Finally got some time during the holidays to just play. Rather than immediately crack into Max Payne 3, I decided to have a refresher and replay Max Payne 1 & 2. I hadn't played them since their original releases. So I went through them and alot of wonderful, lovely memories came flooding back. Then I opened Max Payne 3 which i'm playing now, and am close to the end.

I'm gonna have a full write up on the entire series. I've got alot of thoughts on the entire franchise, both good and bad.

Not that this is a shock, but Red Dead Redemption is without a doubt my favorite game of all time. Red Dead is a slow burn of a game. It's The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of video games. Not only does the game play require patience and richness, the gunplay is fun as hell too, the map is absolutely a stunning beauty, like GTA there's tons of side games (such as hunting & card games) giving the game replay value, and if you get the Undead Nightmare add-on (is that included in GOTY) you get a whole new story with zombies, like a zombie western, with even better game play and guns and a brilliant atmosphere.

I love just about everything about the game, except... breaking horses. Just a damn irritating job (in real life as well, just fyi) and on the game its just as irritating. The physics don't quite work well, and it takes too long, and really adds NOTHING to the game, other than just trying to be overally technical. The other thing is if you aren't big on soaking up all of the natural land beauty of Red Dead -- those horse rides are gonna be brutal, because short of taking a stagecoach there is literally no faster way to get from place to place. I enjoyed the horse rides because I enjoy nature. It's really as simple as that.

I honestly when life is really tough, am so relaxed by the horse riding on Red Dead. I'll load it up, and ride out to the far west side of the map, over near the Gold Mine and just south of that before Mexico. I don't get ina  rush, I just ride. It's relaxing for me. Never has a game done that for me.

If there was another minor complaint I have, the story is just a tad too long. The ending (without giving it away) works, but for me was anti-climatic. Still it didn't spoil the whole game for me, and the addition of Undead Nightmare kinda rebooted the better taste of the franchise in my mouth. The multiplayer gang hideouts were also alot of fun that were added in the DLC.

Still I absolutely loved the game, and I thought NOTHING would ever top GTA: San Andreas, but Red Dead Redemption did. It's the best ever for me.