Back to the Future hasn’t really done well when it comes to games. There were a couple of bad games in the 8 and 16-bit eras, but Telltale Games finally picked up the license and injected its excellent adventure formula into the beloved series. You play Marty McFly, who has to go back in time and save Doc Brown from his own deadly fate. He gets a message from Doc to save him, and Marty must find out how to do it with the help of young Emmet Brown.
The story is original but uses the BthF license very nicely. The voice actors sound almost spot on, and everything from the DeLorean to Doc’s dog Einstein and even Marty’s relatives is voiced well and resembles their live-action selves. It’s great to explore the BthF universe with the same clever writing and storytelling. There is a simple adventure game interface where you click around on objects and listen to Marty explain them, but the puzzles are more involved than just slider puzzles or matching symbols. The puzzles are broader and story-driven, and that’s what Telltale is famous for in their Sam & Max games.
You can have items in your inventory, but you don’t just wander around and use them for every pixel in the game. It’s usually pretty obvious to use your recorder to record young Doc’s mumblings so old Doc can solve them. You aren’t overburdened with a ton of items that you have to constantly use a million times on everything, so it’s straightforward and simple, but you do have to think a bit. One great feature to resolve pixel hunting is a button that will show every icon you can interact with. This saves time and frustration, so you’re not wandering around and missing that one item that’s almost off-screen.
While the interface and interaction are smooth and simple, the game is very short, and it’s still lacking some gameplay depth. I would like more cerebral puzzles, but Telltale is more about the story than anything else. The game doesn’t get super exciting until the last 30 minutes of the last two sequences. You can beat the game in one to two sittings (about 3 hours), so for $25, the game is highly overpriced and not worth the money unless you’re a die-hard BthF fan. I would wait for the full season to come out and not spend a ton of money on each episode. Also, the graphics are pretty horrible considering the nice art style. Telltale really needs to upgrade their 8-year-old engine to something more modern.
2D platformers are always compared to a 20-year-old game known as Super Mario Bros., and they have every right to. That game was flawless and literally created the 2D platforming genre. Super Meat Boy is probably the only game in recent history that comes close to that kind of pixel-perfect jumping and tight, responsive controls. SMB also has a ton of humor infused with it, and the game is a blast to play and highly addictive.
You play Super Meat Boy, who is trying to save Bandage Girl from Dr. Fetus. It’s a simple story, but it’s hilarious, and the cut scenes are drawn beautifully. The art style is very unique, and there’s so much detail infused in this game that it’s nuts. When SMB gets destroyed, he splatters his meaty goodness all over the walls, and it stays there. He makes a splooshing sound when running, and his facial animations are very funny. There are other characters you can unlock by completing warp levels, and these guys are just as detailed and have their own unique abilities.
The controls in the game are what really surprised me. They’re just absolutely perfect. They are super responsive and tight, and it feels like you’re controlling the characters with your fingers instead of buttons. Using the Games for Windows controller (or any other) is essential, but the keyboard works too. Jumping around corners and maneuvering through the game’s brutal levels can be conquered thanks to these tight controls. I’m dead serious about the game being hard because every corner and jump require extreme precision, or you will die 30+ times. Oh sure, you’ll die that many times thanks to a quick reset button that has zero loading. What’s cool is that after you beat the level, you get to see a replay of every time you died, so every SMB goes off, and you can follow them until the last one makes it. It’s awesome, unique, and makes you want to watch every replay and save them for friends to laugh at.
The warp levels bring the graphics back to 8-bit with amazing music and tend to be more challenging than the regular levels. Usually, you get to play the characters you unlock, but gameplay varies at these levels. You can also find bandages in the regular levels, but these require extra-extreme precision (if that’s possible), so this game is really for hardcore gamers only. Casual gamers will give up quickly, and there are no difficulty levels to set. From the frantic boss fights to the constant dishing out of new obstacles to overcome, the game ramps up after the first few stages, so you must stay on your toes.
With a crap ton of charming visuals, catchy music, and perfect controls, the game shines above all other 2D platformers. It wouldn’t hurt to say it’s probably the best 2D platformer in the last decade, but the brutal difficulty is very forgiving thanks to the feeling of accomplishment once you trump that level. Try beating the record time to feel even better about that victory! I highly recommend SMB to any platforming fan or even fans of the 16/8 bit eras.
The survival horror genre is probably the fastest-dying of them all, but it’s games like Amnesia that really get the spotlight when they hit it home on the scare factor. Amnesia stays true to the genre, and this is due to the fact that there’s no combat whatsoever. Zero, zilch, nada, you can’t fight. If you see a creature, you have to hide or run, and this is what adds to the tension. If you can fight, you can just kill it, but if you can’t, then you have to really think about what to do, which can make you not want to continue.
Amnesia may be a first-person adventure game, but your only weapon is light and against your own insanity, not creatures. Staying in the light is key, and oil for your lantern is as precious as 9mm ammo in Silent Hill. It’s scarce, and you try to savor every drop or just use tinderboxes as an alternative. You can light candles, lamps, or any source of light to guide your way to preserve oil or if you run out. Daniel can see in the dark somewhat, but it’s hard to solve puzzles like this.
As your sanity slowly drains, you will hallucinate, walk slower, the screen will distort, and creatures will hear you. Seeing traumatic scenes can do this too, as can looking at creatures for too long. You will also lose sanity if you don’t progress or solve puzzles, so it keeps you on your toes, but don’t worry, I only encountered a couple of times where Daniel went totally insane and lost it. You’ll more likely go insane from fright before he ever does.
And that’s the thing about amnesia: it frightens you with atmosphere, pacing, and tension from the environment instead of zombies popping out. The music and ambiance are haunting, and they make you paranoid throughout the whole game. One scene had me in a room where I was picking up a letter, and suddenly something started bashing down the door. I literally jumped and tried to find a place to hide. A wardrobe! I grabbed each door and swung them open and hid, and as I peeked through the crack, Daniel started freaking out, so I had to not look. I heard the creature breathing, moaning, and moving around, and I was afraid it would start bashing down the wardrobe! It soon turned away, and I could continue hunting for puzzle solutions, but was I ever so scared?
The haunting story doesn’t help either, with you just waking up in a castle and not knowing who you are. You read letters along the way, trying to discover some orb and stop the shadow from consuming you. I can’t go into more detail because it will spoil the story, but it’s very creepy and disturbing and was well put together.
The second part of the game is the puzzles. These vary from object hunting to physics and pathfinding. I have to admit that Frictional has always been known for obscure puzzles, and some of the time I didn’t know what to do and was completely clueless. You rarely get hints, and this can lead to frustrating backtracking and pixel hunting, so an FAQ needs to be handy. Other than that, the puzzles were clever and really stuck to the story, and they all felt necessary.
Amnesia is a horror classic and is even better than Frictional’s Penumbra series. This game will scare the pants off of you; it even clocks in at a nice 6–8 hours and has three different endings to see. I really hope for a sequel or another game similar because Frictional found the survival horror sweet spot.
Brotherhood is one of those sequels that was thought to be just a cash cow tie-in for II, and everyone forgets about it. In fact, it was supposed to be a multiplayer-only add-on, but a few months before release, we realized it had a huge single-player experience that was bigger and better than II. This is what sequels should be like, especially if they borrow everything from their predecessors. Brotherhood isn’t a true Assassin’s Creed sequel like II was to the first one, but a new chapter in the amazing universe of 1500s Renaissance Italy. This time the game is set in Roma (Rome), and it’s huge, and there’s a lot more to this game than one skeptical fan might suspect.
The story is just as engaging, if not more complex, than II. Ezio is now older and the leader of the assassins, and he must stop the Borgia reign in Roma (since he failed to kill Rodrigo Borgia in the second game), but Rodrigo himself is only seen twice in the game and briefly. It’s all his minions and the fight against Cesare that are the main focus here. The game still has a deep political plot that ties in with real-life situations and people at the time.
