I was asked for my thoughts so here I am.

Let me start by saying one thing, i'm not a massive GTA fan. I prefer the outright stupidity of of Saints Row, or the OTT explosions of Just Cause 2.

I wasn't caught up by the hype surrounding RDR, so it wasn't necessarily a day1 purchase (although it ended up being as I had a few games to trade)

So after a few hours what do I think of it. It's an impressive looking game and the size is apparently 26 sq miles, which is apparently a quarter of JC2.

The game itself is fun, i've been playing for about 5 hrs and have only done 4-5 missions and have spent most of my time free roaming and doing bounties and side quests. However that introduces some of the problems, the bounties are collected 1 at a time and you have to kill or hogtie the villain. And then sling him on your horse and take him halfway across the map, even if you kill them you have to take the proof to claim the bounty so you'll still end up trapsing across the map. You can't do anything else whilst having to turn in the bounty as you're hounded by the dead or alive persons posse until you turn it in.

As with every GTA game there's a crapload of collection tasks, herbs, skinned animals etc. Which is annoying as you can collect the herbs as you come across them, however, if you want to get the fame for collecting 5 red sage plants, you have to collect them when you're told, nevermind the fact that I had 40 in my inventory I still had to get 5 more to get the fame. This is the same with all the fame tasks.

I have talked to a buddy (Badmotor on this site) about the glitches that i've encountered. And he has encountered several himself, but totally different to mine. I've had issues that I was collecting a bounty when I suddenly started moving at 1/4 speed but everyone else was at normal speed. Which when I was trying to put the bounty on a horse was a pain especially as I was being attacked at the time, when I put them on the horse it suddenly went back to normal. I've also fallen through the map and had a horse run through a house as if it wasn't there. Badmotor was saying that he has had the "Y" button suddenly stop working and as it's used to mount your horse and skin animals it became pretty much useless. He had to traverse the entire map to get to a room so he could save (As you can only save at houses or rooms that you own or have rented). He also has issues with playing poker that the game wasn't recognising the cards that he was holding which made the game harder.

So all in all, i'm enjoying the game in a strange way, will I keep playing it, maybe as there's not much else at the minute (although Alan Wake is waiting). It's not going to be a permanent keeper and will probably be traded for Crackdown2 or Lego Harry Potter.

Why it was 95% on metacritic I don't know. Why so many people are giving it 100% I don't know. But that's a different pet peeve of mine.

I'd give it 85% and that's mainly due to the impressive graphics and there's no load times in the game world only when you accept missions do you have to wait.

So all in all it's OK, but I don't think it's as much fun as Saints Row 2.

N4T

Edit :- although I am prepared to be universally hated for it.

i hate all the glitches like achievements not unlocking and in multiplayer having no player on screen or having no gun in your hand and some times people even get this in single player the game testers should be shot for not doing there job and you cant steal the train in multiplayer they said you would be able to well you CANT! dont buy this buy alan wake or wait for split second! wait and buy it when the glitchs are fixed it will be cheaper then to hope this makes sence i aint been to sleep yet

I'm glad i'm not the only one who thinks it then!!

Alan Wake is looking good, I played 10 mins and was enjoying it then real life got in the way

Good review

Only heard good things about this so far.

Yeah me too, but I also played it and am honest in my opinions

I would say 'Bring it too the LAN' ... But you are dogging us once again

I am certainly not dogging you

Dodging maybe but dogging not a chance

I'm playing Alan Wake currently and it's definitely a top 10 candidate in my personal list of best 360 games I've played. If Red Dead has major glitches happening I'd think an update/fix will be in the pipes shortly so maybe play Alan Wake til then like you said.

Some of the glitches :-

http://www.gemaga.com/2010/05/23/the-incredible-donkey-lady?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+gamebrink/NmtO+(GameBrink.Com+News+Feed)

http://www.gamedot.co.uk/2010/05/23/rdrs-glitched-release/?