… and so far I’m really enjoying it. I’ve not done a whole lot yet, a handful of the missions, two dates with Michelle where we bowled (once) and played billiards (twice), gone to the titty bar with my cousin twice, watched a whole episode of Republican Space Rangers on TV (which was easily worth the price of admission alone), and died three times. I spent a good hour last night just driving around checking out the sights and then I decided to see how big of a car pileup I could cause in one of the traffic circles. Just cause, you know, I could and all.
What I’m most impressed with is the level of detail on what you can do. Things like being able to sit down and watch episodes of shows on TV (albeit very short episodes) is very cool. I’ve not seen it yet, but there’s apparently some cabaret shows and stand up comedians you can go watch perform as well. Or the fact that you can pick up small objects, such as a brick, which you can then throw, such as through a window, for smaller scale mayhem. I’ve not gotten a gun yet, but that hasn’t stopped me from knocking a guy through a window to his death. I’ve already had one moral choice to make (whether or not to kill someone I was sent to kill) which will probably come back to play a role later in the game and offer a bit of replay in the form of making the opposite choice next time. I’ve spent a fair amount of time just walking the streets and taking in the details. It really is impressive.
One thing I’m disappointed with so far is finding the stunt jumps. Because the city is so realistic it’s hard to pick out what would have obviously been a stunt jump in the other games. I think I’ve found one so far, but when I hit it I didn’t get the usual cinematic and my car didn’t land upright so I didn’t successfully complete it. That is, if it was an actual stunt jump. Launching my car off the stunt jumps is what I enjoy the most about this series of games and it seems like the ramps have gotten increasingly harder to find with each release. Hopefully they’ll become easier to spot once I find a couple and have an idea of what they look like.
Overall I’d have to say the game lives up pretty well to the reviews it’s been getting. I don’t know that I’d go as far as to say it’s revolutionary, but it’s definitely a big step up in the evolution of the series. Well worth the price so far.
OK, this is too funny not to include the video so here it is. WARNING: Lots of strong language so probably NSFW: