san andreas meets eastwood
at first sight, the visual design it's simply amazing: great panoramic views, amazingly detailed locations, well drawn main character.
music works well.
waht's so amazing?
to begin with, the story: sucks you in, but let you live john marston adventure in a unique way, that you can adjust to your taste. you like to kill, steal, and in any case to break the law? you can. you wanna be the good legend of the west? piece of cake. you wanna just live your adventure and you don't care of others? go for it.
it's not just the freedom you get in living your adventure that sucks you in, but there's also an amazing variety of characters: even the ones that don't appear that much have a strong personality, and their actions reflect it: they are disgusting, funny, brave, sentimental, paranoic... they are almost real!
and that is the greatest feat of the game: you care for your character as well as for the compriminary ones. if you have to save somebody, you're not just doing it 'cause that's the mission, but because you really wanna save them. same for the killing: getting back at your enemies gives you satisfaction beyond any immagination.
besides the story, the amazing characters and the visual impact, the game is a solid, good game. few loading, lot of freedom, loads of weapons, loads of things to do. rockstars took the best of gta series and invented a brand new game, with a believable character, human, if not for abilities and reflexs, at leat for feelings.
all the trouble of the main character are born from his past and his struggle to try and change life.
the adventure of the life of john marston is epic from beginning to the end.
last but not least, the gameplay is amazing and incredibly innovative. the dead eye concept is almost as innovative as max payne slow motion. hunting and riding together it's not just fun, much more than that. for anybody that has played one of the gta series, it's as much fun as going around the town in any gta killing people and runing from police.
lastly, the multiplayer allows you to enjoy the game even after you've played it through and through.
downsides of the game:
1 - ambientation: some poeple doesn't like the old west ambientation. even if that's true for you, give this game a shot all the same. rent it or borrow it. you may like it even if you don't like the setting.
2 - reply: i don't wanna spoiler nothing, but once you finish it, in every and any challange, you probably won't play it again for some time. it still gives you a solid 40, 45 hours of fun, so it's not such a big deal. plus there's the multiplayer mode, but i sincerely didn't find it that enjoiable.
3 - just as any gta, you'll be dealing with a big map: from time to time, you'll have to move from one location to another, and that may be annoyng, ginig the distance that usually separes the two points.
4 - multiplayer: dunno how to explaine it, but i didn't really like it.
5 - duels: they are fun, expecially at the beginning. as you get to the end of the game they may get annoyng, cause a headshot doesn't solve it. in duels wins not who shoots first, neither who shoots best, but whoever deals the more damage. so, just take the pistol with the most ammo and go crazy, without even be that careful to aiming.