Red Dead Redemption

[Trejo]

Just got rid of my Tuesday shift so I can marathon this like a motherucker Tuesday

[BillyG]

I will be on post-Lost/Justified, but due to the fact I wake up at the crack I cannot stay up very late. Friday though I can kill all night. Already told the female unit to not plan anything but sitting on the couch watching a bunch of guys nerding out while shooting injuns.

[Master Shake]

I'm surprised that nobody has posted the launch trailer yet in this thread, because... GODDAMN that fucking launch trailer! As if the next 4 days wouldn't pass slowly enough on their own. I already made a new avatar to try and put my hype to productive use, but that's done already and there's still more waiting to go!

I want this game. I want the soundtrack that goes with this game. I want all of it and I want it right NOW.

[V]

I want this game. I want to line the game box with warm chicken cutlets and make sweet, sweet love to it! I want all of it and I want it right NOW.

Fixed...

[Master Shake]

Oh man.

Just a shade over 10 hours until this game (CST).

I'm going single-player first, though. I want to knock out a chunk of the campaign and get familiar with the controls before I posse up in MP. So I'll probably be up for some MP action Tuesday night.

But while we wait for this game to release, how about a little mood music?

[Abraham Smashington]

Will be grabbing this first thing tomorrow morning. I don't have it in me to brave the autistic masses at the midnight launch tonight.

[nerdious dorkus]

Already started in Riverside!

I hope you're ready to suck some ash, cause that shit spreads fast.

[Abraham Smashington]

Eurogamer review.

[Matt]

good review?

[Abraham Smashington]

Yeah, but not with out faults. Which is good. This better not be GTAIV all over again.

[BillyG]

Amazon has shipped my copy. Shall be sitting on my porch when I arrive home tomorrow. Gonna go suck ether and black out until then.

[nerdious dorkus]

Yeah, but not with out faults. Which is good. This better not be GTAIV all over again.

What are the faults? Some of us can't read it.

[Abraham Smashington]

one sec.

[Abraham Smashington]

However, by the end of the game you will be left with other, less enthusiastic feelings too. While Rockstar San Diego triumphantly matches the storytelling of Rockstar North, redacting their cinematic influences with finesse and imagination, there is still an occasional roughness to the ground-level interactions that can grate.
Marston runs awkwardly on the ground and, for all the fluidity of the horses, you only need to take a tumble off an unforeseen ledge for the game to come grinding to an abrupt, awkward halt. Combat, so often the weak point in Rockstar's output, is solid, with a Dead Eye bullet-time mode combining with the ragdoll physics to create the kind of iconic shooter-keeling-from-a-rooftop images that define the genre in film.
However, the cover mechanic, which sticks Marston to the nearest rock or wall, feels sticky and outdated, while the expectation that you wrestle with the camera, reticule and steering during horseback shootouts is simply too tall at times. Problematically, once your sense of curiosity at what lies over the next hill dissipates, you'll find every 10-minute gallop across the landscape tiresome and over-familiar, and so will begin to rely heavily on the game's various fast-travel options (via train, carriage or campfire teleport).
The very best Western films enjoy a rapid fire of crisp, purposeful scenes to link the action. It's a format that works well when packed into 90 minutes of imagery delivered at 24 frames per second. But stretched out over 50 hours, the intensity of the Western form is necessarily diluted, resulting in pockets of intense excitement, linked by long, meandering treks across - admittedly wondrous - scenery. Red Dead Redemption has fully subscribed to the Housers' vision of a blockbuster videogame: a string of cinematic set-pieces and flawed yet endearing characters nestled within an orthodox narrative structure, seasoned with generous pinches of extra-curricular tasks.

Nothing major. But better than "OMG THIS GAME COULD CURE CANCER BUT IS TOO BUSY BEING AWESOME"

[Abraham Smashington]

IT still gets a 8/10. Which works for me.