Red Dead Redemption

I recently picked this game up pre-owned from "Gamestation" when i traded in a bunch of games that i no longer played.
"Red Dead Redemption" had only been out six weeks, and as i desperately wanted to play it, i grabbed myself a hell of a bargain.

"Red Dead Redemption" is set in South American during the time period on 1911, just a few years before the breakout of World War One.
You play as "John Marston" a retired outlaw gang member, but when government agents kidnap his wife and son, he's forced into tracking down all of his remaining gang, in order to keep them alive.
The game opens up well, from the opening cut scene, you can instantly see the great exploration that awaits you. Like in "Oblivion" when you walk out of the sewers, and this was the first time since then that you look out and suddenly realize you can go anywhere.

Now as this game was created by the same people who created the mega blockbuster "Grand Theft Auto 4" you can instantly see that they haven't just taken all of the features and thrown them into another game, they have actually expanded.
While " Red Dead Redemption" does have similar parts to "Grand Theft Auto 4" like the map, and the menus are almost identical, with similar buttons, "Red Dead Redemption" has its own features that make it, its own game.

Comparing this to "Grand Theft Auto 4", no longer are you walking, gritty dirty grey scaled streets, you are in the wild west. there are amazing sunsets and sunrises, there is always a horizon that you can gallop into the distance with.

While there is now more open countryside to run around it, all the towns are extremely spaced out, which after a few hours really gets on your nerves as you have to go by horse and it can take 2-3 minutes, of riding, which can sometime become kind of tedious.
But that said, if you find a flat piece of land nowhere near roads or cliffs or rivers (that of which you cannot swim) you can pitch up a campsite, and quick travel, but only to local towns and locations, what i do is whack open my map, mark a way point, and then select that, from this you can travel anywhere.
You can also travel by horse and cart, get in the back of a carriage, and select your destination, you can either sit and watch the world go by at an extremely slow rate, or hit the "Skip to Destination" when your character falls into a deep sleep and you wake up in time to dismount the carriage.
Now you can travel by train, you can go to a train station and wait for the train, or chase it on horse and jump on, but if your going to do that, you might as well ride there, and the train is always a million miles away.
If you ever do catch the train and you want to travel somewhere on the other side of the map, there is no skip button, you have to sit and watch the train travel all the way there.

So traveling is a bit of downer, but forcing you to travel more with your horse, creates a bond with your horse and increases its stamina so when you repeatedly tap "A" to gallop his last a little bit more.
So you tap "A" to gallop with your horse, and if you hold "A" he stays at selected speed, which is never fast enough, but if your traveling with a group and you hold "A" you stay at the speed that they're traveling at. This is a good little feature but they're still never traveling fast enough.

If you in combat while mounted on a horse, and you have a way point selected, there is no need to continue directing your horse as it will travel that way, give you more control of shooting the enemy. But this doesn't always work, as sometimes they wont corner fast enough and you find yourself wedged up a bank or between some rocks.
As you gain money within the game you can purchase faster horses and there are a variation, or you can go out and try to capture wild horses and try breaking them, once this is done you own that horse.
One very good feature is you can whistle and your horse will come to you which is a lovely feature as the roads are almost constantly deserted, and there is nothing worse than thinking that you've got to walk all the way back.

Red Dead Redemption had some good features, you can work to gain some money, you can be a horse breaker, night watcher, bounty hunter, or be like me and play poker, blackjack, liars dice, all gambling, which as you get further into the game cost more to play, but if you clear everybody out, you can gain nice rewards - lots of money, or if they clear you out do what i do, put me balaclava on, so they don't know who you are, and shoot them in the head, there is no better feeling than knowing that the little git is dead.

As you do more good/bad deeds around the world, people will react to you more, the better you are, people my turn a blind eye to your actions, kill people, and shops will give you discounts out of fear.
As you help local strangers out you become more famous, people will give you gifts for your actions, but others will challenge you in a battle of "Duel" a shoot out, if you agree, you both line up in the street, and have a duel, the first one to kill the other wins.
This is something i haven't quite mastered yet, but i find it a lot of fun.
Red Dead introduced "Dead Eye" a little feature that slows down time, giving you valuable seconds to find your enemy and either shoot him, or as you upgrade you can mark multiple targets and let out a bullet storm it feels great marking several people in the head and shooting them all down in unison.

Now i must move on, the characters are what you'd call, weird, there aren't many characters who i actually like, the sheriff, and the lady who helps, you at the beginning, but everyone else is just stupid, or annoying and with a game that is really well crafted, the characters really let it down, they do nothing accept annoy you as you help them with their stupid missions so eventually they'll help you with yours, and i mean eventually.
The thing is, that there are so many characters that they're all in and out after a few missions, you learn a little bit about them, but when you say your final goodbyes or one of them gets killed off, you never really care, you don't interact with the characters enough to like them, its almost as if the designers just threw them in to make the story last longer. And it wasn't until towards the end of the game where you return to your Ranch with your wife and son, that i actually really started to enjoy the missions with the characters, normal characters, no grave diggers, fat fraud people, alcoholics, drugged up doctors, just simple people, and it wasn't until towards the end that i actually cared about the 3 characters, John, his wife and his son.

The voice acting is great, from the works of "Rob Wiethoff" (16 Blocks) who does a great voice for "John Marston". "Kimberly Irion" (Immortally yours) does lovely voice of "Bonnie Macfarlane" and in general they sound works great, horses sound great, and the gunfire all sounds individual every gun has its own unique sound, and the "Ping" you hear as a bullet fly' past you, all sounds amazing.
One highlight for me with the sound editing is the thunderstorms, they really sound realistic and sound like they are overhead, its nice to have an atmospheric sound that really brings something to the game.

Bill Elm and Woody Jackson create a great soundtrack to the game, keeping to traditional Western genre and creating great music to accompany the settings of space and desert, with good pace music for chases and shootouts.
They also create a great sense of suspense with the build up to a duel, little tapping of drums really creates the atmosphere of life, or death.

While the Artificial Intelligence is good in most places, its the horses who really let it down, as I've said before.
The AI is good in battle as they hide behind cover and try to shoot you. Its nothing special, but it sure works well.

While this game is genuinely good from the outset, it can soon become a nuisance, missions are tedious and repetitive, horses are dull. the countryside can become repetitive at points, and the characters are just dull.
But it does have good points, the combat is fun and enjoyable, but i think co-op would be good, which i know there is a co-op pack free to download, which i will review shortly.
The game does make you feel lonely, and you spend most of your time alone, in the vast beautiful countryside.
It is a game to enjoy, just shoot all the horses you see, they will get on your nerves.

Graphics 10/10
Audio 10/10
Soundtrack 10/10
AI 5/10
Story 7/10

Total 67.2% (B+) Good

Mass Effect 2

Now "Mass Effect 2" Has been out for around 5 months now, I've played it through about 4 times and this is one of my most favourite games and i have a huge love for this trilogy.

"Mass Effect 2" is the sequel to 2007's smash hit "Mass Effect" it sees the player take control of Commander Shepard, and takes place 2 years after the events of "Mass Effect".

You follow the story of human colonies disappearing and there is no evidence of anything, accept for the fact that thousands of humans have disappeared.

Commander Shepard is no longer working for the alliance or the council, as at the beginning of the game your ship the " SSV NORMANDY SR1" is attacked by an unknown enemy and in your attempt to save as many of the crew as possible, you sacrifice yourself and drift off into the empty void of space.

A giant corporation group known as "Cerberus" retrieve your remains, that there are very little, and spend Billions of Dollars in rebuilding you with your DNA but it has to be more than just a clone, they spend even more on rebuilding you to the very point in you life where you died, everything has to be the same, so effectively you've been in a very deep sleep.

This certain project has been funded by someone called "The Illusive Man" because he wants to find out who or what has been attacking human colonies, and he feels only Commander Shepard is the one to lead a team of highly skilled human and alien races on what they will all call the suicide mission.

"Mass Effect 2" runs on "Epic Games Studios" "Unreal 3.5" engine, previously seen in 2008's game of the year "Gears Of War 2" a very good looking engine, and what makes the engine better in "Mass Effect 2" compared to "Gears Of War 2" is the use of colour, where was " Gears Of War 2" has very much a gray scale overlay to the game, we can see the full potential in "Mass Effect 2" with vibrant colours used in the armor and the multiple Alien Characters skin texture.

