This game is too damn long, I’m not even doing the side stuff like hunting, or helping the random dots. Think I might finally get to the Epilogue tonight.
Also I still hate the way this thing controls.
27 hours in I’m apparently at 40%. Soldiering on!
Kolbex
3056
Controls are clunky but I couldn’t get enough of it. Well, the main bit anyway. Epilogue was not my bag.
McGuy
3057
Rumors say GTA VI set in Vice City.
It better still be in the 1980s if it is. That’s just science.
Where was Vice City supposed to be - kind of pseudo Miami? I expect it’ll be cool, but will it have the beauty of this game’s setting?
Kolbex
3060
Depends on how much you like neon, I guess.
Well, yes, the original PS2 era game’s title (and 1980s setting) was a clear allusion to Miami Vice with Crockett and Tubbs riding around in Ferraris and Lambos to bust drug kingpins. Hence my earlier comment. Not much sense having the second game set in “Vice City” without the 1980s setting/feel/music.
I suppose if it’s a next gen only title it could be really impressive, so fingers crossed…
And done. What an achievement. Them, not me. Well me too a bit. But mostly them.
It was more enjoyable doing the little bits of epilogue involved with starting out and setting up a ranch than the usual Rockstar you are a bad man stuff, but still. Lemonades all round.
Edit: Oh look - because I posted here when I started I can tell it took a month and a day…
Wow, took me like two months-- of course there was no pandemic then and the holidays intervened.
Even that seems pretty quick for a 50–60 hour game! I wish I knew how long some of these titles were taking me… Maybe I’ll start a journal :)
Kolbex
3066
Did you do all the side missions and hunt all the beasts? I did all that and frankly cannot imagine finishing in a month, wow.
It took me three months, but my playtime was 150 hours, doing every sidemission except the collectible ones.
No, not at all. I did a little hunting, bagged a legendary elk, helped a few poor souls in distress, did some exploring of the landscape. Otherwise, just the main missions. I did all my side content early on, which seemed to fit the pacing of the story. Once things started getting higher pressure when you’re in the swamp spending time on non-essentials seemed less natural.
I put this aside because my PC when I got this was not up to snuff, but then didn’t get back to it until like last week. I’m still in the on-rails part where you have zero choice on what to do, so I’m guessing it opens up a lot?
Kolbex
3070
Yes, although honestly I wish it didn’t, at least as far as the required story missions go. By requiring them but letting you do them in any order, they have to miss out on some potential interactions.
I’m not opposed to having tasks to do, even an order in which to do them, but I would like to have a chance to just roam and see what’s out there, open-world style. So far it’s been a gorgeous but very much on-rails sort of thing.
Kolbex
3072
Well there are plenty of side missions and other stuff to do once you get out of the prologue.
JeffL
3073
Once you get further into the game you can do anything you want, anywhere you want. At one point I just ignored the missions and rode around purely to see every inch of the world. I spent a huge amount of time doing that. It’s perhaps the most detailed and amazing open world I’ve ever explored (and I’m a huge free-form open word gamer.) I also found “little things” that amazed me, peaked my curiosity, and some that scared me. I’d kill game for food, camp out every night, and explore more the next day. You run into a lot of people and situations that are not main story line, and some that are not part of any named side missions. Some are funny, some are heart breaking.
After I finished the game, with an end game and ending (not counting the epilogue) that was as western-noir and tragic yet satisfying as any movie, I paused, then played through the epilogue. Then after the ending credits, explored the world some more and found some people I’d interacted with throughout the game, in some cases in new lives and roles. I found the gravestones of old friends.
Once I ended the game, I assumed I’d never play again. But my brother started playing and asked for tips, so I started back up and started to replay the game. Mainly just to remember the controls, help him find and tame the White Arabian horse at the very beginning of the game (I loved that horse and never traded her for another horse the entire game, I could outrun anyone and I developed a real bond with her by going through so much together.) It was interesting, because this play through, knowing what is going to happen in the game, some interactions and comments that I didn’t really pay attention to the first play through now have an additional level of foreshadowing. Even more surprising is that, after exploring every inch of the world in free form mode the first play through, I am seeing things I somehow missed the first time through.
I envy anyone who enjoys a huge, dynamic, open world with the freedom to explore anywhere and any time you want, who is doing their first play through. Oh - and I didn’t like the game in the beginning, specifically because it didn’t feel open at all in the beginning of the game.
FWIW
