[Dayze]

I picked it up yesterday. Usually I have to sort of sell the wife on a new game at $60 etc, but not this time. It helped that I told the wife that it was made by the same folks who produced GTA etc. She loved GTAIV & Vice City etc. So she was immediately on board.

I wasn't able to play it for too long (had to make dinner; let dogs out; watch LOST (which was recorded from last night, but I didn't get to watch it) etc). But, I was able to Logged a good hour or two.

So far, very fun. Very addicting; it reminded me of my GTA addiction when they came out. In fact, I was reminded I need to get GTAIV for my PS3 at some point. At the time it came out, I had just picked it up, and my 360 went belly up about 2 days later– this was the 3rd 360 in 24 months to do so. At that point I switched to PS3 (Thank god), but never replenished my GTAIV, or the POS 360.

Anyway..
The graphics were awesome; the animation is great. The main character has a cool gate/walk, horses come across very real looking. Voice-overs are pretty cool – they seem to match the characters they’re playing.
I’m loving the whole ‘honor’ meter thing. On one mission where I had to get a land deed, I could’ve taken the deed by force, or bought it. I was about $30 short, so I went out and hunted for skins and meat, then bought the deed. It tapped me out, but when I delivered the deed, I got my $200 back, plus $25. Cool.

As others have mentioned, I’ve gotta quick talking to strangers! I get sidetracked too often – but that’s part of the fun. Very early in the game I heard screaming etc, and saw two bad guys robbing a lady so I thought I’d be cool and rescue her by shooting them. Bad idea; just like in GTA, my wanted level (Bounty, in this case) went up and I was pursued heavily by the law. Not to mention my ‘honor’ took a hit. I thought it was cool that you could reconcile your bounty $; I had about $50 in bounty against me, which I later settled by wiring $50 to the law. Pretty cool concept.

When I opened the game, I couldn’t believe how huge the map was! Lol. I can’t wait to get to the other areas of the map. I like the concept of setting up camp to save the game right there (instead of going back to a safehouse etc), and the ability to sort of jump/travel to unlocked sections of the map. This will come in handy when you get various territories unlocked and save you from a 10 minute horse ride to the other side of the map.

As usual for Rockstar/GTA type games, there were lots of cool interactive side games; namely POKER! Pretty cool to play a few hands to try to quickly earn some money. Of course, the first hand the guy beat my King high frush, with an Ace High frush.

Had a B*tch of a time aiming/shooting with this game. Nothing like MW2 like I’m used to (obviously), so it’ll take some getting used to. Also, only have 8 rounds or so for the rifle before reloading; and 6 for you pistol will take some getting used to as well!

Managed to get bitten by a rattlesnake, and attacked by a coyote; bastards.

Like the idea of looting bodies you taken out; nice to replenish ammo and sometimes find some cash.
Can’t wait to play it tonight; and the Wife is out of town this weekend – I might have to procure a ton of beer and log some serious time on the game.