For the Record: I’m not a fan of the fat judge on “Masterchef.” He looks like the kind of guy who’d go around telling people he’s Blues Traveller just to get laid.

…that about says it.

So I finished the main storyline of the game last night.

Overall, I enjoyed the mechanics and the gameplay, but I’ve got to say the storyline in general and the structure of the storyline didn’t really do it for me.

All the mini-games and the WoW style go fetch and gather quests worked together quite nicely and did a good job of making the world feel alive-ish. I say alive-ish because, it had to be a huge pain in the ass to populate a world that size with interesting stuff and Rockstar did a solid job of it, even if it does become repetitive after a point. That can be easily forgiven.

All the controls are fairly standard Rockstar/GTA, unfortunately that’s not a total success, they work… kinda. Your character handles like he is on a unicycle and has a crappy turn radius. You get stuck on doorways, miss ladders etc… it’s frustrating as hell, and it’s a consistent problem with the pedestrian controls in this and GTA IV. *shrug* I can only assume they know about it and the issue will only get better, or it will stay the same, whatever… it wasn’t game breaking, just frustrating at times.

My biggest problem has got to be with the story, and how its presented.

You start the game by being put on a train and told “Go do this stuff or we will kill your family.”

Reasonable place to start right? Wrong.

Rockstar makes the assumption that everyone has played the first game, problem is, not all of us have. So, I’m supposed to know who this guy is, and who these people are just magically? This is storytelling 101, at least do a flashback, set up the story, SOMETHING. “Last time on Heroes…” C’mon guys, this isn’t hard.

From there we get a 20 minute cut scene, great, this tells me nothing about my character, what I’m supposed to do etc… Then, I get off the train and ride out to a fort to talk to one of the guys I’m hunting, and he shoots me. Keep in mind this is all without any real gameplay, and barely any actual player input. Oh wait, I got taught how to drive a horse. Super, and now I got shot. This is off to a wonderful start. I would have laughed my ass off if they rolled credits right here, would have been AWESOME!!

From there you get taken to a ranch where you get to learn how to do all kinds of monotonous ranching minigames, yay.

Note to Rockstar: I don’t care how much you like your herding cattle minigame, its not fun. It’s just not, at best its downright aggravating, please don’t make things like this part of required quests… thanks.

So you do all your ranching stuff, wander around, do your cowboying, choose Jedi or Sith… er… yeah, all of that. Then at the end you kill the big bad guy and return to your family.

And then spend the next 2 hours with a dysfunctional turn of the century farm family with an emo little shit for a son and a nagging wife who apparently is a terrible cook… Oh and you get to do more ranching minigames.

So, my payoff for all those hours of playing through this story is mediocraty? Really?

To be honest they actually went a different route than I expected with the ending. I was counting down the time till my family got brutally murdered and my character snapped and went on a vengance filled killing rampage, but that didnt happen. I got Young Guns-ed. Only not quite as cool, I didnt get to hide in a trunk /sadface.

My problem with this structure is that I never saw the family the character kept talking about, so I never really gave a damn about them. Structurally it would have made more sense to do all of the farming minigames and tutorial stuff BEFORE where they started, then get them taken away, then get sent out to do the bounty huntin’, then at least Ive been introduced to the characters I’m supposed to be getting back to, and I have some sense of loss when they are taken.

That one change to the order of events would have tied it all together in my mind so much better and I may have actually cared about the last 2 hours of the game. The way it played out all I could think of is… “Why am I opening the barn doors, there’s a hay loft and I have a backpack full of fucking dynamite, plus there’s only like 12 of them, I just got through gunning down like 50 US army troops, I’m scared of this why?”

Now I’m in free roam, and it’s cool. I may eventually get around to doing all the sidequests and strangers and such, but I doubt it. I have a lot more fun just wandering around the world. One of the things that Rockstar NAILED was the world, visually its pretty damned stunning. I think this is one of the few sandbox games that I almost never fast traveled in, I used a stagecoach maybe half a dozen times the entire game, it’s really just that much fun to run around on your horse and check stuff out.

The other home run is the soundtrack, they did a phenomenal job here. I loved the way the tempo of stuff changes based on what you are doing, the scoring was done very well. The only part of the game that really hit an emotional chord for me was the track that plays when you are riding back to your family for the first time. The music is spot on, and does its job perfectly.

Overall the game is a lot of fun, and I have had a good time with the little bits of multiplayer I have goofed around with, I’m slow at finishing games though so most of my friends have moved on, or are just going to dynamite me and my burro as soon as I log in… my friends are great, yeah, I’m talking about you Bob.

I give it 4 out of 5 4-Assed-Monkeys, well worth playing, if only to tie people to train tracks. hmmm I wonder if I can do that to other players on-line.

I liked it. It was a decent remake of the original film, which was all I really expected of it. If you go into this expecting War and Peace, or in depth character development and motivation, you are stupid and deserve to be disappointed.

That said, it did have some issues.

1. Laurence Fishburne’s character was utterly pointless, he may as well have been named “plot tool”, or “Intermission”.

2. No Frisbee o’ Doom

3. The moonlight field Ninja Gaiden sword fight. Oh who am I kidding, that was fucking awesome.

Overall, 3 and a half Four-Assed-Monkeys out of 5

Billy learns from plannedparenthood.org that 35 million couples around the world practice the “withdrawal method” of birth control. Billy also knows that the circumference of the planet Earth is 24,900 miles.

If every person who practiced the “withdrawal method” of birth control were lined evenly along the Equator, and Billy were to circumnavigate the globe at 150 miles per hour – how often could Billy expect to spot a dumbass? 45 points.

I don’t go around thinking about racism 24/7, but I’d really like to be able to hear the phrase “Southern Hospitality” and NOT picture a lynching.

Yeah, I know I’m a little bit behind but I just had to get this out there. I’m like 2 hrs into this game and I have no goddamned clue wtf is going on.

I’m controlling the 3rd “party” which is a refugee kid who just watched his mother die and forgot to bring the gun he was given with him…

This is gonna be AWESOME!!!

Kirk ‘Milk Dee’ Robinson of the Bklyn duo Audio Two was actually a quarter Jewish on his mother’s side. So when he busted up a party, he’d feel a LITTLE guilt…

Don’t try to be everything to your partner – you won’t succeed. The only thing you can do is continue to project those qualities that attracted them in the first place…

…while completely ruining those things they like, that you can’t pull off. 

Girls: He won’t get over that crush on Pamela Anderson? No problem - record yourself giving him Hepatitis, and then put it on the web.

Guys: She says she likes a man in uniform, but that’s not your thing? No problem – wait til she’s just falling asleep, dress up like a Marine and shit on her chest.

You’re welcome.

So, they cast a black dude, to play a Norse god that Norse saga refers to as “The White God”. Which is just bizarre enough but…

Just cause Iron Man got a black sidekick doesn’t mean Thor needs one too. And really, hes the gatekeeper for Asgard. Why’s the black guy gotta be cast as the doorman. I’m just sayin’…