DaBeast on 1/7/2009 at 21:37
Gamespot, the last bastion of honest reviews!
catbarf on 1/7/2009 at 23:00
I played it today, and I think it's worth the price.
Performance-wise, the game is pretty good, but gives my 8800 GTX no problems whatsoever- I don't think I've seen the framerate go below 60.
The weapons are good fun to shoot, and have noticeable recoil as well as significant damage. A body shot with a rifle drops most enemies, and two pistol rounds does likewise. The pistols are fairly inaccurate, which gives firefights a rather frantic feel, but it's never frustrating. Cover mechanics are built-in, if you press up against cover you hide, and where you aim determines when you poke out to shoot. It's not a bad system, but there are some instances where it feels clumsy. That said, it's more or less optional, as you can just crouch behind obstacles for much the same effect.
At the start of each mission, you get to choose between which of the two main characters to play as. They each have differing amounts of health, different weapons, and different bullet time mechanics (players of Red Dead Revolver will already be familiar with Ray's). Coupled with the ability to buy guns, it's very easy to play according to your preferred style.
What I like most is the way the game does immersion. There's a depth of field effect used when you aim, but more striking is how crosshairs are used. In most games, the crosshairs are static and the extent of their movement is going out to show inaccuracy. In Bound in Blood, the crosshairs will lock on to enemies if you aim right at them, sway when you get hurt, and bounce around when you're riding a stagecoach. It gives a much better impression of movement than just shaking the screen violently. As well, the game's bloom and weather effects are done well. A duel near the start of the game is incredibly atmospheric, as the rain pours and your boots splash in the mud while you wait for the signal to fire.
The only weakness I've seen so far is the limited AI, but as the game is fond of sending large numbers of goons at you, they die too quickly for you to notice.
All in all, it feels like being in an action-packed Western movie. I've heard that the campaign is disappointingly short, but I'd rather have a short and entertaining game than a twenty-hour bore. I like the pacing much more than in the original CoJ, and I believe that this prequel is the better game.
tl;dr It's a very good game.
Thirith on 2/7/2009 at 07:14
I definitely like how Sergio Leone-ish the game looks. There's bits in the footage on the net that are clearly inspired by The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
gunsmoke on 2/7/2009 at 18:03
Can't wait. Sounds awesome.
Hesche on 7/7/2009 at 08:33
I´m playing it at the moment and enjoying it a lot. I also played the first part and I think this prequel does a very good job in delivering a good immersive (yet sometimes a bit cliché) story of the 3 McCall brothers. Yet, this game didn´t suck me in as much as the first part. Still a great game which I don´t regret having payed full price for although I usually am a bargain bin guy.
My summory so far:
A great Western athmosphere. Beautiful landscapes, dirty cities, dusty plains, mines, green forests, mountains, ghost towns, Native American ;) camps...every scenario a classical Western should have. The visuals are quite stunning, sometimes jaw dropping with comparably short load times (under 15 s) and good performance with no recognizable stuttering or frame rate drops of any kind (C2D 3,16 GHz, 3 GB RAM, HD4850).
The story is very immersive and mostly told in (skippable) cut scenes, good voice actors and natural looking animations. This is actually worth a lot. Not many games have a good enough story, memorable characters and good voice acting in order to keep you interested or even immersed.
The game forces you to rush through the levels. You always team up with one of your brothers (funnily enough there´s no coop mode though) who is constantly bugging you to hurry up or teasing you when you stop to look around. Now I understand that I´m not supposed to stroll around a Western city where every single male inhabitant is trying to send me to the Happy Hunting Grounds admiring architecture and looking at butterflies but should run for cover and shoot my way out.
If you let yourself rush through the game it can be over pretty soon. That´s probably why people complain about the single player part being too short. So do it as in real live: don´t listen to your stupid sibling.
I play on hard with no quicksave, only autosave which leads to a couple of reruns but so far I was able to squeeze 8+ hours out of the game and I haven´t finished it yet. So depending on your play style you can make it worth the money. And there´s always the option to replay a section with another character.
Sometimes the great level design and the visuals just scream for a stroll and exploration. But you are not allowed to move too far from your brother or the game automatically reloads the last quicksave for "abandoning your brother". The game takes you by the hand and rushes you through the levels using your brother and mission signs as a lead although for the most part level architecture already makes it pretty clear where you are supposed to go.
There are some free exploring levels though. Basically these are relatively big levels with a couple of quests for you to earn money to buy better weapons. This is a nice touch, could have used more elaboration. Navigation in these levels is done by in landscape mission signs too. A compass in combination with the recognizable landmarks whould have been a better choice IMO.
I purchased the Steam version (yeah, I couldn´t wait and now I supported their crazy European pricing system aka convert $ to € 1:1) and have problems registering my product online with the CD key obtained from Steam. So right now I can´t connect to a internet game in order to try out the multiplayer. This problem seems to be (
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=909576) common and it looks like Valve is responsible for handing out invalid CD keys. I hope they´ll fix that issue. I read that MP is a bit wonky at the moment (instable, random disconnetions, not too many servers) but good fun settingwise.
All in all a great game which suffered a bit from dumbing down.
EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot. What was wrong with the music in the first part? Nothing, actually it was great. So great it made it on my cell to be presented in improper moments. Now I enjoy my fat metal chords like every other sensitive being on this planet...but do we need this in a Western game?
gunsmoke on 7/7/2009 at 18:00
Quote Posted by Hesche
EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot. What was wrong with the music in the first part? Nothing, actually it was great. So great it made it on my cell to be presented in improper moments. Now I enjoy my fat metal chords like every other sensitive being on this planet...but do we need this in a Western game?
No, we don't. Ugh.
EvaUnit02 on 13/8/2009 at 13:00
This was on sale on Impulse last weekend. I didn't buy it because ridiculously the Impulse (+Gamersgate) release has Tages DRM with a 3 activation limit (no revokes either I don't think). Meanwhile the traditional retail release is DRM free (and the Steam version only uses Steamworks).
Fuck me, Ubisoft are really schizophrenic with their DRM policy, aren't they? Anno 1404 or whatever its called uses Tages on all releases, including on Steam, meanwhile we have CoJ2. Both games were released within like a week of each other.
