AWESOME!

I'm playing the single player right now, and only about 7 hours in or so.

The visual aspects of this game are simply amazing. The settings and the light are damn near flawless. The movements of the characters and animals are very good. The movement of the horses... absolutely freaking perfect.

The physics of the game are very strong... feels life like.

The characters and the vocal acting is top rate.

The world is filled with things to do. Random events and encounters. Stranger missions... that aren't simple to just pick up and work to completion. Treasure maps that give geographical references that you need to find. Multiple main story threads that, so far, have been varied and that teach different aspects of the game without beating you over the head with it.

The writing is spectacular so far. The jargon is spot on for the time period, which is 1910 Western America. A lot of the politics and bigotries of the day pepper the background conversations (a silent film depicting the dangers of giving women the right to vote, Christianity for the 'Savages' as justification for land grab, other small racisms and class attitudes). The game feels well grounded in the time and location.

The shooting/fighting aspects of the game are smooth and fun. The Dead Eye mechanism is well integrated. Where in Fallout 3, you could go into targeting, take your time, select your body part, create a list of shots, and hit go... RDR works differently. You have a Dead Eye bar. You go into the mode and you DE bar starts dropping, rather quickly, game time slows down but doesn't stop. You still have to manually aim and fire, or throw the lasso, enemies will still move and fire at a slow rate. Time speeds up after exit, or if you use up your Dead Eye, and it goes quick. It is dang difficult to hit a person riding on a horse without Dead Eye, especially when you're on foot. Dead Eye does not always come back quickly... you have to ration it during intense situations (or hope to have a ration that fills some of the dead eye). It makes you pay attention.

Quick draw duels are awesome. I've spent about an hour playing different mini-games (gambling of course): Horse Shoes, Texas Hold'em poker, Black Jack, Liar's Dice.

The Honor and Fame. The game tracks your honor and your fame, and everything you do impacts one or both. The game often forces you into very quick decisions. Sometimes, the game forces the player to try to achieve a certain result, but often the player is free to choose whatever. The great thing is, even already, that my relative honor and fame seem to directly impact the game around me. How people deal with me, talk with me, what kind of prices I get... and I hear there is greater and deeper impact as the game goes. It is much more fluid and better integrated.

Example. I was riding into a town after hunting some coyote. A few gang members are shooting they're way out of town being chased by a posse. The gang takes a couple pot shots at me as they go speeding past. I decide to help out the posse, go into dead eye, quickly target several shots... end up killing 2 bandits and a posse member who I didn't notice wasn't wearing the gang outfit because it was a longish shot and a quick decision. Well, the deputies were right there... I got a bounty for murder and had to high tail it out of there... and had to bribe an official later to get the bounty off my head. My fame went up and my honor took a big hit. It was awesome.

Long story short... if you've got the money, buy this game.