Now with the use of the new in-game engine, there is a downside which is loading screens, they are often and long, installing the game to your Hard Drive does decrease the loading time, but its still a good 15-20 seconds depending of the size of the area it has to load.
With the introduction of loading screens we loose the elevators, "Mass Effect" was criticised for the length in which you would sit in an elevator as it took you to the next place the elevators were used to hide the loading of the next area, there are good and bad points about this, the good points are in fact that we don't have to sit and watch an elevator travel slower than a snail, the bad points to this are that it takes you out of the game, games that have one continuous story line and don't have levels i feel shouldn't remove you from the game world "Gears of war 2" did a good job of this by not showing loading screens, the levels would load behind a cut scene and therefore you were always in the game. "Metal Gear Solid 4" had an intense loading screen of around 5-6 minutes, but then that was that, for the in tire level, levels lasting 3-4 hours a piece.
This isn't a major flaw within the game, its just my personal opinion, many may like the loading screens and as with all games today, it gives you hints at the bottom of the screen.

The voice acting is world class in this game, with voice casts from " A List " celebrity's such as Martin Sheen (The Departed/Catch me if you can) Seth Green (Austin Powers/Rat Race) Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix) and Adam Baldwin (Serenity/Independence Day/The Patriot).

The Soundtrack Composed by Jack Wall is a intense dark soundtrack with a full orchestral band, classic tracks such as "Suicide Mission" really create a atmosphere of bravery and heroism, that I've been unable to find in any other games soundtrack.
Its a soundtrack that really puts that extra emotion within the game universe, and puts that addition weight on the player, as this particular track is played towards the end of the game, it really makes you the player think that every decision that you've made throughout the game, will now help you in your attempt of a successful mission.

The game play for " Mass Effect 2" is mixed, at heart it's a third person shooter, with the choice of different classes it really makes the game more varied, Solider class, is very much a shooter and using the cover to your advantage, flanking the enemy and using your full arsenal of weapons to take down the enemy ahead of you.
Other classes let you play the game more differently, different classes let you use "Biotic" powers you outwit your enemy's, "Slam" uses a physical power to raise the selected enemy into the high Sky's and send him hurling towards the ground the 3 time the speed of light, crushing their body's, other let you become invisible, and sneak up on the enemy from behind, each class lets you play the game to your choice, you can be sneaky and stealthy, or go in all guns blazing, it is really up to you.

The Artificial intelligence is your standard expectations, the enemy will try and outsmart you by flanking you, but in most cases, they'll just run towards you spraying bullets in your general direction, almost as if the AI is expecting you to just gun him down. i was disappointed in the fact that the enemy AI don't use more of their ability's or powers against you, the enemy biotic's don't try and use "Slam" on you, they'll use "Push" which just makes you fall over, but within 5 seconds your up again.
Unfortunately the same can't be said for you friendly AI, often they'll not listen to your orders and just stand behind cover and do nothing, other times they'll shoot like crazy, but wont take cover when taking hits, and they'll just be gunned down, and more often than not they'll just get in the way, but that's not to say their bad, you've just got to make sure that they go into position and then pretty much just leave them there, to take the grunt of the attack while you fight your way into their flanking position, or do what i do, and use you friendly AI's ability's to expose the enemy and shoot them down.

The Message inside "Mass Effect2" really is a universal one.
It takes the idea of unifying under one banner global peace in a fight against a bigger threat.
Recruiting your team of mixed Alien races all with bad history against one another, to come together and fight an elite Alien race with a hunger for destruction, putting the past behind them to an even bigger cause.
this is almost the same idea, with today's global problems, Global Warming, Economic Instability, toady's world says we'll help you do this, if you help us do this, when really they should all unite together to fight the bigger picture, and do so together.

Verdict

Graphics 10/10
Audio 10/10
Soundtrack 10/10
Game play 9/10
AI 7/10
Story 10/10

Total = 89.6% (A*) Outstanding

masseffect.bioware.com