Along with that, you can also play as Desmond Miles outside the Animus, and he has a bigger gameplay part with a whole section dedicated to restoring power to today’s Auditore Villa for the team’s new hideout to find the Apple of Eden and stop Abstergo and the Templars. While you only see these guys at the beginning and end of the game, you get another cliffhanger ending that will lead to the third game, as well as a great conclusion to Ezio’s story.
The game plays exactly like II, with no changes to gameplay except for some added stuff like a new crossbow, which is a godsend for killing stealthily from far away. It’s great to do a mission and wipe guys out with a crossbow and not get detected by those hard-to-reach guys. There aren’t any newly added weapons besides that, but combat is enhanced slightly, so it’s not such a counterfest. You can kick enemies, combo Arkham Asylum style, and even do some nice executions with the pistol. This is a nice change to combat and makes it a little more fun. You can also call in assassin recruits to help you, and this is extremely helpful, but more on that later.
Despite the main chapters, there are more side missions than you can shake a stick at. The side missions will take a good 20+ hours to complete and are tons of fun. You have the Borgia towers that have to be burned. These have to be burned down to buy closed-down stores and restore areas and landmarks. You have to enter a restricted area, kill the Borgia captain, then climb the tower and burn it down. There are quite a few, so these will keep you busy, and finding and killing each captain is different and challenging. On top of this, you can buy stables, blacksmiths, doctors, art stores, tailors, faction buildings, banks, and landmarks to restore Roma 100%. You will increase the city’s income, which will be deposited in a bank every 20 real-world minutes.
There are other side missions for each faction (thieves, courtesans, and mercenaries), as well as assassination contracts, Christina missions, finding more The Truth files (10 this time), and now Lair of Romulus missions, which have six in all and are much like Templar Lairs. After you find all six keys, you can unlock the Romulus armor, which is like Altair’s armor in the last game. You can also go to pigeon coops and play a mini-RPG that lets you send your assassin recruits out on missions based on their experience. Missions are based on difficulty, and you will see a percentage bar on how successful they will be. Send more than one to fill it higher, but if they come back, you can upgrade their armor or weapons, and when they reach level 10, you can make them full assassins. These are also helpful during missions since you can call up to three, or call them all for an arrow storm, and kill all enemies on-screen. It’s great to call an assassin on someone you can’t reach and then go in further without getting detected.
On top of all this, these missions can only be synched 100% if you complete the challenge, such as using your hidden blade and completing it in this amount of time. Don’t kill this person; only kill this person. It adds a surprisingly huge amount of depth to the game and makes playing missions (both side and main) more interesting and challenging.
Now the multiplayer is a really fun and surprising addition to the series. There is only one mode, and it’s all about a free-for-all cat and mouse hunt. You are given a target (another player out of 7), and you must use your abilities and skills to kill them while you may also be pursued. So you have to find your target and keep from getting killed yourself. The game has a Call of Duty-style perk and ability system that lets you customize load-outs as well. The game is very addictive and keeps you on your toes. You must blend and try to just act natural since NPCs also have the same looks as other players. There are many characters to play as, and each has its own unique abilities. The multiplayer will keep you hooked and make you come back to the game long after the single-player is exhausted.
With tons of new content, great new characters and a story, and an awesome multiplayer suite, Brotherhood is an example of what sequels should be like. I highly recommend this to fans of the last game and anyone who loves the variety in their games.
Collector’s Edition: For an extra $40, you get a Jack-in-the-Box with either the Plague Doctor or Harlequin (depending on what store you get it from), as well as a bonus DVD, extra maps (one exclusive to the PS3), a playable multiplayer character, an art book, and the soundtrack. This is a huge value for $40 and is a must-have for fans. The Jack-in-the-Box is made a tad cheaply with weak springs, and getting the things to close is annoying, but the figure itself is high quality.
The original Mafia may not have been the best shooter in the world, but it gave us a great narrative and likable characters, and Mafia II tops this. You play as Vito Scaletta, whose parents migrated from Italy to New York, and you follow him through his ups and downs in the Mafia. The game’s narrative is amazing, with lots of plot twists and excellent character development. The game isn’t just mind-numbing shooting, but it’s delicately spread out with menial tasks and interactive narrative bits that really keep you hooked.
For example, you start out during WWII in Italy, helping the rebels. This is completely unexpected and is a nice touch to delivering the background of Vito. Another bit I cannot explain (due to huge spoilers), but let’s say you do some gross tasks and some hand-to-hand combat in a place you don’t want to ever end up. You will actually go through 3–4 chapters with no shooting at all, and this makes you savor the shooting bits because they get thrown in a lot in the last few chapters.
The shooting has tight cover mechanics, and the 50’s-era weapons pack a punch and really feel powerful. Knowing a guy out with a shotgun or even popping a guy in the head with a.44 Magnum just feels right. I never experienced issues during firefights with controls, and this is great, so the shooting part is pretty much perfect.
Of course, you have a huge open world, but I guess the biggest flaw of the game is that it’s only used as a “portal” to mission objectives. You don’t go around and get missions from people a la Grand Theft Auto, but maybe this is a good thing and keeps you sticking with the story. Each chapter has you waking up in your apartment, and you have to complete missions as told, and they are varied and never get old. Driving around town feels right, and the cars handle really well. There’s a large variety of them, and driving down the road listening to 50’s-era tunes just feels so authentic. If you aren’t careful and follow the speed limit (there’s a speed limiter button), cops will try to pull you over. If you want, you will have to either change your plates or your clothes.
You can pull into body shops and change the color of your car, repair them, change rims, tune them up, and store them in your garage, or just go sell them at the junkyard. You can buy threads, guns, and food, and it really feels authentic and doesn’t pull too far away from the main game. One thing that you can collect that will completely surprise people are Playboy centerfolds. Yes, fully nude centerfolds, and while finding them may be a pain since they are well hidden, it’s well worth it. These are 50’s Playboys, and they are interesting finds. You can also collect artwork and read about cars in the Carcyclopedia.
The game looks really good with well-animated characters, excellent lighting, and highly detailed textures, but up close, some of the characters look a little lacking in the texture quality department. The game sounds great too, and it’s just all the little details that make the game that much more authentic for its time setting. People arguing in the streets, cops pulling other people over—it’s just really great to see all this detail. However, the 2K Czech could do a lot more with Mafia III, and I’d like to see side missions, a bigger world, and more little extras.
Overall, Mafia II is an excellent game with wonderful characters that you truly care about; the voice acting is top-notch, and everything just feels almost perfect. The game needs more extras and a little something to stray away from the main game, but what’s here works and is solid with excellent shooting mechanics, driving mechanics, controls, and just enough content to keep you going. There isn’t really any incentive to play through this again at all unless you really need those Playboy centerfolds.
Collector’s Edition: If you want to shell out the extra $20, you get a nice poster of ads in the game, the soundtrack, a steel case, the Made Man DLC pack, and a color art book. Is it worth $20? Probably not for most, but hardcore collectors will like this a lot. Most people should just pass, but what is provided is worth it.
I could never get into Serious Sam, mainly because I didn’t have the (at that time) powerhouse of a computer to run this strange FPS. Serious Sam was in vain of other first-generation FPS games like Doom, Duke Nukem, and Quake. Serious Sam infused strange humor, and that’s what set it apart from the more serious shooters. The HD version is just a prettied-up version of the second game, and it still stands that only fans will enjoy this.
There is no real story attached, but you pay as Sam, who runs around shooting weird, yet interesting, foes with super powerful weapons. Weapons range from your standard array of FPS weapons, such as a flamethrower, rocket launcher, double revolver, shotgun, etc. The foes can be pretty funny, with headless kamikazes that scream, skeleton horses, and just weird, indescribable beings. On top of this, the levels are pretty open and the HD graphics look nice, but it’s not enough to save the ancient gameplay.
We’re so used to amazing cinematic gameplay that just runs and gun shooters seem boring. Not only this, but the weapon selection is a pain because there’s no radial menu of any type or even category. They aren’t even numbered! You can never remember which weapon is which number, so you try to find the right weapon while backing away from enemies, which leads to frustrating deaths. Also, the game is plagued with irritating hidden secrets that are nearly impossible to find. The game is also very hard unless you play on the easiest setting, and your guns never feel quite powerful enough.
While there is a nice variety of environments, they seem static, stale, and lifeless. I would have liked to see more detail, like animals running around, birds flying, and just the extra stuff you see in modern games. I don’t want just an old game with better graphics. Why bother unless you modernize it a little more? Because that’s who’s going to play it. People who are used to modern shooters. I really wish Serious Sam would evolve into a modern shooter, because I can guarantee it would be amazing.
There are a few neat things, like being able to record your game, but unfortunately, no one’s playing online. I would have liked to see some making-of videos, a history of Serious Sam, or something like that. I understand fans of the original will dig this, but the people who evolved along with the genre just can’t get it.
The Trine tells the tale of three heroes whose souls are tied together by the Trine, and they must find a way to break apart. While the story is simple and shallow, the gameplay is where it’s at. You can play as a warrior knight who has a sword and shield and is your combat guy; the thief has a grappling hook for getting across long distances and a bow for long-distance kills; and the wizard can create objects to climb on and levitate objects, but it is a no-go during combat.
The wizard is the most interesting character since he can create blocks to climb on and bridges to cross gaps. You can find things to add to your characters to give them new abilities as well as enhance them. The combat is pretty shallow as well, with just a hack that slashes everything that comes after you type play. It actually tends to get in the way of the tricky platforming and can get annoying after a while. The game is based on physics, so some physics puzzles are involved, but they don’t seem implemented very well.
The game looks great with a beautiful fantasy art style, good voice acting, and smooth controls. There are a few glitches in the game, but these are all wonky physics issues. The game is pretty much just getting from left to right without dying, but you can respawn characters at checkpoints, so dying seems kind of pointless since you aren’t severely punished. In fact, if you do die, you can’t use that character if the puzzle requires them, so this just seems irritating. Overall, the game is pretty good and worth a purchase thanks to its nice length, pleasing visuals, and good platforming segments.
I love RTS games, and Warhammer is one of the best out there. Forget the overpriced board game stuff; the RTS game is where it’s really at. The first Warhammer was amazing and used the entire Warhammer universe in a unique symbiosis of RTS gameplay that was slick, powerful, and very addictive. Of course, with Warhammer 2 coming out, everyone couldn’t wait to get their hands on new units, new strategies, and another great story—but wait, it’s gone. Yeah, Relic took the S out of RTS in this sequel, and now it’s just an RTG (Real Time Game).
Instead of building units and sending them across maps, you just get to command key squad members around a map and enjoy dying and struggling through mission after mission. The game really isn’t any fun, thanks to the high difficulty and the fact that this game should be an RTS, not an RPG/RTS mash-up. I don’t mind the RPG elements, but they should have made it just that. Each member can have up to three members of their squad, so you get a handful of guys taking on an entire map. You can give each guy some accessories like health packs, grenades, shields, demo charges, and tons of other things, but you’re limited, and most of the time it never really works when you want it to.
If you think it sounds bad, it’s at least worth a shot. You can select each individual squad group and command them to do certain things. Each one has unique abilities, and you will use them all when taking on bosses and huge missions. You can pick up weapons and armor on the battlefield at random when dropping enemies, and later on, you can equip them. Some items have stat bonuses, and some just add firepower. After each mission, you can level up your guys in the fields they specialize in, and this is crucial to beating missions.
The game just feels like a big mess, really. You have to jump between three different worlds, and while completing story missions, there are side missions going on with timed “days” you get to complete them, and if you let the Tyranid infest an area too long, it drops your campaign score. I find this frustrating since you can only do one mission at a time, and if you fail, it lapses a day, and you can really miss a crucial mission. If they weren’t so damn hard, it would be a lot easier. Some missions had me running back and forth to a satellite drop point (you can get more troops this way) or a relic site that fully heals your squad. Running back and forth from the boss over and over to heal and chopping down a boss’s health is something you do in an RPG, not an RTS. I feel Relic had the wrong idea for this game, and I bought it thinking it was like the first game, but I feel I wasted my money.
