sandbox. On its face it's the old GTA sleep-to-save convention: you save by using the bed in your house, or by camping (in outdoor areas that are flat, dry, wide, and far from towns or roads--which are often not easy to find).* The game will also autosave after completing any event that advances the completion percentage.

 

Unlike GTA, however, death is death--you don't just regain consciousness in front of the hospital--and you have to reload from your last save. So if you're chasing certain in-game challenges (collect X of one herb, for instance, or capture a given bounty), you'll have to start all over again from your last save. A bit frustrating if you get jumped by a bear while picking flowers.

 

The best [unintended] workaround for this problem is to have two or more deeds for certain breeds of horses. Every time you swap to a new mount, the activity triggers an autosave. I'm not sure why.

 

*Weirdly enough, the game's campsites are actually preset areas that are geographically close to where you set up camp--you may end up camping half a mile or more from where you choose to camp. Consequently, having to actually stand in a flat area when you decide to camp comes off as oddly contrived and arbitrary.

[Jackalmonkey]

As an aside, the fast travel is a bit obnoxious. The stagecoaches are bugged and will randomly overcharge you (to the tune of over a hundred dollars, and money isn't easy to come by in this game). The safest alternative is therefore, as Pop mentioned, fast traveling from a camp.

 

It's convenient in that you can set up a destination pretty much anywhere on the map, but camping is a pain. Again: you can only camp on wide, flat, dry areas of land away from towns, roads, or landmarks. On its face this makes sense and doesn't sound terribly difficult, and usually isn't. Except of course, when it is. I don't know how many times I found myself way up in the boonies, trying (and repeatedly failing) to locate land where the game would allow me to camp. It's as if [protag] John Marston fast travels by air balloon and needs to prep a launch site each time. Add to this the fact that camping consists of navigating through player inventory to find the "campfire" item, a loading segment for the preset campsite area and the art assets (tent, campfire, victuals, etc.), and an unskippable cut scene, and fast travel by camping quickly becomes annoying. If a given trip already takes two or three minutes, you're often better off just biting the time sink than finding a location for the "fast travel" alternative.

[Pop]

Usually whenever I've got a small (<5 minute) trek, I take the time to shoot birds / bird people out of the sky, as well as any animal I come across. Hawk feathers fetch a nice price (usually up to $32 per bird, given they drop multiple feathers) as do owl feathers.

[Raithe]

So how long before the pc port version comes out do you think?

 

Lets lay odds... 6 months? 1 year? 18 months? 2 years? more?

[Nemo0071]

Thanks for the answers. From what I understand if things stay the same way when the game comes to PCs, I'll be riding horses for a looong time in this game. Both for the sake of saving and not fast traveling...

 

If you're outside a town or gang hideout you can set up a campsite and save / change outfits / what have you. It's also how you fast-travel.

Camping for saving makes sense, I hope they can make it smoother for the PC version.

 

So, how does the fast travel actually work? Do we travel between previous campsites or something? Sounds kinda like "marking your territory".

 

So how long before the pc port version comes out do you think?

 

Lets lay odds... 6 months? 1 year? 18 months? 2 years? more?

Considering how this is Rockstar's new "big thing" after GTA games, I'd expect the same formula, even the same timeline.

 

I'd say 8 months, give or take 2.

[Majek]

Money isn't easy to come by in this game??? You're joking right? Money is one the things that there's plenty off. I have 3000 on me and I've spent about as much on items and guns and i haven't even stormed the fort yet. Just collecting bounties, helping people, picking up money from bodies and gambling. From all the games 5 finger fillet seems to be the easiest way to score $100 in 2 minutes or even less and a few times in a row.

I haven't gotten overcharged by the coaches either.

 

Fast travel is between bigger important places. It useful if you want to travel all the way across the map, otherwise you just whistle for you horse and ride to where you want.

[Jackalmonkey]

Money isn't easy to come by in this game??? You're joking right? Money is one the things that there's plenty off. I have 3000 on me and I've spent about as much on items and guns and i haven't even stormed the fort yet. Just collecting bounties, helping people, picking up money from bodies and gambling.

I see your point, but I think this varies according to your playstyle. I try to avoid anything that resembles grinding (repetitive minigames, hunting wildlife, etc.), though I've done the challenges, since barring Survivalist they're all fairly entertaining in their own right.

 

Aside from that I've been playing straight through, and assisting strangers where and when it's fun to do so (the fella with the glider and the lengthy collection quest will probably be forever grounded). At any rate, up until about half an hour ago I was sitting on $300-400 after having bought all the properties in the game. For context, I'm maybe four missions into Blackwater.

 

Out of curiosity I took a look at my inventory, and I did have about $600 in gold bullion sitting in my bags, so I sold that. Between all the various animal bits I've collected, I'm probably sitting on an additional $2k+ of loot. But buying and selling in RDR is truly tedious--you can only sell one item at a time, and each time you're forced to wait for the selling animation and sound to complete (between one to two seconds). I don't see much point in pressing a button over and over again for a virtual reward. "Hardcore" gamers might be willing to put up with this, but I imagine most casual (or critical) gamers won't be bothered.

 

I could go on about the additional time sink created by the way the game handles looting, but I'll leave that for another time or place.

[GreasyDogMeat]

But buying and selling in RDR is truly tedious--you can only sell one item at a time, and each time you're forced to wait for the selling animation and sound to complete (between one to two seconds). I don't see much point in pressing a button over and over again for a virtual reward. "Hardcore" gamers might be willing to put up with this, but I imagine most casual (or critical) gamers won't be bothered.

 

Simply press down on the right stick to sell all of an item or press up to increase the sell amount by one. I just sold 20 crow feathers at once... it only required one movement of the right stick followed by a button press. Its not tedious at all.

 

I'd make fun of you... but it took me a while to figure it out myself.

[Majek]

Yeah, it took me a while to see that too.

 

And well for me an open game world means i have time for exploration and hunting be it animals or humans,... unlocking outfits, new guns,... So with my playstlye i might even hit 100% game completion when i'm done.

[deganawida]

Epic. Just...epic.

 

This game got to me, in a way few games have. The last game to effect me so was Metal Gear Solid 1, and it doesn't really hold a candle to RDR.

 

One word of advice: If you hear a song being sung, slow down and listen.

[Hurlshort]

One word of advice: If you hear a song being sung, slow down and listen.

 

Agreed.