It's ironic to transition from a story-centric game like HR with its peerless acting and production values, to a player-centric game like RDR, with its emphasis on character building and world exploration, and say that RDR is the better story, but that's what I have to do. RDR may be the best story ever told through video games, and that despite distinctly mediocre voice acting and quite poor plot pacing (a plot over which you have almost no control). Despite all that, I've rarely been so impassioned about a video game story, and the gameplay was topnotch, to boot. I only wish it had been a PC game, and possibly have a difficulty slider. Also, way way way more variety to the horses, and maybe PONIES *_* ...heh, it was a really great game and I just found it a little easy and low on variety at times. Compared to a GTA world it's quite sparse and repetitive. Some of the very best missions were ones like herding cattle and rustling horses, and I wish you could have done them more often. The honor system seemed a little hastily implemented, too, with not a lot of advantage to playing as a thief, no trains to rob, boring safecracking, and no cattle rustling or other obvious ideas. I nitpick, though, the game was Very Good, and again, shockingly, the story was Peerless. The storytelling could have been a lot better, though. Marsden's voice actor makes him come across as some sort of wild west BroShep, completely disengaged from the conversations he's in and All Swagger. He finally gets a few moments of humanity in the last act, but he was extremely disappointing. Also, the main quest had a bit more filler than I thought was necessary. Stick with real intensity and less bullshit, and save more of the kookier missions for the side quests (many of which were outstanding). Sound and art were out of this world, and the real reason I want RDR on PC is so I can take better screenshots of the Mexican desert. One of the best games of all-time.
