May be short, but it is very, very sweet...
The game opens up with a short tutorial that helps you get to grips with the well thought and intuitive control system. From here the story quickly progresses and ends up setting up the story for the rest of the game. Initially you only have one very small town to go around, called Dodge City. This is where you can first accept a plethora of side missions, include bounty hunting, couriering, working for the local sheriff, and may other exciting side missions that will open up later on. These side missions are a way for you to earn some cash, cash which can be spent on upgrading your weapons and ammo capacity. However, the main benefit of them is to build up your stats, including health, qucikdraw ability, and horse riding ability.
The aforementioned qucikdraw is a function that, when enabled, zooms you in with you pistol into a first person view and slows down time, but still allows you to aim in real time. This acts kind of like a first person version of Max Payne’s bullet time, and is very well implemented into this game.
There is a variety of weapons to use, including several different types of 6 shooters, sniper rifles, shotguns and explosives. However, the most interesting and fun inclusion is the Bow, much like the Indians in the game use. Once upgraded, you can have hours of fun with this thing, hunting animals, silently killing innocents, and whatever else you can think up.
The graphics in this game are gorgeous, with simply stunning views, virtually no pop up, and some fantastic routes to ride. The player characters (and NPC’s) look very impressive, and are well detailed. The environment is well suitably textured and involves “busy areas” that are crowed with scenery and open areas, like a desert if you will. But all look visually stunning.
Stunning also is the audio in this game. The voice acting in the fabulous cut scenes is incredibly well done, as would befit the great cast of the voices. Also the bullet effects sound great, with the old “pa– ding” noise as bullets ricochet off of walls, a tolling bell as the lynch mob is called into to town to kill you, and other great sound effects.
Value wise, the game falls down a bit. The storyline runs along so fast that it feels like it is over almost as soon a it has began, which is a crying shame. The storyline is great, but they just didn’t spread it out much, they tried to cram 4 or 5 missions worth of storyline into 1 mission. Also this game is very easy, so I would recommend playing it on Normal or higher. In fact the only part of the game that can pose a real challenge is the final boss on one of the harder difficulty levels. Also after all of the side missions and extras have been found, there isn’t a hell of a lot left to do. Sure you can have several hours of fun just riding around re – living those childhood “cowboy and Indians” fights, albeit in a much more violent way. For this game contains a lot of gore, and even allows you to scalp the dying, just to help finish them off a lot quicker.
Overall this is a worthy game, that if played constantly, can be completed 100% in a weekend, but to some will offer a lot more. I would recommend this to anyone who is a fan of westerns and anyone who is open to something slightly different than the standard futuristic shooter.
Overall a great game, if slightly let down by its length.
This is my first reveiw so please PM me with any advise.