More X-Box Fun

Sorry for my continued habit of making non-board gaming-related posts, but I'm assuming gaming in general is at least tangentially of interest to most here. Plus, posting random thoughts on this blog is a healthy catharsis of the brain cells after a night of overstimulation, so I beg your indulgence.

Anyhow... I spent last night trapsing about the dusty environs of Rock Star's Red Dead Redemption. Over the course of a few hours I had a wide variety of adventures, including a duel, slaughtering various outlaw gangs, and a failed attempt to rescue an innocent man being hung. I had to shoot the rope he was dangling from while fighting off the evil lynch mob. Unfortunately my accuracy was a tad sub par, and the poor guy is now with the angels. In addition, my cowboy is now officially a one man wildlife killing machine, slaughtering all manner of critters that crawl, fly, run, or otherwise slink about the Wild West, skinning and selling the by-products of each.

So... my overall assessment is that this game is GTAIV with horses and cacti, much better graphics, and packaged in a no less interesting sand box. The game is still intensely gritty, with racism, murder, rape, prostitutes, and all the other stuff Rock Star is known for. Multi-player is way different, feeling almost like a full-blown PvP MMO, with up to I think 18-players in an instanced world, free to team up or take each other on, and lots of mini-adventures to take on. The game tracks XP in multi-player and seems to dole out nice toys at regular intervals. Right now my guy rides a very uncooperative mule and only has a terribly inaccurate, short range pistol, so I'm assuming I'm still Level 1.

Anyone else have this game? If you see me there, please go form a posse!

Oh... here is a stretch, but the game has a fairly involved poker mini-game built in as well.