The game just has so much back and forth; the objectives feel tedious, and sometimes you can’t complete a mission because you’re not strong enough, so you have to try another, and sometimes another, and another, then go back around and try to beat them all again until you can finally beat that story mission. It’s exhausting, not fun, and, most of the time, boring. While the game isn’t terrible, it’s just that I wanted an RTS, not a crappy mash-up. Sure, you can get a Dreadnought later on or more powerful accessories like an orbital strike and a drop pod, but you only get one during the mission, and it just never seems like enough.
With all that out of the way, the story is decent, and it follows the original. The Blood Ravens are trying to get rid of the Tyranid infestation and are trying to come up with something that can weaken the hive. The voice acting is solid, and the story is interesting enough, but it’s also missing those cool cut scenes from the original game, and it just feels half-baked. The visuals are decent, but not much better than the original, so Dawn of War II isn’t really Dawn of War; it’s something else. Go ahead and pick this game up if you are a true hardcore fan, but you will be very disappointed. You can play co-op with someone to lighten the difficulty, but without the RTS elements, you won’t really care.
The biggest hype behind Crysis was its looks. Very few people have the hardware to run the game like it should be: all settings are very high and using DirectX 10, and I am one of the lucky few to have the hardware setup to do so. While most people can run this on ultra settings, you won’t find too many who can run it above 30 FPS. My setup was able to handle most of the game at above 20 FPS, but it did dip into the single digits every once in a while. With that aside, Crysis is just stunning, even three years later. Every texture is high resolution, and even when looking at something up close, you can see all the detail in that texture and not just a blurry or pixelated mess. All the lighting is gorgeous, and the physics seem almost real, thanks to the super-advanced Crytek engine and DirectX 10. Everything in the game just looks amazing: every blade of grass sways, trees crumble under fire, and leaves on palm trees shear off when fired at. Throughout the whole game, you will never get sick of looking at this tropical technical feat.
Now a game can look as good as it wants, but it’s no use if the game doesn’t play well and has a good story?. You play as a Special Forces agent called Nomad and are sent in with a team to investigate an island that the Koreans have occupied. It gets interesting right from the beginning and stays interesting throughout.
Thankfully, Crysis is a solid shooter with some elements that other FPS games have never used before, and the biggest thing is the Nano Suit. This thing lets you choose between four different modes to help you out on the battlefield. Stealth turns you invisible for a certain amount of time. The faster you move, the more energy it depletes. Armor is pretty self-explanatory, and speed gives you a super boost that lets you dash dozens of yards in a matter of seconds, for a few seconds. Lastly, strength lets you throw enemies and melee them to make them fly, as well as extra height when jumping. All these are crucial to surviving in this hard and wide-open game.
Yeah, that’s right. It’s not linear. Surprised? Well, with so many linear FPS games out there (cough, Halo cough), it’s a nice change. The island is huge and wide open, and you can take different approaches to each situation. Most of the time, you have to infiltrate Korean KPA camps, and using stealth along with silenced weapons is a good start. Or you can go in guns blazing. If you prefer the backdoor approach, maybe you can get there by truck or swim across the lake and take them all by surprise. The multi-approach system is useful, but stealth may not always be the best choice, and sometimes you don’t get one.
That brings me to the next element of customizing your weapons on the fly. Have a sub-machine gun and can get an accurate shot? Attach a silencer and a sniper scope, set it to single shot, and pop off some guys before charging in. Once inside, attach a red dot sight, add an ACOG scope to the top, and even a grenade launcher. Being able to change one weapon to another on the fly is just awesome and really does help in every situation. This breaks the monotony of trying to find a gun for specific situations.
The game’s pacing takes a turn halfway through the game when you start fighting aliens. Of course, this makes the game more interesting, is almost like two games in one, and takes a more linear turn. Instead of infiltrating KPA camps, you fight alongside squadmates against aliens. This is fun, and I wish shooters would do stuff like this more often. It breaks up the monotony of the open jungle and kicks things up a notch.
Every element in the game works, but of course, everything could be better, and that’s why Crysis 2 is coming out. My biggest gripe with the game is the difficulty. Even on easy, the game is brutal and seems unfair at times, such as vehicles blowing up really fast, having 30+ guys come after you, and not being able to use stealth to get into a camp. This can drive you nuts, but the story is good enough for you to keep coming back for more. If you have PC power, Crysis is a must-have.
My name is John Marston, and I’ve lost everything. The US government took them from me and promised my freedom if I helped “establish a civilization” by catching the three crooks I used to ride with.
The first thing I noticed after I got off the train was how beautiful the country looked. Rolling hills, trees, and animals roam wherever you look. People on stagecoaches and even the occasional train. How I learned this new “civilization” was very interesting and even would make a good story.
Day 2
After getting shot by Bill Williamson, I met this lovely lady, Bonnie MacFarlane, and she helped me along the way. Riding horses with her was a good time, and it doesn’t seem too hard. If I kick it too hard with my spurs, it will buck me off unless I bond with it first by riding it often. Keeping speed with her was easy since holding my speed kept me right next to her.
Shooting on the horse was a little difficult, and using my dead eye was almost necessary since everything went by so fast. Controlling a horse and a gun at the same time isn’t very easy. When I focus enough, everything seems to slow down, and I can mark my targets with an X and blast away. I don’t know where I got this trait from, but it sure is handy.
She even showed me how to herd cattle by keeping pace behind the herd and making sure stray animals leave. Taming horses was pretty easy since I just had to lasso them and keep my balance until they were broken. Today was a long day, so I’m going to rest.
Day 3
I left Bonnie after helping her out on some errands. I just follow the yellow route line to my objective, which I put on my map, and it ain’t too hard from there. I can even mark waypoints and travel to them via stagecoach or when I make a camp off the road or away from water. This makes things handy since traveling this vast land can get tiresome.
After shooting some thugs from the wanted poster I picked up, I realized how each bullet affects every part of the body. Hit an arm, and they drop their gun. Hit their leg, and they limp away; hit their chest, and they fall over and crawl away. I found this useful when having to catch criminals with my lasso. Shoot the sucker in the leg so he stops running!
I went to the local market (there are many) and sold some herbs I picked, and after I hunted some deer, wolves, a snake, and some birds, I sold all those parts for some cash and bought myself a new gun. I love my shotgun, sniper rifle, revolver, and other weapons, but I just needed something more powerful. I did buy a new horse as well as some tobacco for focus and some medicine. I’m beat for now, so I’m going to go purchase some property in this town and rest.
Day 7
I’ve learned a lot lately, and one of the biggest things I learned was not to shoot other people or even run over them by accident. I had the law come after me, and I now have a bounty on my head. I can get a pardon letter or pay the bounty, but if I get my honor and fame up by doing good deeds, maybe people won’t be so hasty to tattle.
I tried some gambling to ease my mind today, such as Liar’s Dice, Texas Hold ‘Em, Blackjack, Horse Shoes, Arm Wrestling, and more. These games seemed pretty fun at first, but after a few tries, they bored me, so I was off hunting again. After I caught my kill, I noticed a stranger needing help, so I marked him with a question mark on my map and a purple circle in the area where I could find him later. I’ll tell you to partner these tales and these people with something else.
There are so many things to do here that I can’t describe them all. This place is huge, even with Mexico to the south. Everything here just looks so amazing, and as you can see so far, it’s stunning. Even when I got to the snow-capped mountains and was hunting bears, I felt like I couldn’t get enough of the scenery. The world also sounds beautiful, with birds chirping and the sound of crunching dirt under my feet. It’s refreshing.
Day 28
Well, I don’t know what else to say. This world is so massive, expansive, and gorgeous that it’s like nothing else. There is so much to do here that by the end of my journey, I’ll have felt satisfied, and even roaming around with friends can be pretty fun. So long, partner, and keep the West and the Wild alive.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Super, thank you